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It seems pretty fool-hardy to me to think that we shouldn't act on climate change on the chance that we can simply spend a few dozen trillion a few decades down

It seems pretty fool-hardy to me to think that we shouldn't act on climate change on the chance that we can simply spend a few dozen trillion a few decades down the road to try to mop up the problem. Perhaps we should find a report that also analyzes how much human suffering and ecological damage would occur with a 3 degree C increase versus a 1.5 increase? One point that isn't stressed enough is how much humanity depends on rich ecosystems for so much of our technology, medicine, and science. Life would be much harder for us on an ecologically devastated Earth.

AstralStorm 7y ago
The more important cutoffs are, as usual, based on water availability for agriculture and consumption. Really bad negative impact at near 2 C. Problems in Mediterranean area, most China and India, and southern USA. On the other hand, floods in Scandinavia. Ecological damage is not even funny at 1 C which is about where we are now, with accelerated desertification and serious water availability problems in Africa and Middle East. (Also no more evaporative cooling due to lack of water.) Every 1 C averaged is about 5% sharper water cycle. That's not counting the potential for runaway heating due to activation of putative hydrocarbon sources in permafrost or under glaciers.
rayiner 7y ago
> It seems pretty fool-hardy to me to think that we shouldn't act on climate change on the chance that we can simply spend a few dozen trillion a few decades down the road to try to mop up the problem. That’s not what the UN report means. What they’re saying is that GDP will be that much lower from the effects of climate change (extreme weather events, loss of farm land, rising water, etc.) If we’re really looking at a 10-15% reduction in GDP, that suggests we shouldn’t take drastic steps in response to climate change. Massive restructuring of the economy like the Green New Deal could easily cost us more than 10-15% in GDP. And most likely it won’t work, so we’ll suffer the double whammy of reduced growth plus the effects of climate change.

AstralStorm 7y ago

The more important cutoffs are, as usual, based on water availability for agriculture and consumption. Really bad negative impact at near 2 C. Problems in Mediterranean area, most China and India, and southern USA. On the other hand, floods in Scandinavia. Ecological damage is not even funny at 1 C which is about where we are now, with accelerated desertification and serious water availability problems in Africa and Middle East. (Also no more evaporative cooling due to lack of water.) Every 1 C averaged is about 5% sharper water cycle. That's not counting the potential for runaway heating due to activation of putative hydrocarbon sources in permafrost or under glaciers.

rayiner 7y ago

> It seems pretty fool-hardy to me to think that we shouldn't act on climate change on the chance that we can simply spend a few dozen trillion a few decades down the road to try to mop up the problem. That’s not what the UN report means. What they’re saying is that GDP will be that much lower from the effects of climate change (extreme weather events, loss of farm land, rising water, etc.) If we’re really looking at a 10-15% reduction in GDP, that suggests we shouldn’t take drastic steps in response to climate change. Massive restructuring of the economy like the Green New Deal could easily cost us more than 10-15% in GDP. And most likely it won’t work, so we’ll suffer the double whammy of reduced growth plus the effects of climate change.