[concordDance]

> I’ve had prominent EA folks tell me that Climate Change is not an existential risk

Have you seen anything to indicate otherwise? The IPCC reports don't contain even a whiff in that direction.

To the best of my knowledge zero people who know anything about climate change think its existential.

[andybak]

Is there an accepted unambiguous definition of "existential" here?

Is it:

1. All life on the planet dies

2. All advanced life on the planet dies?

3. All humans die?

4. Advanced civilization is destroyed irretrievably?

5. Advanced civilization is destroyed for a long period of time?

etc

And I'm not sure the group "people who know anything about climate change" are neccesarily better equipped to answer this question - it's a complex systems question.

I'm not actually sure who is equipped to answer it accurately.

[a3_nm]

It looks like there are research works trying to define precisely this notion of existential risk in the context of climate change, see e.g. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-022-03430-y

[danaris]

I'm not sure if this would actually count as "existential", but I think that it's well worth being very, very concerned about a consequence on the order of

"Millions to billions of people die; large percentages of the rest are displaced and/or have their lives made significantly shorter, harsher, and less certain as war, famine, disease, and natural disasters become vastly more common around the globe."

And there's really very little question that that's where climate change is leading if we don't get it under control soon.

[concordDance]

It's always 2 or 3 in my experience.