f you believe rapid changes are bad, that actually is evidence that warmer is better, because warm earth eras are dramatically more stable. Ice ages have dramatic positive feedback cycles, where cooling triggers further cooling and warming triggers further warming.
The warming event we’re triggering is itself a much more rapid change than the warming and cooling events which occur during an ice age. Going back to Pleistocene level stability might have advantages in the long run, but a rapid shift to Pleistocene level climate is itself going to be harmful.
I agree with you here. Climate change takes centuries or millennia to produce dramatic changes. That just doesn’t seem terribly important in light of exponential economic and technological change that produces dramatic effects orders of magnitude faster.
The largest effects aren’t going to show up for centuries or more, but at the present rate, we’re looking at quite a large ecological impact within this century.
I certainly wouldn’t call climate change the top risk to humanity, or even close to it, but a mass extinction event is going to be a significant quality-of-life issue, even if we’re not one of the species lost.
The warming event we’re triggering is itself a much more rapid change than the warming and cooling events which occur during an ice age. Going back to Pleistocene level stability might have advantages in the long run, but a rapid shift to Pleistocene level climate is itself going to be harmful.
The largest effects aren’t going to show up for centuries or more, but at the present rate, we’re looking at quite a large ecological impact within this century.
I certainly wouldn’t call climate change the top risk to humanity, or even close to it, but a mass extinction event is going to be a significant quality-of-life issue, even if we’re not one of the species lost.