> our prehistoric forebears had a lot worse to deal with

Do you mean in terms of climate change? I know some temperatures were different but this was much more gradual afaik, which is no problem for anyone with two feet and a sense of where to go, but they were much more dependent on the ecosystem which struggles to keep up with the speed of today's changes

From what I hear, what we're causing is unprecedented for humans. Not dinosaur meteorite level of course (it's not an overnight change) but an ecosystem extinction event is nevertheless going on (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction)

I agree with the broader point that we'll survive and the question is more about the amount of suffering we inflict on ourselves and other animals along the way. Just curious if any old human (or even any great ape from the 'homo' genus) did experience worse

▲

A_D_E_P_T 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Prehistoric climate change was sometimes much more sudden than anything we've experienced. See e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas

There are others.

	▲	Tarsul 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The present has accepted this challenge. As Wiki states: "The scientific consensus is that severe AMOC weakening explains the climatic effects of the Younger Dryas." And with the news about AMOC weakening today, we could as well be off to quicker temperature swings (particularly in Europe) than we've seen the last decades that might well challenge the Younger Dryas.
	▲	Aachen 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		"in the tropics, the cooling was spread out over several centuries" but "2–6 °C in Europe and up to 10 °C in Greenland, in a few decades. Cooling in Greenland was particularly rapid, taking place over just 3 years or less" That's indeed a lot more extreme in a shorter amount of time, at least regionally. Feel like I should have known that! Thanks