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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a research scientist No, Earth is not dying. Species will be replaced.

It's humans, specifically, that have a problem, because temperature increases and extreme flood/drought events across the world destabilize societies and force people to migrate for food, water and jobs, causing conflict around the world. We are not food-secure as a species if all the agricultural changes due to global warming come to pass.

However humans are incredibly inventive beings and will think of effective solutions, just as they've thought of them in the past.

Just because the world is changing fast, doesn't mean it's changing for the worst, even though that's what the media wants you to think! Bad news sells more than good news.

The good news is that we have made rapid medical advances and have treatments of cancers and others diseases that prolong survival. People around the globe don't suffer as much from preventable illnesses and the global standard of living has gone up dramatically compared to 50 years ago. We tend not to notice in our wealthy neck of the woods, but most third world countries which were constantly on the brink of famine in the 20th century, with extremely low standards of living (high infant and maternal mortality, no electricity, safe water access, or family planning) now power their life with solar panels that increase water access (wells powered by solar electricity), education level (more light to teach/read), and medical care.

We need to navigate the choppy waters ahead, but the reality is that humans are better off now than they ever were before. We need to keep that going despite forced migration, changing agricultural paradigms, and urban overheating.

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Thank you to PP for spelling this out.  I agree.  Our current era is troubled but we have come so far in the last few hundred years.  Have faith that humanity can course correct.  People already live in all kinds of extreme environments from snow-filled to desert.   We will be able to adapt.[/quote]
I’m not trying to be mean but don’t you think you are saying this from a place of privilege/because climate change hasn’t impacted you and yours yet?  Read the news. It’s already having devastating impact in other places.  Wet bulb temps/deaths related to heat, cities with water shortages, communities whose source of food/livelihood have been destroyed. [/quote]

Exactly- the poor in developing countries are first to feel the pain of climate change even though we in the developed world have caused nearly all of the problems of speeding temperature rise. Crops are failing people are dying people are migrating or staying home and burning and drowning and dying of heat in extreme weather events.

I didn’t intend not to have children, but it worked out that way. I spent a lot of years regretting and sad but feel less so as I see the natural world deteriorating all around me - not just the Amazon and the ice caps but also the never ending buildup all around me in my own neighborhood while everything nature is getting squeezed. There are less than half as many animals on earth today as there were the year I was born - but there are 4x as many humans. How can that possibly be good? We are invasive and destructive and the epidemic of mental illness in our societies is clearly more than any other thing caused by our disconnection from nature, of which we are intended to be a part, and not apart from.[/quote]

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