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by rsj_hn
1671 days ago
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Nature is not a person that has emotions and will be fine with any amount of carbon -- 200 million years ago there were no icecaps and it was a flourishing time for life, with 2000 ppm carbon in the air as well as huge amounts of other greenhouse gases and it led to an explosion of life. We are talking about adopting policies that promote human flourishing, and I guarantee you that rising fertilizer prices and fuel prices will kill many more people than rising sea levels. It's just that the people who die of rising fertilizer prices live in Africa and India, not NYC, LA, or Miami. |
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Obviously, it was a metaphor.
"200 million years ago there were no icecaps and it was a flourishing time for life, with 2000 ppm carbon in the air as well as huge amounts of other greenhouse gases and it led to an explosion of life"
Yes, but the life was adapted to it. Humans are now causing a mass extinction event, and the warming didn't really started yet. The main threat is to human habitat, not life on Earth. We don't really know how dependent on the biosphere we really are, and perhaps we shouldn't try to find out.
"I guarantee you that rising fertilizer prices and fuel prices will kill many more people than rising sea levels"
I think here's your misconception (and also the reason why this needs to be talked about more) - the rising sea levels are (at least in this century) the least of our worries.
Possible heat and drought conditions are a much bigger problem, both directly (certain populated places on Earth might become unlivable) and indirectly (the agricultural output of major crops is expected to decrease). As someone else stated, yes, global warming won't kill you, a war or a famine will.
In any case, even if we didn't have a big problem with global warming, the fossil fuels would run out this century anyway, so if your society is dependent on them for survival (e.g. for making fertilizer), you better try to make the transition to something else (more sustainable) as soon as possible. However, it should be noted, vast majority of the world is not dependent on fossil fuels for survival, but for convenience, and we could easily make most of the transition away from them without any loss of human life. (And in fact thanks to cheap renewables we won't actually have to give up convenience either.)