alt Hacker News> extinctions, but not extinction?
Yes. Extinctions are horrible, but they aren’t an existential threat to us. Climate change simply isn’t an existential threat. That doesn’t mean it isn’t urgent. Like, the Bronze Age collapse and black plague and WWII weren’t existential, doesn’t mean they’re fine. But raising the stakes beyond what the science says like this undermines the credibility of the real warnings.
I think it's really naïve to realize that climate change is an existential threat to many species, but not connect that we are part of the ecosystem which is being put in danger. You are experiencing survivorship bias.
Even if we don't go extinct. It's still an existential threat to our way of life. Which is also a totally valid interpretation of the phrase.