The press has done a good job of scaring the shit out of people:

> 54 percent of adults agreed that climate-change threatens our extinction as a species, a poll by Comres found, compared to just a quarter who disagreed.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-britain-protests-climate-c...

> Following the protests, 54 percent of adults agreed that climate-change threatens our extinction as a species, a poll by Comres found, compared to just a quarter who disagreed.

Key phrase: Following the protests.

The follow up question I wish these surveys would ask is: Have you changed your behavior and/or habits in order to minimize your personal impact?

My point is, many people give the answer they believe they should give, but their actual action are disconnected from that answer. As they say: Actions speak louder than words.

People really lack imagination, to comprehend how poor life can become without going anywhere near a threat of extinction.

It might be that they are given pause for thought by the comment of the Secretary-General of the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) who has said that the alarmist narrative on climate change has gone off the rails and has criticised the news media for provoking unjustified anxiety.

They might even read this and start asking some questions:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.0022...

4-6 degrees of warming to be expected over the next century. At 4 degrees they estimate the planet will be able to support 1 billion people. It isn't the press making these claims up out of thin air.

Nothing says the warming will stop there. It's a pretty rational thing to be afraid of, I mean, if the future of humanity means anything to you at all.

Well if the population drops by 85% in short order humans will almost certainly be emitting a lot less carbon.

Complete extinction is probably off the table. However, deaths of billions and wars over the remaining resources is quite likely if we hit the 4 degrees point.

I think “doomed” is appropriate in that context.

I agree, also it's like claiming "people who wear seatbelts incorrectly believe their car ride is doomed" or even worse like a driver feeling offended because a passenger puts on his seat belt.

I'd urge you to check out the "Deep Adaptation" paper by Jem Bendell. It provides some interesting insights about the function of tone in scientific literature on the subject.

I tend to agree. Better precision is nice, but the linked piece states explicitly that they don't expect extinction, but a decrease in viable population from 8+ billion to near 1 billion.

I haven't heard numbers that precise before. It's unclear what society looks like with that level of food insecurity. From what I've read, much smaller reductions in food security are correlated with large political upheaval throughout history.

Malthusian predictions have a long and storied history of reliably underestimating human adaptation to a staggering degree, even when coming from otherwise reputable sources, and I see the claims in the piece in much the same light.

That said, I agree with you that food insecurity and upheaval will become issues, big ones -- but only because they'll become big issues long before 7 billion people starve.

Very true on historical predictive accuracy. I can not back the claim that the carrying capacity of the earth will substantially decrease in a warmer climate. From what I have read, changes in local weather patterns have caused reductions in local food security in recent and ancient history and these triggered significant upheaval (even without the presence of mass starvation).

Based on recent research, a warming climate has the potential to reshape the availability of arable land.

My concerns are primarily around upheaval (seems likely in most scenarios), potentially needing to divert more resources to food acquisition (seems unlikely in the long term as you note), and a coincident reduction in perceived value of nature preserves (a selfish concern from my love of wildlife).

>That said, I agree with you that food insecurity and upheaval will become issues, big ones -- but only because they'll become big issues long before 7 billion people starve.

and they can only become big issues long before 7 billion people starve by accepting the worldview of looming distant doom

How many have to die before we’re doomed? Is being “doomed” reserved for human extinction, or is a few billion deaths enough? A few million? Look, the situation is bad. Really bad. This whole conversation is a distraction from the main point. We’re screwed/doomed/whatever you like, if we don’t act now.

You’re way off track if you think that human extinction is the measure of how concerned we should be.

Exactly! We're not "doomed": https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/c5rjs2/its_that_eas...

Well extinction is an extreme. Uncomfortable living condition are not much better.

> Uncomfortable living condition are not much better

You think uncomfortable living conditions is only marginally better than complete extrnction? You’re proving the OP’s point about hysterics

What's your point? Humankind can be doomed without the species going extinct because we are far more than just a few bodies walking around. Collapse of civilization is as bad as extinction from my point of view.