No, it's not a straw man. Yes, many species will go extinct. Human civilization will probably collapse. Maybe the human species will go extinct. But life will go on, and within a billion years, who will care?

We wouldn't be here, but for the last major extinction event.

Anyway, I'm not arguing for inaction. But I do think that it's too late. Exponentials and positive feedback are full of surprises.

So what's your point?

Everyone knows that there will continue to be life on earth. Everyone knows that noone will care 1e9 years hence.

Are you suggesting we shouldn't care either?

Are you just trying to be "more correct" than other people by pointing out literal falsehoods in things that they've said even though noone is actually taking it literally? (That qualifies as a strawman argument)

Either way, your statement is not leaving anyone more informed than they were before, and carries an attitude of resignation/despair which is not helpful.

You're very right about positive feedback and it is almost certainly too late to avoid a ton of damage. But whether our children will be able to live healthy happy lives 80 years from now in the places they've grown up (or anywhere) is still an open question and could very well depend on how well we get our act together over the next decade. There is some urgency here, and we should strive as much as possible for our discourse on the topic to be productive.

Exaggeration doesn't help the argument that anthropogenic climate change is a serious problem.

I am not suggesting that we shouldn't care.

Maybe you're right that there's still a chance of averting catastrophic impact if "we get our act together over the next decade". That's what I've been arguing for decades. But in recent years, the signs of increasing rate of change and positive feedbacks have become much clearer.

What are the chances that the US will cut CO2 emissions by 50% in a decade or two? I'd say that it's about zero. Suburbanization is a huge conundrum. Plus all that old infrastructure. Not to mention the fact that a substantial minority thinks that it's all bullshit, that God is on our side, and that it's all part of immanent Armageddon.

> What are the chances that the US will cut CO2 emissions by 50% in a decade or two? I'd say that it's about zero.

I agree. But so does everyone else. So why point it out unless to argue in favor of despair?

Placing a sufficient price on CO2 emissions would probably do it. Odds of getting our legislatures to do this may be slim, but why not try?

> Exaggeration doesn't help the argument that anthropogenic climate change is a serious problem.

I'm not exaggerating. The EPA's forecasted temperature increase over the next 83 years is a confidence interval with upper bounds at 12F for the USA and 8.6F for the global average. (https://www.epa.gov/climate-change-science/future-climate-ch...) A change of that magnitude will have tremendous consequences:

- Changing rainfall patterns and foundering marine ecosystems might threaten public food and water supplies.

- The resulting economic fallout might create large migrations of people who will have to compete for space in regions of the world already overfull.

- Large regions of the country would become unpleasant to reside in on account of the temperature alone.

- Violence and poverty could become widespread.

These seem to me to be genuine threats that it is realistic to believe that people alive today might face in their old age.

I think that we agree on the facts.

I just think that focusing on human impacts has the best chance. Indeed, your examples are all about human impacts.

When I read "kill the planet", it seems about much more than that. Maybe that's just my ecohippie spiritualism ;)

>>But I do think that it's too late.

Why?

It doesn't look like we are staring extinction right in the face.

Any talk of reasonable influence on climate is over a few centuries.

So why do do you its 'late'?

Right. I doubt that climate change alone could lead to human extinction. But climate change could bring starvation, chaos and war. And there are tens of thousands of nuclear weapons.

But yes, probably not extinction.

More likely is collapse of industrial civilization. That will cut CO2 emissions, and climate will recover is a few centuries. Many other species will go extinct in the process, however. It'll be a major extinction event.