| > Regardless of whether or not high rates of change happened in the past, they're not good for stability of life. Let the moving goalposts begin. If the last 10,000 years of relative climate stability is unusual--and it seems to be at least within the context of the last 100,000 years--then how can you argue it's "bad for life"? This is the point of my comment: people have a warped view of "normal" as being the first thing they experience. For example: sea level changes in the last 20,000 years are massive [1]. Over that time the Sahara was a desert, became tropical and became a desert again (~6200 years ago) [2]. Climate change is viewed by many as a significant factor in the Bronze Age Collapse [3]. > So I don't think you can shrug it off and say "pah, this all happened before". So did WWII Seriously? [1]: https://judithcurry.com/2011/07/12/historic-variations-in-se... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara#:~:text=By%20around%204.... [3]: https://www.latimes.com/science/la-xpm-2013-aug-15-la-sci-sn... |
Edit: I'm not arguing that 10k years of climate stability is bad for life. The opposite, actually.
I don't really think that the climate of 100,000 years ago matters too much, aside from the fact that our species (and those we rely on) survived. The critical difference is the last 10,000 years of relative stability is the period during which human population reached billions. I'm sure we can survive a return to inclement weather, but we probably won't thrive.