I am as concerned about climate change as anyone. I think it's the most serious problem we face today. But it is very important to keep some perspective here, if for no other reason, so that we who believe this is a serious problem don't lose credibility in the political battles to come.
1. Earth is not going to become Venus. The surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead, hot enough to completely sterilize the planet. That is not going to happen here even under an absolute worst-case scenario.
2. Homo sapiens is almost certainly not going to go extinct even in a worst-case scenario. We are a very robust species capable of adapting to an extraordinarily wide variety of situations. We are very, very tough to kill en masse. We ourselves have tried to wipe out segments of our own population in the past and barely made a dent. The biggest killer in our history, bubonic plague, barely killed a third of us.
3. What is at risk, and what IMHO is worrisome, is the modern technological civilization we have built for ourselves. Our infrastructure and political systems are highly dependent on a stable climate. If we lose that, would could easily go back to the middle ages. (We probably won't go back to neolithic times because knowledge is also pretty robust, and we will almost certainly be able to keep basic technologies alive. But a Mad-Max type scenario is a real possibility.)
4. Colonizing the moon or other planets won't save us. All extra-terrestrial environments accessible to use with current technology are much harsher than earth will be even in a worst-case scenario. If we and our civilization can't survive here, we can't survive anywhere.
1. Earth is not going to become Venus. The surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead, hot enough to completely sterilize the planet. That is not going to happen here even under an absolute worst-case scenario.
2. Homo sapiens is almost certainly not going to go extinct even in a worst-case scenario. We are a very robust species capable of adapting to an extraordinarily wide variety of situations. We are very, very tough to kill en masse. We ourselves have tried to wipe out segments of our own population in the past and barely made a dent. The biggest killer in our history, bubonic plague, barely killed a third of us.
3. What is at risk, and what IMHO is worrisome, is the modern technological civilization we have built for ourselves. Our infrastructure and political systems are highly dependent on a stable climate. If we lose that, would could easily go back to the middle ages. (We probably won't go back to neolithic times because knowledge is also pretty robust, and we will almost certainly be able to keep basic technologies alive. But a Mad-Max type scenario is a real possibility.)
4. Colonizing the moon or other planets won't save us. All extra-terrestrial environments accessible to use with current technology are much harsher than earth will be even in a worst-case scenario. If we and our civilization can't survive here, we can't survive anywhere.