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Comment by duelingjello | Hacker News Reader

$1T would be enough seed money to get an international effort moving to solve climate change using emissions targets, ferrous phytoplankton seeding like IRONEX I and/or kelp blooming/capture/sequestration. Much cheaper than the inflated numbers thrown around as arguments for doing nothing / delaying longer that ignore the $200+ trillion destroyed by doing nothing.

Deny -> extinction

Complain about costs -> extinction

Do nothing -> extinction

Do too little -> mass deaths, world war

Act decisively -> enough of us would likely survive

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I have never heard of extinction as a possible consequence of climate change. Care to elaborate how that might be possible? Even if society crumbles due to unrest, the Earth will be inhabitable in at least some areas. It's hard to imagine that every single human being on Earth will die.

> I have never heard of extinction as a possible consequence of climate change

If things get nasty, the nuclear-armed folk might just light up the 14,000 nukes lying around.

That could do it.

Still, how would that kill everyone? Small pockets of humanity would still hang on.

Hence ‘could’. A possibility, not a certainty.

Just think how wealthy they will be when they inherit all those stocks from the rest of the human race!

There have already been multiple mass extinctions in the past driven by global climate shift. There are currently 1 million species at risk of extinction right now, which is a significant fraction of known species. Full on ecological collapse has been happening on all fronts for years, and it still continues to accelerate. "society" isnt responsible for pollinating plants or turning co2 into o2, and it's scary how easily and completely people forget that in just one generation. There is alot of middle ground between billions of humans and thousands of humans, and i think its safe to say if and when we are reduced to thousands that the rest of the planet will be destroyed beyond any hope of recovery.

The difference is that humans are capable of manipulating their environment to fit the climate.

We're the only species on the planet that lives in both 100+ degree deserts and frozen wastelands.

As long as it's still possible to grow crops, humanity will survive.

Maybe most agriculture will have to happen indoors? Chile, Spain and many other year-round producers do it in greenhouses / hoop tunnels. Vertical farming/airoponics and so on to help scale food production.

I think the bigger problem is if we kill the ocean through sea level rise, warming, deoxygenation and acidification, then we kill 3/4 of oxygen production (but we would still have 100k-400k years supply) and 2%+ of the food supply.

Maybe my wording conflates unintentionally meaning "extinction of humans" with "extinctions of many species." Extinction of many species is happening at several orders-of-magnitude of background, historical trends. Homo sapiens sapiens extinction outright is unlikely unless we double-down on emissions.

Let's call climate change a "Dial-a-yield" planetary nuke that will extinct many species and most likely reduce our numbers anywhere from 1-50 million if nothing is done, e.g., pre-historic levels. We have to make drastic changes now to dial back the "yield." How bad climate change has to be is ultimately up to all people across the world, here and now.

Global warming will not cause humans to go extinct. We are adaptable and most will just move to better locations.

Polluting our water supply definitely will kill most land based species.

Don't waste your time fighting for something is an inconvenience. Fight for clean water and minimizing pollution.

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