Hacker News Reader

HNHacker News

Top New Best Ask Show Jobs

Comment by meric | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

meric·

Let's do an exercise as presented in the article and accept CO2 level increases are irreversible:

The Jurassic had 5 times more CO2 than today. [1]

Modern climate change is slower than the K-T mass extinction event, when photosynthesis was halted. [2]

[1] https://www.livescience.com/44330-jurassic-dinosaur-carbon-d...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous–Paleogene_extinctio...

View on HN

> Modern climate change is slower than the K-T mass extinction event

We haven't seen how fast our change can get. We are not over out own mass extinction event yet.

We can deal with small and fast changes, or big and slow changes, but not big and fast. The problem is not the CO2 levels themselves, or the heat, or even the climate. Life can exist and thrive in phenomenally hostile environments. It's the speed and size of the shift. Life needs time to adapt, depending on its size (which is why almost nothing >25 kg survived the K-T event).

I'm comfortable when my car goes from 60 mph to 0 in half a minute. I'm not going to be comfortable when my car goes from 60 mph to 0 in a second.

Additionally, what "life" are we talking about? We know about certain lifeforms existing in hostile environments, but can we talk about humans?

To quote George Carlin: The Earth will be fine, you're screwed though.

Human carbon release rate is unprecedented in the past 66 million years of Earth's history [2016] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160321123656.h...

Otherwise, I can't imagine what point you're trying to make.

No one said that CO2 level increases are irreversible. Just that they're pretty much irreversible on the required time scales.

What conclusion are we meant to draw from that exercise?

Humans: Better for Earth than being hit by a giant asteroid

Reply on news.ycombinator.com