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While I love wildlife, I almost feel like it's not our responsibility as humans to tamper with natural processes like extinction.

The fundamental premise is not that extinction is bad, but that extinction we cause is bad. If a fox tramples your neighbor's garden, that's too bad. If you trample your neighbor's garden, you should fix it.

I'd like mosquitoes to go extinct. Why would that be bad?

This is where we delve into questions of whether we can understand the impact of our actions. Mosquitoes actually underpin a great number of relationships in nature. Most people have largely cast aside the question of whether it is ethical because of how much harm mosquitoes cause to humans, but there remains that sticky question of what happens to the ecosystems when they are gone.

Also, before someone posts a link to "that" article, let me say in advance it was written by an intern based on interviews that (in my opinion) suggest exactly the opposite of what the writer concludes.

Mosquitoes help pollinate blueberries. Without blueberries we have nothing to anti the oxidants.

It would be very bad. Birds and small fish hugely depend on mosquitoes for their diets.

Ticks are another matter. While birds will eat them, no species that I know of depends on them for its diet. We probably can safely eradicate ticks.

I used to agree completely with you, but now I realize that, given the second law of thermodynamics, it's impossible to restore an entire ecosystem back to a previous state. From what I hear, one goal of ending climate change is to allow icecaps to re-form and to last longer throughout the year, which ostensibly will end the suffering of polar bears "stranded" at sea. However, even if we did remove all excess amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (which, as of today, is something that's barely discussed seriously), it's not going to suddenly reverse the adapted behavior of polar bears. This is a totally hypothetical and unscientific story, but let's pretend that the ice caps melted such that polar bears were forced inland and began foraging for food in human-populated areas. In response, the government of Canada single-handedly puts up the money to remove all excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Over a period of decades, the ice grows back, but: do we really expect the polar bear population, which has now adapted to foraging for garbage, to suddenly move back to their initial habitat? Chances are, food will be more plentiful for them in a human-populated area. Now let's assume that polar bears play a significant role in seal population control. Well, now that the polar bears have adapted and are now living further inland, the seal population booms in the arctic region. In fact, it gets so big, that now penguin populations are in rapid decline! So, at this point, we've spent probably trillions of dollars, haven't really helped the polar bears at all, and have directly contributed to the endangerment of penguins. And this is all assuming that our plan even works! Not to mention the fact that there may be other species that died off that played a huge impact on balancing the ice-filled arctic ecosystem.

So, given that scenario, I think the better question to ask is, what benefit would we, as humans, get from a return to a cooler Earth? IMO wildlife will take care of itself: adapt, die off, etc. the same way it always has. BUT, I think that too often the focus is put on sad-looking animals and melted snowcaps, which makes it seem like global warming is just an "environmentalist" issue rather than a serious threat to human life.

Oh, come on, are you trying to say that all endangered species will just adapt to live amongst humans if their habitat is destroyed? Your idea about polar bears foraging for human garbage is laughable: These creatures are (1) purely carnivorous, and (2) incapable of living in warm climates. Polar bear population has plummeted as their natural habitat has dwindled. Further, the reason for wanting to save the polar bear is not just to save one species, but that this animal's decline is a bellwether for the decline of the entire arctic ecosystem. We can't say for sure what will happen if the arctic ecosystem disappears.

The ongoing massive extinction event driven by human activity is a real thing. Do you want to live in a world where the only animals alive are ones that humans raise as livestock, or that thrive amongst humans? Nothing but pigs, chickens, pigeons, sparrows, cockroaches, bass and such. Sounds awfully grim to me, but without serious efforts towards preserving wildlife, this is precisely what the future holds.

It is purely a question of having the right technology. There is no law that says that you can not engineer a polar bear that is not purely carnivorous, is capable of living in warm climate and very useful to humans in some way. Same goes about every other species.

And it is not that sad. Well designed ecologies can be diverse and beautiful. Even more diverse and beautiful than naturally evolved once.

[citation needed]

Well, I can't source precisely that phrasing. But imagine an engineered ecology that is: less cruel than a naturally evolved one; as diverse; also includes some 'dinosaur-killer-sized' asteroid impact aversion system that prevents global scale mass extinctions. Wouldn't you find that ecology more beautiful than a naturally evolved one (that we have now)?

Given humanity's track record, my imagined idea of an engineered ecology is not so rosy as yours. Who would do it, and what would their motivations be?

You are misapplying the second law of thermodynamics and calling it wisdom. The second law specifically applies to a closed system. Earth is not a closed system. There is no fundamental reason local entropy cannot be maintained.

You're mistaken; the Earth is a closed system in the case I describe.

The Earth is not a closed system.

> Well, now that the polar bears have adapted and are now living further inland, the seal population booms in the arctic region. In fact, it gets so big, that now penguin populations are in rapid decline

No penguins in the Arctic, no polar bears in the Antarctic; they have little-to-no bearing on each others population (even indirectly via seal populations). You could've chosen a better example.

This mistake caused me to laugh outright. It illustrates the lack of actual information or expertise within the parent comment.

Humans are either fully part of the natural process, or everything we do interferes with it.

There's a very real choice about how we want to change the environment of the earth, but lets not couch it in meaningless terms like natural vs. unnatural.

Hunter gatherer societies are no more natural/unnatural than cities.

> Humans are either fully part of the natural process, or everything we do interferes with it.

Thank you for describing what I was trying to say much more elegantly. :)

In literal terms, humans are "natural" actors. When we have an effect on nature, it is a "natural" process. I don't disagree with that. But just because what we do is "natural", doesn't mean it is "good". "Good" and "natural" are not the same.

As for the line between human actors vs. non-human actors... when it comes to players in the ecosystem, humans are simply overpowered. That is the root of the problem. Nature has struck a balance in most places, and the ecosystem shifts slowly because everything is close to balance. This gives the other players in the system time to react. Humans are very, very good at destroying balance, so we often warrant special consideration.

Think about your history. The only other actors that brought about the destruction of habitats, ecosystems, and species in as short a time and as great of numbers as humans are natural disasters.

Loss of diversity is bad. Everything else is all right, as long as in the long term there is no loss of diversity.

The trouble is, that at the current state of science and technology we can not engineer and control ecosystems. We can not even model ecosystems. As a result we are breaking things and we even have no idea how badly we are breaking things when we are extracting resources. Like when we are turning diverse ecologies into monocultures, when forests are being turned into these 'beautiful' fields of golden wheat.

It does NOT have to be that way. There is no natural law that says that it is necessary to destroy diversity if one wants to grow food or extract resources. It is just that our technology is very primitive and that's the only way we've been able to do it so far. With right technology one can have it both ways. But we don't have it. Not yet.

And meanwhile, well. Conservation, common sense and minimizing our damage to the ecology is probably a best that we can do...

We have unfortunately already occupied much of our neighbor's garden, should we destroy our farms and cities and return all these land to animals?

While I love wildlife, I almost feel like it's not our responsibility

Two points:

1. The conditions on Earth which support other megafauna also, largely, are beneficial to humans. Change those conditions and it's likely that the extinctions aren't so much bad for humans as indicators of changing conditions which are bad for humans.

2. Conservation biologists have recognized that the Earth and its biosphere isn't a static system, and that conservation efforts shouldn't be aimed at "holding back the tides" so to speak. But noting when changes are happening at scales which are likely to have strongly negative impacts for humans, civilization, and the almighty economy, and deciding to take preemptive action, could be a very good thing.

There's a huge difference between wiping out all life (or much of it) within the next 200 years, and the next 800 million.

Assuming you've got an 85 year lifespan, that's the difference between living for your full life, or just 25 minutes.

My own definition of "sustainability" is "so long as the extrinsic conditions are conducive to human survival". Even with genetic drift, that's likely a few millions to tens of millions of years.

> why we're not focusing more on adaptation to than prevention of climate change

The reality is that prevention is cheaper (there is also an issue of distribution of the cost, though). Prevention of climate change effectively means not using energy from fossil fuels, while adaptation means paying extra energy cost for each unit of energy you get from fossil fuels.

This extra cost is actually greater than extra cost that would be incurred if you used non-fossil fuel source. So if you decide to continue to use fossil fuel sources at all, the total cost (savings due to cheap fuel + mitigation costs) will always be higher than the non-fossil energy sources (higher cost to get the energy but savings on mitigation).

There are enough gigatons of carbon (oil, coal, methanhydrates) available and ready to burn to render this planet uninhabitable in a time frame of centuries. That's nothing someone can adapt to. We can adapt to +2°C, likely to +4°C and perhaps even to +6°C, but there has to be an upper limit, otherwise you simply keep adapting until you run out of money.

Why is it so hard to imagine changing our lifestyle might be the easiest thing to do?

The tropics right now are cool enough to live in, right? I have hard time believing even +50°C would render the planet uninhabitable.

You're right Bill Gates and Warren Buffet will survive.

How about the entirety of Russia? I don't see why it takes being rich to live in a formerly-cold now-hot area.

And even people in poverty can migrate. I really don't understand your point.

+50°C ? The areas of Earth where today the temperature never grows beyond, say, -10°C (40°C sounds like close to an upper limit, to me) are quite small.

But most importantly... +50°C is survivable ? OK. Then when the temperature reaches +75°C, what do we do ? +100°C ?

I'm surprised at how many people seem to think we can simply patch problems from day to day and only do anything short term. It seems extraordinarily short-sighted to me.

Building dikes? Sure, building dams for sealevel three meters higher sounds reasonable, right? Oh well, that's what the Netherlands already have? Let's just build a new six-meter dam then, where's the problem? Well, six meters might be doable, but what do we do when 12 meters are needed? 50? 100?

Fair points in general on short-term solutions, but citation seriously needed on where you get 12 meters higher sea levels and 100 degrees C from.

In fact those two would essentially climax hilariously, because at 100 degrees the sea will be in the atmosphere, thousands of metres high.

I got them in the same place the GP got their 50°C from, I presume - my ass.

The point is: there is no predictable upper limit, period.

I wasn't trying to give a real number, I was saying that 'too hot, planetwide' is rather unrealistic. The initial ass-number was '6', why does your argument rely on numbers an order of magnitude larger?

Because there is no predictable upper limit, and any quick fix is at immediate risk of not being enough shortly later.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to postpone worrying about 50+ degrees until it's already shifted at least 5. If it turns out 5 is terrible, we'll have hundreds of years to implement plans to stop 50.

If you think 5 degrees is catastrophic, then sure worry about that in 2013. But it won't make the planet uninhabitable.

Look, it is not like adding 6°C on all temperatures and that's it. Weather is getting extreme and the environment changes then. There is a book called 6 degrees by Mark Lynas. It is a good read. He spend some time in the archives and collected what might change by comparing to past times. Rainforests will probably die or at least move, sea level will raise by ~70 meters.

On top millions or billions of people start moving around because their homes and their jobs no longer exist. Food will get a problem because the oceans go acid. Did you ever chose jellyfish as a diet? Social friction will increase. After Sandy NY run short on gas supply, remember the guarded gas stations? The western economy relies on weather behaving within a reasonable range, imagine cities without food, because the just in time transport system stucks in 2m snow for weeks. I can continue the list even more, but the point is basically everything will change: culture, economy, cities, agriculture, food, friends, borders, countries, and so on.

The last thing I can imagine is 7 billion people moving orderly to Russia or Canada to begin a new live in peace.

Many areas already deal with extreme temperature variance, the only change will be which areas need to do so.

And exactly how fast do you think the overall temperature is going to change? All the predictions I've seen have been single digit degrees per century.

he only change will be which areas

That's not even wrong.

What's changing is the total energy within the biosphere. That's going to have profound effects throughout the ecosystem. Modeling just what those will be is very difficult.

One trend that's already emerged has been an increasing variability and range to the jet stream, especially in how it increasingly "wanders" north to south. This means that regions might see very rapid and wide temperature swings from summer to winter or back over the course of a few hours to a day. For crops and ecosystems which rely on more predictable and stable conditions, this could prove deadly.

Glacial melting and rising seawaters don't just mean floods, but salt-water intrusion, disturbances of ocean current systems (themselves responsible for transporting vast quantities of heat around the globe, etc.

Some breakdowns in systems seem to have been very rapid. During and toward the end of the last glaciation period, vast ice dams and lakes would form, some over what's now Utah (historic Lake Bonneville, of which the Great Salt Lake is among the last remnants), as well as in eastern Canada. The formation and bursting of ice dams in the pacific northwest lead to the formation of what are now known as the Washington Badlands by way of the Missoula Floods -- as many as 25 major inundation events which created waterfalls, gravel banks, sandbars, and other features, over what's now dry land. Flow speeds exceeded 80 MPH and consisted of cubic _miles_ of water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_Floods

In what's now Eastern Canada, bursting of an ice dam shut is thought to have shut down the Gulf Stream at least once, in a period of one year or less: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/09/090914-north...

Both circumstances involved warming, though from lower temperatures than today's baseline. The point is that secondary and tertiary climate change effects can be difficult to predict, but also exhibit very great nonlinearity. That is: we don't know what might happen, and it could happen very quickly, even in hours, or days. Certainly massive changes in less than a year's time are possible.

The icy tundra areas mostly don't have good soil. Even if they get the temperatures of the American midwest they will not produce nearly the same calories/year/acre. So even if populations could all start migrating north (without somehow triggering world-spanning conflicts as millions of people get forced across national borders) their food source won't be coming with them.

There are a lot of other problems with release of carbon on a massive scale, starting with gross acidification of the oceans and a significant reduction of oxygen in the atmosphere.

A +50 change means the hottest regions, that already reach up to 50 degrees, would hit boiling point for extended periods of the year. Some if those are by the sea, which would continuously boil, filling the atmosphere with steam and cause a new greenhouse effect boost and a wave of heating that would push temperatures even higher.

The problem is there are certain thresholds that cause new greenhouse effects to kick in and push temperatures even higher. For example, if temperatures rise enough to melt the Methane frost layers, they'll melt and probably kick global temperatures up another 5 or 6 degrees all by themselves. If we trigger enough of these knock on effects in a chain, well end up with an unlivable atmosphere. That's the extreme scenario, but it is not impossible.

An atmosphere filled with clouds would cause more greenhouse than the amount of sun it reflects away? Do you have a source on that?

At a wet-bulb temperature of 95F (35C), thermal stress is lethal to humans in a few hours in most cases.

While air temperatures routinely exceed 95F (which is already hot), that's generally at much lower humidities. A wet-bulb 95F means that relative humdity is 100%, and the body effectively cannot cool itself.

You're also going to have trouble cooling yourself from your surroundings, as everything will be that warm -- water, ground, etc. http://www.tgdaily.com/sustainability-features/49635-future-...

Even swimmers have been known (or suspected) to succumb to thermal stress when swimming through warm waters. The international body governing open-water competitions has set an upper bound for competitions of 31C (87.8F): http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/Commentary/3...

Most swimming pools are heated to between 78 and 82F. The difference between the lower and upper ends of that range are pronounced: slightly cool to slightly warm if you're not very active. Many swimmers will find anything over 80F unpleasantly warm, and may prefer cooler temperatures, though lower than about 72F generally feels chilly regardless.

How on earth is this ludicrous wall of text the top comment? "We should look into moving into outer space once we've destroyed the planet" -- are you for real?

I'm with you on #2. One way to look at this chart is that if we 'correct' all of our input into the system then the system will revert to its previous norm, i.e. we'll plunge into an ice age and glaciers will begin to move south over North America and Europe. On the other hand our ability to 'fine tune' our control is all but impossible on these large scales so "control" of the climate is still beyond our reach.

So perhaps investing in keeping old people alive during hot and cold snaps might be a good investment and infrastructure that is impervious to same.

A couple points:

1) CO2 concentration has a long half-life in the atmosphere, so even if we immediately stopped emitting every molecule of fossil fuel-derived CO2 into it, we'd still see the effects of what we've done for the past century for at least another couple centuries.

2) People mostly hope to lower the rate at which our CO2 emissions rate increases, and maybe in certain countries make it negative. Both of those, however, are derivatives of the relevant value for purposes of the greenhouse effect and ocean acidification: the absolute level in the atmosphere. Which has zero chance of decrease even under the most aggressive conceivable prevention efforts.

3) The graph doesn't even cover the last major glaciation event: the last glacial maximum was around 20k years ago.

4) Biggest issue: the people who will be most adversely effected by climate change are people who don't have the resources to adapt. I don't dismiss the idea out of hand that it might be cheaper to put efforts into mitigation than prevention: we're definitely going to have to do some mitigation work. But you are not going to convince Western countries to spend trillions of dollars building levees in Bangladesh.

What's with thanking Netflix for TED talks??? They are available anyway at TED.com anyway or other places, given their Creative Commons license…

I think he's thanking netflix for making them easily available and discoverable to him.

Oh, I know. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_acceptance_factor

Your #2 reminds me of something Bjorn Lomborg (yeah yeah, I'm not a fan either - nor a hater, in fact, I just don't know enough about the nuances of the issues involved to have an opinion that's well thought out enough to defend) said in an interview on Dutch television years ago.

He said the money spent on implementing Kyoto was much better spent combating the direct effects of global warming, for example by building dikes in areas that were too poor to build them themselves and that were likely to be affected by rising sea levels, like Bangladesh.

To my layman's ears, that sounded quite reasonable.

It still does, in fact.

How do you fairly raise those revenues that'd fund the trillions of dollars worth of mitigation efforts? People who disproportionately generate CO2 emissions are disproportionately responsible for the need for mitigation efforts.

So Lomborg's argument isn't so much against putting a Pigouvian tax on carbon emissions, as it is earmarking the revenues derived from those emissions for mitigation efforts instead of using it to pay down deficits or pay for other services. Which is certainly something I can agree with, but it seems politically implausible. First lets get a carbon tax.

Learned something today. Thanks. Didn't know what a "Pigouvian tax" was.

Somewhat more on topic: in the interview I saw Lomborg didn't talk about earmarking or anything like that, he merely said the money would be better spent elsewhere.

Maybe a carbon tax would indeed be the best way to go about collecting the money, come to think of it. "Want to pollute? Fine. Just pay up for the 'Dikes for Bangladesh' fund first."

I think that we, as the human population, should actively move toward more efficient, less destructive industry on principle

That's definitely a must. But I'm not sure if it's doable, seeing the global population just keeps on growing: as long as industry is destructive and always more of it is needed, the net result still is destructive. Might sound bold, but a lot of problems would be solved by combining clean industry with a _lot_ less people to serve.

Notice how abused land is mostly not privately owned by its abusers.

Clear cutters are given lumber rights temporarily, but since they don't own the lot, they gain nothing from replanting and controlled burning.

Another great asset of private ownership is the inherent drive toward efficiency, which has been great as far as environmental impact reduction goes.

"Thanks, Netflix"? www.ted.com