I'm not confusing anything. My point is that our civilization is very vulnerable to environmental changes, even more so in view of the growing world population. I'm aware that there have been periods without any ice at all, and it's no problem for the planet itself, and life as such will continue to exist on this planet and adapt, but our civilization will not. Therefore, your equation Warm Earth - Good for Life, Cold Earth - Bad for LIfe (which of course also means warm Earth - more diseases!) is too simplistic, and it does certainly not apply to our modern (technological and economic) human life. "Little proof exists for either." The frequency of extremes is definitely increasing: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/beyond-data/2018s-billion-dollar-disasters-context
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We can't afford to burn all the remaining fossil fuels, our remaining carbon budget to keep the climate stable or "favourable" in your words will be long used up by then. We would be heading into the worst case "Hot house Earth" scenario, in which several tipping points such as the melting permafrost (which has already declined much faster than the worst predictions), the melting arctic sea ice (which is disappearing at record rates), the disappearing boreal and tropical rain forests, the changing monsoons would trigger an irreversible process. And I don't know what's good about rising sea levels (which will threaten at least 150 million people according to the IPCC), more droughts, heat waves and floods (In total, weather-climate disasters cost 290 billion euro in 2017 - according to https://espas.secure.europarl.europa.eu/orbis/sites/default/files/generated/document/en/ESPAS_Report2019.pdf)
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Thank you, it's rare that this topic can be discussed calmly and without personal attacks, as in some other posts on this page.
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The critical concentration for plants could already be reached by the end of the 21st Century: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/328/5980/899
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Well, "On record" of course means since the time humans have started recording wheather data, and yes, it's meaningful if you compare the data to the time prior to industrialization because the conclusion is that the ocurring rapid changes are not natural. Furthermore, for our civilization, billions of years are not relevant. Of course, the planet will survive any climate change, but our civilization strongly depends on a stable climate. You are right, within certain limits, CO2 will be beneficial for plants. However, experiments have shown that there's a critical CO2 concentration. When it increases further, it will be harmful for plants. I also don't think that the people in the Sahel would share your view that "Warmer weather increases arable lands". Desertification and droughts are a huge problem in many regions, forcing people to leave their homes.
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So if I understand you correctly, you admit that human carbon emissions are changing the climate, but we should keep doing it because it may change the climate for the better. Otherwise, who knows, there may be a bad Ice Age coming... That would of course be very convenient. But I'm afraid what NASA, WMO, EU and the UN are saying is much more realistic. Religious people always try to put Atheism into the same category as religions. But I personally don't accept being put into this category. I don't say "I believe there is no God", but rather "I don't believe in God". That's a difference. If you want to rather call it Agnostisicm then okay, if you accept agnosticism as not being a religion. My main criteria is the absence of a religious belief and I have no interest in disproving God either.
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By scientific standards in this context, I mean that every publication has to be independently peer-reviewed. The fact that we've not already destroyed a civilization on an exact copy of the Earth does not mean there's no science. We already have enough knowledge gathered through experimentation and proof to understand and explain the current changes. Without the natural greenhouse effect, the average temperature on the Earth surface would be -18°C. And if mankind is not the cause, where does all the additional CO2 come from that we can measure? Why has the last decade been the warmest on record? Please don't say it's the sun. Solar activity does not correlate with these changes. We are already experiencing more heavy weather, more droughts, rising sea levels (talked to anyone from the Marshall or Solomon islands recently?) as well as more fires (recently in Amazon rain forest, Australia, Siberia). So to say that it's climate change mitigation action that causes suffering is really
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Atheism is the opposite of religion. I don't have to prove that there is no flying Spaghetti monster either. Anyways, those organizations do not only say that the climate is changing, but they also clearly state that human carbon emissions are the cause. Why should we not be changing the climate? If you look at the Earth from space, you can see how much we have already shaped and drastically changed the planet. We are digging up billions of tons of carbon that has accumulated there in millions of years and we are releasing it into the atmosphere. And if we keep doing this long enough, of course it will change the climate. It would be stupid to think we can keep doing it without any effects. Besides, you said that the current CO2 emissions are good because they protect us from a new ice age. And if that's true, then we would be stopping the climate from changing, right?
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That's exactly my point: Such (natural) changes occur over thousands of years. What difference does such a possible cooling of the planet over a period of Thousands of years make for our civilization, when we'll reach 4 or even 5 degrees of average temparature rise compared to pre-industrial times already within the next 100 years? Tipping points will probably make the process irreversable, long before the slow cooling might have any effect. Besides: Everyone can upload anything to Wikipedia. Unlike the sources that I've mentioned, the content provided there is not peer-reviewed according to scientific standards.
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