Adapt, evolve...and plant trees. Focus on meaning, worrying about climate change is a fools purpose imo
the bigger picture is not climate change look past it.
Except that animals are simply NOT adapting fast enough and more than 60% of animals and a possibly higher percentage of bugs has disappeared in 30 years.
So, unfortunately, the natural world is not adapting and evolving. Things are just dying.
> We are heading there anyways
Imagine you see a wall in front of you. If you crawl towards that wall (like the world would do naturally) it won't hurt that much hitting it. If you fly a jet airplane into that wall (like we are doing) you will likely die in a fiery crash. Natural world = crawl like baby, Human Climate Change = fly jet.
The RATE of change is what's the problem here.
We are probably locked in to 2-3C rise at this point, and realistically we may hit more like 4C or more eventually with politically realistic emissions scenarios.
If emissions go completely uncontrolled in the future, an ultimate warming of 10C or more, while not likely, is not out of the question. That would be completely civilization-ending, and would cause a mass extinction of scale not seen since the P-T boundary several hundred million years ago.
This is a problem we are causing. We need to take it seriously. Anyone who buys homeowner's insurance should agree with that logic.
Though I don't agree with their comment about worrying is for fools.
Edit: It doesn't seem that's what OP is getting at. But __I__ think we need to talk about sequestration in conjunction with radically lowering our emissions.
If you're saying it is foolish to not expand, then I'd agree with you. But I think there's a lot we can learn about terraforming our own planet, because frankly we don't have any good options out there currently. Mars is not yet viable (Venus is worse, other planets are too far away). And even if we started terraforming with radical means (like nuking the ice caps and tossing asteroids at it), Mars still wouldn't be viable by the time our planet's temperature rises to catastrophic levels.
So no, I don't think it is a fool's task. In fact I'd say it is foolish to not be concerned.
In addition to that, I think its our purpose to advance and expand throughout the universe for as long as we can do it. We will likely face extermination by that intelligent system or merge with it. I think its more important to evolve that system.
When I typed a "fools purpose" I mostly mean its meaningless in the scheme of things to devote all this worry, concern, everything surrounding a warming home planet. Yes, there are scientifically concerning results that it could be devastating. But I highly doubt that humanity will not adapt to whatever changes come that way, life on the planet can be re-engineered, created, modified.
Though your point of, hypothetically, will a warming climate end the potential of what I've said? As long as we can create energy, then no I doubt it.
What happens when you take away organized human life (like a relatively well functioning government)? You won't get any technological improvement.
Technological improvement requires stable societies and climate change will disrupt all societies on earth. It's even completely plausible that organized human life won't be possible if we don't tackle climate change now.
So any hope of developing the technology you are talking about rests on huge efforts to solve the climate problem.
I agree with this, but that doesn't change my previous statements. Take this scenario (exaggerated, but to make a point). Assume that no crops could survive outside we'd have to move to do all our agriculture as hydro or aeroponics. I'd call that catastrophic and at least in the beginning it would put a significant stress on every living person. A lot of people would starve. But yes, humans would survive.
Most people don't think we're going to turn the planet into a place humans can't live in (I mean we're pretty innovative and adaptable). But a lot of people do recognize that the affects will result in a lot of people dying and significant stressors that will extremely hinder forward progress (to such an extent I think most agree that it will set us back).
So I __kind of__ agree with you, but your position also appears very naive. Though I do love the optimism and faith you have for humans as a species.
I strongly believe that we will not be set back by climate change, in fact I think it will spur an innovative age and result in a boom of more technology.
Also merging with intelligent systems may one day eliminate the need for crops all together as our energy source.
My position, naive? No, it is optimistic that humans will push to innovate and continue the evolution of technology, while also not worrying about a changing environment, whatever may come of it. Then we will build through space, we are at the beginning moments (last 50ish years) of space exploration and expansion.
Think 1000 years from now, the "climate change" worries of the 2000s will be viewed as primitive worry. So in the long run, we are either dead or this is viewed as primitive.
Problem is that lots of people are going to die. People that don't have to. People that wouldn't have if we acted sooner. That's what people are worried about.
Will the human species survive? Yes. Will lots of people die? Also yes. I'd rather it not come down to it, especially since it didn't have to be this way.
Let me repeat that. It didn't have to be this way.
Does this mean that within the space of a few decades, we'd need to suck back in a large proportion of the gases that we've been pumping out globally 24/7 over a century? Are there realistic numbers for this?