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The threats of climate change are not that some biblical flood rises up to swallow humanity. The danger of climate change is that incremental sea level rise wo

by tyre 7y ago

The threats of climate change are not that some biblical flood rises up to swallow humanity. The danger of climate change is that incremental sea level rise would put tens of millions of people underwater. Could they move? Absolutely. And we clearly have enough land to move people around, both globally and in many countries. The danger is whether we can make those migrations without civil unrest. What land is taken for them to move to? What about Vietnam, where most of the country is projected to be underwater by 2050? We’re going to just move millions of Vietnamese and no one is going to be upset? If we look today at the relatively tiny migration of people into the United States and Europe, we can see how quickly voters swing far right as The Other settles in. The trickle down of these effects is tremendous.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Not to mention famine; it's not so much natural disasters that'll kill a lot of people (after all, we're pretty good at moving out of the way, building shelters / dikes, etc), but it's going to be failed crops. This is already happening, and has happend in the past - all it takes is one hot / dry summer for a country and millions of people to be at risk. Climate change means the chance of a hot / dry summer (or long / cold winter) will increase. Sure, at the time it seems like a fluke, and sure especially the more wealthy countries will be able to survive well enough, but at the same time it will cost lives. The poorest and disadvantaged will likely be the first to go, those that can't afford the gradually increasing prices of food. And the problem will become bigger as the climate change becomes more widespread. We can (as a collective) survive a year of famine well enough, but what if crops fail two or three years in a row?
- marcyb5st 7y ago
  Agreed. Some studies link climate change as the trigger of famine/conflicts that lead to the Arab Springs [1]. Those events also generated few millions refugees and, here in Europe, we are already unable to act. I can see that when this phenomenon will get 100s or 1000s time more severe wars will be fought for securing food/land (IMHO likely it will happen in south-east Asia at some point [2]). [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378018301596?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937801... [2] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/8/e1603322 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/8/e1603322
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  > but what if crops fail two or three years in a row? A small majority of grains grown world-wide are fed to animals. During crop failure the price of grain rises making it unprofitable to feed animals. These animals are sold, depressing the price of meat. People adjust to rising grain prices and falling meat prices by eating more meat in the short term. In the medium term the fewer number of animals available mean the animals eat less grain, depressing the price of grain again. In the long term a new equilibrium is met (if crop failure is the new normal) or the cycle reverses (if crop failure was only temporary). It's not quite as rosy as I depicted above. Those price adjustments are massive changes, and change disproportionately affects the vulnerable. So lots of people will die. But it won't be because of lack of food, it'll be the lack of food in the right places, caused by the failure of capitalism to sell things to people who don't have any money.
- Merrill 7y ago
  The more probable cause of disrupted agriculture and widespread famine is a volcanic eruption with a rapid, dramatic cooling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
rojobuffalo 7y ago
sea-level rise + wild fires + tropical storms + pollinator die-off and pest booms + crop failures ...all adding up to migration pressure, food supply shocks, and infrastructure losses.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- GVIrish 7y ago
  See also: + ocean acidification + fisheries collapse
lm28469 7y ago
Pollution is also linked, among other things, to fertility issues and lower avg intelligence, far from a biblical flood but in the long run that's no bueno.
6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
> What about Vietnam, where most of the country is projected to be underwater by 2050? For that matter, what about the Netherlands, where 21% of its population is underwater today? Or rather, 21% of its population is below sea level. They manage to keep the land above water. The article addresses this. ctrl+f "400 years ago"
thefreeman 7y ago
Right?? I thought the author was making somewhat reasonable points until they just shrugged off a prediction that sea level will rise 2 feet in the next 80 years or so with "Well 1/3 of the Netherlands is below sea level and they are ok soo......". Like that is even remotely equivalent to the sea level of entire planet rising by 2 feet.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  It's also very quietly dismissive of centuries of engineering work that has gone into the Netherlands. Doing that over a couple of decades instead of a century? That's going to be a lot more work. (And likely the straw to break the camel's back on such already heavily burdened engineering projects like The Netherlands and Venice.) I saw one breakdown of the inflation-adjusted engineering costs once somewhere that the Netherlands has invested over the centuries and I recall it being a stunning amount of money in today's dollars.
joeframbach 7y ago
We can't even figure this out in dry landlocked areas. Like Jackson Hole, where people live in their cars while Harrison Ford privately owns half the land, and the other half is protected preserves.
onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
I think what most people forget is... It's not like Vietnam is going to be fine, and then like a light switch in 2050, it's completely underwater... And oh, shit! Where do we put these people? Vietnam probably already has thousands of climate refugees, and as 2050 gets closer, more and more people will leave, and by 2050, probably a lot of people will still be there, having figured it out somehow. So, yes, I believe this is a huge problem. But I think most people have this idea that there's going to be some set time where it suddenly becomes HUGE. Maybe there will be some Black Swan moment. But it's just going to progressively get worse, slowly not suddenly. The problem with things like that is, progressive problems have a track record of going unsolved.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  This comes from action movies where there is always some fixed deadline, and nothing happens until the deadline. It even happens in movies where people are being irradiated, and they'll die if not saved before two hours is up. They are saved with ten minutes to spare, so suddenly they're fine, not 90% dead.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Right, the "boiling the frog" problem; "It's always been this bad, no reason to fix things now until they get worse."
mbell 7y ago
In 2018 alone 70.8 million people were forcibly displaced by war, persecution and conflict. The most recent number I recall seeing regarding climate change displaced estimated 143 million by 2050 which is about 4.6 million a year. While certainly not ideal, it doesn't strike me as a particularly significant increase in overall displacement. So the question is: why would climate displacement have such an outsized impact on civil unrest and global societal breakdown?
zebby 7y ago
Here's a neat fact: European cities have a tendency to have distance to the sea, because attacks coming from the sea were common in our history. That's less the case for third world countries, and especially America. So raising sea levels will hurt Europe the least of all the continents.

by tyre 7y ago

Cthulhu_ 7y ago

Not to mention famine; it's not so much natural disasters that'll kill a lot of people (after all, we're pretty good at moving out of the way, building shelters / dikes, etc), but it's going to be failed crops. This is already happening, and has happend in the past - all it takes is one hot / dry summer for a country and millions of people to be at risk. Climate change means the chance of a hot / dry summer (or long / cold winter) will increase. Sure, at the time it seems like a fluke, and sure especially the more wealthy countries will be able to survive well enough, but at the same time it will cost lives. The poorest and disadvantaged will likely be the first to go, those that can't afford the gradually increasing prices of food. And the problem will become bigger as the climate change becomes more widespread. We can (as a collective) survive a year of famine well enough, but what if crops fail two or three years in a row?

marcyb5st 7y ago
Agreed. Some studies link climate change as the trigger of famine/conflicts that lead to the Arab Springs [1]. Those events also generated few millions refugees and, here in Europe, we are already unable to act. I can see that when this phenomenon will get 100s or 1000s time more severe wars will be fought for securing food/land (IMHO likely it will happen in south-east Asia at some point [2]). [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378018301596?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937801... [2] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/8/e1603322 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/8/e1603322
bryanlarsen 7y ago
> but what if crops fail two or three years in a row? A small majority of grains grown world-wide are fed to animals. During crop failure the price of grain rises making it unprofitable to feed animals. These animals are sold, depressing the price of meat. People adjust to rising grain prices and falling meat prices by eating more meat in the short term. In the medium term the fewer number of animals available mean the animals eat less grain, depressing the price of grain again. In the long term a new equilibrium is met (if crop failure is the new normal) or the cycle reverses (if crop failure was only temporary). It's not quite as rosy as I depicted above. Those price adjustments are massive changes, and change disproportionately affects the vulnerable. So lots of people will die. But it won't be because of lack of food, it'll be the lack of food in the right places, caused by the failure of capitalism to sell things to people who don't have any money.
Merrill 7y ago
The more probable cause of disrupted agriculture and widespread famine is a volcanic eruption with a rapid, dramatic cooling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

rojobuffalo 7y ago

sea-level rise + wild fires + tropical storms + pollinator die-off and pest booms + crop failures ...all adding up to migration pressure, food supply shocks, and infrastructure losses.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
GVIrish 7y ago
See also: + ocean acidification + fisheries collapse

lm28469 7y ago

Pollution is also linked, among other things, to fertility issues and lower avg intelligence, far from a biblical flood but in the long run that's no bueno.

6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago

> What about Vietnam, where most of the country is projected to be underwater by 2050? For that matter, what about the Netherlands, where 21% of its population is underwater today? Or rather, 21% of its population is below sea level. They manage to keep the land above water. The article addresses this. ctrl+f "400 years ago"

thefreeman 7y ago

Right?? I thought the author was making somewhat reasonable points until they just shrugged off a prediction that sea level will rise 2 feet in the next 80 years or so with "Well 1/3 of the Netherlands is below sea level and they are ok soo......". Like that is even remotely equivalent to the sea level of entire planet rising by 2 feet.

WorldMaker 7y ago
It's also very quietly dismissive of centuries of engineering work that has gone into the Netherlands. Doing that over a couple of decades instead of a century? That's going to be a lot more work. (And likely the straw to break the camel's back on such already heavily burdened engineering projects like The Netherlands and Venice.) I saw one breakdown of the inflation-adjusted engineering costs once somewhere that the Netherlands has invested over the centuries and I recall it being a stunning amount of money in today's dollars.

joeframbach 7y ago

We can't even figure this out in dry landlocked areas. Like Jackson Hole, where people live in their cars while Harrison Ford privately owns half the land, and the other half is protected preserves.

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago

I think what most people forget is... It's not like Vietnam is going to be fine, and then like a light switch in 2050, it's completely underwater... And oh, shit! Where do we put these people? Vietnam probably already has thousands of climate refugees, and as 2050 gets closer, more and more people will leave, and by 2050, probably a lot of people will still be there, having figured it out somehow. So, yes, I believe this is a huge problem. But I think most people have this idea that there's going to be some set time where it suddenly becomes HUGE. Maybe there will be some Black Swan moment. But it's just going to progressively get worse, slowly not suddenly. The problem with things like that is, progressive problems have a track record of going unsolved.

ncmncm 7y ago
This comes from action movies where there is always some fixed deadline, and nothing happens until the deadline. It even happens in movies where people are being irradiated, and they'll die if not saved before two hours is up. They are saved with ten minutes to spare, so suddenly they're fine, not 90% dead.
WorldMaker 7y ago
Right, the "boiling the frog" problem; "It's always been this bad, no reason to fix things now until they get worse."

mbell 7y ago

In 2018 alone 70.8 million people were forcibly displaced by war, persecution and conflict. The most recent number I recall seeing regarding climate change displaced estimated 143 million by 2050 which is about 4.6 million a year. While certainly not ideal, it doesn't strike me as a particularly significant increase in overall displacement. So the question is: why would climate displacement have such an outsized impact on civil unrest and global societal breakdown?

zebby 7y ago

Here's a neat fact: European cities have a tendency to have distance to the sea, because attacks coming from the sea were common in our history. That's less the case for third world countries, and especially America. So raising sea levels will hurt Europe the least of all the continents.