[Udo]

In responding to this, I'm assuming your comment isn't politically motivated. That assumption might be wrong, in which case the following points will be for naught:

> 1st assumption: It is within human reach to change the climate.

There is nothing in principle to prevent us from affecting any kind of change on any kind of scale. The planet is a system that doesn't care who is affecting the variables, it's not as if there is some kind of cosmic firewall making sure we humans don't overstep our boundaries. We already affected the planet in a myriad ways, so it's difficult to make a rational argument that we can't. If your objection to this is on supernatural grounds, there is not a lot I can do to address that. But if it's not, just look at the true scale at which we're doing things here.

> 2nd: Current climate variations are created by human activities.

That is a good point worth looking into. The way to examine this is to look at known factors that influence the global climate. The best-known one are greenhouse gases. It's no question that a lot of them are produced naturally and that there are (even extreme) natural cycles to these things. On the other hand, however, we can estimate our own output reasonably well, so it becomes a matter of math. The rational consensus is that a non-trivial amount of greenhouse gases is emitted by human activities.

> 3rd: A human induced climate change will make the planet warmer.

The planet doesn't care who induced what. Overall, the planet will get warmer, yes. Because it's a complex system, that means in some regions it's going to get a lot colder than today.

> 4th: A warmer planet is bad. (If you look at a world map, you'll see huge surface of land in the temperate and frigid zones.)

I think a huge misunderstanding here is that people think it's bad for the planet. Again, the planet doesn't care, and the ecosystem has certainly seen worse changes historically. The planet and life as a whole are going to be just fine! Humans, on the other hand, not so much.

Here are some examples of things that are going to hurt us, and each of these drags behind it a long tail of consequences. Most equatorial regions will become warmer, dramatically increasing the deserts (and in some places creating new ones). A lot of people live in these zones. Other regions will see drastically more powerful storms and floods. The oceans will rise and make many sea-adjacent cities untenable. You mentioned temperate and frigid zones, I live in one of them. Where I live, the gulf stream will cease to transport heat into my climate zone, causing an ice age. It's going to get very uncomfortable for a lot of people, and by uncomfortable I mean deadly.

You question a lot whether human can and do influence climate change. Of course they do, but on the whole that's only partially relevant. The only reason why were interested in finding out our role in the change is so we have more options in counteracting the phenomenon.

[Frozenlock]

I never said any of those were implausible; only that somehow, they were all taken for granted in the current discussion.

Position 1:

"We would be better off with pipelines..."

Position 2:

"No! (assumptions 1 ---> 2 ----> 3 ---> 3 ---> 4) fossil fuel is bad, so we shouldn't build a more expansive fossil fuel infrastructure, even if it costs some human lives."

Excuse me, but that's a pretty big quantum leap in argumentation.

[Udo]

> they were all taken for granted in the current discussion.

That's because, as best as we know today, it's what's actually happening. This doesn't mean Position 2 is reasonable. We're already in the process of moving away from oil, but at the same time it's clear that we're going to be needing it for a long time to come. Of course it makes sense to put an infrastructure for that in place.

As far as environmental aspects are concerned, it's not about dialing back the hand of time to the agrarian age just to minimize our impact. It's about managing our impact sensibly and counteracting it where it makes sense.

> Excuse me, but that's a pretty big quantum leap in argumentation.

Well, the way those points were presented is pretty loaded. I think the big leap comes instead right between "fossil fuel is bad" and "so we shouldn't build a more expansive fossil fuel infrastructure, even if it costs some human lives", that's where the non-sequitur happens.

The reason why "fossil fuel is bad" holds true is that we're doing it on such a massive scale that it actually changes our environment in a way that is detrimental to our future. And I'm a technocrat saying this, not what you might call a tree hugger.