Your right, insufficient context, my apologies.
There is a common set of exchanges that occur in climate discussions that go like this:
Person A: "Here is climate change without humans"
(person A in this context is trying to argue that change
will occur because there are other sources of change)
Person B: "That was millions of years ago"
(person B in this context is often trying to argue
that what ever caused climate change 'back then',
doesn't apply to current change)
Neither person directly addresses the emotional argument/fear, and neither person tries to establish a common frame of reference.
In context, kjackson2012 was making the 'things change' argument and your (snowrestler) response about the 'cold comfort' was in the context of the emotional argument.
It is kind of like an exchange that goes "Oh we ordered too much food for the party." followed by "That's cold comfort to Ethiopians who are starving."
On its face it seems like an argument that had we ordered less party food, there would be more food for Ethiopians. And yet the link between this party's food budget and that country's food problems is tenuous at best and generally a non sequitur.
The point I was trying to make was that responding to the comment about change with a statement about timelines is a common one in climate discussions.
Had I not reflexively responded to what I see as a common fallacy in the debate, I might have more constructively asked this:
Given that coastal dwellers are now aware that the sea level will change, possibly significantly, for their great grandchildren. And that we know that there is nothing known to science today or predicted by our models that can stop it, how do you suggest we comfort these coastal dwellers of the present?