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> the ability to run a complex environment-destroying civilization disappears well before all the individual humans do

There are self-reinforcing loops of climate change that can cause runaway warming.




Sure. The ones actually likely to happen on earth top out at about 5-10C warming above present. At that point negative feedback cycles (like the CO2 greening effect mentioned in the article) dominate positive feedback cycles (like release of methane from the arctic tundra, or lowered albedo from ice melting), and the Earth enters a new equilibrium.

The IPCC maintains that a runaway greenhouse effect which turns the earth into say Venus has basically nil chance of being caused by humans:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect


That is comforting, thank you.




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