How does the fact that similar temperatures & CO2 levels existed in the past protect me from climate harms now?
I keep hearing people emphasize that similar climate conditions existed in the past — and therefore I shouldn’t worry about global warming. But I don’t understand this logic. After all, the earth has experienced ice ages in the past — and if we were headed into one now, knowing of past ice ages would hardly keep me any warmer as a result. So why should I consider this "the earth has seen it all before" argument valid?
It’s not a logical argument. In the past when the climate was different, there were different species living on Earth, adapted to that climate. We’re adapted to our climate. The fact that life can exist in hotter climates doesn’t mean that we can exist or thrive in hotter climates.
Well, in the past, the earth has experienced many states, or eras. Some include the Paleocene, and the Eocene. Each one has a very different climate and in history, eras with warmer climates generally come before ice ages. Some scientists say that because we are getting warmer, the water vapor from evaporated water will eventually condense into clouds, which would "Block out" the sun. This would in turn, lead to an ice age. So, in conclusion, they are basically saying that there is nothing to worry about because the earth has gone through this before, and it will recover and send us into a period of extreme cooling, as it always had.
P.S. it might not be era it might be eon… ill look it up
Deniers are the ones that "emphasize that similar climate conditions existed in the past".
If they feel that it is a natural process and that we are not actually accelerating the warming, sorry they want it called a "climate change" process. They can justify their notion that this natural process is actually pointing back to colder "climate change" processes.
Then they can say that this natural process is not affected at all by what we are doing. Thus all of our pollution and degradation to the earth has no bad effects at all. It is all natural and man can be proud that they are keeping such good care of the earth.
However if we are indeed at fault for making the earth worse and global warming is a valid trend the "my bad" thing kicks in and we then have to play the blame game instead. Deniers cannot face the truth that we are being bad to the earth. It doesn’t protect anyone to say it is natural except deniers.
I’d have to say that climate history will do nothing to protect you, instead of focusing on the climate history you need to focus on human history and how humans have adapted to the various harsh environment that we inhabit around the globe. What are the climate harms now and how have humans adapted to similar climate harms in the past? Because the earth has seen it all before, because Humans have developed solutions in the past and present to deal with the climate harms you seem to be so worried about and in the past they didn’t have science to tell them droughts, floods, hurricanes and sea level changes are caused by X, Y, or Z. There answer was to develop solutions and most the time relatively simple solutions, none of which involve controlling the earths temperature.
What have people done past and present to counter the effects of droughts? What are people living in drought stricken areas and thriving doing differently than those suffering. Did they reduce there CO2 emissions?
What have people done past and present to counter the effects of flooding? What are people living on flood planes doing wrong, is there a place that floods less they could live, could they learn from other civilizations/populations that have built infrastructure to lessen the effects of flooding?
What have people done past and present to deal with rising sea levels?
Are any of these new threats, does adding "more extreme because of man made global warming" make them more threatening than they’ve ever been before?
Was it failed engineering and being below sea level that made Katrina bigger catastrophe or is global warming induced extremeness cause the devastation?
Well let me put it this way – the fact that we are here now and sufficiently advanced to be talking to each other on the internet is surely a pretty good argument for mankind’s ability to survive changes in climate, no?