> In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life and has the exact same dynamic with the exact same players
Oh, please, enough already!
Global warming is nowhere near to what a virus can do. This thing could have killed half the population of this planet in weeks had nobody done a thing about it.
The comparison is nonsensical on many fronts. Perhaps the most significant of them is the reality of climate change: We cannot do a thing about it. Period. We cannot change it. We cannot reverse it. We cannot magically fix it in fifty years.
This is already well understand by the scientific community. Researchers don't get out there and expose it because they would instantly destroy their careers, lose grants and generally ruin their lives. It's a truly dishonest and damaging feedback loop driven by ideology, money and politics.
All you need to do in order to understand this reality is analyze ice core atmospheric sample data. That's it. It's that simple. Calculate the rate of change with CO2 increasing and decreasing. Write down those numbers.
Then realize this is what would happen if humanity left earth next Monday. It would take somewhere around 50,000 years for CO2 to decrease by 100 ppm.
We cannot accelerate this rate of change by 1000x without likely killing all life on earth. We can't. It would require such vast amounts of energy and resources that it might even be beyond what's available on this planet.
In other words, everyone is lying: Climate change deniers are nuts and those who claim we can fix it within even a few generations and just as crazy. The entire thing has become politicized beyond all comprehension. Science has left the building.
So, no. Let's focus on pandemics, they are far more likely to wipe us out than the entire "save the planet" fantasy.
> This thing could have killed half the population of this planet in weeks had nobody done a thing about it.
What? No, there's not a single credible model that predicts that this virus could have wiped out half the population, even with 0 mitigation efforts. Such a virus is a possibility, but it certainly wasn't this one.
EDIT 1: Even if my statement is off and the number is 10% to 25% --pick a number, any number-- it is still more serious than the fantasies we have been choosing to focus on.
The calculation must also include the massive mortality rate that would result from the collapse of all supply chains, medical systems, transportation, etc. People with "minor" medical conditions would die on the streets everywhere. The virus would kill indirectly by destroying society. Think it through. If the world did nothing the loss of life would be massive.
EDIT 2: Imagine a world without hospitals (at scale), doctors, nurses, transportation, factories, food, water, medicine, power, gas, petroleum.
You are focusing on direct mortality from the virus while ignoring that, without any mitigation at all, it would absolutely destroy society.
Look at what happened in Italy. Now shut down all hospitals and remove all mitigation. Get the picture? Now, go do the math on that scenario. A scenario where people die from strokes, heart attacks, infections from cuts, appendicitis, diabetes (no drugs), hypertension, tooth infections, etc.
Oh, please, enough already!
Global warming is nowhere near to what a virus can do. This thing could have killed half the population of this planet in weeks had nobody done a thing about it.
The comparison is nonsensical on many fronts. Perhaps the most significant of them is the reality of climate change: We cannot do a thing about it. Period. We cannot change it. We cannot reverse it. We cannot magically fix it in fifty years.
This is already well understand by the scientific community. Researchers don't get out there and expose it because they would instantly destroy their careers, lose grants and generally ruin their lives. It's a truly dishonest and damaging feedback loop driven by ideology, money and politics.
All you need to do in order to understand this reality is analyze ice core atmospheric sample data. That's it. It's that simple. Calculate the rate of change with CO2 increasing and decreasing. Write down those numbers.
Then realize this is what would happen if humanity left earth next Monday. It would take somewhere around 50,000 years for CO2 to decrease by 100 ppm.
We cannot accelerate this rate of change by 1000x without likely killing all life on earth. We can't. It would require such vast amounts of energy and resources that it might even be beyond what's available on this planet.
In other words, everyone is lying: Climate change deniers are nuts and those who claim we can fix it within even a few generations and just as crazy. The entire thing has become politicized beyond all comprehension. Science has left the building.
So, no. Let's focus on pandemics, they are far more likely to wipe us out than the entire "save the planet" fantasy.