> From a quality and sustainability of human life, these were terrible times.

Unchecked, climate change will ALSO lead to terrible times for humans. Just because it's not immediately impactful, does not make it ignorable.

From that perspective, it's arguable that our options are "Some amount of near-term lowering of quality of life" or "A large amount of long-term, in the future, loss of quality of life." Continuing to burn the levels of fossil fuels we currently do is borrowing against a debt that may be literally impossible to repay.