Save the Climate — well, kinda.

Планета есть колыбель разума, но нельзя вечно жить в колыбели
A planet is the cradle of mind, but one cannot live in a cradle forever.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

There is this beautiful sketch about discussions about climate change among scientists, where it starts with one scientist arguing that mankind does affect the climate, and another scientist arguing against it. Ostensibly it shows that climate change is still debated. Then change the discussion by having a representative sample of scientists arguing for and against man-made climate change appear. The one against man-made climate change remains alone, while the numbers arguing for man-made climate change swell up to about a hundred scientists. While an argumentum ad populum is a fallacy (but consider who counts here, it’s not the public, but experts), yup, I agree — 7+ billion humans can certainly influence (= change) the climate. And we shouldn’t ruin the climate.

But I wonder … is there sense in trying to “freeze” or “save” the climate as it is?

Basically, yes, we should ensure that Earth remains friendly to humans when it comes to its climate. So far, it’s the only planet we have. But isn’t the earth a living super-organism? And like any organism, it changes (that’s the problem!). Earth wasn’t always as it is today, and (likely), it not always be this way. We should be able to change with it. Our technology should give us that skill. It should further motivate us to explore the solar system, and other stars as well.

So, yeah, while we should be very careful what we are doing to “the branch we are sitting on”, perhaps we should be open to explore surviving in different climates, conditions, and — perhaps even more importantly — consider settling on other planets as well.