Because the vast majority of the earths history has been without ice on the poles. Obviously this will force changes on humans no doubt.
However, trying to shoehorn this natural fact into a political / carbon-credit trading scheme is deeply cynical that is apparent to most >100 IQ people.
Totally agree that it will be a hardship. However the following things are all true: (a) There is a chance that "carbon taxes" will lead to just as much practical hardship on the poor, (b) There is no guarantee that these carbon taxes will work, (c) There is no guarantee that the poles will even melt.
The layers of uncertainty are piled so high, that a rational response is "wait and see". I do recognize however this approach is negative to grant funding, so these 'scientist' lapse into apocalyptic fire-and-brimstone talk to rouse the faithful.
Wait and see what? What are we waiting to see and what do we do about it? Waiting implies not taking a course of action, but we either pump carbon or try not to, there’s no neutral action.
The majority of Earth's history made it a completely uninhabitable place for humans. Seems like it would be in our combined best interest to prevent it from becoming that way again.
+2.5C will not render the World uninhabitable, but it will do nasty stuff to the weather patterns in many parts of the globe, and it is expected that this will result in decreased food production and rising sea levels.
Most of the people on HN will be fine; we'll be alive, we'll still have jobs, and we'll have food and energy albeit at a higher price. Our societies may end up a bit poorer and the standard of living will probably be on a level that your grandparents had in the 70s.
Hundreds of millions of other people will be less fortunate.
Considering those hundreds of millions are also the ones most adverse to reducing their output (since it’s slowly taking them out of abject poverty and starvation), there is a good case for respecting their wishes and see where they take us. As you say, “we” have less to lose than “them”, after all; and we’ve already spent so many centuries already dictating them what to do, that it would probably be a bad time to double down on this sort of thing.
2.5C global increase is huge. It's a chaotic system, with a crazy number of interconnected feedback loops. Think of the earth's climate like a boulder balanced on a hill.
Aside from just counter-arguing your point which is easily brushed off, I want to ask a genuine question -
What about this dialogue makes you skeptical? What's your view of what's really going on? Politically or otherwise.
Have you ever watched the news and heard about a refugee crisis? Imagine that but a thousand time worse.
Most of the world's major population centers are near the coast. With significant sea level rise, those people will move. We're not merely talking about millions of refugees here, but possibly a billion. Put your mind to work and imagine what that will do.
I think talking about Earth history is misleading or trying to distract from the problem.
Sure Earth climate was worst 4,5 billions years ago, however Earth capacity to support the life of billions human is and will be severely impacted, and this is was matter for us, mere mortals.
