You're lucky you get to die soon enough for that to be appropriate.

Not sure what you are trying to say here.

He's saying you don't have to worry because by the time it gets really bad, it will be someone else's problem. Which is exactly how we got into this mess in the first place.

The reticence of politicians to address climate change is strongly correlated with their age.

Of course there are outliers but it seems clear that "I'm not going to be alive when the shit hits the fan" does a lot to assuage existential anxieties related to climate change.

Blaming the elderly here seems misguided to me.

I suspect the lifestyle of an average 20-year-old today puts much more burden on the environment/climate than the lifestyle of their parents in their twenties.

ADD: The amount of time each spends _talking_ about climate change is a different matter of course.

At least with regard to Americans, your suspicion is incorrect.

American CO2 emissions per capita reached their highest level in the 1970s and declined later:

https://knoema.com/atlas/United-States-of-America/CO2-emissi...

Comparing the behavior of people now to people 20-40 years ago seems dishonest. Many new technologies have prevailed since then, and cultures around consumption have rapidly shifted.

We should consider instead the current consumption habits of both cohorts for an appropriate comparison.

I don't think the climate cares much about our technologies and cohorts. A ton of CO2 is a ton of CO2. Since you claimed I was arguing dishonestly, I withdraw from the discussion.

Different technologies emit CO2 at different rates. Different technologies are prevalent in society at different times. That's my only point.

Didn't mean to make it sound so harsh, "dishonest" wasn't meant to be a reflection of your intention. I chose the wrong word.

What are the 19 first?

- what I have for dinner (ok, sorry, it said global problems), so maybe:

- collapse of bird, insect, reptile populations over all the developed world due to pesticide use, habitat loss, etc.

- decline of natural environment, waters, forests, etc.

- loss of linguistic/cultural diversity around the world

- decline of institutions and social cohesion in my immediate neighborhood

- society-wide addictive tendencies

- the commercialization of more and more aspects of human life

- ...

Among the many effects of climate change, 700 million people live in areas that will become almost uninhabitable due to rising sea level and flooding at current emission rates. Do you seriously think that people adapting by speaking a different language is as bad as that?

Yes, on my list the latter is a more serious problem than the first, it is more certain to be happening, and its effects are more permanent.

> more certain

Do you doubt that climate change will displace 100s of millions and destroy many large and distinct cultures (e.g. island states) at current emission rates?

That could certainly happen (although the island states I have heard mentioned in this context have populations more in the 10s of thousands), but in terms of culture/language loss this would be a small event compared to the loss in the past/current decades/century, already happening without climate change.