Quote Originally Posted by Magpies1959 View Post
Do you believe if 'Net Zero' or 'Carbon Neutral' is achieved we will be able to keep the world thermostat at the optimum for ever more.
Carbon levels have risen and lowered in the atmosphere, with no correlation to temperstures, way before human life, giving an uninhabitable climate, so is likely to happen whatever we do to control the level.
Temperature and CO2 massively correlate though.

It's physically impossible to increase CO2 in the atmosphere and not have it impact temperatures, and we've pumped enough in to raise global temperatures 1-2 degrees already.

You're absolutely right inasmuch as the climate has changed a lot in the past, but CO2 has been one of the drivers of that, and what's going on with it right now is not part of any natural process. This has been established scientific fact for decades now.

It's also true that more than a few degrees warmer or colder are likely to be disastrous for civilisation. The human race has been around somewhere between 200k and 300k years, but prior to about 10,000 years ago we had nothing bigger than a grass hut and no agriculture. Then from that time onwards, civilisation and agriculture have sprung up independently in multiple locations and climatic zones on the globe.

What changed isn't just that the last ice age ended, the climate instability that's characterised the last several hundred thousand years ended. We've had relatively stable rainfall, temperatures and sea levels for 10,000 years.

I for one don't think we should be rocking that boat more than we absolutely have to, and if/when we decide to deliberately manipulate the climate, say for example to prolong this strange period of stability, we should do it with a careful plan. Unlike the current "unplanned terraforming" which is completely bonkers.