The real reason why we should fight human-induced climate change
The fight to convince people that we should act to prevent human-induced climate change has been on for many years now. Many rhetoric have been used but Oliver Morton, in What is your dangerous idea?, is afraid that some of the arguments might back-fire because they are missing the real reason. This is a controversial issue.
According to Norton, we should not fight necessarily because ecosystems are going to disappear. His point is that Earth has witnessed harsher changes, the living has endured (so far) far more dramatic blows (none of the least example being the Permian-Triassic extinction, 251 million years ago, when nearly 90% of life was killed), yet life and Earth still exist and are relatively healthy (to our standards).
If we have to fight, it is because people are going to suffer. They will suffer because they will be displaced by the rising sea level, because their way of life will be destroyed, because social disorders will trigger wars and diseases:
"The most important thing about environmental change is that it hurts people; the basis of our response should be human solidarity.Oliver Norton, What is your dangerous idea?, Our planet is not in peril.
The planet will take care of itself."
Any other arguments are near-fallacies and may back-fire. Controversial, indeed.