What would be more dangerous?

[ChescoWx]

Adapted from one of my favorite professional meteorologists....

[GaWx]

I voted cooling. To this point extreme cold has killed more than extreme heat though heat related deaths are increasing. -4C cooling would be devastating to food supply, among other things, which could easily kill hundreds of millions. GW has lead to increased crop sizes to this point. 

[Typhoon Tip]

It depends.   In simple terms, the peril is not measured in merely "cooling" or "warming"   It is a result of

d(cooling)/dt

or

d(warming)/dt  

  ( those mean 'rate of change' with respect to change in time ) 

#1, The vitality of the natural order of this planet cannot be realized if either a 2-4C cooling, or warming of that same magnitude, were to take place at a rate of change that exceeds species adaptation capacity.        d(cooling)/dt  > than d(adaptation)/dt   = adaptation failure.   Here's an example of this in geological history:  https://phys.org/news/2025-07-fossils-earth-famous-extinction-climate.html     Biological science has already defined a current mass extinction is under way.  Goes by Holocene, even Anthropocene extinction event - the latter, because while others are cleverly denying, science has already mathematically proven that human activity, ranging from profligate resource sequestration ... annexing habitats that probably even morally shouldn't belong to us, and Climate change, ALL, are causing species to disappear at orders of magnitude greater than the previous archeologically defined rates that were associated with stable Earth-states. 

#2, Humans are perhaps the most adaptable organism known to this world.   Our capacity for innovation is why. The fact that we live and thrive everywhere on the planet, regardless of specific ecologically defined region, evinces that.  We do so, because we can. We invent the means.  

However, if #1 fails ... it is not abundantly clear that innovation will be able to "invent our way out of this crisis" - so to speak.  Maybe we will. Maybe we won't.  But that is an evolutionary gamble. That's the whole crisis.  Not just whether the temperature is rising or falling. The question of cooling or warming is less useful without that deeper frame of understanding ( just op ed'ing here for the general reader - )

Humans are at the moment still wholly dependent upon the vast known, and unknown, eukaryotic and prokaryotic biota. Not just for their (external to our) biological existence, but their robust existence. They recycle the air we breath ( and use to destroy them ) with oxygen for the combustion in our cells, and the combustion that powers civility. They replenish nutrients into the soil and seas, which eventually/ultimately supplement the foods we need.  All of it.

Humans cannot do what they do, not at that scales required in order to stop what comes next if critical temperature sensitive species, of either kingdom, catastrophically fail because they could not adapt in time.  

Perhaps there's a bit of a race implied there.  A gamble really is the best word.  A really, really fucking stupid gamble.  Because it's betting some eases of living pay back against extinction.  Those that deny or argue against CC ... really don't understand that.  They don't because they don't understand the premise farther above - one that is proven to really already have begun.  It is thus far more logical to cease and desist activity that will cause stressing the pan-dimensional health of  'Gaia' (for lack of better word) beyond the point of adaptation.   Until such time as compensating technological recourse' exist and are proven successful at mediating the health of an entire planet (Kardashev 1 civilization - We're not there yet) by alternate means, it is entirely academic what needs to be done.   

 

[chubbs]

I voted warming. You didn't specify the baseline. I answered using today as the baseline with roughly 1.5C warming since 1800. Further warming from here is going to put the climate system way out of equilibrium, tiggering rapid change that would be very difficult to adapt to. Its like pushing a glass of water across the table, the rate of change is tolerable until the edge is reached. Same with climate tipping points: ice sheets, forests, glaciers, permafrost, ocean circulation etc.  If you had used pre-industrial as a baseline, I would have picked cooling, but neither option is attractive. 

 

[jbenedet]

You can tell that the expected range of outcomes is -4C to 4C….

I find it interesting that the counter- mainstream thought on this subject is that it’s not happening or it’s benign, but never that the warming will be much greater than consensus (2-4C). Moreover, this is the outcome with best odds based on the present trajectory.

 

 

 

[jbenedet]

Regarding the poll — 

Short term 2-4C increase is worse because most of the world’s population already lives in areas that are very warm and on the coast. This will ultimately cause population flows from these areas and tremendous economic costs.

Long term 2-4C is better because it opens up more of the earth’s resources to mining and agriculture.

[TheClimateChanger]

10 minutes ago, jbenedet said:

You can tell that the expected range of outcomes is -4C to 4C….

I find it interesting that the counter- mainstream thought on this subject is that it’s not happening or it’s benign, but never that the warming will be much greater than consensus (2-4C). Moreover, this is the outcome with best odds based on the present trajectory.

 

 

 

Haha, I've sometimes called myself a skeptic in that sense (i.e., that it will be worse than let on). Turns out fossil fuel companies have much larger budgets than doomers!

[TheClimateChanger]

52 minutes ago, chubbs said:

I voted warming. You didn't specify the baseline. I answered using today as the baseline with roughly 1.5C warming since 1800. Further warming from here is going to put the climate system way out of equilibrium, tiggering rapid change that would be very difficult to adapt to. Its like pushing a glass of water across the table, the rate of change is tolerable until the edge is reached. Same with climate tipping points: ice sheets, forests, glaciers, permafrost, ocean circulation etc.  If you had used pre-industrial as a baseline, I would have picked cooling, but neither option is attractive. 

 

The ranges are HUGE as well - there is a BIG difference between 2C and 4C of temperature change up or down. I mean the last glacial maximum was only about 5-6C colder than preindustrial. Using 2025 at the baseline, it was 2C+ cooler just a few hundreds of years ago. So I'm pretty sure we could weather 2C of gradual cooling with no major repercussions. The earth has experienced such conditions within the past millennium. On the other hand, 4C of cooling would no doubt see substantial glacial advances, dropping sea levels, etc, but it's still well within the climate conditions faced by homo sapiens during their time on earth. An additional 2-4C of warming would result in climate conditions not seen on earth in tens of millions of years.

[LibertyBell]

24 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

The ranges are HUGE as well - there is a BIG difference between 2C and 4C of temperature change up or down. I mean the last glacial maximum was only about 5-6C colder than preindustrial. Using 2025 at the baseline, it was 2C+ cooler just a few hundreds of years ago. So I'm pretty sure we could weather 2C of gradual cooling with no major repercussions. The earth has experienced such conditions within the past millennium. On the other hand, 4C of cooling would no doubt see substantial glacial advances, dropping sea levels, etc, but it's still well within the climate conditions faced by homo sapiens during their time on earth. An additional 2-4C of warming would result in climate conditions not seen on earth in tens of millions of years.

Yes, the key word is *gradual*

and it's not just our need to adapt but the need for the entire food chain to adapt too.

We have had both a hot house Earth and an ice ball Earth in the past but the changes always took place over millions of years.

[LibertyBell]

34 minutes ago, jbenedet said:

Regarding the poll — 

Short term 2-4C increase is worse because most of the world’s population already lives in areas that are very warm and on the coast. This will ultimately cause population flows from these areas and tremendous economic costs.

Long term 2-4C is better because it opens up more of the earth’s resources to mining and agriculture.

we're already seeing those mass migrations now, it's already happening

[LibertyBell]

16 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It depends.   In simple terms, the peril is not measured in merely "cooling" or "warming"   It is a result of

d(cooling)/dt

or

d(warming)/dt  

  ( those mean 'rate of change' with respect to change in time ) 

#1, The vitality of the natural order of this planet cannot be realized if either a 2-4C cooling, or warming of that same magnitude, were takes place at a rate of change that exceeds species adaptation capacity.        d(cooling)/dt  > than d(adaptation)/dt   = adaptation failure.   Here's an example of this in geological history:  https://phys.org/news/2025-07-fossils-earth-famous-extinction-climate.html     Biological science has already defined a current mass extinction is under way.  Goes by Holocene, even Anthropocene extinction event - the latter, because while others are cleverly denying, science has already mathematically proven that human activity, ranging from profligate resource sequestration ... annexing habitats that probably even morally shouldn't belong to us, and Climate change, ALL, are causing species to disappear at orders of magnitude greater than the previous archeologically defined rates that were associated with stable Earth-states. 

#2, Humans are perhaps the most adaptable organism known to this world.   Our capacity for innovation is why. The fact that we live and thrive everywhere on the planet, regardless of specific ecologically defined region, evinces that.  We do so, because we can. We invent the means.  

However, if #1 fails ... it is not abundantly clear that innovation will be able to "invent our way out of this crisis" - so to speak.  Maybe we will. Maybe we won't.  But that is an evolutionary gamble. That's the whole crisis.  Not just whether the temperature is rising or falling. The question of cooling or warming is less useful without that deeper frame of understanding ( just op ed'ing here for the general reader - )

Humans are at the moment still wholly dependent upon the vast known, and unknown, eukaryotic and prokaryotic biota. Not just for their (external to our) biological existence, but their robust existence. They recycle the air we breath ( and use to destroy them ) with oxygen for the combustion in our cells, and the combustion that powers civility. They replenish nutrients into the soil and seas, which eventually/ultimately supplement the foods we need.  All of it.

Humans cannot do what they do, not at that scales required in order to stop what comes next if critical temperature sensitive species, of either kingdom, catastrophically fail because they could not adapt in time.  

Perhaps there's a bit of a race implied there.  A gamble really is the best word.  A really, really fucking stupid gamble.  Because it's betting some eases of living pay back against extinction.  Those that deny or argue against CC ... really don't understand that.  They don't because they don't understand the premise farther above - one that is proven to really already have begun.  It is thus far more logical to cease and desist activity that will cause stressing the pan-dimensional health of  'Gaia' (for lack of better word) beyond the point of adaptation.   Until such time as compensating technological recourse' exist and are proven successful at mediating the health of an entire planet (Kardashev 1 civilization - We're not there yet) by alternate means, it is entirely academic what needs to be done.   

 

It's why we need geoengineering John.  Blue Green Algae are/were the greatest geoengineers of all time and without them none of us would be here today.

 

[jbenedet]

5 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

we're already seeing those mass migrations now, it's already happening

I agree. Covid did a lot to muddy the underlying climate driven trend —appeal to move to warmer regions with shorter cold/flu season and less restrictions —but it’s becoming more apparent with that shock behind us.

[LibertyBell]

Just now, jbenedet said:

I agree. Covid did a lot to muddy the underlying climate driven trend —appeal to move to warmer regions with shorter cold/flu season and less restrictions —but it’s becoming more apparent with that shock behind us.

I think it will also cause more political unrest and more conflict too.

There's a strong correlation between hotter weather and more violence.

 

[FPizz]

I took the question as gradual.  If it is gradual, we will adapt just fine.  History already showed that.  

[ChescoWx]

We will adapt as we always have whether we cool or warm.....the bottom line is there is of course no climate crisis! 

[GaWx]

26 minutes ago, ChescoWx said:

We will adapt as we always have whether we cool or warm.....the bottom line is there is of course no climate crisis! 

 I don’t think it’s accurate to say there’s no climate crisis from GW. The combo of the melting of land based ice flowing into the oceans as well as expansion of ocean water has been causing an accelerating rise of sea level. Also, higher dewpoint air being able to hold more moisture as well as a slight reduction of avg steering flow due to a reduced temp. contrast between the rapidly warming Arctic and the significantly slower warming of the tropics have combined to cause a notable increase in flooding rainfall events.

 That being said, not everything about GW has been bad. One great thing is that global food supply has increased markedly due to larger crops. This is due to longer growing seasons (longer period between freezes) accompanied by increased moisture and the ability to grow crops further north. In addition, plants have more CO2 to take in for photosynthesis. I’ll reiterate that had we instead of GW had the same amount of cooling, global food supply would be much, much smaller thus likely leading to starvation of at least hundreds of millions. Another mini-ice age would have been terrible.

[Cobalt]

Both 2-4°C of warming and cooling at the current pace of anthropogenic warming would be catastrophic. Non-transient changes like that do not happen at that sort of rate. Leaving out a time factor in the polls is in poor practice, because it creates a hypothetical environment of set warming or cooling with no time horizon.

 

I think it's better to ask, if we were instead on pace for 2-4°C of cooling by the end of the century, and we knew we were the cause, would we try to pause that trend by mitigating our actions?

[Typhoon Tip]

4 hours ago, Cobalt said:

Both 2-4°C of warming and cooling at the current pace of anthropogenic warming would be catastrophic. Non-transient changes like that do not happen at that sort of rate. Leaving out a time factor in the polls is in poor practice, because it creates a hypothetical environment of set warming or cooling with no time horizon.

 

I think it's better to ask, if we were instead on pace for 2-4°C of cooling by the end of the century, and we knew we were the cause, would we try to pause that trend by mitigating our actions?

I expounded upon this exact concern.  

I think the original poll/question creation evinces a very superficial understanding - not just in the author, who may or may not have that limited awareness... (likely it's just poorly written). But I do find that elsewhere in society. 

A very linear and limited understanding in the general civilization, so much so that it doesn't lend to much 'intuitive' feel for crisis and thus they seldom come across as having that - let alone a more scienced perspective.  

It's incumbent upon the scientific community to learn a means to communicate the secondary ...nth degree causal feed-back depths that occur in complex systems in nature.   This better sort of PR tact in bringing the perils of CC to the public eye was badly performed in the early days of this...   The scientific tact was an attack on ways of life, ways of life multi-generation established and wholly dependent upon fossil fuels, both indirect and directly ...   It just set the opposition table; not the understanding.  It's been easy for Big OIl's counter-campaign, really, because of it.   Now, denial itself is multi-generational. 

[FPizz]

12 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I expounded upon this exact concern.  

I think the original poll/question creation evinces a very superficial understanding - not just in the author, who may or may not have that limited awareness... (likely it's just poorly written). But I do find that elsewhere in society. 

A very linear and limited understanding in the general civilization, so much so that it doesn't lend to much 'intuitive' feel for crisis.  

It's incumbent upon the scientific community to learn a means to communicate the secondary ...nth degree causal feed-back depths that occur in complex systems in nature.   This better sort of PR tact in bringing the perils of CC to the public eye was badly performed in the early days of this...   The scientific tact was an attack on ways of life, ways of life multi-generation established and wholly dependent upon fossil fuels, both indirect and directly ...   It just set the opposition table; not the understanding.  It's been easy for Big OIl's counter-campaign, really, because of it.   Now, denial itself is multi-generational. 

All of this could have been summed up by saying giving a timetable to the question would have been better for the poll.

[Typhoon Tip]

3 hours ago, FPizz said:

All of this could have been summed up by saying giving a timetable to the question would have been better for the poll.

Not everyone - in fact ...few do - knows why

[AdMC]

Why do you guys keep taking the bait from this troll? He's doing actual harm to humanity stealing away people's time and mental bandwidth like this.

[rclab]

1 hour ago, AdMC said:

Why do you guys keep taking the bait from this troll? He's doing actual harm to humanity stealing away people's time and mental bandwidth like this.

I actually appreciate the civil responses/rebuttals given by the professionals and well versed board members.  It helps me and perhaps others, without an extensive background, to have a better understanding of the what and why we are experiencing. I pray I can live until 2047. My hope is in my centennial.year current projections will not have become the obvious. Stay well, as always …..