Why put a number on it? Every number so far has been wrong. Can we agree on the negative impacts of humans on an environment conducive to humanity without putting obviously wrong timings on predictions? I bet your intention is to provoke urgency but to most people it just causes an eye roll because it's not true, whereas the underlying ideas are true.
Very much agree. It's a pretty common mistake to bundle real information with obviously wrong details and lose credibility. Especially in the eyes of people looking for a reason to discredit the argument.
The disingenuous people who discredit climate change will do so no matter how serious people act. There is no point in changing behavior on their account.
The point is to convince people who are undecided. Using information that's known to be false or weakly supported is then short-sighted and counterproductive, because enough false predictions will turn up that those undecided will tune out entirely
I think their point is that discounting the time estimates is more a constant shifting of the window of what we expect more than them being de-facto incorrect. They’re more off by degree (e.g. an XX% reduction vs complete extinction) than being worthless. As the example points out a large reduction can be very similar to an annihilation it’s just that we are only used to what we know so we constantly shift what is normal.
You have sailed past the point. There were so, so many cod it was hard not to catch a bunch. That isn’t a metric, it’s an indicator that most likely meant vast unseen numbers. The tip of the iceberg is a metaphor for a reason, though it may become an anachronism within our lifetimes.
So make predictions about stuff that happens next year and be right about them. The problem is that strongly predicting what will happen in 30 years has always been wrong so far. My point is just focus on what you know. Anyone can say whatever about 30 years from now and ride that for the next 29.
>strongly predicting what will happen in 30 years has always been wrong so far
No it hasn't, this is climate change denialist nonsense. In fact no less a figure than ExxonMobil correctly predicted the trajectory of global CO2 levels and corresponding increase in warming as far back as the 1970s and their predictions remain accurate today.
I've been alive long enough that my hometown was supposed to be underwater several times already. Climate change is real and predictions have also been very wrong.
because whales can communicate into the thousands of kilometers range and nowadays, because of marine traffic, they are luck to get into the hundred meters
micro-plastics into the ocean don't have a good prognosis on numbers reduction
And: on the 'r' side of the r/K reproductive strategy. Whales are literally the exemplar of K-selection, that is a very small number of high-quality offspring.
Whale lifespans are long, populations and fecundity / brood sizes are small, sexual maturity relatively late, and childhood mortality relatively high. All of these make for slower rather than more rapid evolution.
Species such as krill (on which many whales feed) are far more likely to evolve rapidly in the face of increasing selection pressures. Whales might well find themselves boxed into an inescapable evolutionary corner.
Evolution of small things like algae and the krill which feed on it and feed the whale is quite fast. Single celled organisms reproduce on the scale of 20 minutes and hold immense amounts of genetic diversity in their populations to facilitate the success of a better adapted line almost immediately. Additionally, they are adept at horizontal gene transfer from other well-adapted organisms.
Imagine you killed off all of humanity save for a couple people in Muncie, IN. How long until the next Shakespeare or Einstein emerges? Better yet, a properly heterogeneous culture?