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The effects of climate change will play play out across many localized areas. Some will be dramatically more impacted than others. The impacts will require reme
by julienb_sea 7y ago
The effects of climate change will play play out across many localized areas. Some will be dramatically more impacted than others. The impacts will require remediation solutions, some difficult and expensive. Millions will be displaced and affected, and complex engineering challenges will arise.
This will not end humanity. The apocalypse is not coming. Humans will adapt because we have no choice. Engineering a solution to a global climate problem is borderline impossible. Engineering a solution to imminent local direct impacts of climate change is a more coherent, approachable problem.
I agree with the author's assessment - humans require fossil fuels for society's function. Thus, instead of moping around about how we are all fucked, it seems a more productive exercise to sort out how to cohabitate a world where we are going to continue consuming, for the medium term, our near infinite supply of natural gas for energy.
- graeme 7y agoThis worldview implies abandoning all coastal cities and several entire countries, correct? Sea level rise alone requires that, to say nothing of other effects. And then there's higher wet bulb temperatures in heat waves. With enough warming, that should render a large chunk of the planet effectively uninhabitable without AC. Do you accept these consequences when you make such claims?
- julienb_sea 7y agoYes, my expectation is that we will build habitats which withstand sea level rise and temperature fluctuations, and abandon habitats which cannot be retrofitted to withstand present conditions.
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y agoWhich is the way humanity has always responded to crisis. They move and adapt.
- dredmorbius 7y agoOr fail to do so.
- graeme 7y agoMeaning, we abandon all coastal cities, and countries where a few billion people currently live? No one has yet retrofitted a local climate. Air conditioning works on the level of buildings.
- rhino369 7y ago>This worldview implies abandoning all coastal cities and several entire countries, correct? Over hundreds of years, yes. Some of the biggest cities in the world didn't exist 200 years ago or were small villages. I lived on land that was under Lake Michigan 100 years ago. It'll change the world for sure, but that won't kill us off. The change is too slow.
- graeme 7y agoHundreds of years? Faster than that. If we just keep burning carbon we'll warm faster than IPCC predictions. Most forecasts assume we decrease. We'd probably lose Boston, New York, San Francisco and Miami this century, or at least chunks of them. It's not just where the waterline is either: what matters is where the water goes in storm surges. Most current coastal cities would be unliveable within a 100 years I think, if we keep on burning carbon and do "mitigation" only, as OP suggested.
- abraae 7y ago> Humans will adapt because we have no choice. I throw you into a fire. Will you adapt, because you have no choice?
- dredmorbius 7y agoHumans will adapt because we have no choice. Argumentum ad consequentiam. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/26/Appeal-to-Consequences https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...