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Comment by someonenice | Hacker News Reader

And in other parts of the world, earth worms are dying in large.. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/after-the-deluge-k...

Earthworms more important than panda if you want to save the earth... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/earthworms-are-mo...

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Earth will be fine, people will not. Climate change sounds innocuous as daylight savings and needs to be rebranded in order to resonate with more people.

The Guardian has decided to do just that https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-.... Now it's 'Global Heating' and 'Climate Crisis'

How about 'The Extinction'

Speaking as a converted climate skeptic, the person who finally convinced me that this is real and serious overdid it and convinced me that we'll be seeing massive famines, extinctions, and widespread death as biomes shift around worldwide in the next 30 years or so, within our lifetimes.

Since the only way to stop this would be to actually reverse damage already done, requiring worldwide effort never seen in history to perform actions that may be scientifically impossible, I think it's safe to say that we're royally fucked.

So why should I even care about this topic, or the planet, if we're all gonna starve to death within our lifetimes or our childrens'?

I'm going to just live my life for pleasure. Can't stop it now anyway. It's THE EXTINCTION. Time to party I guess.

Well now, you say that.

Do you really think the most skeptical business owners and politicians in the US are going to keep ignoring it and emitting when it's their business, family, state or home that's impacted?

I don't know what it is, I don't know when it will be, but there will be a Pearl Harbor equivalent moment. After which inaction will be as impossible as action today. The moment the crash is apparent and inevitable.

By then it'll cost a fuck load more, and have far harder impacts on everyone's economy and lifestyle, but unless it turns out to be a bad dream, it seems pretty damn certain. Pretty damn certainly in our lifetimes.

You don't prefer the easier option?

My understanding of the situation is that there is enough damage already done that a significant portion of the population, if not all of it, will be dead in the next half century, regardless of what's done. Didn't you see the new data from Mauna Loa last week? Plus there's the methane runaway theory, and the oceans are desalinating at an exponential rate due to the ever-accelerating glacial melt that is causing a feedback loop.

We go extinct no matter what. Where's the easier option? Good luck to the plankton or whatever that succeeds us.

Can't tell if you are trolling?

I'd love to hear a credible source that says something on the lines of, "My understanding of the situation is that there is enough damage already done that a significant portion of the population, if not all of it, will be dead in the next half century, regardless of what's done."

There are crackpots on each side of the argument (skeptics versus doom). I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.

The amount of effort that the word's governments are putting into curbing carbon emissions right now rounds to 0. Once we're actually trying on any meaningful scale, then it's worth having debates about whether our politics and policies are all correctly calibrated.

Right now we're still at a stage of getting people to wake the fuck up.

Don't think that person really overdid it much, except for being so specific on the timing. The reality is that no-one knows exactly what the combined effect of climate-forcing factors will be, or when. It could be a catastrophe, or it might not be so bad (as some people fear)

Quite a few things a likely to change though, just as climate change always did; previously fertile lands will likely become deserts, and vice versa. Which means animals and plants all will be on the move, and some will not have time to adapt and perish. Humans are more adaptable, and would not necessarily face an extinction, but the conflicts that follow may be fatal.

The climate threat

The plastic threat

The self-destruction threat

The AGI threat

Seem like the most important threats to humanity, in order, by my understanding.

AGI -> Artificial General Intelligence for anyone else who is scratching their head.

AGI is only a threat if humanity is an end in itself. It'll be a great leap for sentient life.

That's why I said threats to humanity. I agree that it could be a huge leap for sentient life.

IMO it'll likely be a requirement for life beyond the heliopause or even closer to home.

No need to rebrand. Simply stop using the vacuous phrase 'climate change' (Thomas Sowell has commented to the effect that you won't find a single rational person on Earth who denies that the climate changes) and replace it with actual referenced data (temperature, sea level, state of the poles etc.,) together with a non-cherry-picked historical context so that anyone can see for themselves what is actually happening climate-wise.

Resonance & rebranding would hardly be needed to alert the public if an asteroid was found to be on a trajectory for earth.

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