[throwaway7312]

> I thought I followed climate change issues but somehow did not know that in most people's lifetimes sea levels will rise multiple feet. I would've thought folks would be more... concerned?

According to Sir David King (head U.K. climate scientist) in 2004, all continents other than Antarctica will be uninhabitable by 2100 due to manmade global warming.[1]

I wouldn't be worried about New York. I'd be on the next ship down to Antarctica to go stake my land claim right now before it all gets gobbled up.

I mean, if this manmade global warming stuff is real, and it's as bad as they say it is.

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20100817023019/http://www.indepen...

[superjan]

King is not stating that here. He just says that the earth was no fun place to be, the last time greenhouse gasses were as high as they’ll likely be in 2100.

[vonmoltke]

> "No ice was left on Earth. Antarctica was the best place for mammals to live, and the rest of the world would not sustain human life, he said.

> Sir David warned that if the world did not curb its burning of fossil fuels "we will reach that level by 2100"."

[Emphasis mine]

He literally did say that, unless you think "would not sustain human life" is compatible with "habitable". That quote was an asinine statement to make and only serves to provide ammunition to those who want to convince people that climate change is not a real problem.

[stale2002]

Imagine if I were to say "the last time that large amounts of people walked around in suits on daily basis, we had two world wars!". This is both true and misleading.

No scientist believes that climate change will cause such sire circumstances.

The experts on the matter believe that sea levels will rise by a meter or so over the next hundred years.

If you believe that this will end the world, then you should know that the experts disagree with you, and that you should go read some more science.

So yes, it is true that "the last time C02 levels were at this level, the world could not sustain life". But it is also misleading as it implies causation.

The scienctists do not believe that these levels would cause mass extinction of human life. The badness is closer in scale to another Iraq war.

[graeme]

I read the article. King does seem to be stating that. At least, he says the last time co2 was as high as it will be in 2100, then only antarctica was suitable for human life.

Now, there's a lag to warming, so it might only reach the full temperatures by 2150 or so, but King did explicitly seem to be saying we're likely to make the world uninhabitable. Or at least that the last time co2 was that high, the world was uninhabitable.

I haven't figured out why people don't take this more seriously. A child born today can expect to live past 2100. People have children and grandchildren, and yet....

[stale2002]

King is being maliciously misleading with his statements.

He is implying causation, but no scientist actually believes that the world will be uninhabitable by 2100. That is the opinion of the experts.

[pdonis]

King has no basis whatever for his claim that the rest of the globe other than Antarctica was uninhabitable 60 million years ago. There are fossils from this period, including fossils of mammals, from all continents. The global average temperature during the PETM (which I assume is what he is referring to) was about 8 C warmer than today, which is warm but by no means uninhabitable. It's also a lot warmer than the expected warming by 2100.