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Having not heard the speech, this was news to me, and extremely alarming: > They do, however, include negative emission techniques on a huge planetary scale th

Having not heard the speech, this was news to me, and extremely alarming: > They do, however, include negative emission techniques on a huge planetary scale that is yet to be invented, and that many scientists fear will never be ready in time and will anyway be impossible to deliver at the scale assumed.” Imagine somebody said "a meteor is going to hit the Earth in 11 years and end life as we know it unless we made massive changes to our way of life and invented new technologies to thwart it." I fully believe we as a species could collectively band together to stop it. What's so horrible about climate change is it's not that the world ends in 11 years. It's that in 11 years we likely are doomed to watch our own extinction. On top of that, we're not even beginning to deal with the problem in a way that gives hope for the future. I can't think of a more existential crisis inducing reality.

gnusty_gnurc 7y ago
> It's that in 11 years we likely are doomed to watch our own extinction. This is precisely why I find Greta and her crowd insufferable. I don't think even the IPCC suggests we're going to watch our extinction. The report says we'll see somewhere around 5% global GDP reduction in 2100, in a world that's vastly wealthier than today. That's anything but extinction.
jacobush 7y ago
Not extinction. Only massive social upheaval, revolutions, war, famine, diseases and maybe even a pause for civilisation itself until things stabilise again.
- throwaway744678 7y ago
  Oh, come on. At least make a good faith attempt.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    I don't understand. Are you saying climate change could not lead to Global Thermonuclear War, as we liked to call it? Maybe I just have an active imagination.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  > massive social upheaval, revolutions, In countries that the average HNer won't live in. Or visit. Nice things to worry about, but for most of us here it'll be a distant concern. And asking people to give up their quality of life for others they'll never meet will always be a hard sell. > war, famine, Ditto. > diseases This one might affect the first world, but I don't know of a strong link between 'global warming' and 'new diseases'. If anything, making the tropics less habitable should decrease contact between humans and exotic new disease carriers... > and maybe even a pause for civilisation itself until things stabilise again. I'm sorry, what? 5% penalty to global GDP by 2100 is not a 'pause for civilisation itself', or anything close. Unless you only meant to include the aforementioned "countries that HNers typically don't live in"? For that matter, I'd say a "pause" is by far the least likely of "civilization continues as normal", "civilization pauses, but comes back" and "civilization dies, forever". "pause" just requires walking such a fine line between "bad enough to overwhelm all the systems designed to keep things running" and not "bad enough to make humanity unsustainable".
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Let me see here what you are saying: Poor non-HN people, we don't care about those at all? They can die? If we get widespread war over resources, 5% penalty on anything is not going to suffice. A limited nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India is going to cause corn crops to fail in the US. (Where average HN-ers live, if you care only about your own in-group.) I didn't mean new diseases. I meant old diseases. If you have no electricity in a big city for an extended time, you will be in for a wild ride. (The last point I don't care much about, it's not very important. But I think if civilisation died, it would have a huge amount of knowledge and technology for new generations to come to jumpstart from, compared to those generations who had to discover everything for themselves.)

gnusty_gnurc 7y ago

> It's that in 11 years we likely are doomed to watch our own extinction. This is precisely why I find Greta and her crowd insufferable. I don't think even the IPCC suggests we're going to watch our extinction. The report says we'll see somewhere around 5% global GDP reduction in 2100, in a world that's vastly wealthier than today. That's anything but extinction.

jacobush 7y ago

Not extinction. Only massive social upheaval, revolutions, war, famine, diseases and maybe even a pause for civilisation itself until things stabilise again.

throwaway744678 7y ago
Oh, come on. At least make a good faith attempt.
- jacobush 7y ago
  I don't understand. Are you saying climate change could not lead to Global Thermonuclear War, as we liked to call it? Maybe I just have an active imagination.
DuskStar 7y ago
> massive social upheaval, revolutions, In countries that the average HNer won't live in. Or visit. Nice things to worry about, but for most of us here it'll be a distant concern. And asking people to give up their quality of life for others they'll never meet will always be a hard sell. > war, famine, Ditto. > diseases This one might affect the first world, but I don't know of a strong link between 'global warming' and 'new diseases'. If anything, making the tropics less habitable should decrease contact between humans and exotic new disease carriers... > and maybe even a pause for civilisation itself until things stabilise again. I'm sorry, what? 5% penalty to global GDP by 2100 is not a 'pause for civilisation itself', or anything close. Unless you only meant to include the aforementioned "countries that HNers typically don't live in"? For that matter, I'd say a "pause" is by far the least likely of "civilization continues as normal", "civilization pauses, but comes back" and "civilization dies, forever". "pause" just requires walking such a fine line between "bad enough to overwhelm all the systems designed to keep things running" and not "bad enough to make humanity unsustainable".
- jacobush 7y ago
  Let me see here what you are saying: Poor non-HN people, we don't care about those at all? They can die? If we get widespread war over resources, 5% penalty on anything is not going to suffice. A limited nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India is going to cause corn crops to fail in the US. (Where average HN-ers live, if you care only about your own in-group.) I didn't mean new diseases. I meant old diseases. If you have no electricity in a big city for an extended time, you will be in for a wild ride. (The last point I don't care much about, it's not very important. But I think if civilisation died, it would have a huge amount of knowledge and technology for new generations to come to jumpstart from, compared to those generations who had to discover everything for themselves.)