I’m responding to the comments about the extinction of life on Earth, not the extinction of humanity. As you can see on the graph, for most of the last 500 million years the Earth was hotter than it is now, and obviously there was life.
I was not referencing the first couple paragraphs of the linked article, since obviously the first few million years of Earth’s existence are irrelevant, and they’re the same source, which tells me you did not actually read the article; please read through next time and respond charitably rather than assuming I’m some kind of crank. I would appreciate it if you read to understand rather than to respond. It’s very frustrating when people replying to you assume you are saying something completely different rather than reading what you said within its context - a Venus scenario wiping out all life. HN commenters should do much better. This isn’t Reddit. Your entire comment is premised on me saying or thinking something I never suggested or implied.
It’s true that humanity has survived during hotter and colder periods, but certainly nothing like that depicted on the 500mil graph, and anyway industrial civilization is obviously much more fragile.
> In the last couple of years I've been thinking more often about a Venus scenario where life does not survive. We are just hoping that life will find a new equilibrium in the next couple million years like it has in the past. But if temperatures rise too fast, the planet will just get cooked before enough CO2 will be sequestered. The great filter is still in front of us.
Clearly, even a rapid return to the projected IPCCC 2100 worst-case numbers will not cause this scenario. Would it be deleterious for advanced industrial civilization? [1] Yes. Would it continue to be part of the mass extinctions we're causing? Yes. Will it "cook the earth" or "boil the oceans" as he suggests downthread? No.
[1] And so are a lot of other things. Whether people like it or not, advanced industrial civilization is unsustainable with or without climate change.
I was not referencing the first couple paragraphs of the linked article, since obviously the first few million years of Earth’s existence are irrelevant, and they’re the same source, which tells me you did not actually read the article; please read through next time and respond charitably rather than assuming I’m some kind of crank. I would appreciate it if you read to understand rather than to respond. It’s very frustrating when people replying to you assume you are saying something completely different rather than reading what you said within its context - a Venus scenario wiping out all life. HN commenters should do much better. This isn’t Reddit. Your entire comment is premised on me saying or thinking something I never suggested or implied.
It’s true that humanity has survived during hotter and colder periods, but certainly nothing like that depicted on the 500mil graph, and anyway industrial civilization is obviously much more fragile.