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If this is true, Should I move my family to Northern Europe (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland) for the sake of my descendants? I've been thinking about this for

If this is true, Should I move my family to Northern Europe (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland) for the sake of my descendants? I've been thinking about this for a long time. It's too late to stop the feedback loop. I fear the current migration crisis is nothing compared to what will come.

CapitalistCartr 10y ago
Many parts of that area are still rebounding from the mass of the ice sheets and are rising faster than sea level. For those of us in the USA, the Great Lakes region would likely be the best bet.
witty_username 10y ago
Nope, I don't think there's any scientific consensus that the effects are going to be that extreme (1). (1) it might be very bad for say a poor farmer, but the typical HN reader will be able to survive it.
- phaemon 10y ago
  ...by living off their fat reserves when the farms stop sending food?
  - mikeash 10y ago
    We can just eat code, right?
  - embwbam 10y ago
    I think he means it won't happen quickly. If you have resources you'll be able to respond to the changing world.
    - witty_username 10y ago
      Sidenote: how do you know I'm male?
      - embwbam 10y ago
        I don't of course, sorry. HN has always subconsciously had a masculine tone in my mind. I'm projecting
  - witty_username 10y ago
    I haven't researched climate change effects; but my guess is subsistence farmers will be affected a lot. Even if climate change had equal effects to all income groups, that would affect poor people more (for a poor person losing 1$ has more effect compare to a billionare). Farms would not stop sending food. People (HN readers are at least in the top income half (1) globally) would pay more money to buy food. Food is an essential commodity and I don't think an apocalypse is going to occur due to climate change. tl;dr food is going to cost more and HN readers can afford that while poor people might not be able to afford it (1) I think it's more like top 10%.
    - dharma1 10y ago
      Food will cost more overall, since global arable land will reduce. But in some northern areas the growing season could actually lengthen. I hope that the timescales are such that drastic effects won't happen this century and give humans more time to adjust/come up with technology to mitigate the effects. 2c warming by end of the century would be terrible, 10c disastrous
pmyjavec 10y ago
"Me first" stuff like this won't get you real far IMO. I went as far as Tromsø, Norway late last year and was shocked that most of their produce comes from the kind of place you might try flee from. Most of the fruit and vegetables I purchased had been shipped from places like Spain and South America. Basically if it becomes so bad these countries start to starve it won't be a priority to send food to the Arctic leaving people in the North vulnerable and, there are a lot of people up there already. You're not just going to move to some little village in Sweden and escape this pending disaster. These large Northern populations heavily rely on produce and clothing coming from down South. I did stay with people in Sweden who are kind of self sufficient, but if one looked closely, it was easy to see they still need solar panels, medicine, hunting equipment, cars, fertilizer etc, this is not stuff produced locally. Best thing one can do for the next generation is change our ways immediately, consume less meat and fish, divest from fossil fuels, demand action from our politicians and stop having so many kids. It's pretty clear a population of 9 billion is going not going to work with current technology and attitudes. It's easy to see isn't a problem anyone of us can run from, we're all going to have to pay the toll for what some call "endless growth".
- sevenless 10y ago
  If you look at a plot of human population in the last century, it's similar to log-phase bacterial growth. We've had uncontrolled proliferation based on non-renewable resources - especially the capacity of the biosphere to deal with waste CO2 - and we're about to run out. A lot of dieback is reasonable to assume. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterial_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterial_growth
- dreamcompiler 10y ago
  Growing tomatoes in Norway is going to become easy very soon.
dagurp 10y ago
Iceland could become colder and even less habitable with increased global warming.
- nwah1 10y ago
  Iceland is fairly nice. Maybe you are thinking of Greenland. Greenland is very cold.
  - snovv_crash 10y ago
    I believe they are referring to the Gulf Stream current stopping, which would indeed make much of north-west Europe colder.
  - dagurp 10y ago
    No no, I'm Icelandic. It's nice right now but that's thanks to the gulf stream. Global warming is slowing it down and it could end up diverting it, making temperatures plummet to Greenland levels.

CapitalistCartr 10y ago

Many parts of that area are still rebounding from the mass of the ice sheets and are rising faster than sea level. For those of us in the USA, the Great Lakes region would likely be the best bet.

witty_username 10y ago

Nope, I don't think there's any scientific consensus that the effects are going to be that extreme (1). (1) it might be very bad for say a poor farmer, but the typical HN reader will be able to survive it.

phaemon 10y ago
...by living off their fat reserves when the farms stop sending food?
- mikeash 10y ago
  We can just eat code, right?
- embwbam 10y ago
  I think he means it won't happen quickly. If you have resources you'll be able to respond to the changing world.
  - witty_username 10y ago
    Sidenote: how do you know I'm male?
    - embwbam 10y ago
      I don't of course, sorry. HN has always subconsciously had a masculine tone in my mind. I'm projecting
- witty_username 10y ago
  I haven't researched climate change effects; but my guess is subsistence farmers will be affected a lot. Even if climate change had equal effects to all income groups, that would affect poor people more (for a poor person losing 1$ has more effect compare to a billionare). Farms would not stop sending food. People (HN readers are at least in the top income half (1) globally) would pay more money to buy food. Food is an essential commodity and I don't think an apocalypse is going to occur due to climate change. tl;dr food is going to cost more and HN readers can afford that while poor people might not be able to afford it (1) I think it's more like top 10%.
  - dharma1 10y ago
    Food will cost more overall, since global arable land will reduce. But in some northern areas the growing season could actually lengthen. I hope that the timescales are such that drastic effects won't happen this century and give humans more time to adjust/come up with technology to mitigate the effects. 2c warming by end of the century would be terrible, 10c disastrous

pmyjavec 10y ago

"Me first" stuff like this won't get you real far IMO. I went as far as Tromsø, Norway late last year and was shocked that most of their produce comes from the kind of place you might try flee from. Most of the fruit and vegetables I purchased had been shipped from places like Spain and South America. Basically if it becomes so bad these countries start to starve it won't be a priority to send food to the Arctic leaving people in the North vulnerable and, there are a lot of people up there already. You're not just going to move to some little village in Sweden and escape this pending disaster. These large Northern populations heavily rely on produce and clothing coming from down South. I did stay with people in Sweden who are kind of self sufficient, but if one looked closely, it was easy to see they still need solar panels, medicine, hunting equipment, cars, fertilizer etc, this is not stuff produced locally. Best thing one can do for the next generation is change our ways immediately, consume less meat and fish, divest from fossil fuels, demand action from our politicians and stop having so many kids. It's pretty clear a population of 9 billion is going not going to work with current technology and attitudes. It's easy to see isn't a problem anyone of us can run from, we're all going to have to pay the toll for what some call "endless growth".

sevenless 10y ago
If you look at a plot of human population in the last century, it's similar to log-phase bacterial growth. We've had uncontrolled proliferation based on non-renewable resources - especially the capacity of the biosphere to deal with waste CO2 - and we're about to run out. A lot of dieback is reasonable to assume. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterial_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterial_growth
dreamcompiler 10y ago
Growing tomatoes in Norway is going to become easy very soon.

dagurp 10y ago

Iceland could become colder and even less habitable with increased global warming.

nwah1 10y ago
Iceland is fairly nice. Maybe you are thinking of Greenland. Greenland is very cold.
- snovv_crash 10y ago
  I believe they are referring to the Gulf Stream current stopping, which would indeed make much of north-west Europe colder.
- dagurp 10y ago
  No no, I'm Icelandic. It's nice right now but that's thanks to the gulf stream. Global warming is slowing it down and it could end up diverting it, making temperatures plummet to Greenland levels.