This is just magical thinking. Our "cleverness" got us into this situation but there is no viable technology available or close to available that will get us out. While we have speech and...
First off, I don't like the name "Extinction Rebellion". Yes, climate change is an issue, but I find it unlikely humans will go extinct because of it. Humans are the most crafty and resourceful animals on the planet, they are also the smartest and understand the world better than anything else.
This is just magical thinking. Our "cleverness" got us into this situation but there is no viable technology available or close to available that will get us out. While we have speech and prehensile thumbs, we still have to eat, drink, and breathe and climate change is going to make it much more difficult to do any of these things.
Second, in the article it says: Planet Earth is hurtling toward irrecoverable destruction at an alarming rate. This is far from the truth, earth has experienced climates way wormer than what it will be in the next hundred years; but life adapted and evolved. Ffs earth has recovered from asteroid strikes that blotted out the sun for years.
Previous periods of change lasted tens of thousands of years, which is possible for natural life to adapt to. Our current shift is a timeframe of 100 - 200 years which most life can't adapt to. Regarding asteroid strikes, look into global warming's effect on ocean acidification. That's going to be the hammer to global warming's anvil.
Even with climate change there still will be habitable spaces that you can grow food in. And you underestimate the power of humans, whether it is a greenhouse dome, or a giant bunker, humans will...
This is just magical thinking. Our "cleverness" got us into this situation but there is no viable technology available or close to available that will get us out. While we have speech and prehensile thumbs, we still have to eat, drink, and breathe and climate change is going to make it much more difficult to do any of these things.
Even with climate change there still will be habitable spaces that you can grow food in. And you underestimate the power of humans, whether it is a greenhouse dome, or a giant bunker, humans will be able to survive.
Previous periods of change lasted tens of thousands of years, which is possible for natural life to adapt to. Our current shift is a timeframe of 100 - 200 years which most life can't adapt to. Regarding asteroid strikes, look into global warming's effect on ocean acidification. That's going to be the hammer to global warming's anvil.
Evolution happens over generations of animals, the ones that can reproduce quicker can evolve quicker. Things like some bugs and rodents wont die (same things that mainly survived the last extinctions).
I find this article very sensationalist. First off, I don't like the name "Extinction Rebellion". Yes, climate change is an issue, but I find it unlikely humans will go extinct because of it....
I find this article very sensationalist.
First off, I don't like the name "Extinction Rebellion". Yes, climate change is an issue, but I find it unlikely humans will go extinct because of it. Humans are the most crafty and resourceful animals on the planet, they are also the smartest and understand the world better than anything else.
Second, in the article it says: Planet Earth is hurtling toward irrecoverable destruction at an alarming rate. This is far from the truth, earth has experienced climates way wormer than what it will be in the next hundred years; but life adapted and evolved. Ffs earth has recovered from asteroid strikes that blotted out the sun for years.
Climate change is an issue that will affect many people, but this article makes it seem like the world is ending.
i mean, that sounds more like an issue with the group than the article (and your slight uncertainty as to whether or not humans will actually go extinct does suggest they're on to something). this...
First off, I don't like the name "Extinction Rebellion". Yes, climate change is an issue, but I find it unlikely humans will go extinct because of it. Humans are the most crafty and resourceful animals on the planet, they are also the smartest and understand the world better than anything else.
i mean, that sounds more like an issue with the group than the article (and your slight uncertainty as to whether or not humans will actually go extinct does suggest they're on to something).
Second, in the article it says: Planet Earth is hurtling toward irrecoverable destruction at an alarming rate. This is far from the truth, earth has experienced climates way wormer than what it will be in the next hundred years; but life adapted and evolved. Ffs earth has recovered from asteroid strikes that blotted out the sun for years.
this is juuust a bit disingenuous. for one thing, we genuinely are approaching a state where irrecoverable destruction of certain aspects of our current planet will begin to transpire (irreversible loss of things like coral reefs, for example). secondly, complex life does not evolve and adapt on the scale of hundreds of years, it evolves over tens to hundreds of thousands. the dramatic increase in the warmth of the planet that has been observed really only got going around the the 1950s, so just in a lifespan of the typical human, we've seen the planet warm by about a degree (and as an aside, the rate of overall warming is still accelerating such that even if the entirety of the planet completely cut emissions today, it is likely that warming would continue to increase for a time afterwards). so no, we're probably not going to evolve to adapt to climate change. thirdly, this is a bit pedantic but those asteroid strikes of which you speak often wiped out like... anywhere between 30% to 90% of then-extant life on the planet when they happened, depending on which strike you want to talk about. humans would almost certainly be included in that if an asteroid strike of such a scale happened today, so it's kind of not a good example if your whole thing is to downplay how major, cataclysmic events like climate change could potentially end human life on the planet.
I disagree; sure civilization as we know it would fracture and billions of humans would die off, but I have no doubts enclaves of humans would survive and rebuild. The Toba event was the closest...
anywhere between 30% to 90% of then-extant life on the planet when they happened, depending on which strike you want to talk about. humans would almost certainly be included in that if an asteroid strike of such a scale happened today,
I disagree; sure civilization as we know it would fracture and billions of humans would die off, but I have no doubts enclaves of humans would survive and rebuild. The Toba event was the closest we've come as species to dying out and that was a pretty cataclysmic event in its own right. Technology has made us an incredibly adaptable species.
Human's biggest hurdle to survival has always been low crop yields and lack of domesticated animals. Now that we've addressed both, if civilization ever does collapse, rebuilding should happen on a much, much shorter scale than how long we took to get here, not even considering all of our stored knowledge and technological progress.
the toba catastrophe theory is really nowhere close to the severity of a major asteroid impact on the level of previous extinction-type event, though. we're probably talking the difference between...
The Toba event was the closest we've come as species to dying out and that was a pretty cataclysmic event in its own right.
the toba catastrophe theory is really nowhere close to the severity of a major asteroid impact on the level of previous extinction-type event, though. we're probably talking the difference between a widespread global cooling event and something that literally makes continents worth of forest burn despite occurring hundreds or thousands of miles over and all but sterilizes land tens of miles inland from the sea if it hits water.
Things that reproduce quickly (e.g. rodents) can evolve in the span of a few hundred years. I never said we would evolve, but humans are at a point where they don't need to evolve to survive. We...
secondly, complex life does not evolve and adapt on the scale of hundreds of years, it evolves over tens to hundreds of thousands.
Things that reproduce quickly (e.g. rodents) can evolve in the span of a few hundred years. I never said we would evolve, but humans are at a point where they don't need to evolve to survive. We have the technology to survive a lot of things. For example, if the climate got too bad for farming, we could build indoor 3 dimensional hydroponic farms.
you sorta implied it, to be honest, but yes i will concede you did not explicitly say that. some people potentially have the technology. but if we ever even get close to that point hundreds of...
Things that reproduce quickly (e.g. rodents) can evolve in the span of a few hundred years. I never said we would evolve but humans are at a point where they don't need to evolve to survive.
you sorta implied it, to be honest, but yes i will concede you did not explicitly say that.
We have the technology to survive a lot of things. For example, if the climate got too bad for farming, we could build indoor 3 dimensional hydroponic farms
some people potentially have the technology. but if we ever even get close to that point hundreds of thousands of people will already be displaced or dying because of climate change and the direct and indirect results of it; moreover, it is super likely that such technology and its benefits will not be equally distributed in any way. we westerners might be just fine because of things like that--but color me skeptical that someone in guinea will also be. food distribution is already not equal in a world where it's much easier to grow than it might be in the future. no reason to believe that'll change with better technology.
This is just magical thinking. Our "cleverness" got us into this situation but there is no viable technology available or close to available that will get us out. While we have speech and prehensile thumbs, we still have to eat, drink, and breathe and climate change is going to make it much more difficult to do any of these things.
Previous periods of change lasted tens of thousands of years, which is possible for natural life to adapt to. Our current shift is a timeframe of 100 - 200 years which most life can't adapt to. Regarding asteroid strikes, look into global warming's effect on ocean acidification. That's going to be the hammer to global warming's anvil.
Even with climate change there still will be habitable spaces that you can grow food in. And you underestimate the power of humans, whether it is a greenhouse dome, or a giant bunker, humans will be able to survive.
Evolution happens over generations of animals, the ones that can reproduce quicker can evolve quicker. Things like some bugs and rodents wont die (same things that mainly survived the last extinctions).
I find this article very sensationalist.
First off, I don't like the name "Extinction Rebellion". Yes, climate change is an issue, but I find it unlikely humans will go extinct because of it. Humans are the most crafty and resourceful animals on the planet, they are also the smartest and understand the world better than anything else.
Second, in the article it says: Planet Earth is hurtling toward irrecoverable destruction at an alarming rate. This is far from the truth, earth has experienced climates way wormer than what it will be in the next hundred years; but life adapted and evolved. Ffs earth has recovered from asteroid strikes that blotted out the sun for years.
Climate change is an issue that will affect many people, but this article makes it seem like the world is ending.
i mean, that sounds more like an issue with the group than the article (and your slight uncertainty as to whether or not humans will actually go extinct does suggest they're on to something).
this is juuust a bit disingenuous. for one thing, we genuinely are approaching a state where irrecoverable destruction of certain aspects of our current planet will begin to transpire (irreversible loss of things like coral reefs, for example). secondly, complex life does not evolve and adapt on the scale of hundreds of years, it evolves over tens to hundreds of thousands. the dramatic increase in the warmth of the planet that has been observed really only got going around the the 1950s, so just in a lifespan of the typical human, we've seen the planet warm by about a degree (and as an aside, the rate of overall warming is still accelerating such that even if the entirety of the planet completely cut emissions today, it is likely that warming would continue to increase for a time afterwards). so no, we're probably not going to evolve to adapt to climate change. thirdly, this is a bit pedantic but those asteroid strikes of which you speak often wiped out like... anywhere between 30% to 90% of then-extant life on the planet when they happened, depending on which strike you want to talk about. humans would almost certainly be included in that if an asteroid strike of such a scale happened today, so it's kind of not a good example if your whole thing is to downplay how major, cataclysmic events like climate change could potentially end human life on the planet.
I disagree; sure civilization as we know it would fracture and billions of humans would die off, but I have no doubts enclaves of humans would survive and rebuild. The Toba event was the closest we've come as species to dying out and that was a pretty cataclysmic event in its own right. Technology has made us an incredibly adaptable species.
Human's biggest hurdle to survival has always been low crop yields and lack of domesticated animals. Now that we've addressed both, if civilization ever does collapse, rebuilding should happen on a much, much shorter scale than how long we took to get here, not even considering all of our stored knowledge and technological progress.
the toba catastrophe theory is really nowhere close to the severity of a major asteroid impact on the level of previous extinction-type event, though. we're probably talking the difference between a widespread global cooling event and something that literally makes continents worth of forest burn despite occurring hundreds or thousands of miles over and all but sterilizes land tens of miles inland from the sea if it hits water.
Things that reproduce quickly (e.g. rodents) can evolve in the span of a few hundred years. I never said we would evolve, but humans are at a point where they don't need to evolve to survive. We have the technology to survive a lot of things. For example, if the climate got too bad for farming, we could build indoor 3 dimensional hydroponic farms.
you sorta implied it, to be honest, but yes i will concede you did not explicitly say that.
some people potentially have the technology. but if we ever even get close to that point hundreds of thousands of people will already be displaced or dying because of climate change and the direct and indirect results of it; moreover, it is super likely that such technology and its benefits will not be equally distributed in any way. we westerners might be just fine because of things like that--but color me skeptical that someone in guinea will also be. food distribution is already not equal in a world where it's much easier to grow than it might be in the future. no reason to believe that'll change with better technology.