If they get bored and stop listening, they'll get confused, won't they? I think they often get bored because they can't follow along, it's incredibly boring to have someone drone on using statistics and measurements you don't grasp and won't remember on a subject you also don't grasp.

I agree, but so far, measurements have consistently been outpacing the estimates, almost never the reverse.

What they tend to do is come from that incomplete data and incomplete analysis to model the absolute best case scenario to dictate policy, not the worst. That's absolutely what the U.N. report does, and it's not clear to most how much is left out, like infinitely better melting models (the measured melting in Greenland is already at the rate not predicted to be reached until 2075 in the UN's published estimations) and feedback loops we already see in action like melting methalhydrates and permafrost, both outgassing massive amounts of methane. Sane policy makers DO assume the absolute worst modeled outcome, then suggests policies to avoid it, at all cost when that worst case is extinction. Since measurements are consistently as bad or worse than the worst case scenario modeled, the only rational thing to do is assume that will continue and plan for the worst....you know, like they taught in preschool, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Your house burning down is an unlikely worst case scenario, but I bet you have smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and support the fire department. Good planning is to assume you WILL have a fire and plan to minimize the damage.
Or, terrorist attacks. The likelihood you'll be killed in a terrorist attack is exceptionally low, but we spend untold billions and sacrifice liberties to combat a worst case but unlikely scenario.

Prudence is the better part of valor.

Edit: as to most problems society faces, I suggest they are likely ALL a function of overpopulation....no question imo when it comes to the apocalyptic problems. Pollution, resource mismanagement, ecological destruction, etc. None would be disastrous with 1/10 the population.

Diatoms, and other phytoplankton, are incredibly sensitive to ocean PH and CO2 levels. This can be another feedback loop already in action.
As fewer diatoms photosynthesize, more CO2 goes unused, raising the concentration, lowering the numbers and health of phytoplankton, allowing more CO2 to go unused, raising the concentration, .....
Every molecule of CO2 added to ocean systems removes one molecule of carbonate, which is necessary for the uptake of iron among other processes. By 2100, surface carbonate is expected to decrease by up to 50%. That may well be below the levels diatoms can tolerate.

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/key-biological-mechanism-disrupted-ocean-acidification

If phytoplankton goes, so does the food web. They are the base. If the ocean food web collapses, eventually the bacteria that eat dead sea life will create huge clouds of hydrogen sulfide that cover the land, poisoning any still living organisms there. This has happened before, but on a much longer timescale, with near life ending results for earth.

Hydrogen Sulfide, Not Carbon Dioxide, May Have Caused Largest Mass Extinction. ... "During the end-Permian extinction 95 percent of all species (and >98% of all biomass) on Earth became extinct, compared to only 75 percent during the KT when the dinosaurs disappeared,"

A better title might be "diatoms, the tiny glass shards that support all life on earth, are struggling".

The older I get, the more fatalist I become about climate change.

Honestly, we've missed the boat on this. We're fucked and there's nothing we can do about it.

And anyone who says that you can make a difference is talking out their arse. The actual useful things you can do are:

1: have less (preferably no) children. This dwarfs any other action you can take by a factor of 5.
2: Switch to a plant-based diet
3: Stop flying

Ok, 1 is not going to happen. People are still having kids and there hasn't even been any serious public debate about this (despite it being the single most impactful thing any individual can do).

2 and 3 will help, but nowhere near enough.

The ONLY thing that could have saved us is what Extinction Rebellion are proposing: attack climate change on a total war footing. Convert the entire economy over to fixing this.

And it needed to happen a decade ago.

But our leaders ignored this, and now it's too late.

I feel bad for anyone who has kids, but frankly, I'm just hoping the worst of it doesn't kick in until I've kicked the bucket.

I don't know why this has become such a big deal.

Couldn't it just as easily be an Attenbourough style camera?

Even if it *is* the Russians, it's not like America, or any other first world nation, is not doing exactly the same thing.

Meanwhile the planet is dying, and animals like this are going extinct.

TRAINS-FORMERS:Gauge of Extinction - A MashUp Parody Trailer has been added as a related post - related requested by ant.

Trains-formers 5 has been added as a related post - related requested by ant.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/TRAINS-FORMERS-Gauge-of-Extinction-A-MashUp-Parody-Trailer
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Trains-formers-5

"In the next few decades"?! More like "a few decades ago".
Perhaps if we had started population control in the 80's with the goal of cutting global population in half by 2000 AND did the rest of what he suggests we might have a chance...we did not.

By the time we understood there was a problem there were less than a few decades left to solve it...that was around 40 years ago, and we've done everything possible to accelerate the damage we do on every front since then.

Ocean acidification is happening today, it's getting worse, it's slow to react to change so will continue to get worse even if humans disappeared tomorrow, it has built in feedback loops that have been triggered like melting methanehydrates and sequestered CO2 that are being released faster every single day, and we are increasing the man made causes every year. There is a point where it reaches critical acidification, the point where diatoms can't form their skeletons, and then the entire ocean system dies. That's far worse than the apocalypse it sounds like, not just because 50-60% of our oxygen comes from the ocean, but also because the rotting biomass creates huge amounts of not just more methane, compounding the greenhouse problem and further acidifying the oceans, but also immense amounts of hydrogen sulfide, which spread as huge poisonous clouds around the globe.
We are on our way to a man made Permian extinction, when >95% of all species went extinct and near 99% of all biomass was lost. We will not survive it as a species....and we don't deserve to.

Um....earth dollars are fine to fund your trip off earth....you'll have to get your own Vega spending money.
Extinctions today are 99% from habitat destruction, not the bush meat trade.

Eat some protein, your brain isn't working

Creme de menthe?
Crepes?
Maybe it's Creodonts (an extinct carnivorous mammal of the suborder creodonta, of the Paleocene to Pliocene epochs)? Certainly shoeless Venezuelans could use a few of those.

Your video, The First Extinction of 2019 Has Already Happened, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Also google/youtube for "6th Mass Extinction"

We will be the arbiters of our own demise, within our lifetimes - unless we change our shopping lists.