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If we need to act against climate change and we don't ... what are the ongoing implications of that?
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There is no consensus.
Some scientists believe that the warming will continue to increase, whilst others believe that the "pause" is due to reaching limits on how much increase in heat the greenhouse effects can really force upon the world, and that natural limits restrict the increase to 1-2 more degrees.
It's tempting to come up with the apocalypse, because there is a natural tendency for end-of-the-world stories to be shared.
More than tempting actually; it's built-in. It's what we do. It's the entire history of mankind! Humans present competing ideas, in which the end of the world will be the result, if we fail to adopt their beliefs and behave accordingly.
It should give everyone pause, and a sigh of relief, to consider that after a century or more of warming, mankind is more successful right now than at any time in history.
In fact, we need to continue to use the carbon fuels, to continue to quickly improve humanity, to the point where it can solve the very problems it has created for the planet.
The amount of knowledge, intelligence, and capabilities we have continue to increase on a massive scale. Today we look at the issues of the planet and we can only worry. But we are still babes in the woods and our understanding of a lot of these things is in its infancy.
If we looked at the moon in the year 1900, and said it is important for us to get there, we would not have been able to do it. By the middle of the century, our understanding of *everything* had increased; fuel, space, physics, materials, etc.
Similarly we look at the planet today and can only wring our hands. But we have no idea what we'll know in 50-100 years - and the best way to guarantee we'll have more knowledge, more capability, more scientific understanding, etc. is to continue our current path of economic growth, societal improvements, etc.
In 1900 the entire planet had only (guessing here) about 100 million people with the education of a modern 10 year old. Today there are probably a billion people at that level. In 50 years there will be five billion. So when predicting the future, don't forget that progress makes all problems trivial.