Reply #25: Do you mean "finished" as in "go to sleep and wait for your life to end"?

[freedom fighter jh]

It's not *that* bad yet. While climate change is the biggest challenge facing humanity, there is still time to try to find a way to minimize the human suffering.

That suffering threatens in many areas: famine (because climate disruption brings agricultural disruption), poverty, mass migrations forced by sea level rise. Somewhere on that list, not near the top but still high enough to matter, if government overreach. Yes, people are, as you say, terrified of giving away power to government. That doesn't mean they won't do it. Witness the Patriot Act.

Global warming may stay in *your* cerebral cortex, but when people living in low-lying coastal areas start getting flooded in this country like they are in Kiribati, more primitive areas of the brain will be tapped. Overreaction will be natural. Something very like The Shock Doctrine may kick in.

My tea party neighbor tells me climate change can't be real because it's just too convenient a way to expand government's power. I reply that it is very real and I suggest that he focus his argument on keeping government solutions to climate change within limits that respect rights and the Constitution.

Wasn't it Daniel that saw the handwriting on the wall?