agree with the sentiment here, but it is also very important to realize how deeply science is influenced by values and social-political beliefs held by scientists. Science itself is a cultural institution and exists as a political entity within that culture.
Depends on how much colder and how fast you get there. The Earth's global temperature remains steady as long as the heat budget is in balance (heat input is roughly all escaped). When that balance goes one way or another, you will start to see climate change. How fast that change is depends on the scale of the imbalance. We are seeing rapid warming because the scale of that imbalance is growing fast due to an extremely rapid rise in CO2 from human activities (mostly from burning fossil fuels). If, for some reason, we see a huge imbalance in the other direction (a net rapid decrease in heat) for an extended time, we would want to do everything possible to slow that, if technically possible. Some possible scenarios include a dying sun (nothing we can do), an asteroid so huge that it blankets the earth with dust for more than a decade, and (dream it up). TL;DR - If cooling are happening at a scale that is dangerous, you want to intervene.
I didn't read, but I'm going to comment on something in general. It's relatively much harder to predict the local impact of a warming earth (not so different from how it's hard to predict the weather for more than 5-10 days out) than the overall impact on the globe or a large region. That leaves plenty of room for errors at the local level and nitpicking, political propaganda, etc. However, the general trends of what a warming planet will do aren't that hard to predict. With that said, it's not so hard that it can't be reasonably predicted. With better models and more computing power, we have improved and will continue to get better at predicting local impacts. So, when I see this and that about a specific location - ah, whatever. But when I see that a region will experience more intense and long-lasting drought, more intense but short bursts of downpour, including snow, etc. - yeah, that makes complete sense and aligns with the basic knowledge of what adding heat/energy into a system does. I know many make fun of it - everything extreme is climate change - yeah, it is - more energy causes more extremities. Regarding credibility, I would argue that the science is solid, and while it is not anywhere close to being perfect, it remains the best tool we have for dealing with our environment and understanding it. Science hasn't changed; in fact, it has improved with more advanced computing power and tools for investigation and analysis. What has worsened is that people are often influenced by so-called experts who usually have only a surface-level understanding of the subject but present their ideas effectively and persuasively. Additionally, there is now more accessible knowledge from the general population, which has led some to realize the imperfections of science. If they once placed full trust in it and had high expectations, this new perspective might naturally lead them to trust it less. Nevertheless, it remains the best option available today, and it would be foolish not to utilize the best tools at our disposal. There is a whole segment of the population that is doing that - going away from science and back to something else - self-intuition or whatever.
Governments DID learn from Covid, that's the problem. They saw they can get away with a lot of totalitarian crap, now they will find other reasons to repeat it, and the climate propaganda is the next pretense for it.
I get that. The whole point of the scientific method is to remove bias. That's not just the process by which a scientist goes through their research but the peer review process which some on here laugh at. But it's absolutely critical to addressing biases. What I have been seeing here is that the peer reviewed climate research is getting attacked by scientists who aren't being held to same standard and have strong actual ties to compromising interests. Humans are biased, but the whole accusations that scientists are only supporting climate change to get more research money and it's all a scheme is ridiculous. The climate science I've seen holds up to scrutiny - and the counter arguments fall apart. And I've looked into the counter arguments over the years - many will recall that I was skeptical as well - ask @Ottomaton
We’re practically beyond prediction now. As noted even those who deny it are already dealing with the effects of climate change.
1300% of current atmospheric percent of CO2 would be lethal to a lot of life like us. So if there were periods in this planet the planet would be much different in many other ways too.
I can't read the WaPo article but living in an urban area in the Northern Hemisphere this wasn't an easy winter. While we did have snow and cold we also had rain and even flooding during January.
We can only rest once we have predictable and consistent weather till the end of time, ending millions of years of changing climate change.
