[DarkmSparks]

"According to the IUCN Red List criteria, a species is generally classified as Endangered (EN) if its population of mature individuals falls below 2,500"

Also IUCN, with only 180,000 individuals the Emperor penguin is now classified as Endangered.

I think someone has been out hunting headlines.

[darth_avocado]

That is objectively a wrong summary of how IUCN Red List is calculated. There’s a variety of factors including rate of decline, and any of those factors can lead to a species being in the Endangered category.

https://www.iucnredlist.org/resources/categories-and-criteri...

No one is farming for headlines.

[DarkmSparks]

the article says 20,000 was 10% of the population therefore the population is 180,000.

if "something might happen in the next 60 years to wipe out half the population" counts as making a species endangered, every species on the planet counts as endangered.

[darth_avocado]

Please go ahead and read the criteria for how the species are tagged as endangered. Current status and population numbers can contribute to that tag, but if there are active threats that are going to rapidly affect healthy population numbers, they will still be considered endangered.

The die off is accelerating. Krill shortages (mostly due to commercial fishing) and warming temperatures will ensure it’s not going to take 60 years and that’s what the tag means.

[DarkmSparks]

Meanwhile, some of us haven't forgotten

https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/record-maximum-sea-ice-in...

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3613794165505253&set=gm...

[darth_avocado]

Glad you still remember of random yearly increase in ice from 2014 and a photo of a random newspaper clipping from 1974 shared on Facebook.

Meanwhile long term trends in Antarctic and arctic ice cover: https://climate.copernicus.eu/climate-indicators/ice-sheets#...

[DarkmSparks]

The implicit question was whether you think we should endeavour to return to an ice or not.

Personally I'm on the not side.

And also

The only people I have seen deny climate change are the AGW idiots who think the climate has ever been stable, and who demand global action to try to put it into some sort of climatic stasis.

The rest of us have always accepted the SCIENTIFIC FACTS that:

(a) The Earth's climate has always changed and always will.

(b) The Earth's climate is EXTREMELY COMPLEX and cannot currently be accurately modeled in a computer.

(c) While humans, like EVERYTHING ELSE, have SOME effects on climate, there are plenty of other causes of change including many we probably do not know/understand. Some of these other sources, like the sun, have a far greater impact than humans.

(d) The Earth has been both significantly hotter and extremely cold many times in the past before there were enough humans to have had ANY effect on any of those previously very extreme changes.

We ALSO embrace things like the laws of economics, the record of human history, and accept basic human nature - so we:

(a) Believe humans will continue to advance technologically and thus we as a species become better able to deal with climate change with every passing decade, making it retrograde to go nuts trying to offset it now - even if we could, and if we could afford it, and if its happening.

(b) Know that far more people are dying today from other sources than from climate, and that reducing some of the deaths and suffering of people TODAY is achieved using some of those fossil fuels people like you want eliminated or made too expensive because YOU claim it will save some future persons from some imagined future horror.

(c) WE actually believe a pet theory should be PROVEN before we implement policies that have a negative impact on the lives of millions of people in the name of "solving" the supposed problem. In fact, we'd like to not only see the problem PROVEN to exist, but we also want to see that the proposed solution will actually work, will be the most cost-effective option, and will have the least impact upon the lives and liberty of the people who are alive today.