Unravelling the myth of a "carbon budget" for 1.5C

[Jim Lane]

5. Yes, but it doesn't require 7 billion people to maintain it.

Raise global temperature by five degrees Celsius and kill off half the human population -- a tragedy, of course, but those still alive could adapt.

Perhaps a truly catastrophic breakdown of global systems might deprive us of rubber, so we wouldn't have an automobile industry. That doesn't portend extinction. Our species has survived almost its entire history without using rubber, burning oil, harnessing electricity, etc.

I mentioned Death Valley, just pulling an example out of my head when I thought of an inhospitably hot environment. Now, checking its Wikipedia article, I read that "Death Valley is home to the Timbisha tribe of Native Americans, formerly known as the Panamint Shoshone, who have inhabited the valley for at least the past millennium."

Certainly there will be disruptions. Maybe in 100 years Canada will have more people than the United States. Extinction, however, would require something even more dramatic, like the mutation of new virus that's very contagious and very deadly.