> I think all of your points miss one glaring fact: Quality of life doesn't matter in the face of an existential threat.
Existential threat?
Really?
Where is the proof of that?
Not trying to be obtuse at all. I am also not suggesting that things are changing towards a future with potent climate events. I am not challenging any of that.
You see, the dark future everyone is selling is one where we all die. Everything dies. Mass extinction of all kinds of living things. Another two degrees and we are done for.
Hmmm.
In the face of this we are supposed to have the technological prowess TO ACTUALLY TAKE CONTROL OF PLANETARY SCALE PROBLEMS and magically bend the curve to where WE want it to be, not where THE PLANET wants it to be. Upper case for greater emphasis than this which does nothing for me, not yelling at you.
Do you have any idea of the scale of this thing? Planetary. Yes. What does it mean?
In other words, we purport to have the power to change the entire ecological balance of the planet (hence "planetary scale", and, at the same time, we can't deal with the purported effects of global warming?
I applied "purported" because, once again, climate change is being treated as a single variable problem where NOTHING ELSE changes. In other words, "CO2 bad -> CO2 ppm rising -> Existential threat".
What?
The planet has been dealing with this kind of stuff long before humanity was a thing. It adjusts to atmospheric CO2 through weather. Specifically, storm, hurricanes, cyclones, rain, etc. Water. And growing vegetation. Yes, at a planetary scale. We have data on this, reliable data, going back at least 800K years.
Is CO2 bad?
Well, yeah, taken as a single variable, sure. Yet, that isn't the entire story, is it?
Have you heard of indoor farming? This is where food is growing in controlled indoor environments rather than outdoors.
Do you know what they do in indoor farms to promote plant growth?
They inject CO2.
Yup. They actually have CO2 tanks delivered to the farm and CO2 is metered by a computerized system in order to raise the level and promote plant growth as well as other characteristics.
When you start leaving the "CO2 bad -> CO2 ppm rising -> Existential threat" myopic view of the universe being pushed and start to consider that reality is a complex multivariate problem, ideas and the potential actual reality start to surface.
Have you ever walked around your home, family and neighbor's homes and your neighborhood with a CO2 meter?
I have.
Levels in my home and my neighbors are in the range of 500 to 600 ppm. No, we don't live right next to a highway. Outside, about the same range. Some of the office environments I frequent, about the same.
In the car? It can reach 1100 ppm. No, that isn't with me breathing directly into the meter. If the ventilation system is set to forcefully ingest outside air it comes down to about 700 in neighborhood streets and spikes back up to 800 to 1000 on the highway (which makes sense).
My point is that this "CO2 bad -> CO2 ppm rising -> Existential threat" scenario is one that, very likely, billions of people have been living in for decades, maybe more. Care to guess what indoor environments looked like 100 to 200 years ago? I have no clue, but I cannot imagine them being better than what we have today.
And cars? How much time do billions of people spend in their cars at 700 to 1100 ppm CO2 every day? Hours.
Has the sky fallen?
No.
WHY ARE WE NOT QUESTIONING WHAT WE ARE BEING TOLD THEN?
C'mon folks. This isn't about denying our influence in increasing atmospheric CO2. However, this is, very much so, about gaining a sense of proportion and putting what we are being told to scrutiny.
Yes, we absolutely managed to increase atmospheric CO2 through the burning of highly dense hydrocarbon fuels. No question about that. Is the inescapable conclusion "CO2 bad -> CO2 ppm rising -> Existential threat"? I don't know. Somehow I don't think so.
For example, increased levels of atmospheric CO2 might promote more efficient growing of food in indoor farms. Controlled environment farming is more efficient that outdoor farming, uses less water, delivers higher quality food and reduces damage to the land. More importantly, controlled environment farming can bring food production to places that could not consider it before, like the desert.
How about all the storms, rain, etc. that are a part of the planet reacting to CO2 levels? Well, this will among othr things, promote vegetation growth everywhere.
So is, "CO2 bad -> CO2 ppm rising -> Existential threat" real? I, for one, after devoting a non trivial amount of time to truly looking at this as a complex multivariate problem rather than that silly statement being pushed around, do not believe so. I think this is a silly and damaging reduction to an absurd conclusion.
Will we have to adapt to potential changes? This is likely. However, we are already living in a 700 to 1100 ppm environment (homes, offices, inside cars) and we haven't all turned into a pile of goo on the ground.
Somehow I don't think the threat is existential as much as it is evolutionary. What I mean by this is that we likely have to evolve how we live, where we live, how we grow food and, yes, of course, how clean we are about our affairs. I am all for reducing CO2 emissions and being clean, just not because of a potentially flawed conclusion but rather due to the fact that, yes, humanity should pollute as little as humanly possible. This is a good goal. Yet we should not be hysterical about it. The sky isn't falling.
Think.