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> Instead, the rational approach is to accept that the climate will change, there will be consequences of this, and then do our best to avoid the worst effects
by Maursault 4y ago
> Instead, the rational approach is to accept that the climate will change, there will be consequences of this, and then do our best to avoid the worst effects of the consequences.
Imagine one of the consequences of all the ice melting is the salty ocean is diluted allowing for planet scale algal and fungal blooms, extincting phytoplankton overnight. What if the only hope our species has for survival is not to accept climate will change and la la la continue dumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, but instead to immediately stop doing that and for the next 30 years at any one time maybe three quarters of the global population goes without electricity.
- nostrademons 4y agoThen we're fucked, because (as the article notes) the melting is already baked in from current carbon emissions, and in any case all evidence is that our species is not going to stop doing that. In practice, phytoplankton is not going to go extinct overnight. People underestimate the resilience of evolution. Maybe 95% of phytoplankton might go extinct overnight, but the survivors (by definition) will be adapted to the new, less salty ocean currents. So then we get planet-scale algal and fungal blooms, and we should be asking ourselves "What then?" Maybe we'll want to harvest algae and make food out of it, or maybe we want to get the hell away from coastlines. The jet stream's probably going to shut down, so all those folks in Northern Europe may want to consider evacuating to Africa. The point is to adapt to the world as it is rather than the world as we wish it to be or as we remember it. People who do that will survive and pass on their genes, and people who don't will die and drop out of history.