Asking because, while all the risks laid out are quite serious, nothing in the language of the report (that I can find) mentions anything about the planet becoming unsurvivable altogether.
The language that does talk about impacted populations speaks in terms of hundreds of millions of people. For instance, section A.5.5 specifically connects number of human lives impacted under different levels of projected temperature rise.
My point is: climate change is a really big problem, and we should absolutely take action on these recommendations. Using language like “existential threat” is hyperbolic and, imo, harms the cause.
Thank you for the chart. I think that any discussion of the matter will be futile. If only because none of us - even the scientists - have enough information to make a prediction about scale, rate and impact of climate change over time. But the pattern we are seeing now indicates that things are moving faster than the climate scientists expected.
I feel the word 'existential' is appropriate (and by the way that word was used by EA not me) because for hundreds of millions of people - maybe more - food and water shortages, accompanied by disease may well have such an effect. When the scientists talk about human lives impacted under different levels, we know these are best estimates, and most likely deliberately cautious.
When the summary says 'Approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change (high confidence)', what does that mean? Highly vulnerable to me doesn't mean they'll just feel uncomfortable, but something more. Optimist vs pessimist perhaps?
Anyway, as I said, I am not expert enough to make any kind of predictions as to the future. All I do is watch as various predictions in the Reports are reached ahead of time, and it's very worrying. Because we haven't factored in so many things (because we can't). Will runaway catastrophic impacts occur, such as a massive uptick in methane emissions after sufficient permafrost melt? What will that mean? Will the food chain on which billions rely collapse because of ocean warming and increased acidity? Will the increasing unpredictability in weather patterns make mass market farming impossible to guarantee?
There's so much we don't know. This is uncharted territory really, isn't it?
