I was just on a call to a Federal agency in DC today to discuss research related to green house gas emission reductions. The staff were excited but quick to point out that anything related to climate change means "substantial pressure from the White House". They were reluctant to even publicize the findings and this was for good news ("easy" to do, potentially saves industry millions) so I can imagine the reaction to bad news.

What good does convincing people do if the government won't even admit climate change is real?

The "huge" savings for our industry are minimal in the grand scheme of things. It's depressing to realize how we are past the prevention phase of climate change and rapidly passing through chances to more easily mitigate the impacts.

Preserving human knowledge and art [0] won't require mobilizing all of mankind; it could be done by a few individuals and it's kinda already being done by Wikipedia, Wikia, "pirates" etc.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13944410

True, however, the problem is preserving humans from near extinction, not preserving our knowledge and culture for the few who might survive if we ignore the problem.

> for the few who might survive

It doesn't have to be for our survivors... We could, and I believe we should, do it for the next civilization to come after ours, even if it's a few alien visitors.

If for no other reason than to leave a legacy of our short existence against the infinity of this universe.

I and I'm sure most people on this planet don't care about leaving a legacy to a future species when the problem at hand is our own survival.

Nobody's saying we should give up or not try to survive, but IF the options came down to: Going extinct — or — Going extinct without any trace whatsoever of our existence left behind, which would you prefer?

You said it yourself: If you can't mobilize man to fight climate change, you aren't going to mobilize him to prepare for it either.

I won't care, because I'll be dead. So let me be clearer, the notion that anyone will care about leaving proof of our existence rather than themselves trying to survive I find laughable. It's an easy nonsense thing to say when living in relative comfort but when the reality of survival kicks in, such lofty bullshit will go right out the door and you'll be fighting to eat and live another day, not worrying about humanity leaving traces behind for posterity.