Obviously, the best way to avoid that is to avoid war in the first place. — boethius

Once the war started, Ukraine made lot's of strategic and tactical choices to maximise suffering of it's own people, essentially holding them hostage in war zones for the purpose of garnering international public sympathy.

The worst of such offences is handing out arms to civilians, which makes them legitimate military targets.

A weapon in the hands of a civilian during a war is a false sense of security that will get them killed and hyperdrive gang violence.

The NATO policy of pouring arms into Ukraine, as I mentioned months ago, will undermine European security for decades to come. These weapons are already in Europe. The two traditional barriers to sophisticated weapons coming to Europe: they're being hard to get and so super expensive (therefore only affordable by groups Western intelligence likely knows about, and most well financed groups are mafia's of one form or another that aren't so interested in causing random mayhem) and then the actual transport to Europe giving opportunities of interception, do not exist with these weapons: they are cheap, available to all sorts of random groups that can come into existence literally today and completely dedicated to random mayhem (especially if Ukraine doesn't "win" and the West is obviously to blame for that), with the weapons already in Europe and require little smuggling expertise or expense to transport them anywhere on the continent (maybe why UK has been more enthusiastic for war).

Furthermore, lowering both the cost and the costs and risk of transport, lowers the barrier to completely "rational" organised crime. It makes no sense to spend millions in both capital outlay, transportation, and "levelized cost of crime" considering the risk of capture, on a robbery, assassination, or gang violence of which the benefits are lower.

Lower the costs and risks of acquiring and transporting the weapons and this significantly widens the scope of profitable crime.

To make matters worse, security systems and protocols of yesterday were thought out and designed for the threats of yesterday.

It is only a matter of time before a civilian aircraft is downed by a stinger missile, as well as unbelievably violent robberies take place with advanced weaponry.

There is no doubt as to the extreme lethality and effectiveness of the sophisticated weapons delivered to Ukraine. NATO flooding the black market with its most sophisticated shoulder operated weapons is complete insanity.

When you actually do military service you realise quickly that an automatic assault riffle, as destructive as it is and capable of civilian massacres that we regularly see ... is basically a prop compared to the other weapons systems involved in a modern military engagement.

Fair enough. And what has been your position then, if not support to Russia's war effort? — Olivier5

I will go back and quote myself outlining again and again my position, but for now I will just summarise it again.

My first priority is to avoid death, suffering and trauma of children.

Obviously, the best way to avoid that is to avoid war in the first place.

There seems to be a genuine incapacity to understand the realist position I and others have defended here as well as presented by John Mearsheimer.

NATO playing "tough" could have avoided the war.

Almost no one criticises the American response to the Cuban missile crisis. But only because it worked. Had it resulted in nuclear exchange (even with the exact same political decisions, just things randomly got out of hand in such a tense standoff), people might have a lot of criticism.

What Mearsheimer point out is the simple truth that US / NATO is simply not willing to actually play tough, before, during or after the war, proven by the fact that it doesn't.

US and NATO declare some sort of Ukrainian pathway to join in 2008 ... so why didn't that happen?

Had they played tough, such as letting Ukraine in after 2008 in a midnight "super diplomacy" deal, or before 2014 ... or anytime after, maybe the war would have been averted.

Had US / NATO done some "tough" move, made a standoff, some deal is reached and Russia backs down. I would be totally for it. I am not criticising Ukraine in NATO if that averted war.

And, other things could be offered the Russians: Nord Stream 2, pulling back forward operating missile bases to "protect against Iran", no Ukrainian military forces on the Russian border, lifting all sanctions, Russian language protection, UN supervised vote of status of Dombas and Crimea etc. (not a requirement 2008-2014, when guarantees for Sevastopol and Russian minority rights would likely have been enough).

Nuclear war is not a foregone conclusion for the simple fact of letting Ukraine in. It's in anyways unlikely as Russia also doesn't want full scale nuclear war, and it's always possible to imagine some compensation to Russia that would convince them to not use tactical nukes in Ukraine, daring the US to respond with strategic nuclear strikes (again, unlikely because US also doesn't want nuclear exchange).

The reason this scenario isn't talked about is just that it's so obvious that US doesn't care about Ukraine enough to put in that kind of standoff and diplomatic energy. US and other NATO countries don't give a shit about Ukraine.

Which results in the terrible policy position of supporting Ukraine just enough to maximise Ukrainian suffering. This is not a morally or politically sound position.

And US at. al. don't even really hide it, they speak plainly that the goal is to "fight Russia in Ukraine so as not to fight them here," totally absurd (as Russia is not about to invade the US if "Ukraine falls") and basically admits to Ukrainians being cannon fodder in this strategy.

The reason to focus on the policy position of my own government and political blocks is that's the policy I'm morally responsible for as a citizen.

I'd also only get into some debate of the Russian moral and political justifications, if my pro-US interlocutors demonstrate how Russia's war in Ukraine is not as justified as the US war in Iraq and Afghanistan, torture programs, or violating sovereignty of other countries with both over and cover operations all the time without hesitation, in the name of "US interests".

And this is not whataboutism fallacy.

First, whataboutism is not a fallacy in the first place. It is a completely legitimate question to say "what about this other thing" to see how a position deals with it.

In a good faith debate a "what about this other thing" question is simply going through some other example to understand the principles of a position and how they operate, for better mutual understanding.

In a bad faith debate, "what about this other thing" is not a fallacy, just a waste of time or then deflecting from legitimate questions one has already received. For example, had I not answered your question of what my position, and simply said "what about the US!" then that would be bad faith and hypocritical, as I am demanding satisfaction of a question when I already in debt to perfectly legitimate one's myself.

In particular, whataboutism is bad faith when deflecting from internal criticism. For example, democrats defending obvious democrat corruption by saying "what about the Republicans". Republicans have nothing to do with democratic party integrity and the best way to fight Republican corruption is to provide a less corrupt example. The sub-text is alway "but we need to be corrupt to win!" ... but "win what?", well, obviously the fruits of corruption.

US proponents are in debt to the question of "what about Iraq," (as well as many other wars / covert actions) and in the US' own justifications of its action, Russia is justified by far according to those standards. Ukraine presents a far greater security threat to Russia than Iraq did the US. The whole there are bio labs that can't fall into enemy hands, seems far greater evidence of WMD's than US had concerning Iraq; if the Ukrainian biological WMD's don't exist ... well neither Iraq nuclear weapons or capacity to build them. Russian soldiers and officers have certainly done some torturing on their own initiative, but there is so far no evidence it is an institutional decision ... whereas US simply legalised torture and built large and sophisticated torture operations; I'm certainly willing to believe Russians do have institutional mandated torture programs, but that just brings them to parity.

Then there's the neo-Nazi question. Certainly not-invading Ukraine is appeasing these overtly Nazi organisations. The argument is they don't have enough influence in Ukraine to satisfy such an argument ... but what's the standard, how many Nazis is too many Nazis with too much power and influence.

Russia uses propaganda ... US uses propaganda.

That being said, if I the question was put to me after somehow responding to all these questions and demonstrating that Russia cannot easily justify its war effort according to the US' own standards set for itself, or then from simply a anti-Russian and anti-US position, certainly Russia could have done more to avoid war. There is a faction in Russia that wanted this war as much as the analogous faction in the US. These factions together pushed things towards war and not peace. They are morally culpable, but so too the less violent factions on both sides that did not oppose the process playing out in slow motion over several decades.

Why?

They were bribed not to intervene in the process in a way that might change the outcome.

So if sanctions aren't really hurting Russia but are hurting the most vulnerable in our own societies, why continue with them? — Benkei

I believe the logic is that the whole narrative of fighting a war without actually fighting it, only makes sense if there's at least the suffering part.

Look! We're suffering for the war effort! We're so committed!

Of course, the people making this policy don't suffer, and they clearly do not care about those that do. I think this is pretty obvious in the fact that whenever the subject of nuclear war comes up, White House et. al., are unhesitating in declaring we can't have that (therefore no no-fly zone, no "offensive weapons" etc.) but a total collapse of the Russian state would also be a likely nuclear war scenario: therefore, there was never any genuine belief sanctions would accomplish that.

It also seems to me improbable that there was any belief that the sanctions would "work", rather the goal is a new cold war theatre which requires a new iron curtain.

Mine is a pragmatist, real politics-based position. — Olivier5

Again, supporting NATO supporting Ukraine's war effort, is supporting Ukraine's war effort.

Support is support, regardless of the justification and regardless of whether it's indefinite support or not.

If I support a political candidate, doesn't mean I'm committed to support indefinitely nor that if I reevaluate my support somehow that retroactively removes the support I provided in the past.

Your position is obviously support to Ukraine's war effort since starting on this thread.

Yes, please, explain your reasons for it, that's the purpose of discussing, and obviously many, many people in the West support Ukraine's war effort, so it's good for the purposes of discussion that someone represents that position.

Furthermore, realist, pragmatic and strategic decisions are still for the purposes of some moral objective.

None of these are amoral things, just analytical frameworks on how best to achieve moral objectives in the real, messy world where nothing is ideal and compromise is always necessary (simply limited resources forces us to compromise on what moral objectives are practical to pursue).

Realism, pragmatism and strategy are analytical tools to try to understand what the actual consequences of different actions are likely to be. Actual likely consequences are clearly relevant to decision making.

However, real consequences in a complex world, don't somehow make the moral objectives irrelevant, just bring to the for difficult decisions.

For example, in WWII, the allies broke Enigma and so could know when ships would be attacked, when and where.

Many ships were not warned or told to change course because it would risk statistically tipping off the Nazi's that enigma had been broken and they may do a full reset of all the code books, change wheels and so on.

Obviously the goal was to save lives, but a realistic, pragmatic, and strategic analysis concluded some lives needed to be knowingly sacrificed to optimise the covert information advantage over the longest possible time frame.

Someone could have spoken up for the fact it's the Germans that are morally responsible for the attacks and the deaths, they're duty is to save lives and so they must warn everyone they can, and if the German's change their codes and then kill more people it's their moral issue and doesn't matter.

The difference between such a naive fool and the mathematicians that worked out a formula of who to save and who let die, is simply the time frame under consideration. What achieves the goal (saving lives) in the short term may be counterproductive to the same goal over the long term.

It's a case for the US and EU to support the Ukrainian war effort, for as long as the need it — Olivier5

That's clearly pro war. Why call it something different?

Supporting NATO supporting the Ukrainian war effort ... is clearly supporting the Ukrainian war effort.

I thought it was more that the Ukrainians will fight?
(not so much due to Zelenskyy, more that they're not inclined to hand the keys over to Russia)
Maybe that's just me.
I wouldn't mind them repelling the attacker-bomber, make the would-be land-grabber think twice, deter the invader. If they're going to fight? Heck yeah. — jorndoe

This seems to me clearly a pro-war position.

And, at the start of a conflict with Russia as a smaller nation, I would agree with fighting. I have trained for precisely this strategy.

The whole point of a conventional deterrent against a vastly more powerful force (and Russia's nuclear weapons makes them vastly more powerful), is to make a negotiated peace a better option for the aggressor than a costly and unpredictable fight.

Being willing to fight (even in a losing situation) is leverage in a negotiation.

However, if you demonstrate your willingness to fight ... and then don't negotiate, you not only lose your leverage the more you lose but you also motivate your opponent to demand more to compensate the costly fight.

What has happened in Ukraine is a missed opportunity for a negotiated peace early (or even before) the conflict.

This missed opportunity is I think very clearly due to a false sense of security provided by NATO (Zelensky seemed to genuinely believe he would get a NATO no-fly zone) while no NATO power did anything to explain to Zelensky the end-game if he refused to negotiate with Russia and accept some concessions (which, had it been explained that social media glory today is gone tomorrow, the weapons may not come forever and may not even be enough, the costs of trying to "win" by force may not be remotely worth it, and it's not at all clear how that's even remotely possible).

There is only one reason for that: US wanted this war to happen and to drag on as it has, and the EU leaders are basically puppets willing to harm their own people's interest, harm millions of Ukrainians, for US interests to reduce EU leverage to basically zero on the world stage, and have the EU submit as a bumbling and weak diplomatic side-kick and jester. The EU is basically the US' choir at this point.

Not really, because this comment was made in the context of a discussion with Tzeentch about NATO and the EU, to whom it pertains. — Olivier5

So NATO should support war with supplying arms ... but that's not a case for war?

Lot's of wars are considered by nearly all just wars, certainly most people here, there's no problem of principle, from the outset, arguing Ukraine's just war cause or NATO's just war cause.

The point of my comment was that you clearly genuinely believe your position, obviously our positions are very different (on at least some key points, not everything), debate and exchange of view ensues. What else would people expect from such a controversial and emotional topic as a war.

If Ukraine achieved a decisive battle field victory, or Russia did collapse and retreat begging for sanctions to be lifted, would you really be hedging your language now? Or would be be running internet victory laps.

Which, to be clear, I'm not criticising your passion for your cause. That part is noble. And, likewise, willing to submit your passion to scrutiny, which you do address and do reformulate your position (bad faith I only consider when criticism isn't even addressed), is likewise noble.

Of course, I still think you're wrong.

But, if you were right and there was some decisive Ukrainian victory or Russian regime collapse (which at the start I thought was a real possibility), for sure, in such a scenario I would be accepting my analysis was simply wrong.

However, @Isaac has made a more complete retort to the core moral issue, so I'll just repeat it again:

That some people have decided they want to fight doesn't absolve you of responsibility for defending your moral support for a course of action that entails massive harms on non-consenting, innocent bystanders... The others. The ones who didn't decide to fight. — Isaac

It doesn't. Russia's existing LNG capacity is a minor fraction of its pipeline capacity. — SophistiCat

I'm aware of this, that's why I also mentioned the non-EU pipelines (mainly China but there's also some capacity to sell south ... of course so those nations can sell to the EU).

However, the main point was that oil generates 5 times the revenue than gas.

So it's simply not a big hit to reduce gas exports, in particular, as I mentioned, if the increase in price offsets the lower volume anyways.

Russia can also store gas while it builds further export capacity (also leave it in the ground and tap it later) ... maybe where their reserves come into play to just wait to sell later; resource doesn't disappear simply because you don't sell it today.

There is not logical necessity to export at maximum capacity and no inherent consequence to lowering exports.

All this to explain why Russia's energy export revenues are up.

I do agree there is some uncertainty as to the quality of Chinese and Indian capital equipment, but as long as it does function it's not some critical failure point.

The Western advanced engineering firms do have more efficient equipment, but efficiency isn't so critical in Russia's situation of producing energy.

Rather than asking boethius to trawl through 300 pages of posts to find an exact quote to cover the very obvious support you show for continued war. — Isaac

Already done.

Fortunately, it's not so inconvenient as trawling through 300 pages.

You can click on a posters name, then click on "comments" and get their most recent comments, scroll down and you can click more and then a number will appear in the URL of what comment to start at, which you can then change to jump around.

You've clearly argued that Ukrainians should fight
— boethius

Where did I do so? — Olivier5

By an essentially random search through your comments, in literally 1 minute:

↪Tzeentch Taking care of the Russian threat for a generation is well worth the price. — Olivier5

Seems pretty strong support for the war ... and that it's well worth the price of the dead so far.

Which, maybe when you made that comment, had Ukraine used its leverage, and willing to fight is leverage, to negotiate peace terms maybe it would be worth the price, and maybe now it doesn't seem so clear.

And, to be clear, had Ukraine "fought hard" and then negotiated a peace, I wouldn't be critical of their strategy and diplomacy. It's clearly better than total capitulation from the outset.

However, total capitulation is better than an indefinite un-winnable war.

i don't think I have argued the case of war, i have just observed that the call for peace negotiations is part of the war. — Olivier5

You've clearly argued that Ukrainians should fight, which is the case for war. Without Ukrainians fighting there is no war.

Of course, you can blame the Russians for starting it, but it takes two sides to have a war.

Posters whining here that there are no peace negociations are only repeating uncritically the propaganda of the Kremlin. — Olivier5

It is not the propaganda of the Kremlin, US, NATO and EU literally came out and said they will not negotiate; negotiation must be directly with Ukraine. You can say that's how it should be, but you can't also at the same time say lack of serious negotiation throughout the war is Kremlin propaganda.

You could claim Russia would anyways break any agreement, but you can't say there was a negotiation ... even though there wasn't because it was assumed Russia wouldn't abide by any agreement so there was no attempt to negotiate.

Furthermore, even in the absence of serious negotiations of the powers involved and have the leverage (the powers with the money and the weapons and dictating Ukrainian policy), Russia nevertheless made a public offer of: independent Donbas, recognising Crimea, neutral Ukraine, and if accepted all troops would withdraw from Ukrainian territory.

The main criticism is that Ukraine did not accept this public offer, which was clearly the minimum Russia would ever offer, the only alternative to accepting the offer would be to wage a war that was clearly un-winnable, and even if Ukraine could take back the whole of just the Donbas, not to mention Crimea, it would be at the cost of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands dead Ukrainians (which is not a reasonable cost to "keep" two ethnically Russian regions).

Now, if Ukraine accepted the offer and then Russia reneged and continued the war anyways, that would be a different scenario. But future crime does not exist; you cannot accuse someone of not abiding by an agreement that has not been made.

And this good-faith, bad-faith game is important, as Russia needs to maintain other international relations who are open to consider Russia's point of view and decide accordingly. If Russia can point out a public offer that was clearly the minimum it could ever make, and obviously more reasonable than more war, and Ukraine refused, this is extremely weighty in diplomatic relations with non-NATO countries.

It doesn't matter to Western media, they'll just ignore it or say it was bad faith future crime or whatever, but it does matter to non-Western countries and media, many who are also authoritarian regimes of one form or another and don't have any prima facie "Russia is evil" starting point.

Without support of non-NATO countries in maintaining trade relations, Russia would very possibly collapse, so these diplomatically relevant (but irrelevant to Western media) good-faith-bad-faith arguments are also important to understand the geo-political situation.

Russia and China really are creating an alternative global economic system to challenge American Empire. Not only is "who's more reasonable" a critical point (as you can't wage war with everyone so do actually have to go and convince people to deal with you at some point) in these international relations, but it's important to keep in mind that most of these non-Wester nations are authoritarian and default to empathy with Russia and not Western "values" (and also love pointing out hypocrisy in those as much as they possibly can).

Indeed, there's even examples within NATO.

Erdogan is far closer ideologically to Putin than to any Western leader.

Russia''s motivation and justifications to deal with a pesky neighbour Ukraine by force is very close to Turkey's (aka. Türkiye's) view of Syria, Kurds, everyone.

So, a lot of the non-Western states are ideologically far closer to Russia than the West and don't need much evidence to essentially side with Russia.

Nevertheless, if Russia was clearly in the wrong (their offer was accepted, and then they continued fighting) diplomatic relations would immediately change as all these other states don't actually want the war, it affects them in energy and food costs, so if Russia was continuing it in bad faith that would be quickly intolerable to them.

Russia's narrative that they've made offers, super minimal, neutral Ukraine would have been enough (which then NATO accepts Ukraine will never join NATO ... but after the war, super good offers were made, Russia doesn't want war, but we have security interests same as you etc.) is completely essential to Russia's maintaining trading relations with the rest of the world, which is completely essential to its war effort.

All this to say that these diplomatic positions, that seem so small and irrelevant in the West's kindergarten analytical framework of erratic moral positions and expectation that some authority figure will "punish" the bad boy, seemingly small things such as publicly accepting rather than publicly rejecting a reasonable offer, has real consequences. It may feel good to declare Russia liars and you can't deal with them and they'll never abide by an agreement ... but the alternative is indefinite warfare.

Just from where the most participants are from (mainly from the Anglosphere). Which is quite natural as we use English. — ssu

Sure that's true.

Well, let's hope participating on a Philosophy forum isn't virtue signalling. — ssu

I was referring to facebook, twitter et. al.

People who virtue signal here don't seem to stick around; they go back to fishing for likes elsewhere I'm afraid.

This is a real possibility, I agree. — ssu

Yes we're in agreement there.

I'm sure we also agree that this would not be a morally acceptable outcome, same as abandoning allies in Afghanistan.

It seems that already Russia has signaled that it will take a break. And likely Ukraine doesn't have the ability to muster a large counterattack. There is the possibility that the war does what it did after 2014-2015: become a stalemate. Or at least for the time being until Russia simply can train new batches of conscripts and add up the needed materiel. — ssu

This is definitely one possibility, and definitely a Ukraine counter attack would be a big surprise to me.

However, Ukraine's ability to continue to defend is also highly uncertain. We simply don't know the relative force capabilities on each side at the moment. Damage to Russia's army only matters if there's not equal or greater damage to Ukraine's army.

Every example of damage against the Russians, or then various problems, generally is safe to assume is as bad or worse for the Ukrainians.

On the economic "sanctions"-front, I think that Russia has played it's cards very well. It simply is just such a large supplier of natural resources that the World cannot simply disregard it. The logical way for the West to counter this would be to try a push the price of oil and gas down by increasing production, but that would go against what has been set as goal to curb climate change. German energy policy of having relied to Russian energy with closing down nuclear plants and now having to open coal plants show how clueless the West actually is here.

Ukraine is still just one issue among others and Putin knows that. — ssu

I definitely agree with your assessment here, and disagree with:

If Europe goes through with its divestment from Russian energy, then Russia's game doesn't look so good in the medium term. Oil and gas are not like gold: moving them takes a lot of specialized infrastructure that simply does not exist today and won't come into existence any time soon. — SophistiCat

Although true that Oil and gas take specialized infrastructure ...

Russia spent the last decade building some 24 nuclear ice breakers, LNG compression stations, and all the piping and port facilities necessary to export oil and gas directly out of the arctic (how it has been supplying China and India with oil, although the ice breakers will only be needed in winter).

This video is literally titled "Why Russia is building an Arctic Silk Road":

And Asia's appetite for Russian energy isn't bottomless either: they'll take what they can if the discount is big enough, but they have other supplies as well. — SophistiCat

If it's cheaper, they buy basically all of it. Middle-east then shifts to supplying Europe. Once oil is at sea it is very fungible and essentially dissolves into the global oil market. Barrels may trade multiple times while still in the ground, while in storage, while at sea, and the oil that gets delivered from a supplier is not necessarily even oil from that supplier. Insofar as Russia can trade oil to the BRICS, then it's just a game of musical chairs shifting oil around.

I'm not sure if Russia has the LNG capacity to export all its gas through all its non-EU pipelines and arctic LNG plants, but there's not some logical necessity to export at maximum capacity. Indeed, not only does increase gas prices easily make-up for decreased volume, but natural gas is only a fifth the revenue of oil.

Oil is easy to export in vast quantities as long as there's port access, which Russia has secured with the nuclear ice breakers (and also only economic due to the disappearance of multi-year ice in the arctic, leaving ice easy to break through).

As for other economic sectors of the Russian economy, their biggest "other" industry is arms and they are basically the only supplier available for non-NATO aligned countries, so they have a captured market.

Computer chips are definitely an inconvenience, likely some missiles have washing machine chips in them to get around sanctions ... or then maybe that was just the best and cheapest chip for the job. I doubt they actually scavenged them from actual washing machines.

However, I don't think computing is such a big deal simply because there's so many ways around sanctions, there's so many chips in the world and they're small (it's far from being some difficult to acquire thing such as in the cold war), and Russia can produce its own chips (not cutting edge but good enough for most industrial processes and military purposes).

Precise manufacturing can be sourced from China.

Certainly results in an ersatz economy with a lot of copies of Western equipments, but as long as it all still works, doesn't seem there's any critical failure points for the Russian economy writ large.

Supplying massive quantities of what people "need": energy, food, fertiliser, minerals, arms is not a weak economic position.

Having recently experienced a philosophy forum pile on which included you, I'm going to speak up and declare your approach wrong, unfair, and quasi-spanish-inquisition-McCarthyish, and I'm strongly opposed. Let's not do that. — Tate

This is not some sort of safe space for your ego, where your arguments and intentions should be protected from scrutiny.

"Arguing" against your positions is not a "forum pile", it's called debate.

Real intellectual debate is a rational framework for an emotional contest.

Always has been.

This particular forum, by the grace of the mods, is for people who want to actually test their beliefs, argumentation, justifications against the most brutal scrutiny that the internet can muster.

Some of us have not only been here for years, engaging in good faith and sharpening our whits, but were also inhabitants of the previous forum (just "philosophyforum") which was far more rigorous (for various reasons) and essentially serves as this forum's Hades. A dark mysterious nether realm from which have sprung some monsters of the deep.

Why expect submitting your beliefs and argumentation skills to actual scrutiny to be a pleasant experience where the rules should be set to allow you to at least "tie"?

There is no reason, especially if the truth is of any value.

You only expect this because echo chambers built to maintain your belief system operate in this way, but here is not an echo chamber: anyone can participate defending any point of view, attacking any point of view.

Some people here have been following or even working on the climate change issue for years and decades.

You "pop in" to insult our knowledge, tell us to get up to speed.

When your knowledge is demonstrated to be delusional (by reference to actual evidence), you then feel insulted, claim I'm "quasi-spanish-inquisition-McCarthyish" ... for participating in open debate, free exchange of ideas, not coercing anyone to utter or believe anything by some government force, but simply making my case in the public forum?

If someone is clearly denying climate change, fine, let's pile on. If someone is just advocating widening our understanding, we should not feel threatened by that. There's nothing wrong with that. — Tate

The problem with your arguments is that it does not "widen" our understanding, but is simply wrong.

Increased CO2 emissions more than compensate orbital insolation changes on any relevant time scale. There is zero risk of an ice age happening anytime soon.

Whether you're conscious of it or not, your comments are simply a reflection of the new phase in climate denialism which is to down-play the dangers, muddy the waters, try to paint real analysis as somehow lacking using platitudes and truisms that easily confuse the gullible and (in particular) people who want to engage in magical thinking and believe the situation isn't so bad or then will right itself.

For example, in one single sentence you seem to agree we should reduce our CO2 emissions, but even there it is subtle propaganda in using the word "prudent" rather than "necessary to avoid total disaster". Prudent connotes an over abundance of caution, and is not even necessarily a virtue. A "prudent" person may also miss out on opportunities by avoiding risks.

Framing CO2 reductions as "prudent" impresses upon the mind of the conservative idiot that the outcome is not near-certain and maybe the risks discussed would not be realised in business as usual scenario.

For example, it is prudent to wear a helmet on a motorcycle, but forgoing a helmet in no way guarantees a brain injury. Indeed, a brain injury is not even very probable if one is a skilled biker that is unlikely to crash.

The situation with carbon emissions is that of a heroin junky taking more and more heroin each trip. It is not merely prudent to stop taking more and more heroin, it is necessary for survival. The probability of being able to survive heroin doses far in excess of anything anyone has survived before is negligible for decision making.

It is not "prudent" to stop CO2 emissions, it is necessary for survival of most people and most species, and a moral imperative.

A recent internet commentator described this new batch of denialism flooding the brain waves as "lukewarmists", which is a good description, but it also still just plain ol' denialism, muddying the waters, and the denial is the actual state of the climate and consequences.

"I don't deny climate change, just all this other stuff so as to result in the same inaction, same as before," is not somehow wriggling out of the denialism (to then participate as some moral and intellectual equal worthy of respect), it is just updating the denialist strategy to the fact everyone can see the consequences of climate change now and it's no longer effective to straight up claim it's not happening (people can see it's happening), so the next best thing is to downplay the consequences, peddle fantasies such as the ice age cycle may "save the day!" based on a total delusional understanding of the climate, but with a few techno-babble words thrown in to impress the gullible.

All your points, their content, how they are presented, trying to undermine people who do know what they are talking about ... while also claiming to be on the same team of wanting to reduce emissions? Is all just repeating propaganda: either intentionally or then as a useful idiot to propagandists who created all these talking points.

Propaganda is not good faith intellectual debate: it deserves no respect, no invitation, no empathy, and no quarter on the fields of whit.

It is academics, politicians, activists, organisers, journalists, who were otherwise good faith, pandering to propaganda and trying to "meet them half way" so at least "something is done", is what got us to the current crisis in the first place.

For, the propagandists were also selling what environmentalists wanted to believe as well: things aren't so bad.

(my bad, thought it was clear enough, but should have been more explicit) — jorndoe

I really don't think we are.

You're saying modifying business as usual is some comparable inherent risk to modifying the earth's atmosphere, that is prima facie balanced somehow and we need equal consideration of both risks.

You simply use a euphemism of "doing nothing" to represent business as usual, in a pretty obvious attempt to trick others into your false-balance-framework or then trick even yourself.

I'm pretty sure we understand each other very well, and are using and understanding the "verbiage" as each means it to.

But this thread is now going to be 300 pages and some have this fixation that the most important issue talked about should be the US tells something. — ssu

What is the something that it tells?

Usually they are like that... as people really don't get heated up about various armed groups fighting in a civil war in a country that they have problem finding on a map. — ssu

Sure, many people don't care about any war, participated in discussing this one to jump on the social media virtue signalling band-waggon before hopping off.

I'm not sure if you're saying that discussion between the people disinterested would be higher quality? Or what?

As for the current state of the war, counter offensive against Kershon does not seem to be working.

I would guess that the second last batch of weapons was predicated on the promise of holding out in Dombas, and now the latest batch of weapons is predicated on a promise of counter offensive in Kershon.

If this counter-offensive fails, "allies" will continue to wind-down their arms shipments to Ukraine, continue to deescalate with Russia, and forget about Ukraine.

People and politicians will go back to same-old-same-old':

Usually they are like that... as people really don't get heated up about various armed groups fighting in a civil war in a country that they have problem finding on a map. — ssu

Indeed, the "usual".

doing nothing — jorndoe

Doing nothing would be not-modifying the earth's atmosphere.

Modifying the earth's atmosphere is called radical intervention in the earth-life system.

That Western economics call this radical intervention "laissez-faire" is because they are mostly propagandists due to cold war political intervention in academia (no "laissez-faire" approach to that hot button issue -- and they're damn proud of it!).

And, it's not even a laissez-faire situation even according to their own propaganda, as subsidies to the fossil industry is not laissez-faire but market intervention.

The process of dumping billions of tons of carbon and other pollutants along with more direct destruction of the ecosystems is not some baseline "no intervention" in the earth system.

It is continuous and radical intervention that is inherently high risk compared to actual ecological "laissez faire" policy which would be preserving the pre-industrial economy, or even pre-agriculture economy, or even pre-fire economy, depending on how you want to define interventions in the global earth-life system.

Arguing alone has the same consequences, the same risks, as doing nothing, and that's the way of the deniers. — jorndoe

This is called false equivalence and is just more propaganda.

Modifying the composition of the earth's atmosphere is high risk.

Not-modifying it is low risk.

To create a dilemma , one requires some problem in the current status quo of the system and so a inherent risk to inaction.

For example, there is risk to heart surgery, I think we would agree on this basic fact.

However, one cannot automatically postulate that there is equal risk to not-heart surgery.

One would need evidence of an actual heart disease of which the heart surgery might mend or mitigate, to start balancing risks (if the heart disease is mild, the surgery maybe higher risk than doing nothing).

Then there is also the costs to consider of the intervention (as resources are scarce). Doctors have a framework for evaluating risk and resource allocation to intervention called "Number Needed to Treat".

Not only is evidence of a problem required (diagnosis) but then there's a bunch of other steps to justify intervention.

At no point is a person with zero-diagnosis or symptoms or other evidence of a medical problem, somehow at sufficient risk of any given disease justifying any given medical intervention.

If there is no evidence of heart disease then performing heart surgery on the basis of simply balancing the risk of no-intervention with intervention and flipping a coin would be criminal.

In the case of the climate, there is zero evidence the climate had some problem our intervention of billions of tons of carbon a year might fix.

Modifying the system in an uncontrolled experiment on the entire earth-life system is completely insane to say that not-doing-that would be of equal risk to consider.

And yes, quite well to stay away from a dumpster fire like this thread. — ssu

Are you talking about your own comments?

I don't see why people would be surprised that the subject of an ongoing war isn't in the framework of the usual academic decorum, hedged language, and polite patting on the back for everyone participating in an obscure, unimportant, and zero-stakes intellectual masterbation session.

I think it's entirely healthy posters like @Olivier5 are passionate about their case for war, as much as other posters are passionate about their case for peace.

If you want a dumpster fire, go to some place like https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/ and you'll see people huddling and warming themselves around their modern day book burning (aka. deleting and banning any dissenting opinion whatsoever).

A space where actual opposing views can meet and discuss and disagree is not a dumpster fire. It's called "debate". If people care about the subject, it's called: "people care".

London is literally dealing with wild fires (a traditionally humid place, but of course only some traditions are cared about by traditionalists):

Crews who fought wildfires across London that destroyed more than 40 properties as heatwave temperatures soared have described the conditions as "absolute hell". — London wildfires: Crews say they experienced absolute hell

Pretty accurate description of the massive forest fires (in particular in rain forests that are evolved without fire as it's usually too wet: see key word "rain"), as well as the civil unrest that goes along with empirical verification of what "unsustainability" entails.

For those interested in actual science:

This recent article summarises the "bleak" position and reason it's important to accept:

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, when humanity began pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, global temperatures have risen by just over 1C. At the Cop26 climate meeting in Glasgow last year, it was agreed that every effort should be made to try to limit that rise to 1.5C, although to achieve such a goal, it was calculated that global carbon emissions will have to be reduced by 45% by 2030.

“In the real world, that is not going to happen,” says McGuire. “Instead, we are on course for close to a 14% rise in emissions by that date – which will almost certainly see us shatter the 1.5C guardrail in less than a decade.”

And we should be in no doubt about the consequences. Anything above 1.5C will see a world plagued by intense summer heat, extreme drought, devastating floods, reduced crop yields, rapidly melting ice sheets and surging sea levels. A rise of 2C and above will seriously threaten the stability of global society, McGuire argues. It should also be noted that according to the most hopeful estimates of emission cut pledges made at Cop26, the world is on course to heat up by between 2.4C and 3C.

From this perspective it is clear we can do little to avoid the coming climate breakdown. Instead we need to adapt to the hothouse world that lies ahead and to start taking action to try to stop a bleak situation deteriorating even further, McGuire says. — ‘Soon it will be unrecognisable’: total climate meltdown cannot be stopped, says expert

This is the best most recent summary of the current situation I can find:



Notice both interlocutors are actual scientists that have worked on the issue, have cohesive arguments and shit, don't just hand waive platitudes like the earth is self-balancing (without justification), or ice age will start any century now (without justification).

Notice also the focus on risks.

The most successful propaganda of the oil lobby was convincing (aka. bribing) the media and political classes into accepting the idea that predictions must be "certain" to justify action.

Yet, in their own board rooms they make decisions based on impact x probability = risk.

Indeed, their whole interest in financing climate denial is because non-corrupt politicians making rational decisions based on intolerable risk to experiment with the earth's climate, starting with simply ceasing to subsidise fossil fuels which isn't justified even within their own neo-liberal delusions sans-climate-disaster (we never hear about "the market" needing to function when it comes to these subsidies), maybe low-probability but is nevertheless extremely high impact to their bottom lines, resulting in medium financial risk levels: therefore, justifying investments in mitigatory action on a net-present-value basis for an optimum allocation of resources to protect sunk costs in technology and infrastructure to extract shale, bitumen and deep water (rather than accept fossil extraction scaling down while renewables scale up), as part of their fiduciary duty to shareholders.

Yet, when people who care about the earth and all who dwell upon the earth and don't even own any shares in oil companies, use the same impact x probability = risk framework to analyse the situation:

Alarmism!

So I see now everybody is wasting their time in the glaciation thread when the actual subject is the man made climate crisis we have on our hands now. All you apparently have to do to distract would-be philosophers is start a thread demonstrating you don't know what you're talking about and then they will fall over each other to set the record straight. While interesting, it is a complete waste of time. — Benkei

Although, I didn't participate in the new thread, I don't think it's fair to say those that went and demonstrated the absurdity of the ice age in a few hundred years hypothesis and the science isn't settled! So many unknowns! Are wasting their time.

I think it's important to pick apart bad faith denialist propaganda and show how it works.

In this case, the basic idea behind the propaganda is to impress on the gullible that we can continue business as usual, roll the dice and maybe get lucky with a new ice age in a few centuries (which certainly doesn't sound like a 6 degree warming, mass extinction, very possibly humans extinct, dystopian world with extreme hardships for everyone starting in our life time ... but more, hmm, maybe it gets colder again due to the glaciation pattern continuing! Use that climate data against them!).

A basic schematic of "ok, scientists may have 'a point', but they don't know everything! And the future is uncertain! Sure it would be 'prudent' to stop CO2 emissions, but it's not totally irrational to continue the 'American way of life' since maybe we'll get lucky."

Propaganda that allows the gullible to simply imagine a pleasant future, at least for rich countries, and once fixed in the mind, is a gentle constant lullaby for the soul.

Of course, I completely agree that this should not take up all our time, and I also agree that some people get too focused on criticising the enemy and lose sight completely of needing to coordinate with allies to get anything actually done.

That's really not true. I'm not continuing this discussion with you. — Tate

Most of your statements are not even purporting to be facts, and the one's that are you do not support with any evidence, and the one statement you cited an article for does not support your statement.

I don't think we should back down from stating scientific facts because someone could imply something we disagree with. — Tate

As has been explained to you in your thread complaining about the moderation, throwing out a scientific fact that has no relevance to the discussion (neither supporting nor contradicting any position in the discussion, not even your own, which seems to be we should stop all CO2 emissions immediately), is bad faith and adds nothing to the dialogue.

Almost none of your statements are scientific fact, and, this particular example of an ice age starting in a few hundred years, has zero scientific basis whatsoever and is extreme contradiction to what the entire climatology community is predicting.

So, first, in no way factual and you've provided no citations to support your mad theory that an ice age is likely, or even remotely possible, to be triggered in the next few hundred years. So, if you want to play the facts game, which I suggest you do, then the basic rule of the game is "evidence", which you provide nothing remotely supporting your claims.

You're intention is clear: try to throw out statements that make one implication, or just false statements, then ignore criticism or backtrack to your statement being totally meaningless.

For example, that models are not complete is true for all models. To be relevant to the discussion you need to point out what's missing from those models and what decisions might change in a more complete model and how that change is relevant.

However, for climate models, there are no such candidates.

Increasing CO2 beyond anything the earth has experienced in millions of years is a reckless uncontrolled experiment with intolerable risks, already intolerable proven harms to people and living systems we've caused so far, and more precise models have zero candidates of greater precision or then added complexity that would remotely possibly change such a conclusion.

Throwing shade on the models by claiming they aren't complete (as is true for all models) has no relevance to any decision making.

It's called propaganda, not good faith discussion. If you genuinely perceive yourself as not repeating propaganda, then you're a useful idiot to the propagandists that have filled your head with nonsense.

That's not true. I provided two citations in spite of the fact that my knowledge is primarily from textbooks. — Tate

You provided one citation of an article investigating the natural 100 000 year cycle (in the past) and the mechanism of glacial retreat, which does not have anything to do with climate change today which is not caused by orbital mechanics but a radical increase in man-made CO2 emissions.

The next "citation" you offer is a wikipedia "failed verification" tag to a statement that, again, has no relevance to the discussion if it was true or false, did not contradict what you said it was contradicting, and does lend weight to any position in the thread whatsoever.

That's just not true. I've explained that several times now — Tate

That's what you're statements, like an ice age is expected in the next few hundred years, imply.

Your whole current argument is that there is some doubt as to the next ice age, that human CO2 has not completely disrupted the natural cycle, or then there is some doubt about that. Read your own statements.

Obviously, if the earth may actually cool anyways and the current warming is transitory, that implies global warming is a lot smaller problem than essentially the entire climatology community have concluded.

Essentially all your statements, either about the ice age, or claiming gaps in knowledge (which only matter in the context of this discussion if the uncertainty would change a decision, of which there are no candidates), such as

There are aspects of the question that we don't even know how to model right now.

No, it's not simple. — Tate

Or take your statement:

We are in an ice age guys. Get yourself up to speed. — Tate

What other interpretation of this statement is possible than implying interlocutors discussing the catastrophic consequences of climate change do not know we are "in an ice age" which has the connotation of being cold rather than hot.

Likewise, by being derogatory in this matter, that participants do not have an even basic knowledge of the subject (while predicting an ice age will likely, or even potentially, start in a few centuries), that their statements can therefore be dismissed.

We both agree that the planet would normally be heading towards reglatiation
— boethius

Thank you. — Tate

Where we disagree is that you claim this natural pattern will continue anyways, or there is some serious doubt as to the effect of our CO2 emissions:

For decades now, scientists have known, just from looking at the geological record, that the reglaciation should start sometime in the next few centuries. That means glaciers come back down and cover Chicago. It means the UK is under a sheet of ice. This was disturbing news when it was first discovered, and we now know quite a bit more about how it works, what the trigger is, and so forth.

We don't presently know if increased CO2 will cause us to miss the trigger, or if reglaciation will begin anyway. There are aspects of the question that we don't even know how to model right now.

No, it's not simple. — Tate

We not only know that our current CO2 emissions will delay reglaciation by upwards of 500 000 years or more, but we also know that CO2 emissions are pushing us out of the current climate paradigm altogether, towards an ice-free planet.

There are always more details that can be modelled, no predictive model is as complete as the natural system being modelled (this is true for all models).

What matters is the confidence of the predictions that can be made with current knowledge and modelling, and then risk assessment.

The risks are intolerably high ... which you seem to agree with.

It would probably be prudent to put the brakes on CO2 emissions, like completely. — Tate

So, it's not clear what you're even disagreeing with or what point you are trying to make. If you want to just discuss the physics of the climate and get into nuances that have no relevance to this particular discussion, then there are science and physics forums for that.

You seem to just want to make vague statements that imply global warming is not a problem, might get magically solved, or scientists "don't know everything", to soften the blow, such as we're going towards an ice age in the next few centuries (sounds the opposite of warming! god be praised!), but then just backtrack everything to actually have been completely meaningless and irrelevant to the topic at hand.

That's not good faith discussion and deserves no respect.

Where you do make statements that have a baring on the discussion, such as "We don't presently know if increased CO2 will cause us to miss the trigger, or if reglaciation will begin anyway," they are simply false.

It's supposed to follow from the portion that failed verification. — Tate

What failed verification is this:

More recent work suggests that orbital variations should gradually increase 65° N summer insolation over the next 25,000 years.[failed verification][failed verification] — Milankovitch cycles - Wikipedia

Which neither you nor I are claiming.

We both agree that the planet would normally be heading towards reglatiation (I wouldn't say next few centuries, but going towards that).

The issue at hand is the effect of human interference; in particular dumping billions of tons of carbon every year into the atmosphere and carbon cycle that would not otherwise get there, resulting in higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere than any point in the last millions of years.

Also nothing relevant can be inferred from this statement about insolation anyways (it does not in any-case comment on the state of the climate system as a whole, which is what we're discussing), even if it was true (which, my guess, is there is some truthiness to it, and it comes from misreading an article discussing some subtle orbital effect that, in itself, increases insolation but is minuscule compared to the major orbital mechanics that will be decreasing overall insolation; and then someone dropped in "aha, insolation will be increasing" without citation ... and so makes sense it fails verification).

The statement that "failed verification" (which in wikipedia is only a tag to represent missing sources, which maybe provided by the author of the statement; it is not a tag that means "this statement is false" and has no argumentative use in that roll), does not remotely do what you are claiming, in contradicting:

In glaciology, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in both northern and southern hemispheres.[3] By this definition, Earth is currently in an interglacial period—the Holocene. The amount of anthropogenic greenhouse gases emitted into Earth's oceans and atmosphere is predicted to prevent the next glacial period for the next 500,000 years, which otherwise would begin in around 50,000 years, and likely more glacial cycles after. — Ice age

The Wikipedia article is wrong. The same information shows up in the article on the Milankovitch cycle and it's superscripted with "verification failed". — Tate

Maybe cite what you're talking about, but I'm happy to do it for you:

More recent work suggests that orbital variations should gradually increase 65° N summer insolation over the next 25,000 years.[failed verification][failed verification] — Milankovitch cycles - Wikipedia

The statement you cite (I assume ... because you don't actually cite it) that "failed verification" does not contradict the wikipedia statement on the Ice Age page you say it contradicts.

It's a statement that doesn't really infer anything (just "suggesting" something without any predictive value on the whole system; one factor among many, if it is even vaguely representing something true, which "failed verification" may "suggest" it isn't) ... certainly not about events in the next few centuries which is the point under discussion.

Indeed, right after this statement that "fails verification", the same information I cited from the Ice Age page is cited again:

Earth's orbit will become less eccentric for about the next 100,000 years, so changes in this insolation will be dominated by changes in obliquity, and should not decline enough to permit a new glacial period in the next 50,000 years.[38][39] — Milankovitch cycles - Wikipedia

The thing you claim is contradicted ... is literally repeated the very next statement.

What "fails verification" is "recent work" that "suggests" insolation will increase over the next 25 000 years. Now, this could be just a misrepresentation of the work; for example, one subtle orbital mechanic that does increase insolation by itself, in an overall decreasing trend towards less insolation and (without human interference) reglaciation (as we both agree). But we don't know what the source material says ... because it's not cited (honestly seems like someone inserted some propaganda).

Now, what the very next statement in the Milankovitch cycles says, that a new glacial period may start in the next 50 000 years, is true for the Milankovitch cycle, but does not comment on man-made interference, which the Ice Age page provides this additional context with citation (no "failed verification").

Additionally, what matters is the actual sources, not what is tagged or not in Wikipedia. Someone could tag "failed verification" and then the very next day the source is added and the issue resolved.

We need to actual sources.

You are confusing research into the natural glaciations cycles that have been occurring for the last 2 million years with human interference in those natural cycles and the consequences of that.

Again, if humans interfere in a system the pattern may diverge wildly from what was there before. If we damn a river the patterns of fish migration may stop, even if they have been occurring for thousands of years.

If we remove a mountain in mountain top removal operation, it would be clearly wrong to say the mountain will still be there because the patter has been the mountain has been there for millions of years and plate movement is actually pushing the mountain upwards and making it taller. Yes, the natural pattern maybe that the mountain is getting taller and will get even taller due to plate tectonics ... but that theory of the natural system does not remain true if we go and remove said mountain.

This is a study from 2013 about summer insolation reglaciation triggering. It upholds the standard view that we're fairly close to a trigger point now since we know summer insolation is at a minimum.

If you want a simpler narrative, I would advise a climatology textbook. There are some good ones out there — Tate

The article you linked to in no way supports your claim that reglaciation will start in a few centuries.

The article also in no way contradicts the wikipedia statement that we've already delayed reglatiation by some 500 000 years or more.

The article you link to does not even address man-made climate change, but is studying the natural 100 000 year pattern of glaciation and inter-glacials.

The study investigates the mechanisms of glacial retreat in the natural cycle of glaciation.

Which, if humans interfere with the natural cycle, there is zero reason to assume things will continue as normal simply because that's been the pattern so far, just like if we damn a river there is no reason to assume the salmon will return and spawn in the river if the damn physically prevents them from doing so.

Wow. This is wrong. Wikipedia lets us down — Tate

I've explained at some length the idea of "supporting your conclusions".

Like, how is Wikipedia wrong on this point, what's the errors in the analysis of the cited sources? ... where are the climatologists with models demonstrating the ice age coming in a few centuries?

As I said, we've known about this since the 1980s. It just doesn't come up much because it's centuries away. — Tate

Can you cite one climate model predicting an ice age in a few centuries?

I would say because of the unknown, something unforeseen. Suppose some super disease appears because of climate change,and we don't survive it?

If down the road we want to stop reglaciation, let tomorrow's scientists figure out how to do that safely.

Thanks for being so friendly, and not at all unnecessarily aggressive. — Tate

Did you even bothering reading the second paragraph of wikipedia entry on "ice age"?

I'll site it again:

The amount of anthropogenic greenhouse gases emitted into Earth's oceans and atmosphere is predicted to prevent the next glacial period for the next 500,000 years, which otherwise would begin in around 50,000 years, and likely more glacial cycles after.[4][5][6] — Ice age-Wikipedia

Wikipedia can certainly be wrong, but claiming it is wrong should have more support than simply vaguely referencing something scientists knew in the 80s; and at least one reference to compete with Wikipedia's 3 references for this point.

And neither 50 000 years nor 500 000 years sounds like a few centuries to me.

It's not a different topic if it's happening in the next few centuries and there's nothing to worry about ... except starting to move our Northern most populations south so they don't get buried in kilometres of ice.

You've been making statements like:

For decades now, scientists have known, just from looking at the geological record, that the reglaciation should start sometime in the next few centuries. — Tate

Climatologists are observing glaciers melting and predicting more melting, where are the climatologists predicting reglaciation starting sometime in the next few centuries?

And if reglaciation is going to happen in the next few centuries, why worry about warming or stop CO2 emissions?

I don't even know what that means. — Tate

You're the one arguing we'll stay in an ice-age ... because we're in an ice-age.

That natural cycles, like the next glaciation, will happen for some reason despite our modifications to the atmosphere.

It would probably be prudent to put the brakes on CO2 emissions, like completely. — Tate

So what are you even arguing?

It's possible. If we burn all the coal we can access it will become more likely. That would take around 200 years. — Tate

So how does that square with the earth's biosphere is "self correcting"?

And, again, assuming you're aware outcomes increase in severity with the warming and have uncertainties (maybe it takes "burning all the coal", maybe it takes significantly less), how are these acceptable risks to take?

We're in an interglacial period of a large scale ice age. Specifically, we're at the end of an interglacial awaiting reglaciation. — Tate

If we did not change the composition of the earth's atmosphere.

I literally just cited the wikipedia article on "Ice age" explaining this, that we have already delayed the next glaciation by a good 500 000 years due to the carbon we've already emitted.

If we change the earths atmosphere composition even more, we can exit an ice-age to a significant (mass-extinction scale) degree (lose all year-round ice in the arctic) or even exit an ice age completely and melt the Antarctic as well, mass-extinction even harder.

Why? A rise in CO2 causes global warming which in turn causes greenification that counters the rise in CO2. That's a negative feedback loop alright! — Agent Smith

That's not a negative feedback loop that keeps the system stable, which is the issue: stability.

Negative feedback loop, connotes a a feedback mechanism strong enough to return a system to the same state: maintaining stability.

There is negative feedback, but it is not some sort of loop that returns the system to stability. Some carbon is absorbed by greening the antarctic, but it is a paltry amount compared to what we've emitted so far, and, in any-case, even small compared to other sources of CO2 such as permafrost and rain forests burning away.

It is not a feeback look, but better described as a buffer; absorbs some, like the oceans, slows down warming, but doesn't return the system to its former state.

A feedback loop would be that CO2 increase triggers mad greenification of deserts rapidly absorbing the excess C02 back to equilibrium baseline. This would be hypothetically possible if CO2 was the limiting factor to plant growth; however, it's not.

An example of a feedback mechanism in the earths system is ice melting:

More ice melts in the arctic ocean, more exposed water, more energy is absorbed resulting in more melting.

More ice melts in Greenland, more water absorbing more energy, but also lower the altitude of the ice surface gets, the lower the altitude the hotter, causing more melting (under a certain threshold catastrophic melting will occur).

For decades now, scientists have known, just from looking at the geological record, that the reglaciation should start sometime in the next few centuries. — Tate

You present yourself as "knowledgeable" about ice-ages ... but have not even bothered to read the second paragraph of the wikipedia entry "ice age":

In glaciology, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in both northern and southern hemispheres.[3] By this definition, Earth is currently in an interglacial period—the Holocene. The amount of anthropogenic greenhouse gases emitted into Earth's oceans and atmosphere is predicted to prevent the next glacial period for the next 500,000 years, which otherwise would begin in around 50,000 years, and likely more glacial cycles after. — Ice age

What would have been the natural pattern if we didn't dump billions of tons of carbon a year into the atmosphere ... is not of predictive value if we do dump billions of carbon a year into the atmosphere.

It's like we're discussing building a damn, and you're explaining how that's not a problem for the ecosystems because the river has been naturally flowing without a problem for the fish for thousands of years, and scientists have already said the salmon come back every year to spawn (it's their instinct).

↪boethius

With global warming

1. The greenification of Antarctica will occur.

2. The northward march of the timber line has been predicted.

Negative feedback loops, oui? — Agent Smith

These are not negative feeback loops. The greenification of the Antarctic would be a massive change the the earth-life-system.

Eventually the CO2 will come down due to mostly weathering over hundreds of thousands of years.

However, this is not a negative feedback loop changing the earth-system back to what it is now.

Mass extinction, followed by a green antarctic, followed by millions of years of biodiversity recovery and potentially returning to the glaciation that we've had recently, is not stability.