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The good and bad news of climate change

PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
So global warming. It's not a good thing. But according to LiveScience, it may not cause human extinction. The bad news? It runs the potential to cause societal collapse by various means:

Could climate change make humans go extinct?

My personal comments: I could be wrong, but I may see 'panic' as the biggest factor in a potential societal collapse - hoarding food, etc. I'm starting to think that remaining calm, but trying to take the right steps so as not to further contribute to what seems to be inevitable climate change, might be the answer.
 

Daemon Sophic

Avatar in flux
So global warming. It's not a good thing. But according to LiveScience, it may not cause human extinction. The bad news? It runs the potential to cause societal collapse by various means:

Could climate change make humans go extinct?

My personal comments: I could be wrong, but I may see 'panic' as the biggest factor in a potential societal collapse - hoarding food, etc. I'm starting to think that remaining calm, but trying to take the right steps so as not to further contribute to what seems to be inevitable climate change, might be the answer.
I mostly agree. However, two things more than panic have me concerned.
1. As the article notes, without a bigger release of a more powerful greenhouse gas (like methane), there is little to fear in the way of a run-away greenhouse gas scenario. However, I don’t think anyone really knows how much methane will be released by the thawing of the tundra and permafrost fields across northern Asia and North America, as well as methane from die-offs of plants and plankton in the world’s oceans.
2. More likely than #1 is the effect on our (human) food-crops. If large-scale starvation is even imminent, then refugee migrations and wars for growing land will be unavoidable. :(
 

Regiomontanus

Ματαιοδοξία ματαιοδοξιών! Όλα είναι ματαιοδοξία.
So global warming. It's not a good thing. But according to LiveScience, it may not cause human extinction. The bad news? It runs the potential to cause societal collapse by various means:

Could climate change make humans go extinct?

My personal comments: I could be wrong, but I may see 'panic' as the biggest factor in a potential societal collapse - hoarding food, etc. I'm starting to think that remaining calm, but trying to take the right steps so as not to further contribute to what seems to be inevitable climate change, might be the answer.


Humans will not go extinct because of climate change. That was never a danger. My concern is for the millions of non-human species that will and ARE becoming extinct.
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
So global warming. It's not a good thing. But according to LiveScience, it may not cause human extinction. The bad news? It runs the potential to cause societal collapse by various means:

Could climate change make humans go extinct?

My personal comments: I could be wrong, but I may see 'panic' as the biggest factor in a potential societal collapse - hoarding food, etc. I'm starting to think that remaining calm, but trying to take the right steps so as not to further contribute to what seems to be inevitable climate change, might be the answer.


I don’t think there’s any more appropriate response than the one you suggest; remain calm, and try not to add to the problem.

One thing is certain; we humans need Mother Nature far more than she needs us. Our future is in her hands, so we’d better start showing some respect.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
Climate Change may not lead to humans going extinct. That might seem awesome to the average person sitting in their air conditioning and typing a comment on their laptop.

Put them in a sudden scenario where there's no electricity due to a massive failure of the grid during a heat wave. And then crop failures due to floods and droughts. Civilization will have about three days. The cities will become death traps as food is bought up, no water, no electricity, no gasoline because pumps don't work. What will the average person do to survive?

Sure humanity will go on, will you be one of them? Or die off from a lack of skills to sustain yourself in a primitive environment?
 

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
Sure humanity will go on, will you be one of them? Or die off from a lack of skills to sustain yourself in a primitive environment?
This is one of those questions I don't want to see answered conclusively at any point in my lifetime.

My greatest worry for the foreseeable future is not that, but the boundless human capacity to hunker up and try to isolate their community from percveived outside threats. As the effects of climate change widen the already existing gap between haves and have-nots, I expect the haves to become increasingly fearful, militant and cruel towards the latter, and will drastically increase their efforts to brutalize and cowe the increasing number of desperate people who will flee homes consumed by climate-born catastrophes or the very human, indirect catastrophies that tend to follow these.
 
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halbhh

The wonder and awe of "all things".
So global warming. It's not a good thing. But according to LiveScience, it may not cause human extinction. The bad news? It runs the potential to cause societal collapse by various means:

Could climate change make humans go extinct?

My personal comments: I could be wrong, but I may see 'panic' as the biggest factor in a potential societal collapse - hoarding food, etc. I'm starting to think that remaining calm, but trying to take the right steps so as not to further contribute to what seems to be inevitable climate change, might be the answer.

Looking a bit more closely at that part:

"There is no evidence of climate change scenarios that would render human beings extinct," Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State and author of "The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet" (PublicAffairs, 2021), told Live Science in an email.

However, it's possible that climate change will still threaten the lives of hundreds of millions of people, such as by leading to food and water scarcity, which has the potential to trigger a societal collapse and set the stage for global conflict, research finds.


Well, we just don't have any ability to fully predict the future to know just what the outcome of future wars will be....

So...we should notice M. Mann was talking only in a small domain of prediction, really. He doesn't know what the outcome of future wars would be.

Ergo, the broader conclusion about humanity being safe against extinction in the future, with climate change as a key contributing factor considered in part, doesn't follow.

Can't reach that firm conclusion from that basis. We could indeed kill ourselves off (if given time), and climate change could be for such a key factor helping to bring it about.
 

PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
Looking a bit more closely at that part:

"There is no evidence of climate change scenarios that would render human beings extinct," Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State and author of "The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet" (PublicAffairs, 2021), told Live Science in an email.

However, it's possible that climate change will still threaten the lives of hundreds of millions of people, such as by leading to food and water scarcity, which has the potential to trigger a societal collapse and set the stage for global conflict, research finds.


Well, we just don't have any ability to fully predict the future to know just what the outcome of future wars will be....

So...we should notice M. Mann was talking only in a small domain of prediction, really. He doesn't know what the outcome of future wars would be.

Ergo, the broader conclusion about humanity being safe against extinction in the future, with climate change as a key contributing factor considered in part, doesn't follow.

Can't reach that firm conclusion from that basis.

Pandemics tend to kill more people than wars.
 

halbhh

The wonder and awe of "all things".
Pandemics tend to kill more people than wars.

Yes, and that's part of what I was implying, but it's a good point to include.

War and famine and pandemic we lose the ability to fight because of war, etc., and so on....

War bringing about the condition where something else can finish us off.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
Sure humanity will go on, will you be one of them? Or die off from a lack of skills to sustain yourself in a primitive environment?
Our Department of Defense here in the States says that as much as 2 billion people by the end of this century may suffer serious hardships and/or premature death if climate change isn't properly addressed and adjusted for. We are on borrowed time.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
As the article notes, without a bigger release of a more powerful greenhouse gas (like methane), there is little to fear in the way of a run-away greenhouse gas scenario.
To this point, the models indicate that the "tipping point" is 2 C/3 F, which then will start a cycle that will not likely be reversed because of the massive amount of methane gas tied up in the permafrost areas, and methane is 20 times more heat retaining than CO2.
 

Messianic Israelite

Active Member
So global warming. It's not a good thing. But according to LiveScience, it may not cause human extinction. The bad news? It runs the potential to cause societal collapse by various means:

Could climate change make humans go extinct?

My personal comments: I could be wrong, but I may see 'panic' as the biggest factor in a potential societal collapse - hoarding food, etc. I'm starting to think that remaining calm, but trying to take the right steps so as not to further contribute to what seems to be inevitable climate change, might be the answer.

It's easy to politicize the matter and blame it on global warming, but the Bible tells us that Yahweh chastises the nations in Psalm 94:10. Is it global warming or is it global judgement? Is Yahweh trying to correct the nations, is he judging them? I agree that climate change is happening and I believe that man may be responsible for some of it, however, whereas in times past people would rightly turn to Yahweh in repentance, people are not thinking. They are claiming humans are increasingly influencing the climate and the earth's temperature by burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests and farming livestock. But Yahweh in His Word tells us He judges and that his judgement is intended to turn people to Him as in the example of the tower in Siloam incident in Luke 13:3-5.

They have been worldwide droughts in times past, even in Biblical times, when they were no factories etc. If such were to happen today, most people would blame it on global warming.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
It's easy to politicize the matter and blame it on global warming, but the Bible tells us that Yahweh chastises the nations in Psalm 94:10. Is it global warming or is it global judgement?
Why would God supposedly cause harm and death to so many innocent men, women, and children? Today, that's called "genocide".

And if one deals with a certain popular concept of "original sin", should we execute you if we found out that one of your great grandfathers committed murder.

There are other ways of looking at this while still keeping the basic concept.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
So global warming. It's not a good thing. But according to LiveScience, it may not cause human extinction. The bad news? It runs the potential to cause societal collapse by various means:

Could climate change make humans go extinct?

My personal comments: I could be wrong, but I may see 'panic' as the biggest factor in a potential societal collapse - hoarding food, etc. I'm starting to think that remaining calm, but trying to take the right steps so as not to further contribute to what seems to be inevitable climate change, might be the answer.

Survival food is a hot item now. Fear sells.
Our Department of Defense here in the States says that as much as 2 billion people by the end of this century may suffer serious hardships and/or premature death if climate change isn't properly addressed and adjusted for. We are on borrowed time.
Wait until more chemicals are put in the air.
 
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