Climate Change: What's your take?

[The Fury]

sc94597 said:

Can you define "mess it up?" Rapid climate change will affect a few things - as it has always done in the past: destroy ecosystems, make certain species extinct/endangered, allow other types of organisms to florish (mammals vs. dinosaurs, i.e) and affect the evolutionary progression of certain species. 

But I can't think of any scenario that would mean the Earth will become uninhabital( or mostly uninhabital) for life (even human life) by increasing greenhouse gases at the current rate (and that is assuming they won't drop off with new technology, like say Nuclear Fusion), with the exception of the runaway greenhouse effect (which is probabalistically infinitessimal and requires unlikely boundary and initial conditions.) 

So will the planet last? Of course. Does that necessarily mean there aren't ecological costs involved? No. But it is important to not overstate the issue and fearmonger, because then it distracts people from the real point at hand. 

Will  the world be the same as it is now? No, but as humans we've adapted and lived in much harsher climates. With our technology we can adapt to this, and probably preserve many species in the process as well. 

Honestly, there are some more debalitating and necessarily solluble environmental concerns in my opinion, such as the deforestation of rain forests, and water pollution/scarcity which are more immediate threats to human life. Climate change has a role in these problems as well (oddly enough both positive and negative), but there are much more influential human activities involved than just that. 

A generalisation of the point. The planet will be fine, we know that, it's just a planet but it's about being sustainable. I honestly don't care what the issue is that humans are causing but that we are causing it. Burning tonnes of extra Co2 in the atmosphere, deforestation, over fishing (one of my biggest issues), hunting animals to extinction for soups and medicines that do nothing. Much of the worlds natural problems aren't a natural cycle of the planet changing and biodiversity changing to adapt it's new environment. It's us doing it.

Humans can adapt but what of everything else? We took millions of years to be the dominant life on the planet and are now able to live anywhere through technology, a polar bear lives in the north pole and it's habitat is disappearing. Sure the planet might not be uninhabitable for us but that doesn't mean we should continue on like we have done.