alt Hacker News> It is 100% an existential threat, but the existential bit happens in 100 years
No, it’s not, and no, we don’t know that. Humans will survive climate change. Rich countries will survive, too.
We will all suffer. Economically, healthwise and aesthetically. But that’s not existential. Framing it as such is disingenuous and counterproductive.
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RCP8.5 is pretty much ruled out by people as unlikely for some reason, even as we have the major super power on the planet pulling out of the Paris agreement on climate change.
There is clearly a temperature at which this planet will not support human life, and we could definitely get the planet to that temperature if we don't change course and reach net zero.
Saying its not an existential threat is just wild to me.
Perhaps we should be using ‘apocalyptic threat’ instead?
We will go from 8 billion humans to maybe 1 or 2 billion humans, but that is probably going to happen either way. Poor countries will be obliterated, rich countries are likely to see tanking living standards. Long term humans go extinct (or are superseded by some sort of singularity successor) and the earth recovers in a few thousand years as if we never existed.