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How do you supposed you are going to survive without all the affordances of some kind of civilization. Do you imagine some kind of postman or waterworld type of

How do you supposed you are going to survive without all the affordances of some kind of civilization. Do you imagine some kind of postman or waterworld type of thing? I'm pretty sure either we all make it or none of us do. There is no escaping the inevitability of mammalian biology. You need to keep your body at a certain temperature and it's looking more and more like that is going to be impossible in the new climate regime.

candiodari 10y ago
Why the armageddon claims ? You realize humans have previously coped just fine with water levels meters higher than they are now I hope. So given that the worst IPCC predictions only predict about a 2m water level rise, and that so far the first 20 years of those predictions turned out to have been WAY overblown, I think we'll do just fine as a species, even long term. In fact, even if worst comes to worst, medieval water management techniques will in fact be able to prevent any coastline encroachment until well into the 2200s. At that point, I think we may put some thought into adapting, and I bet we'll be able to come up with something (or we could just move a few cities. That too has been done before. Okay, okay, more than "a few". And no, we won't run out of arable land, or water, or ... I mean it's unknown of course, but it's not out of the question that the planet actually becomes more hospitable to humans with higher temperatures. Certainly in a few regions that will be true, and maybe globally). TLDR: you will be perfectly fine, even under the worst of the worst predictions, and so will California beachfront property, or Manhattan, or ... at the very least for 4-5 generations.
- gooserock 10y ago
  Rising sea levels are a concern in the long-term, but what I'm most worried about in my lifetime is the collapse of the industrial food system due to rapid warming. Basically if the Earth warms faster than plants and science can adapt, it's a real possibility that a very large chunk of the arable land that currently feeds eight billion people worldwide will become useless. The fear is that we won't be able to grow wheat or rice where we used to, due to heat and drought (Great Plains) or floods (Southeast Asia) or whatever else. Sure, we could just start farming Siberia and Northern Canada, but it would take decades to establish all the infrastructure necessary to do that, and in the meantime we'd have to deal with truly massive famines, political destabilization, and the collapse of many states. Not to mention the fact that crop yields will inevitably be lower in arctic latitudes due to shorter growing seasons. Our entire civilization is built on a global, industrial food network, and it's more precarious than you think. Most countries don't have reserves of food at all, and the ones that do only have scant reserves. If methane releases cause the Earth's climate to lurch warmer in a short enough period of time, a couple real good crop failures will cause the network to collapse, and our civilization (or at least a few entire regions) will collapse in short order.
- dkarapetyan 10y ago
  I don't think water levels are the issue but runaway temperature changes. The thing with complex dynamical systems is that they have phase changes. Most models seem to predict phase changes right around a few degrees of change.
- Baeocystin 10y ago
  The rising of the sea level is the least of the worry by a long shot. A much larger, more near-term destructive problem is ocean acidification. The loss of primary productivity across the board has the very real potential to be catastrophic within our lifetimes, and I say that with zero hyperbole.
- mrow84 10y ago
  This figure [0], which you can read more about in this summary [1] compares the predictions from the IPCC third assessment report with satellite observations. It shows that the observations track the upper end of the predicted range from the third assessment. If you want more detail you can find the original report here [2]. It is difficult to resolve that observation evidence with your claim that "the first 20 years of those predictions turned out to have been WAY overblown" - if anything, the predictions were too conservative. [0] https://skepticalscience.com/images/SLR_models_obs.gif https://skepticalscience.com/images/SLR_models_obs.gif [1] https://skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise-predictions.htm https://skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise-predictions.htm [2] http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/ http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/
  - candiodari 10y ago
    You know it's posts like this that give climate science a VERY bad reputation. I've got a degree in statistics, so I read your post and immediately 3 alarm bells go off. It is WIDELY known in scientific circles that IPCC predictions have a bit of a nasty habit of having, firstly, very dubious statistical underpinnings (which is another way of saying their methodology is complete shite). Secondly, without making any political claims, they systematically overstate the problem by a LOT. This is purely a statement based on the numbers they put out, and I imply no ulterior motive on their part. But their predictions do all seem to error on one side, never the other. And yet here you are, making the exact opposite claim to what I know to be true. But there are a few alarm bells. You disagree with how I thought I know the world to be, and you make an oddly specific cherry-picked argument. Here's what I mean: 1) broad claim that would barely gain support from the rest of your argument. Illustrating correctness from cherry-picked data points is an argument that does not belong in science. 2) very weird pick of the predicted and evaluated variable (obviously the main predicted climate variable is "temperature anomaly", so why don't you go for that one ? Is this a case of "we got the basics of our prediction wildly wrong, but in this long list of things we touched on sideways we lucked out ! We were right after all !" ?) 3) You pick the "third assessment report". How did the first 2 predictions fare ? (this is useful in more ways, because those can of course be evaluated against more data than this one) 4) You picked the third assessment report. Was this even a prediction ? The comparison stops in 2002 on your linked graph. When was AR3 released ? Let's take the easiest one of these questions and check it out. The fourth one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change#Assessment_reports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Cli... Okay so the prediction of the IPCC from 1970 to 2002/2006 (different datasets) has a publication date of 2001. Whereas from all the IPCC predictions there are plenty available to do better checks of their accuracy. Very, very suspicious. So really, there's only a single datapoint in there (for both series) that is actually a prediction (ie. not known at the time of publication, and only 1/7th of any of the data is predicted. Furthermore, the graph neglects to point out where this prediction actually started, which probably led you to make the wrong conclusion) Now let's look at alarm signals 2 and 3 and let's actually evaluate IPCC accuracy. Blogposts made by others you probably found by Googling your wanted conclusion are apparently allowed in support of one's argument, so: https://judithcurry.com/2015/12/17/climate-models-versus-climate-reality/ https://judithcurry.com/2015/12/17/climate-models-versus-cli... Oops ... "Based upon these and other lines of evidence (laid out in our numerous scientific publications, books, blogs articles, social media (see publications listed here and here for example)), we conclude that future global warming will occur at a pace substantially lower than that upon which US federal and international actions to restrict greenhouse gas emissions are founded." So in conclusion, your main claim, that the IPCC reports contain accurate predictions, aside from being overly broad, is weakened by your listed sources. It is also widely known to be wrong, and indeed on closer observation it is wrong. (I have in fact ran the numbers myself, and concluded that IPCC methodology is crap, and it has in fact had predictable results : disastrously wrong predictions. The IPCC would have to be correct for tens of thousands of years from this point forward to make their "95%" predictions actually correct in 95% of cases) Another non-political interesting factoid: the IPCC has stopped giving values for the climate forcing variable in their latest report. I would just like to point out that this is not the correct way to inspire confidence in one's predictions. And there are people, even in my own university that won't just make claims like yours, outrageous and wrong, but actually use the administration to suppress people correcting them. A decent portion of the statistics/math and some in the physics department have suddenly found themselves defending basic math. Whilst none of this of course reflects directly on the science behind it I would just like to make a final point that climate science was recently (few years ago actually, I'm getting old) relocated in my university. It used to be part of the science department. It is now part of the humanities. You know, where theology and philosophy goes. Do you wish to retract your statement ?
- appleflaxen 10y ago
  You are assuming a gently 2m rise over the next 180 years, because the earth has been in a locally stable place with respect to climate. Humanity has "jumped the edge", and the equilibrium will not necessarily settle back to the a similar pattern. Specifically, run-away positive feedback loops are lurking out there, which will push us to a completely foreign part of the parameter space for climate. In fact: it's not even climate - we are talking about the pH of the oceans and the composition of the atmosphere. If this happens, your life will change catastrophically, very quickly. Methanes and clathrates are just two well-known positive feedback systems in play; if we touch one of them we will be miserable. It probably won't end our species, but it will absolutely result in mass extinction of thousands of others.
JabavuAdams 10y ago
Why do you think this? People have survived for eons in deserts and the tundra. It's not a great existence, but it's not extermination, either.
- tomrod 10y ago
  I imagine people are less concerned with the human genome surviving potentially harsh climates and are more concerned with living the rest of their and their children's lives in a post-apocalyptic, lawless society.
  - JabavuAdams 10y ago
    I'm answering this specific claim: > I'm pretty sure either we all make it or none of us do. [...] You need to keep your body at a certain temperature and it's looking more and more like that is going to be impossible in the new climate regime.

candiodari 10y ago

Why the armageddon claims ? You realize humans have previously coped just fine with water levels meters higher than they are now I hope. So given that the worst IPCC predictions only predict about a 2m water level rise, and that so far the first 20 years of those predictions turned out to have been WAY overblown, I think we'll do just fine as a species, even long term. In fact, even if worst comes to worst, medieval water management techniques will in fact be able to prevent any coastline encroachment until well into the 2200s. At that point, I think we may put some thought into adapting, and I bet we'll be able to come up with something (or we could just move a few cities. That too has been done before. Okay, okay, more than "a few". And no, we won't run out of arable land, or water, or ... I mean it's unknown of course, but it's not out of the question that the planet actually becomes more hospitable to humans with higher temperatures. Certainly in a few regions that will be true, and maybe globally). TLDR: you will be perfectly fine, even under the worst of the worst predictions, and so will California beachfront property, or Manhattan, or ... at the very least for 4-5 generations.

gooserock 10y ago
Rising sea levels are a concern in the long-term, but what I'm most worried about in my lifetime is the collapse of the industrial food system due to rapid warming. Basically if the Earth warms faster than plants and science can adapt, it's a real possibility that a very large chunk of the arable land that currently feeds eight billion people worldwide will become useless. The fear is that we won't be able to grow wheat or rice where we used to, due to heat and drought (Great Plains) or floods (Southeast Asia) or whatever else. Sure, we could just start farming Siberia and Northern Canada, but it would take decades to establish all the infrastructure necessary to do that, and in the meantime we'd have to deal with truly massive famines, political destabilization, and the collapse of many states. Not to mention the fact that crop yields will inevitably be lower in arctic latitudes due to shorter growing seasons. Our entire civilization is built on a global, industrial food network, and it's more precarious than you think. Most countries don't have reserves of food at all, and the ones that do only have scant reserves. If methane releases cause the Earth's climate to lurch warmer in a short enough period of time, a couple real good crop failures will cause the network to collapse, and our civilization (or at least a few entire regions) will collapse in short order.
dkarapetyan 10y ago
I don't think water levels are the issue but runaway temperature changes. The thing with complex dynamical systems is that they have phase changes. Most models seem to predict phase changes right around a few degrees of change.
Baeocystin 10y ago
The rising of the sea level is the least of the worry by a long shot. A much larger, more near-term destructive problem is ocean acidification. The loss of primary productivity across the board has the very real potential to be catastrophic within our lifetimes, and I say that with zero hyperbole.
mrow84 10y ago
This figure [0], which you can read more about in this summary [1] compares the predictions from the IPCC third assessment report with satellite observations. It shows that the observations track the upper end of the predicted range from the third assessment. If you want more detail you can find the original report here [2]. It is difficult to resolve that observation evidence with your claim that "the first 20 years of those predictions turned out to have been WAY overblown" - if anything, the predictions were too conservative. [0] https://skepticalscience.com/images/SLR_models_obs.gif https://skepticalscience.com/images/SLR_models_obs.gif [1] https://skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise-predictions.htm https://skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise-predictions.htm [2] http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/ http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/
- candiodari 10y ago
  You know it's posts like this that give climate science a VERY bad reputation. I've got a degree in statistics, so I read your post and immediately 3 alarm bells go off. It is WIDELY known in scientific circles that IPCC predictions have a bit of a nasty habit of having, firstly, very dubious statistical underpinnings (which is another way of saying their methodology is complete shite). Secondly, without making any political claims, they systematically overstate the problem by a LOT. This is purely a statement based on the numbers they put out, and I imply no ulterior motive on their part. But their predictions do all seem to error on one side, never the other. And yet here you are, making the exact opposite claim to what I know to be true. But there are a few alarm bells. You disagree with how I thought I know the world to be, and you make an oddly specific cherry-picked argument. Here's what I mean: 1) broad claim that would barely gain support from the rest of your argument. Illustrating correctness from cherry-picked data points is an argument that does not belong in science. 2) very weird pick of the predicted and evaluated variable (obviously the main predicted climate variable is "temperature anomaly", so why don't you go for that one ? Is this a case of "we got the basics of our prediction wildly wrong, but in this long list of things we touched on sideways we lucked out ! We were right after all !" ?) 3) You pick the "third assessment report". How did the first 2 predictions fare ? (this is useful in more ways, because those can of course be evaluated against more data than this one) 4) You picked the third assessment report. Was this even a prediction ? The comparison stops in 2002 on your linked graph. When was AR3 released ? Let's take the easiest one of these questions and check it out. The fourth one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change#Assessment_reports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Cli... Okay so the prediction of the IPCC from 1970 to 2002/2006 (different datasets) has a publication date of 2001. Whereas from all the IPCC predictions there are plenty available to do better checks of their accuracy. Very, very suspicious. So really, there's only a single datapoint in there (for both series) that is actually a prediction (ie. not known at the time of publication, and only 1/7th of any of the data is predicted. Furthermore, the graph neglects to point out where this prediction actually started, which probably led you to make the wrong conclusion) Now let's look at alarm signals 2 and 3 and let's actually evaluate IPCC accuracy. Blogposts made by others you probably found by Googling your wanted conclusion are apparently allowed in support of one's argument, so: https://judithcurry.com/2015/12/17/climate-models-versus-climate-reality/ https://judithcurry.com/2015/12/17/climate-models-versus-cli... Oops ... "Based upon these and other lines of evidence (laid out in our numerous scientific publications, books, blogs articles, social media (see publications listed here and here for example)), we conclude that future global warming will occur at a pace substantially lower than that upon which US federal and international actions to restrict greenhouse gas emissions are founded." So in conclusion, your main claim, that the IPCC reports contain accurate predictions, aside from being overly broad, is weakened by your listed sources. It is also widely known to be wrong, and indeed on closer observation it is wrong. (I have in fact ran the numbers myself, and concluded that IPCC methodology is crap, and it has in fact had predictable results : disastrously wrong predictions. The IPCC would have to be correct for tens of thousands of years from this point forward to make their "95%" predictions actually correct in 95% of cases) Another non-political interesting factoid: the IPCC has stopped giving values for the climate forcing variable in their latest report. I would just like to point out that this is not the correct way to inspire confidence in one's predictions. And there are people, even in my own university that won't just make claims like yours, outrageous and wrong, but actually use the administration to suppress people correcting them. A decent portion of the statistics/math and some in the physics department have suddenly found themselves defending basic math. Whilst none of this of course reflects directly on the science behind it I would just like to make a final point that climate science was recently (few years ago actually, I'm getting old) relocated in my university. It used to be part of the science department. It is now part of the humanities. You know, where theology and philosophy goes. Do you wish to retract your statement ?
appleflaxen 10y ago
You are assuming a gently 2m rise over the next 180 years, because the earth has been in a locally stable place with respect to climate. Humanity has "jumped the edge", and the equilibrium will not necessarily settle back to the a similar pattern. Specifically, run-away positive feedback loops are lurking out there, which will push us to a completely foreign part of the parameter space for climate. In fact: it's not even climate - we are talking about the pH of the oceans and the composition of the atmosphere. If this happens, your life will change catastrophically, very quickly. Methanes and clathrates are just two well-known positive feedback systems in play; if we touch one of them we will be miserable. It probably won't end our species, but it will absolutely result in mass extinction of thousands of others.

JabavuAdams 10y ago

Why do you think this? People have survived for eons in deserts and the tundra. It's not a great existence, but it's not extermination, either.

tomrod 10y ago
I imagine people are less concerned with the human genome surviving potentially harsh climates and are more concerned with living the rest of their and their children's lives in a post-apocalyptic, lawless society.
- JabavuAdams 10y ago
  I'm answering this specific claim: > I'm pretty sure either we all make it or none of us do. [...] You need to keep your body at a certain temperature and it's looking more and more like that is going to be impossible in the new climate regime.