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The article seems to paint a rather non-crisis economically, perhaps unintentionally: > The United States, it said, could lose roughly 1.2 percent of gross dom

The article seems to paint a rather non-crisis economically, perhaps unintentionally: > The United States, it said, could lose roughly 1.2 percent of gross domestic product for every 1.8 degrees of warming. I guess that's in Fahrenheit, but again.. not really scary numbers. We're talking about two years of ordinary productivity growth being lost over a decade+. Bad, but nowhere close to resulting in the future being worse than the present, much less society ending. For how much we all worry about global warning, why are the estimated GDP numbers not coming in much worse?

gdubs 8y ago
I haven’t read the sourced paper yet but the quote is vague; are you sure that’s not annual?
fsloth 8y ago
"why are the estimated GDP numbers not coming in much worse?" A guess: Because the hardest hit areas do not contribute as much to GDP. Most of world GDP is created outside of the tropics. The gruesome prediction from this report is that the poor areas next to tropics will come refugess camps unlike anything seen before (think Blade Runner or Judge Dread with the skycrapers replaced by an ocean of tents and shacks). And the rich world will invest in border controls and barbed wire.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  Why would you expect this instead of people simply gradually moving inland and continuing to do more or less exactly what they were already doing? The developing world and developed are identical in that population densities are extremely disproportionate. We tend to have very high densities near water and much lower densities inland. This creates a dual effect of magnifying the numeric impact of climate change, but also giving us immense 'safe' buffers. If we view climate change as a sort of terraforming then the primary effect would be to push coastal regions further inland - not to permanently remove them. And even in in the low probability worst case scenarios water levels will begin to plateau off simply because there's a fixed amount of possible water on Earth. This [1] National Geographic article from a while back showed exactly what the world would look like if all the ice melted, resulting the maximal possible increase in sea levels - about 216 feet. The peculiar thing is the world would be reshaped, but it'd mostly be the exact same place. And keep in mind that this would happen over many many decades as the sea levels inched forward, thus giving people time to calmly and orderly adjust. It's not like one day you go to bed and when you wake up New York is New Atlantis. [1] - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-seas-ice-melt-new-shoreline-maps/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-s...
  - fsloth 8y ago
    "Why would you expect this instead of people simply gradually moving inland" Please read the article. The gradient of liveability is not away from the shores. It's away from the equator.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      No, it's not. The real risk is in coastal areas, as the article emphasizes. The headline is based on the quote "[The] United States along with Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam are home to 50 million people who will be exposed to the effects of increased coastal flooding by 2040, if 2.7 degrees of warming occur." I'm unsure if I'm reading too much into your comment as it was not particularly informative, but you seem to be implying that the problem with climate change is the warming itself, which will be most pronounced around the areas most exposed to the sun's energy -- the equatorial regions. But this isn't the issue. Humans, plants, and animals of all sorts could be fine with temperatures much higher than they are now if that's all that changed. The real risk of climate change is the ancillary effects like the rising of tides. This effect will be most pronounced in coastal areas with dense population hubs - which are the exact areas they mention. And this is already happening. For instance the most recent storms we've had including in Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana and so on were likely at least somewhat exasperated by climate change. And indeed there are people that are going to decide enough is enough and decide to move inland. These are now part of the people counted in these numbers. Something people often forget is that climate change is not something that will happen, but something that is happening.
      - fsloth 8y ago
        Sure, coasts will have issues, but like you said yourself, there is quite a lot of land mass to to absorb the population likely within the same polity. I've understood the predicted changes to weather patterns are such that the area between the tropics will be most impacted. This includes more droughts etc. So it's not directly related to sun's radiation, just about how the heat will be distributed in the global weather and what effects it will have. I don't know why tropics are more affected than other areas. https://theconversation.com/why-blowing-the-1-5c-global-warming-goal-will-leave-poor-tropical-nations-sweating-most-of-all-96988 https://theconversation.com/why-blowing-the-1-5c-global-warm... I only slightly exaggerated my comments about telt camp conurbations. People are already drowning by the thousands trying to reach Europe via Mediterranean crossing because the landmass of Africa offers so little hope for the future even risking drowning is better than staying. Imagine how much worse it will get when the climate gets more inhospitable (the problems are not caused by climate but by corruption but worse climate is not going to help the issue).
vkou 8y ago
> why are the estimated GDP numbers not coming in much worse? Farming is 1% of the United States' GDP. Yet, if the United States lost that 1% of its GDP, we'd have food riots, breakdown of law and order, political slogans like 'Bread, Land, Peace', and the bourgeois strung up on lamp posts. The answer to your question is: "Because agriculture is undervalued in dollar-denominated economic metrics." Also, because a hurricane destroying a city, and then construction workers rebuilding it will increase GDP. GDP is a terrible measure of value, and of the utility of any one particular industry.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I find when you actually work out the costs of these things in terms of real, in context, impact - the story often does not justify the headline. For instance an article The Guardian ran was, "We're moving to higher ground': America's era of climate mass migration is here." [1] That article took a negative end outcome of climate change and calculated that by the end of this century 13 million people might have to migrate. That sounds pretty scary until, again, you actually break it down into something in context. 13 million people over 82 years works out to 434 people per day. I contrasted this against current day migration rates found here [2]. Today Florida has a very large migration rate of 16/1k. For a population of 21.3 million that means they're seeing 340,800 new residents per year or 933 per day. So to put another way this migration rate, which was framed as a catastrophic and revolutionary event, would have a net effect of the entire US having to take on about half as many migrants per unit time as Florida alone already does. Of course it wouldn't be evenly spread out, but it also wouldn't just instantly jump from e.g. 20 to 20,000 per day. It's a gradual effect that is and will continue to pass mostly unnoticed. Present tense because we're already seeing this. Climate change has likely at least contributed to the severity of conditions in Louisiana, North Carolina, and Florida. Those residents that decided, 'ya know.. this isn't for me' already make up part of that 13 million. Another mitigating factor is that I'm certain their study accounted for population growth. I'm not. 82 years from now there will probably be a whole lot more people in the US meaning this "mass climate migration" will be even more minuscule just relative to normal day to day migration levels. Climate change is not something that should be ignored, but the media is exploiting it for clicks. That not only damages society but also undermines the issue by poisoning the well. If somebody reads one article on the topic and realizes how far it was taken out of context, and reality, it makes them more skeptical of everything else they read on the topic. And while healthy skepticism is good, some end up taking that skepticism a step beyond healthy. [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/24/americas-era-of-climate-mass-migration-is-here https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/24/americas... [2] - http://www.governing.com/gov-data/census/state-migration-rates-annual-net-migration-by-state.html http://www.governing.com/gov-data/census/state-migration-rat...
- regularfry 8y ago
  There are other effects, too. You'll see the population of Central America shift northwards, for instance. Given today's political climate, and the available directions of travel, how do you see that playing out? In my mind it's got a good chance of getting very nasty, very quickly.
MarkMc 8y ago
I find it difficult to reconcile the 1.2% GDP figure with this part: "The estimated $54 trillion in damage from 2.7 degrees of warming would grow to $69 trillion if the world continues to warm by 3.6 degrees and beyond, the report found, although it does not specify the length of time represented by those costs." World GDP is currently $78 trillion, so the total cost of climate change is about 1 year's worth of ecenomic output. Perhaps the report is spreading this cost over 80 years to arrive at the 1.2% figure?

gdubs 8y ago

I haven’t read the sourced paper yet but the quote is vague; are you sure that’s not annual?

fsloth 8y ago

"why are the estimated GDP numbers not coming in much worse?" A guess: Because the hardest hit areas do not contribute as much to GDP. Most of world GDP is created outside of the tropics. The gruesome prediction from this report is that the poor areas next to tropics will come refugess camps unlike anything seen before (think Blade Runner or Judge Dread with the skycrapers replaced by an ocean of tents and shacks). And the rich world will invest in border controls and barbed wire.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Why would you expect this instead of people simply gradually moving inland and continuing to do more or less exactly what they were already doing? The developing world and developed are identical in that population densities are extremely disproportionate. We tend to have very high densities near water and much lower densities inland. This creates a dual effect of magnifying the numeric impact of climate change, but also giving us immense 'safe' buffers. If we view climate change as a sort of terraforming then the primary effect would be to push coastal regions further inland - not to permanently remove them. And even in in the low probability worst case scenarios water levels will begin to plateau off simply because there's a fixed amount of possible water on Earth. This [1] National Geographic article from a while back showed exactly what the world would look like if all the ice melted, resulting the maximal possible increase in sea levels - about 216 feet. The peculiar thing is the world would be reshaped, but it'd mostly be the exact same place. And keep in mind that this would happen over many many decades as the sea levels inched forward, thus giving people time to calmly and orderly adjust. It's not like one day you go to bed and when you wake up New York is New Atlantis. [1] - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-seas-ice-melt-new-shoreline-maps/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-s...
- fsloth 8y ago
  "Why would you expect this instead of people simply gradually moving inland" Please read the article. The gradient of liveability is not away from the shores. It's away from the equator.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    No, it's not. The real risk is in coastal areas, as the article emphasizes. The headline is based on the quote "[The] United States along with Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam are home to 50 million people who will be exposed to the effects of increased coastal flooding by 2040, if 2.7 degrees of warming occur." I'm unsure if I'm reading too much into your comment as it was not particularly informative, but you seem to be implying that the problem with climate change is the warming itself, which will be most pronounced around the areas most exposed to the sun's energy -- the equatorial regions. But this isn't the issue. Humans, plants, and animals of all sorts could be fine with temperatures much higher than they are now if that's all that changed. The real risk of climate change is the ancillary effects like the rising of tides. This effect will be most pronounced in coastal areas with dense population hubs - which are the exact areas they mention. And this is already happening. For instance the most recent storms we've had including in Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana and so on were likely at least somewhat exasperated by climate change. And indeed there are people that are going to decide enough is enough and decide to move inland. These are now part of the people counted in these numbers. Something people often forget is that climate change is not something that will happen, but something that is happening.
    - fsloth 8y ago
      Sure, coasts will have issues, but like you said yourself, there is quite a lot of land mass to to absorb the population likely within the same polity. I've understood the predicted changes to weather patterns are such that the area between the tropics will be most impacted. This includes more droughts etc. So it's not directly related to sun's radiation, just about how the heat will be distributed in the global weather and what effects it will have. I don't know why tropics are more affected than other areas. https://theconversation.com/why-blowing-the-1-5c-global-warming-goal-will-leave-poor-tropical-nations-sweating-most-of-all-96988 https://theconversation.com/why-blowing-the-1-5c-global-warm... I only slightly exaggerated my comments about telt camp conurbations. People are already drowning by the thousands trying to reach Europe via Mediterranean crossing because the landmass of Africa offers so little hope for the future even risking drowning is better than staying. Imagine how much worse it will get when the climate gets more inhospitable (the problems are not caused by climate but by corruption but worse climate is not going to help the issue).

vkou 8y ago

> why are the estimated GDP numbers not coming in much worse? Farming is 1% of the United States' GDP. Yet, if the United States lost that 1% of its GDP, we'd have food riots, breakdown of law and order, political slogans like 'Bread, Land, Peace', and the bourgeois strung up on lamp posts. The answer to your question is: "Because agriculture is undervalued in dollar-denominated economic metrics." Also, because a hurricane destroying a city, and then construction workers rebuilding it will increase GDP. GDP is a terrible measure of value, and of the utility of any one particular industry.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

I find when you actually work out the costs of these things in terms of real, in context, impact - the story often does not justify the headline. For instance an article The Guardian ran was, "We're moving to higher ground': America's era of climate mass migration is here." [1] That article took a negative end outcome of climate change and calculated that by the end of this century 13 million people might have to migrate. That sounds pretty scary until, again, you actually break it down into something in context. 13 million people over 82 years works out to 434 people per day. I contrasted this against current day migration rates found here [2]. Today Florida has a very large migration rate of 16/1k. For a population of 21.3 million that means they're seeing 340,800 new residents per year or 933 per day. So to put another way this migration rate, which was framed as a catastrophic and revolutionary event, would have a net effect of the entire US having to take on about half as many migrants per unit time as Florida alone already does. Of course it wouldn't be evenly spread out, but it also wouldn't just instantly jump from e.g. 20 to 20,000 per day. It's a gradual effect that is and will continue to pass mostly unnoticed. Present tense because we're already seeing this. Climate change has likely at least contributed to the severity of conditions in Louisiana, North Carolina, and Florida. Those residents that decided, 'ya know.. this isn't for me' already make up part of that 13 million. Another mitigating factor is that I'm certain their study accounted for population growth. I'm not. 82 years from now there will probably be a whole lot more people in the US meaning this "mass climate migration" will be even more minuscule just relative to normal day to day migration levels. Climate change is not something that should be ignored, but the media is exploiting it for clicks. That not only damages society but also undermines the issue by poisoning the well. If somebody reads one article on the topic and realizes how far it was taken out of context, and reality, it makes them more skeptical of everything else they read on the topic. And while healthy skepticism is good, some end up taking that skepticism a step beyond healthy. [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/24/americas-era-of-climate-mass-migration-is-here https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/24/americas... [2] - http://www.governing.com/gov-data/census/state-migration-rates-annual-net-migration-by-state.html http://www.governing.com/gov-data/census/state-migration-rat...

regularfry 8y ago
There are other effects, too. You'll see the population of Central America shift northwards, for instance. Given today's political climate, and the available directions of travel, how do you see that playing out? In my mind it's got a good chance of getting very nasty, very quickly.

MarkMc 8y ago

I find it difficult to reconcile the 1.2% GDP figure with this part: "The estimated $54 trillion in damage from 2.7 degrees of warming would grow to $69 trillion if the world continues to warm by 3.6 degrees and beyond, the report found, although it does not specify the length of time represented by those costs." World GDP is currently $78 trillion, so the total cost of climate change is about 1 year's worth of ecenomic output. Perhaps the report is spreading this cost over 80 years to arrive at the 1.2% figure?