[ohgodplsno]

>Changing patterns of human settlement.

That's an awfully cynical way of saying that billions of people will be displaced and die because of lack of food, floods, that migratory crises might lead to actual live weapons getting used for first countries to "defend themselves".

But sure, it's not an extinction event. Just billions of deaths over the next century and an upheaval of our society. No biggie.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I'm not trying to downplay the scale and scope of climate change. I just prefer to use accurate terminology. If it was going to or was likely going to lead to the extinction of humanity, I'd want people to say that. Instead, it seems likely to lead to billions of people dying and billions more being displaced and a total reorganization of most nation states/cultures worldwide, along with (as noted above) significant extinction for many other species.

I lived through the fear (and shared it) in the 1970s about a variety of world- and civilization-changing transformations, and while I believe that the talk of them then was largely well-intentioned, the sloppy language that was used then turned into linguistic weaponry to be used against those arguing for the much-more-likely-to-be-true climate change that we are now facing.

[Yoric]

Fair enough. I should probably have phrased it differently.