I find that claim also really hard to believe (personally). I mean - I do agree that the climate changes. The world is a variable place and of late, it seems like we've had some warmer temperatures. That's a pretty reasonable statement I think most of Australia would agree with.
But from there you have to ask:
- What's causing the changes
- Are the changes leading to negative or positive outcomes
I have an open mind on the first question and I Do accept climate change due to human impact is possible (but I haven't concluded that way).
On the second question it would seem that many measurable indicators of propserity have actually been positive over the same period that climate change has supposedly been about to kill the whole world. For example - grain crops have reached record highs. The old fears that humans would run out of food because of over population was proven very very wrong. Poverty around the world has been reduced by record amounts (particularly in Africa and China). Average life expectancy in most countries has increased and not decreased.
If climate change is as bad as these self indulgent 16 year olds from Sweden say it is, then surely you would expect to see some negative impacts on human life expectancy or food production or natural disasters. But I don't think you see any of those (arguably).
There's a few things to unpack here.
First is the warmer temperatures. There's a few things to note there:
- As I mentioned, there is natural climate cycles. We're just altering those natural climate cycles. While climate change creates an overall higher average temperature, it doesn't mean we'll have the hottest year on record every year. It's over a time average
- Warmer temperatures is a localised effect. Unfortunately it's not as simple as saying "climate change" when talking about localised effects as you have to take many variables into account. For example, climate change caused higher heating in the north pole which has resulted in an instability in the northern polar vortex which has resulted in freak cold snaps in the USA and parts of Europe that actually already killed thousands of people
In regard to what causes the changes. People will always debate that. Safest bet is to look to the experts on the subject. If they say it's humans then there's a decent chance it's humans.
On whether the changes are negative or positive. Mainly negative from everything I've read. There are some positives though. Changes in weather patterns and higher CO2 leads to more plant growth and certain regions becoming fertile which were previously not fertile. But these are only small bonuses as the weather shift also leads to greater drought in certain areas (like Australia), the higher CO2 leads to less oxygen in the oceans, warmer oceans (which means higher sea levels due to expansion) and more ocean acidification which we have already confirmed has killed off a large number of the things in the ocean that produce over 60% of our Oxygen (side note, trees aren't our primary source of Oxygen). Then there's many other bad effects as well. So it won't be all bad, just mainly bad.
I do agree that the Extinction Rebellion way oversell it. I read the IPCC reports and other research and none of it says that we are going to go extinct. It does list it as a possibility but we're talking a 0.00001% possibility. More likely that it'll just result in the deaths of billions.
We have advanced drastically in every aspect. Better health care, better distribution systems. It's likely by 2030 that we will peak at a global population of 10 billion and even then we'll have enough food to feed everyone. Food isn't the problem. Distribution is. Well, there is the impact of animal agriculture on the environment that has to be taken care of but that's a more complex issue.
I honestly believe that we will come up with a decent solution for climate change in the next 50-100 years. It just depends how many lives we're willing to lose between now and then.
