Containing climate change saves us, not Earth - thestar.com

So efforts to control climate change, or to deal with other environmental issues, are not about “saving the planet,” a phrase that deserves to disappear. They’re about saving us—keeping the place fit for human habitation for generations we can envisage.

On that score, our impacts do make a difference. If, for example, we keep loading carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the Arctic ice will continue to melt, unleashing vast amounts of energy. The darker water will absorb heat from the sun that the ice previously reflected. This process will accelerate each year, as the water warms, leading to later freeze-up and earlier breakup. The surrounding permafrost will melt, releasing methane and carbon dioxide from cold storage to further speed the process.

[Philip Stott flashback: Humans are already living successfully over a very wide range in temperature]

But I just want you to have one image, and it’s a very serious scientific image, I want you to think of the world… I want you to think of the world from inner Siberia, to Greenland, then to Singapore, and then come to the Arab states and to Sahara. What, ladies and gentlemen, is the temperature range I have just covered. It is from minus 20 degrees C, to nearly 50 degrees C, a range of 70 degrees C, in which humanity has adapted and learnt to live. [APPLAUSE] We are talking about, ignoring the extremes that Oliver said, a prediction of 2 to 3 degrees C, what a funk! [LAUGHTER, [APPLAUSE]

I’m very serious, what a funk! Humanity lives successfully from Greenland to Singapore to Saudi Arabia. 70 degrees C.