5 ms·

> relax, you'll be dead by then This is part of the reason so little is being done to combat climate change now. If we don't act now though, the future generat

> relax, you'll be dead by then This is part of the reason so little is being done to combat climate change now. If we don't act now though, the future generations will definitely drown. It will be too late for them to do anything. > That's one of the few countries likely to benefit from climate change. This is one of the most dangerous delusions. In our globalised interconnected world nobody will benefit. Just think about the last financial crisis. Mortgage crisis in the US caused chaos in the whole world.

eloff 7y ago
Nobody is going to drown. People will do some combination of building walls, raising land, and moving. It will play out over a period of a thousands years or more. There will be a non-zero cost associated with diverting resources for these things, but that's not the end of the world. I'm not saying it's an excuse for not acting though. We have a responsibility to take care of our own mess, rather than just dump it on our children. I still think the comparative lack of low-lying coastal land, plus ample freshwater, increased growing season, and increased arable land will be net benefit for Canada and Russia. Plus if things are as bad as you say, they'll benefit from increased demand for immigration as well (even if you don't take on more people, you can select more desirable immigrants.) This is not a crash situation like 2008, this is more like a glacier that's flowing towards you. You have plenty of time to plan your response, like moving out of the way, but you can't stop it. Trouble in other countries will have unpredictable, but not necessarily all bad effects.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Is it now? The predictions are, as far as I understand, that a lot of coastal areas will become submerged this century, meanwhile the rising temperatures will (and already are) mess up with the food supply. As that accelerates, the world will see a migration wave like never before in history, and frankly, it sounds like straight to World War 3 from here to me. The planet, frankly, doesn't matter. It'll be fine. The thing that matters is our technological civilization. Whether it's a gun or a glacier, our civilization is fragile, and when it fails, it's essentially game over for humanity - mass deaths followed by the remaining survivors stuck in medieval conditions for many thousands, or tens of thousands of years.
  - eloff 7y ago
    Things won't move that quickly, and hopefully they won't get that dire. We can't rule it out either though. There's plenty of good reasons to worry and take action. It is still a tragedy unfolding. But it's not necessarily as doom and gloom as many people believe.
    - jajag 7y ago
      But things do move that quickly. Current projections [1] have global sea levels rising from anything between 0.3m and 2.4m by the end of the century. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise
      - eloff 7y ago
        That's pretty slow for a change smoothed out over eighty years.
        jajag 7y ago
        Well, (a) it's a hell of a lot faster than it has been for most of my life, and (b) it means that in my lifetime, a lot of the places I know & love will be seriously affected by - if not completely lost to - sea level rise. I get the sense you don't live anywhere near the coast.
    - titzer 7y ago
      > But it's not necessarily as doom and gloom as many people believe It really is doom if whole cities are wiped off the map. Just because the process of that doom happens in relatively slow motion doesn't make it any less doom. Hundreds of coastal cities will be literally gone. But don't let the speed of the process trick your mind. It is actually urgent to act now. We need to decarbonize our economies within a decade or those cities are doomed. We need to motivate people, and we need less of this "meh, it'll take a while, we can sit on our hands for now, let's not get excited."
- titzer 7y ago
  > Nobody is going to drown. Well, they probably won't drown by the millions, but sea level rise contributes to coastal flooding in extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and typhoons, and most people who die in those events die due to flooding. So it is not a stretch to stay that thousands of people--perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands--could actually be drowned by rising sea levels.
  - eloff 7y ago
    Yes, that's true. I'm not sure why you got downvoted for saying that.
- GVIrish 7y ago
  > Nobody is going to drown. People will do some combination of building walls, raising land, and moving. What are you talking about, people are drowning now. When a big storm tears through a low lying area or there is flooding, people drown. > People will do some combination of building walls, raising land, and moving. It will play out over a period of a thousands years or more. If we don't get climate change under control we're not going to have thousands of years, or even a few hundred years. Yes countries will try to mitigate the effects by building sea walls but the truth is that you can't beat mother nature if you keep raising sea level and making storms stronger. And this idea that people can just move is simply irrational. Who is going to buy property that is in imminent danger of being underwater? Who is gonna insure that property? The only lifeline to people in flood-affected areas is government buyouts, and many governments can't afford to do that even now, much less in the future when it gets much worse. And then what, where will all of these displaced people go? Particularly people from island nations? > There will be a non-zero cost associated with diverting resources for these things, but that's not the end of the world. There will be an enormous and potentially impossible cost with trying to build and move fast enough to beat climate change in coastal areas. > This is not a crash situation like 2008, this is more like a glacier that's flowing towards you. You have plenty of time to plan your response, like moving out of the way, but you can't stop it. Trouble in other countries will have unpredictable, but not necessarily all bad effects. It's like an iceberg heading towards a massive boat that takes a long time to turn. If we make a hard turn now, we might only graze the iceberg, but if we wait to make our turn, it'll be too late to avoid impact. > I still think the comparative lack of low-lying coastal land, plus ample freshwater, increased growing season, and increased arable land will be net benefit for Canada and Russia. No it won't. First, even if new areas are warm enough to support crops, crop yields are heavily dependent on soil and rainfall. Those newly warm soils are simply not going to be as fertile as current growing regions. Secondly, if global economies are wrecked, being able to crow crops in Siberia is not going to be a net benefit. People think that climate change means that there'll be an orderly shift in temperatures, but it will be chaotic and unpredictable. And climates near the poles are warming that much, that is going to come with the positive feedback loop of methane released from permafrost which will accelerate warming. Trying to passively adapt to climate change is outright foolish. There's no way human kind can build walls high enough, or somehow find a way to grow and cultivate crops, livestock, and fish at a scale that can avoid disaster and the breakdown of society. If we start shifting en masse to renewable energy and making consumption more efficient we might be able to get things to a manageable level. The earlier we make a massive shift, the better. Because later on we may be left with nothing but bad options.

eloff 7y ago

Nobody is going to drown. People will do some combination of building walls, raising land, and moving. It will play out over a period of a thousands years or more. There will be a non-zero cost associated with diverting resources for these things, but that's not the end of the world. I'm not saying it's an excuse for not acting though. We have a responsibility to take care of our own mess, rather than just dump it on our children. I still think the comparative lack of low-lying coastal land, plus ample freshwater, increased growing season, and increased arable land will be net benefit for Canada and Russia. Plus if things are as bad as you say, they'll benefit from increased demand for immigration as well (even if you don't take on more people, you can select more desirable immigrants.) This is not a crash situation like 2008, this is more like a glacier that's flowing towards you. You have plenty of time to plan your response, like moving out of the way, but you can't stop it. Trouble in other countries will have unpredictable, but not necessarily all bad effects.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Is it now? The predictions are, as far as I understand, that a lot of coastal areas will become submerged this century, meanwhile the rising temperatures will (and already are) mess up with the food supply. As that accelerates, the world will see a migration wave like never before in history, and frankly, it sounds like straight to World War 3 from here to me. The planet, frankly, doesn't matter. It'll be fine. The thing that matters is our technological civilization. Whether it's a gun or a glacier, our civilization is fragile, and when it fails, it's essentially game over for humanity - mass deaths followed by the remaining survivors stuck in medieval conditions for many thousands, or tens of thousands of years.
- eloff 7y ago
  Things won't move that quickly, and hopefully they won't get that dire. We can't rule it out either though. There's plenty of good reasons to worry and take action. It is still a tragedy unfolding. But it's not necessarily as doom and gloom as many people believe.
  - jajag 7y ago
    But things do move that quickly. Current projections [1] have global sea levels rising from anything between 0.3m and 2.4m by the end of the century. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise
    - eloff 7y ago
      That's pretty slow for a change smoothed out over eighty years.
      - jajag 7y ago
        Well, (a) it's a hell of a lot faster than it has been for most of my life, and (b) it means that in my lifetime, a lot of the places I know & love will be seriously affected by - if not completely lost to - sea level rise. I get the sense you don't live anywhere near the coast.
  - titzer 7y ago
    > But it's not necessarily as doom and gloom as many people believe It really is doom if whole cities are wiped off the map. Just because the process of that doom happens in relatively slow motion doesn't make it any less doom. Hundreds of coastal cities will be literally gone. But don't let the speed of the process trick your mind. It is actually urgent to act now. We need to decarbonize our economies within a decade or those cities are doomed. We need to motivate people, and we need less of this "meh, it'll take a while, we can sit on our hands for now, let's not get excited."
titzer 7y ago
> Nobody is going to drown. Well, they probably won't drown by the millions, but sea level rise contributes to coastal flooding in extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and typhoons, and most people who die in those events die due to flooding. So it is not a stretch to stay that thousands of people--perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands--could actually be drowned by rising sea levels.
- eloff 7y ago
  Yes, that's true. I'm not sure why you got downvoted for saying that.
GVIrish 7y ago
> Nobody is going to drown. People will do some combination of building walls, raising land, and moving. What are you talking about, people are drowning now. When a big storm tears through a low lying area or there is flooding, people drown. > People will do some combination of building walls, raising land, and moving. It will play out over a period of a thousands years or more. If we don't get climate change under control we're not going to have thousands of years, or even a few hundred years. Yes countries will try to mitigate the effects by building sea walls but the truth is that you can't beat mother nature if you keep raising sea level and making storms stronger. And this idea that people can just move is simply irrational. Who is going to buy property that is in imminent danger of being underwater? Who is gonna insure that property? The only lifeline to people in flood-affected areas is government buyouts, and many governments can't afford to do that even now, much less in the future when it gets much worse. And then what, where will all of these displaced people go? Particularly people from island nations? > There will be a non-zero cost associated with diverting resources for these things, but that's not the end of the world. There will be an enormous and potentially impossible cost with trying to build and move fast enough to beat climate change in coastal areas. > This is not a crash situation like 2008, this is more like a glacier that's flowing towards you. You have plenty of time to plan your response, like moving out of the way, but you can't stop it. Trouble in other countries will have unpredictable, but not necessarily all bad effects. It's like an iceberg heading towards a massive boat that takes a long time to turn. If we make a hard turn now, we might only graze the iceberg, but if we wait to make our turn, it'll be too late to avoid impact. > I still think the comparative lack of low-lying coastal land, plus ample freshwater, increased growing season, and increased arable land will be net benefit for Canada and Russia. No it won't. First, even if new areas are warm enough to support crops, crop yields are heavily dependent on soil and rainfall. Those newly warm soils are simply not going to be as fertile as current growing regions. Secondly, if global economies are wrecked, being able to crow crops in Siberia is not going to be a net benefit. People think that climate change means that there'll be an orderly shift in temperatures, but it will be chaotic and unpredictable. And climates near the poles are warming that much, that is going to come with the positive feedback loop of methane released from permafrost which will accelerate warming. Trying to passively adapt to climate change is outright foolish. There's no way human kind can build walls high enough, or somehow find a way to grow and cultivate crops, livestock, and fish at a scale that can avoid disaster and the breakdown of society. If we start shifting en masse to renewable energy and making consumption more efficient we might be able to get things to a manageable level. The earlier we make a massive shift, the better. Because later on we may be left with nothing but bad options.