Humanity has survived millions of years of constantly changing climate. We’ve gone through hot, we’ve gone through ice ages. Humanity has spread from the wilds of Africa to the tips of the world. We live in warm, cool, cold, hot, wet, arid. We live in mountains, we live on plains, we’re on islands, we’re in the middle of continents. Obviously, now, a tiny increase in global temps is Doom
Will climate change cause humans to go extinct?
I see a lot of resources talking about near-term human extinction, or the fact that thanks to climate change my generation will see the end of humanity. How likely is an outcome like this? Is there any hope for our futures?
Anonymous, aged 18. London, UK.
This article is part of I Need To Know, a Q&A service for teenagers by The Conversation. Find out how to submit your questions at the end of this article.
The claim that humanity only has just over a decade left due to climate change is based on a misunderstanding. In 2018, a fairly difficult-to-read report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that humanity needs to cut its carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in half by 2030, to avoid global warming of 1.5°C above the levels seen before the industrial revolution.
What this actually means is roughly, “We have about 12 years before fixing climate change becomes really expensive and tough.â€
Humanity can still live in a world with climate change – it’s just going to be more work, and many lives and livelihoods are likely to be threatened. But it’s complicated, because this century we are facing many problems at the same time, and we are more dependent on each other than ever.
So, obviously, the Doomsday Cult of Climastrology has done their job in scaring the mule fritters out of the youths, so, it’s no wonder they are so mentally disturbed about extinction and doom. Heck, we didn’t have this many mental issues when there was a real concern about nuclear war.
Anyhow, if you read the article, you’ll see that they kind of attempt to soft-pedal the doom from ‘climate change’ while also showing doom, but then say the doom isn’t as likely as other doom. So, a total whiplash.
“…:and many lives and livelihoods are likely to be threatened.”
Yeah, no.
This statement needs some serious justification, or the author needs to issue a retraction.
It would be better for the planet if humans were extinct. It would solve all of our problems.
“It would be better for the planet if humans were extinct. It would solve all of our problems.”
That is the leftist ideal and goal. Too strong?
Ask yourself “If they felt otherwise, what would they do differently?”
The leftist goal is just the extinction of anyone they don’t like.
Cynical, right-wing, projectionist bull. It’s always the authoritarians who try to exterminate their foes.
Leftist = authoritarians. So we agree. Global communism (Leftist authoritarians) killed 100 million people in the 20th century (mostly people they disagreed with). Elitists like Margaret Sanger (leftist authoritarian) proposed legalized abortion to deal with the “black population problem”. Her followers today still seek to make Planned Parenthood a publicly funded public health service. Other anti-population elitists like Rachel Corey decided that DDT has to be banned (after malaria is eradicated from North America and Europe), resulting in 5 million deaths a year of children in Africa… every year.
Leftists never promote freedom. Anything they think is a good idea is good enough to be mandatory.
Stalin, Mao, Fidel, Zippy…
“It’s always the authoritarians who try to exterminate their foes.”
That’s exactly what I said.
The author actually gets it right in his first few paragraphs…
Yes, Virginia, there is a global warming. But it will not cause the extinction of our species. But global warming will cause further problems in human societies. And don’t we have enough global worries now?
TEACH’s comment regarding youth and the nuclear threat in the 50s and 60s: He has no idea how youth were affected – there were few means (Facebook, twitter, Instagram, blogs, etc) for recording how they were affected. Today, any sentiment from one teenager can be attributed to all.
I remember the 5 gal drums of “emergency water” in the school basement and the “bomb drills”, but like most kids didn’t appreciate the true potential horror of a nuke attack.
Well, there’s always Mars.
Actually, it’s all nonsense intended to scare a poorly-educated generation into giving the Left absolute power, so, as Venezuela has shown, it will cause further problems in human societies if sensible, educated people don’t stand against it.
But, we really don’t have that many global worries now.
And everybody got nucular warfare, but we didn’t bother with nonsense like 5 gal drums of “emergency water†in the school basement or “bomb drillsâ€, unless the bunny suit is lying again.
The Lil Dutch Boy is puffing on something again. There is something bad wrong with you.
The Earth is warming rapidly from the CO2 we keep expelling into the atmosphere. It’s a fact, and you’ll have to live or die with it.
Did you even attend grade school?
You don’t remember Cold War Duck and Cover drills? Civil Defense?
Drinking water storage?
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=civil+defense+water+containers&&view=detail&mid=FBB521121F88E8EF6B17FBB521121F88E8EF6B17&rvsmid=77F940BC40634CA48B4677F940BC40634CA48B46&FORM=VDQVAP
We weren’t hysterics about it.
You, apparently, still are.
And, no, CO2 is doing nothing but helping the plants grow.
Too bad it doesn’t do the same for you.
“TEACH’s comment regarding youth and the nuclear threat in the 50s and 60s: He has no idea how youth were affected – there were few means (Facebook, twitter, Instagram, blogs, etc) for recording how they were affected.”
Come on Elwood, you and I are old enough to have lived in the 50’s and 60’s and we surely do know how “youth were affected”. Are you saying that without Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and blogs kids didn’t talk to each other, see TV, read news? Of course we did. At least I did.
“Today, any sentiment from one teenager can be attributed to all.”
You’re not serious, are you?
Kye,
Of course kids talked back then. But you didn’t talk to thousands, 10s of thousands or millions like they can now.
Teach typed: “…we didn’t have this many mental issues when there was a real concern about nuclear war.”
My point is that he has no way of knowing how affected kids were back then. It was a different time.
And it happens constantly now that the action of an individual, a tweet, an attack, an outburst gets attributed to all in that group. When one kid asks if humans will go extinct that doesn’t mean all kids are terrified.
And kids weren’t the little snowflakes they are today.
We had lots to talk about; baseball, school, TV, rock ‘n’ roll, but I don’t recall the subject of nucular war arising.
You must have been another Amy Carter, making her father a global laughingstock because he asked her what her greatest concern as a child was.
” to avoid global warming of 1.5°C above the levels seen before the industrial revolution.”
Do they realize 1850 was the coldest period since Sid, Manfred, Scrat, Buck and Diego times?
Well, the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) just 1000 years ago was 2°C warmer than today. And the Minoan warm period approximately 3500 years ago was 4°C warmer than today, according to Greenland Ice Core Temperature recostruction.
Both were before the “Industrial Revolution”, so unless they are calculating 5.5 °C warmer in our future everyone is okay. Fact is current temperatures are proclaimed as the warmest on record. In fact, the world was warmer than today for 97 percent of the last 10,000 years.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/clip_image006_thumb3.jpg
The image is from data in Cuffey and Clow’s 1997 paper. Don Easterbrook “refined” it further for Tony Wuwt.
Much more work has been performed in Greenland since then. Multiple ice cores and have been taken and serve to “smooth” the data somewhat. Using all the data from the Greenland proxies shows that Greenland likely was warmer than now at times.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/03/06/fact-check-greenland-ice-cores-proxy-past-present-climate-change
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/03/06/fact-check-greenland-ice-cores-proxy-past-present-climate-change
Funny how every time the Lefties smooth the data, it comes out unrecognizable from the truth.
Funny how every time the deniers see more data, they still deny the truth.
If adding six other data sets to the original experiment is “smooth”ing the data, we should desire more of it. Ignoring new data because old data supports your political position is hardly recognizing the truth.