If we manage to keep the warming to levels seen in previous warming periods, humanity might come out better on average in the long run, but the planet is heating faster than it did in those other periods and we haven’t demonstrated any ability to control ourselves. We’d have to stop generating CO2 pretty soon to avoid surpassing the last great warming period.
I guess people didn’t understand my point. If we don’t curb our carbon emissions, we’re certainly going to have a climate that we never lived and it will kill a lot of people. But it’s not unlimited, at some point we will not be able emit more carbon, because there’s no more or we lost the ability to do so. So while fewer than today, there will probably still be habitable places like Nothern Canada and Russia. I think humanity would be able to survive there, although much smaller and the centuries of disasters would have destroyed our civilisations as we know them.
People probably thought I’m denying the urgency to do an ecological transition, but I’m not. I’m trying to comment on what would actually happen, similarly to previous comment saying that the planet itself is not going to die.
You’re making an assumption that the feedback loops are all well understood. They might be, or maybe there will be some runaway effect, some source of carbon or other greenhouse gas that’s completely unknown, gets released, and boils the oceans.
If we manage to keep the warming to levels seen in previous warming periods, humanity might come out better on average in the long run, but the planet is heating faster than it did in those other periods and we haven’t demonstrated any ability to control ourselves. We’d have to stop generating CO2 pretty soon to avoid surpassing the last great warming period.
I guess people didn’t understand my point. If we don’t curb our carbon emissions, we’re certainly going to have a climate that we never lived and it will kill a lot of people. But it’s not unlimited, at some point we will not be able emit more carbon, because there’s no more or we lost the ability to do so. So while fewer than today, there will probably still be habitable places like Nothern Canada and Russia. I think humanity would be able to survive there, although much smaller and the centuries of disasters would have destroyed our civilisations as we know them.
People probably thought I’m denying the urgency to do an ecological transition, but I’m not. I’m trying to comment on what would actually happen, similarly to previous comment saying that the planet itself is not going to die.
You’re making an assumption that the feedback loops are all well understood. They might be, or maybe there will be some runaway effect, some source of carbon or other greenhouse gas that’s completely unknown, gets released, and boils the oceans.
Yes I am, like everyone in this thread is.