In many well-known cases, there have been total or near collapse of entire societies. The entire human species can be seen as one big melting pot in this way, genetically, culturally, linguistically, and anthropologically.

Some have slowly transformed, migrated, or integrated into something completely different from what came before. Just as a huge majority of the animal species that ever existed have gone extinct, a very large percentage of human societies that ever existed have gone extinct in different ways. The collapse of individual human societies, either suddenly or over a long period of time, is nothing new. In the worst-case scenario, the effects of climate change will rip apart the fragile trappings of civil society and make survival and the defense of basic natural resources the daily priority of most of the remaining humanity. For all its faults, our modern civilization is infinitely better and more livable than the type of apocalyptic scenarios we are used to seeing in films and TV, but can hardly imagine actually happening in our lifetimes. On the other hand, if it turns out that the scientists are correct, but governments do not take action soon enough, we may risk if not total human extinction, quite probably the large-scale extinction of the type of modern civilization, values, and rights we have come to take for granted (as well as a mass extinction of huge numbers of plant and animal species). If it turns out that the 97% of scientists who have been studying the issue in depth for decades were actually wrong and we ended up with cleaner, cheaper energy, a less wasteful and more sustainable way of living, and cleaner air, water, and land, then that is a consequence we can happily live with.

My position is that regardless of whether climate change is caused by humans or not, we should treat it as if it were and take the threat seriously.

There is no longer any credible debate that it is occurring, and even the debate whether or not it has been caused mostly by human activity now depends only on an individual’s acceptance of the head-in-the-sand propaganda led by the oil lobby. It is by now a well-known and undisputed fact that climate change in all its guises is, or will soon be, the biggest problem for life on planet Earth.

Jared diamond collapse sparknotes