I hear these discussions on temperature variations and I do get the arguments. However, has anyone on here read Jared Diamond's book "Collapse"?
I have read and re-read it, in parts, several times. A bit of a chore to wade through it, no doubting that, but towards the end, outlined are about twelve, seemingly discrete, but inter-related proximate threats to our wonderful contemporary Global Society. All are essentially driven by #11 - Human Numbers and exacerbated by several times by #12 - Human Expectations of what the world owes them. Anyone who can read this post and purports to want more equal distribution of the planet's rapidly vanishing resources might do well to dwell on the inevitable consequences of this on their own very fortunate circumstances.
Here is the rest of list, in short form:
1. Habitat destruction, or deforestation
2. Over-fishing
3. Extinction of multiple species
4. Soil degradation
5. Running out of finite hydrocarbon reserves
6. Fresh water shortage
7. Photosynthetic capacity of the planet
8. Toxic by products of industrialisation
9. Impact of alien species
10. Human influenced climate change
I rather suspect that climate change really does come bottom of list, because it is by a long way the least proximate threat, and that the one that is most immediate is #4 Soil Degradation. The three main elements here are erosion, loss of nutrients and creeping salinization. All derive from the inescapable need to feed everyone today and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow... And everything that we do to try and overcome this obstacle in the short term, just makes things worse.