Hacker News Reader

Comment by crypot | Hacker News Reader

This is silly, unless you think the earth will turn into Venus.

The majority of time earth has had no ice caps. Primates evolved when the polars where covered in trees, not ice. A warmer planet will support more biodiversity not less.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hotte...

View on HN

It’s not about the lack of ice, dingus. the danger is in climate change shocking ecosystems such that they trigger a systemic collapse that we can’t contain or manage. there’s basically no timeline where food supply wont be impacted and I’d like to hear your cavalier attitude about climate change then.

There is zero evidence that a warming planet would case a systemic collapse in biodiversity. In fact, 500 millions of planetary history shows the opposite. As the planet warms, biodiversity increases. There is nothing to argue about here.

Something something rate of change

sans-humans, maybe. But we /are/ causing the Holocene extinction, which is essentially defined by the last two centuries of accelerated biodiversity loss. Climate change will only further stress already fundamentally strained ecosystems. It’s happening right now, at all of our literal doorsteps.

And again, you are confused about timeframes. Geologic time vs human time.

Sure, over a period of millions of years, everything evolves and adapts. But in shorter periods of time, before adaptation, there is enormous disruption and entire ecosystems go extinct. Taking countless species down with it.

Human civilization has been around for only a few thousand years. You do the math. As you say, nothing to argue about here.

You're not considering timescales. True, the earth has seen all sorts of climates .. over slow-moving gradual timeframes of 100k to millions of years. And in none of those situations did human civilization exist - relying on specific climatic conditions for food, water and so on.

But now, climate is changing 1000x as fast. And we have civilization of 8 billion people, many of them living on the margins in areas that will soon became less habitable.

So you don't need Venus. Just a few degrees means hundreds of millions of refugees, food shortages, water shortages, and no doubt mass conflict as a result.

Don't confuse geologic time with human time.

A 2c rise in temperature is insignificant compared to seasonal variation. There is no evidence that this change would decrease biodiversity on earth. All the evidence points the other way.

Climate change will be a humanitarian issue. People claiming that it will lead to ecosystem collapse and a loss of biodiversity are just a distraction. They are taking time and resources away from the real issues.

A warmer planet will have more biodiversity, not less. It will be easier to support 8 billion humans with a warmer, more productive planet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com