Hacker News Reader

I think most folks aren't super worried about a Venus-like runaway scenario where the planet starts boiling lead.

Instead the concern is that while the planet will reach homeostasis over the long term, in the short term it will cause mass extinctions, destroy coastal communities, disrupt food production, destabilize governments, etc.

It's like saying, "Won't a city rebuild after a major disaster?" Yes, of course. New Orleans wasn't completely eradicated by Katrina. But it was also awful. If we had it within our power to avoid a disaster, we should try to avoid it.

It's known that there were "greenhouse periods" in the distant past where substantially all the glaciers melted, so whatever homeostasis mechanisms might exist can't be strong enough to prevent that scenario.

We can look at the geological evidence from past periods when atmospheric CO2 was higher than 280 ppm. And of course that has been done in great detail.

The evidence confirms the theory.