4 ms·

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 developin

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).
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      Ah! I think what that article is trying to say is that when you have a greater variance in temperatures, any change is going to be something that is more regularly tolerated. E.g. - imagine you add 5 degrees of temperature to an area that varies between 20 and 100 degrees throughout the year, spending only 10% of the year at temperatures above 95 degrees. That means during 90% of the year there would be no change in temperature that has not already been seasonally experienced for centuries. By contrast if you do the same to a country that spends 100% of the year at 98 degrees, then adding 5 degrees would have a consistent 0-variance impact all year long above anything ever experienced. Since there's the least variance in the seasons at the equator (due to Earth's axial tilt) they then suggest that climate change will thus affect the equatorial regions the most. But I think this is a gross simplification that again gets into the thinking that the temperature is, in and of itself, the problem. It's not. The global climatic system is in an equilibrium. At any given point in the sea for instance the difference between ice and water is the slightest change in temperature. Bump up the temperature a few degrees and that equilibrium radically shifts. This, in turn, can have cascading effects. It doesn't matter that in one location it's now only e.g. 65 when they have heat that goes up to 100 degrees during their summer. It's not about the heat - it's about the ancillary global effects of that change in heat levels, that will affect everywhere. This is one of the many reasons that I think the change in terminology from "global warming" to "climate change" was extremely appropriate. Global warming is not a problem, but the climatic effects it causes may be. Our micro-level predictions for climate change have so far been pretty awful, but our macro-level predictions have been decent. So I think it's more reasonable to look at the 'big picture' effects, like rising seas. When you get into micro predictions you get silly things. This [1] is an article from AP: "A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2028. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco-refugees" threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control. As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations, Brown told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday. Coastal regions will be inundated; one-sixth of Bangladesh could be flooded, displacing a fourth of its 90 million people. A fifth of Egypt’s arable land in the Nile Delta would be flooded, cutting off its food supply, according to a joint UNEP and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study." I changed the date there. That article is from 1989. The real catastrophe deadline given was 2000, 18 years ago. [1] - https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0 https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0

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).
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    Ah! I think what that article is trying to say is that when you have a greater variance in temperatures, any change is going to be something that is more regularly tolerated. E.g. - imagine you add 5 degrees of temperature to an area that varies between 20 and 100 degrees throughout the year, spending only 10% of the year at temperatures above 95 degrees. That means during 90% of the year there would be no change in temperature that has not already been seasonally experienced for centuries. By contrast if you do the same to a country that spends 100% of the year at 98 degrees, then adding 5 degrees would have a consistent 0-variance impact all year long above anything ever experienced. Since there's the least variance in the seasons at the equator (due to Earth's axial tilt) they then suggest that climate change will thus affect the equatorial regions the most. But I think this is a gross simplification that again gets into the thinking that the temperature is, in and of itself, the problem. It's not. The global climatic system is in an equilibrium. At any given point in the sea for instance the difference between ice and water is the slightest change in temperature. Bump up the temperature a few degrees and that equilibrium radically shifts. This, in turn, can have cascading effects. It doesn't matter that in one location it's now only e.g. 65 when they have heat that goes up to 100 degrees during their summer. It's not about the heat - it's about the ancillary global effects of that change in heat levels, that will affect everywhere. This is one of the many reasons that I think the change in terminology from "global warming" to "climate change" was extremely appropriate. Global warming is not a problem, but the climatic effects it causes may be. Our micro-level predictions for climate change have so far been pretty awful, but our macro-level predictions have been decent. So I think it's more reasonable to look at the 'big picture' effects, like rising seas. When you get into micro predictions you get silly things. This [1] is an article from AP: "A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2028. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco-refugees" threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control. As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations, Brown told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday. Coastal regions will be inundated; one-sixth of Bangladesh could be flooded, displacing a fourth of its 90 million people. A fifth of Egypt’s arable land in the Nile Delta would be flooded, cutting off its food supply, according to a joint UNEP and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study." I changed the date there. That article is from 1989. The real catastrophe deadline given was 2000, 18 years ago. [1] - https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0 https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0