AIBU not to buy in about all of this net zero/environmentalism?

They don't show the same trend. The planet was much hotter millions of years ago because the oceans could circulate freely at the equator.

Recent temperature tends have been oscillating between ice age (glacial) and non-ice age (interglacial). The trend is rapid warming followed by slow cooling. As per the graph I shared, our current temperature is around 10°F lower than the previous (completely natural) interglacial high. This temperature is still well, well within the bounds of normal climate variation. That's a fact. To claim otherwise is anti-science.

Will we see a sudden rise in temperature due to CO2? Maybe.

But if CO2 is such a massive driver for temperatures, and our CO2 levels are now 50% higher than at any point in the past 800k years (as per the chart above), why aren't we seeing a corresponding huge increase in temperature rather than tiny incremental increases that are still completely in line with the earth's natural climate variations?

Once my mother had a problem she thought was unsolvable, but I managed to do it.

Ozone was quite an easy fix. This is a much more complicated issue, with a lot more trade offs. Doing anything effective requires significant social discourse, but that's not allowed, so it's not going to happen.

And that matters because.....? They show the same trend, all those long term graphs do. You've completely missed the point. The idea that these graphs prove there is no anthropogenic climate change is what is debunked, not the graph itself. In those other warming periods, there weren't eight billion people on the planet. Nobody is arguing that there haven't been warming periods before. That doesn't mean we didn't have a role in this one, that's bad logic. It's also bad logic to assume that because one prediction in the 1990s didn't come true that means others won't either.

Gee, I wonder how such a small change in temperature has managed to melt off glaciers? You can't be serious with that line.

Exactly.

We're fucking the planet in so many ways. CO2 is a massive distraction.

The World pulled together and acted over the damage to the Ozone layer. Naysayers said it was nonsense. The World resolved that issue.
Why do you not believe the scientists now?
Are you a Trump supporting Lawrence Fox loving troglodyte generally, or just about this?

The biodiversity thing is a major worry, but a lot of that is down to building stuff and destroying habitats.

Governments and the unscrupulous are always going to look for an advantage or cause to make money and control people. Confusing this with the actual science of environmental destruction and climate change is just as stupid.

By all means fight the government and fight big business trying to control you, but you only have to look outside and take an actual notice of our biodiversity and see the change. Its like boiling a frog slowly and it not noticing the water getting hotter.

Simple things you can test how many people on here remember wiping hundreds of bugs of their windscreen and cars whilst driving through the countryside in summer, now take a second to look how clean your windscreen is today?

I remember a fact and still have photos of the massive snow drifts and snow fall when a child in the 70s/80s, compare it to what we get now?

How many butterflies do you see, how many bird populations have declined in recent years, the facts are there if you choose to see them.

I think you need to learn how to read a graph. Your graph covers 485 million years. The graph that I posted covers the past 450,000 years.

Temperatures prior to 3 million years ago are irrelevant, because they pre-date the collision of the North and South American continents, which blocked the equatorial ocean circulation and resulted in a massive planet wide temperature drop and a mass extinction event.

The 450,000 years covered in the graph I posted is very much recent history in geological terms and is directly relevant in terms of our current situation. The earth, in very recent history, has experienced warmer interglacial periods than we're currently experiencing. We're currently borderline glacial/interglacial with ongoing polar icecaps and glacial ice. That is abnormal for our planet.

The Doomsday fearmongering just isn't born out by the current reality - i.e. a planet that is getting wetter and greener.

I'm my GCSE Science, back in the 1990's, we were taught that London and the majority of the UK would be underwater by now due to rising seas levels. We now have people on this thread predicting human extinction.

It's just ludicrous to be so fearful of such a small change to the planet's temperature.

I think you need to learn how to read a graph. Your graph covers 485 million years. The graph that I posted covers the past 450,000 years.

Temperatures prior to 3 million years ago are irrelevant, because they pre-date the collision of the North and South American continents, which blocked the equatorial ocean circulation and resulted in a massive planet wide temperature drop and a mass extinction event.

The 450,000 years covered in the graph I posted is very much recent history in geological terms and is directly relevant in terms of our current situation. The earth, in very recent history, has experienced warmer interglacial periods than we're currently experiencing. We're currently borderline glacial/interglacial with ongoing polar icecaps and glacial ice. That is abnormal for our planet.

The Doomsday fearmongering just isn't born out by the current reality - i.e. a planet that is getting wetter and greener.

I'm my GCSE Science, back in the 1990's, we were taught that London and the majority of the UK would be underwater by now due to rising seas levels. We now have people on this thread predicting human extinction.

It's just ludicrous to be so fearful of such a small change to the planet's temperature.

That was debunked long ago.

https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/climate-skeptics-have-new-favorite

From one of the authors of the paper;

"I’ve seen quite a bit of misinformation crop up surrounding our paper – particularly the claim that we (humans) have nothing to worry about, with respect to climate change, since the Earth has been warmer for much of the last half-billion years. I cannot stress enough how reductive and problematic this viewpoint is. The flaw in this logic boils down to two key points:
(1) the resilience of the planet does not directly translate our own species’ ability to adapt and thrive in the face of human-caused climate change, and
(2) the impact of anthropogenic climate change is (and will continue to be) determined by the rate of change (meaning how quickly CO2 and temperature change) much more than the absolute temperatures, themselves.

…When we compare CO2 and temperature across the last half-billion years, we find a strong correlation between the two parameters, which indicates that CO2 has exerted a strong influence on global temperature not just today and in the recent past, but across the last 485 million years of Earth’s history."

You must be new to climate change debate. The science is settled, so please just face reality.
Incredible that we still see climate change denial in 2025.

Quite right, except I've yet to see a sensible answer as to why the current change is so very different to all the others over the millennia - some of them much more extreme

I believe the fashionable, model-driven theory is that this one is "happening faster", but we all saw what was predicated on model's during covid and came to appreciate that they're little more than guesses, heavily driven by what those I'm charge choose to fund

I'll go right on doing my bit with recycling, etc, and don't drive anyway - though I fly a lot - buy beyond that I'm not about to worry over something I can do nothing to change

I'm surprised someone with a geochemistry degree doesn't have a basic understanding of Earth's carbon cycle tbh.

Here's a graph of atmospheric CO2 over the last 800,000 years or so. You might notice some similarities with your own graph, almost as if the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere impacts global temperatures. If you then look to the far right of the graph you'll see our contribution, can you guess what's likely causing that near-vertical spike?

And yes, while Earth has previously had higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, it's never, ever been released at the rate we're releasing it. The last time atmospheric CO2 rose to 1000ppm was around 56 million years ago, and even then it took an estimated 20,000 years to get there from about 400ppm. That's considered the fastest natural increase ever recorded.
At current rates, we'll hit that concentration in around 190 years. That's one of the main issues, the rate of change is completely unprecedented, and we have no idea how Earth's systems will react.

The other major issue is that every single plant, animal, ecosystem, marine system, and food system we depend on has, for the last million years at least, evolved under conditions where atmospheric CO2 fluctuated between roughly 180 and 300ppm. We're now way outside that range and still heading up, and 190 years just isn't enough time for anything to adapt.
Let me know if you want a version that includes a source link or a graph to go with it.

But I'm sure it's all just nonsense and totally fine.

I just wish people would be up front, rather than manipulative about it.

For instance the one that gets me is shopping bags.

The paperbags weigh more, so every step of their manufacture and transportation takes more resource than the old carrier bags. They also aren't as robust (particularly in the rain) so I often can't re-use them unlike the old carrier bags. Bags for life (the plastic ones) similarly use 10x (or more) the plastic of an old sized carrier, and the fabric ones even more (and are often still plastic-lined).

plus, now I buy small bags for the bathroom bins/cat litter tray where previously I re-used old carrier bags, and my fabric bags (made of cotton, which is hugely water-intensive to grow) need to be washed - so I'm actually not saving plastic usage, and adding on water and soap usage by switching to bags for life.

This makes the formula much more complicated than is made out - and I wish they'd been up-front about that, rather than just forcing it through.

I feel the same way about a lot of other things. Solar, Wind, Electric cars, the pros and cons of washing at low temperature etc.

Getting the actual full story is damn near impossible, because no-one's honest, and so filtering out truth from intentional lies and conspiracy theories is extremely difficult.

And to all the people that are espousing global doom, how do you explain this chart that shows the owner has experienced warmer interglacial periods with zero human input?

It all looks very normal to me.

(I studied geochemistry at university and the lecturers all considered it to be nonsense that wasn't supported by the geological record).

All the people saying that Net Zero is too little too late, are you prepared to accept lower benefits, lower pensions, scaled back or privatised NHS, much lower SEN provision in schools, virtually no PIP/DLA, etc, when the economy is wrecked by these disastrous policies?

Let me guess, you think it can all be solved by 'taxing the rich'.

How many people were on the planet in the last interglacial period and where did they live ?

The worlds climate has varied hugely in the past. We've had vastly different percentages of oxygen, co2, the world very hot and the world very cold.

I don't think people should worry for the earth. It will sort its own problems out and always has.The earth has been hit by giant meteorites, devastated by volcanic eruptions etc and life has always survived.

But the populations of the worlds species/the earths habitability has varied hugely in the past as well. I doubt very much that super hot/super cold earth or an earth just hit by a giant meteorite is compatible with supplying the needs of 8 billion people.

And to all the people that are espousing global doom, how do you explain this chart that shows the owner has experienced warmer interglacial periods with zero human input?

It all looks very normal to me.

(I studied geochemistry at university and the lecturers all considered it to be nonsense that wasn't supported by the geological record).

You're going to get absolutely roasted on here, but I agree with you.

I'll believe in "net zero" when celebrities and politicians ground their private jets, especially when flying to their "climate change" conferences. And I've become a lot more cynical and sceptical since 2020, when "truth" became incredibly distorted, and all the scientists and the tiny handful of politicians who dared to challenge the "people will die, so we must lockdown until the virus is eliminated" narrative were swiftly silenced, I don't know what to believe any more.

In the same breath as the wails about climate change, they keep telling us there's a "declining birth rate" crisis. The media loves the word crisis. How do we reconcile this with "climate change"? Surely fewer people in the world would be good for "climate change". I remember when the scary buzzword was "the greenhouse effect", and "the hole in the ozone layer".

And to all the people that are espousing global doom, how do you explain this chart that shows the owner has experienced warmer interglacial periods with zero human input?

It all looks very normal to me.

(I studied geochemistry at university and the lecturers all considered it to be nonsense that wasn't supported by the geological record).

And to all the people that are espousing global doom, how do you explain this chart that shows the owner has experienced warmer interglacial periods with zero human input?

It all looks very normal to me.

(I studied geochemistry at university and the lecturers all considered it to be nonsense that wasn't supported by the geological record).