When we say “destroy the planet”, it usually means making it inhabitable for human (as we are) life, Mother Nature would recover in the long term, but in the long term we would be dead.

Global population is set to decrease dramatically as industrialization's demographic wave passes. Pollution will decrease with it. It's a plot change many haven't noticed yet.

Climate change skeptics think humans have little to do with climate change and so we are all doomed anyways (conservation won’t help, so YOLO). Definitely Mother Nature will correct it one way or another, and humans could be totally obsolete in a few centuries anyways. I’m not sure if I’m comfortable using this as justification to drive a canyonero.

We are already almost at +1.5° C, we are looking at +4° C at the end of this century with the current trends. The Global population will still be around 11 billion (3 billion more than today) in 2100 (if we are not all dead at that point from wars and famines which is inevitable after 4° warming).

How are people still not understanding that acting to prevent climate change is a cost saving measure?

It's not about saving humans from extinction.

It's just the smart thing to do unless we want to spend massive amounts of resources in the future to adapt to the consequences of a warming climate.

This is a pretty odd outlook.

As trajectories go, currently habitable places will become uninhabitable within the lifetime of people you know. And that process isn't nice. Becoming uninhabitable means a series of natural disasters (and clean water pressures) that force people to migrate. Mass migration means global turmoil as people scramble to get safe. And many will die along the way. That's already started.

The planet will physically be here but its habitability matters too. I don't really care about what comes after humans, as long as it doesn't come now and kill me and mine.

If your only argument is "life, uhh, finds a way", that's great. Thank you for your contribution. Now find us a way to relocate a billion people in the next three decades.

You might be ok with breathing air that tastes like dirty anus and gives you cancer in exchange for some added conveniences, but me and I'd hazard to guess most other people would rather make some concessions so our planet is as healthy as possible.

Yeah, if we stanrt a nuclear holocaust, the planet will still be here, but all its inhabitants will be dead.

The best combination of being technically correct of missing the point.

Actually, a nuclear holocaust would most likely not lead to all humans losing their lives. Many, if not most, would survive. Even some in the cities and their immediately surrounding areas would survive. Unless you tell everyone to go outside in the middle of their nearest city right before the bomb drops, you're going to be stuck with humans even after the dust settles.

the overall point was that the planet has survived things that humans cannot survive. There were 5 or 6 mass extinctions.

When peopme talk about the planet being destroyed, they usually mean for human life.

And my point was that neither climate change nor nuclear holocaust would be sufficient to cause a mass extinction on the scale of, say, that which eliminated the dinosaurs. In either case there will be plenty of humans remaining.

and they will live short and unpleasant lives, like they did during the ice age

Seems like a pretty unfounded assumption. Why do you think all of our knowledge and sources of societal stabilization are embedded in the communities most vulnerable to natural disaster?

Stop it. We must seize the wealth of all billionaires before the water rises to the second rung of the ladder on Barack Obama's dock in Martha's Vineyard.