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Gosh, I don't know where to start. I guess first, is your concern that people are worrying too much? It is unpleasant to hear about the ever-increasing speed of melting the Arctic and Antarctic, slowing ocean currents, rising seas, destabilizing weather patterns, etc. but your characterization of climate change as a little more rain here, a little less there, warmer here, colder there, seems deliberately obtuse. The governments of the world have certainly not treated it like a crisis despite the huffing and puffing, and we continue to heat the world at increasing rates and no one in power is making or even hinting at the kind of sacrifice needed to stop the temperature rise. I think your suggestion of bringing your own bag to the grocery store as an imposition indicates you are at the wrong level of analysis. Making light of Gore's "climate crisis" in the 80's also completely misunderstands the issues and meaningful time frames- He was warning people when there was probably still time to do something about it, because stopping global warming would take a long time even if we did treat it as a crisis, which we have not. While there is the appearance of incremental warming (like the frog in the pot of water not noticing he is slowly cooking) there are multiple weather and ocean systems under stress and when they break down will likely cause sudden change and it will be long too late to do anything. The warming is also built into the future, if we stopped all carbon emissions now warming would continue for the foreseeable future but maybe, maybe we would not hit all the tipping points we are rushing headlong towards. I think your post exemplifies the problem that we struggle to act on things we can't see and our time frame is so short.

The world population has grown over the last few thousand years as a direct result of increasingly efficient farming methods and now we have 7 billion people dependent on weather patterns that are, at the very least, quite rare in our galaxy. the band of weather conditions that can sustain 7 or 9 or 10 billion people on Earth is very narrow. I don't think we are in immediate (100 years) danger of extinction but it would not take much instability much sooner to make it difficult to feed a billion people during the transitions to farming new locations etc.

There is no political possibility of meaningful action in my opinion prior to a system collapse, so maybe your don't worry be happy motif is better psychologically, lets enjoy the heating pot we are in while it is at the hot tub level, much more pleasant than the cold water we started in

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Thanks for the perspective, David. Not to debate you point by point, but just two comments for now:

--"...bring your own bag to the grocery store." It's a small thing. But It gets political. Part of Trump's or Le Pen's appeal is to those who see these minor inconveniences collectively as unneeded impositions. Even if they're wrong, it has political implications we need to take seriously. If you think governments are not doing enough now, what happens if either of those--and their ilk--are in control?

--"...if we stopped all carbon emissions now warming would continue for the foreseeable future." My point, exactly. So we should be looking as seriously at adaptation as well as at mitigation. As one piece, technology is not static. Some day--likely after we're gone-- we'll figure out fusion as a prime, renewable, cheap energy source. The Venice Sea Wall may be a primitive prototype for coastal areas. Yes, change will come, but I have greater faith, it seems, that we will cope with the problem.

...To be continued.

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To use perhaps an inapt analogy, so far, Malthus has been wrong. Using David's assessment, your optimism for adaptation is dependent on Malthus continuing to be wrong. I agree that technological adaptation, along with other mitigation strategies including nuclear power, will be important in combating climate change. We have so many crises now that it's easy for the average citizen to ignore one that seems far in the future. Is there a term that mediates between complacency and crisis that might be more compelling as a political strategy?

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"Is there a term that mediates between complacency and crisis that might be more compelling as a political strategy?" It's hard to imagine another term that can be "compelling" and motivating. Existential? No, that is in the same category as crisis. What we have is a chronic problem. Can't we work with that as circumstances dictate?

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Maybe. It would support your argument of focusing on mitigation strategies. An argument favoring a harm reduction approach is that it might be more acceptable to conservatives who agree that there's a problem but are unwilling to support drastic measures. A problem is that mitigation strategies might be overwhelmed by the speed of climate change.

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