this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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Does this mean we're all going to die? Like humanity will be gone without a trace? If so, how soon?
No; at least, that's unlikely. But parts of the world that are currently habitable will be made inhabitable, and biodiversity will continue to fall. We'll likely see more extreme weather events, increased migration from areas that are too hot or underwater, and issues with global food supply. Coral reefs may completely disappear.
However, progress is being made, and while it's not as quick as we'd like, carbon emissions for modern economies like the US and EU are on a downward curve. In 2021 EU's carbon emissions were back to pre-1967 levels, while the US's carbon emissions were back to pre-1979 levels (Source). So there's cause for hope; the worst thing we can do is give up. Everything we do now lessens the scale of the problem in future.
Well that "unlikely" there merits some debate I would say. Yes there is reason for cautious optimism, but there is also the very real possibility of climate change becoming an extinction level event for humanity, specifically by a cascade of tipping points through several globally relevant climate systems being triggered. The damages that will be caused just by optimistic projections of warming are not well understood either:
Source
So is the extinction of humanity through climate change certain? No. But is it possible? Yes, and the likelihood is very poorly understood.
Another aspect that is often overlooked in this debate is that the beginning of the holocene mass extinction is very much pre-historic, insofar as the spread of homo sapiens over the globe closely matches to the extinction of mega-fauna wherever we appeared, unsettling ecosystems millions of years old, and reducing biodiversity further and further. Other ecosystems will only be able to compensate for so long before they go extinct, and so on, and the explosion of complexity that usually follows after a mass extinction happens on timescales longer than humanities existence. If or when this cascades to the top of the food chain is anybodies guess.
If a system is poorly understood, then by definition it cannot be factored into predictions. When we say something is "unlikely" we mean "it is unlikely based on what we understand". I don't think it's very useful to ask, "Well, is it unlikely based on what we don't understand?", because that's not a question that can be answered.
The possibility of a tipping point cascade is generally without dispute as far as I know. It is likely based on what we do understand, however predicting how likely exactly, the severity of consequences, and the interaction with positive and negative feedback loops from other climate systems is not well understood.
The consensus seems to be that it's virtually certain with a warming of 4-5 °C compared to pre-industrial levels.
Ignoring an existential risk like that because one lacks understanding doesn't seem wise.
Is a catastrophic, world-ending feedback loop likely based on what we understand? The IPCC reports paint a grim future, but I don't believe any has suggested that it's likely the entire Earth will be rendered completely uninhabitable to human life.