24 ms·

Climate threats now dominate long-term risks, survey of global leaders finds

509 points by drocer88 7y ago

arikr 7y ago
To be clear, this measures the issue global leaders think is biggest, not necessarily what issue is actually biggest. This is probably mostly a proxy for "climate threats are the most top of mind issue for global leaders" due to the recent rise in coverage.
- AlexanderDhoore 7y ago
  Global heating because of greenhouse gasses is an existential threat to society. It is the biggest threat we have ever faced (on par with nuclear war). And we are losing, big time.
  - deadbunny 7y ago
    We're not losing, we're not even fighting.
    - yodsanklai 7y ago
      Not sure why you're downvoted. My (French) government first preoccupation is increasing growth. Sad thing is that they do what they've been elected for. Recently they decided to decrease the speed limit, which was met by a general upset. Ironically, reduction of pollution wasn't even stated as a reason for these new limitations (they are concerned about car accident apparently). These guys just don't care about the environment. People give a lot of flak to Greta Thunberg (universally hated) but she asks the right questions to our leaders. EDIT: I wish downvoters would take the time to share their point of view.
      - mayniac 7y ago
        I just wrote up and deleted a comment on why you were wrong about the gilet jaunes "[not caring] about the environment" before re-reading your comment and realising you meant Macron's government doesn't care about the environment. I think that may be why you got downvoted.
  - toohotatopic 7y ago
    Global heating is not on par with nuclear war. Climate change is reversible in a couple hundred years, nuclear fallout is not. At worst many people will die but not the entire earth will be inhabitable. Keep in mind that earth cannot get worse than the last time all CO2 was in the atmosphere. Trees are younger than sharks. There was plenty of life when all CO2 was free. Somewhere in that environment will be space for life like the last time. Sharks and trees and many other animals and plants made it though that environment. And somewhere in that environment, there will be some space for humans because we will be adaptable. Instead, the biggest threat is AI. It's the new nuclear race. It will come as fast as human possible and it will have access to the most powerful weapons since any participant in that race will need that move to protect themselves. Unlike CO2, AI will add something to the system that wasn't there before. Its power will be unmatched and unlike humans, it won't miss any lost life-form.
    - electricviolet 7y ago
      > Climate change is reversible in a couple hundred years That's optimistic. Climate change is potentially reversible, but it would involve large-scale geoengineering or carbon capture that we don't have the technology for yet. Developing and deploying that currently-nonexistent technology requires a stable, organized society. It's plausible that climate change could cause the breakdown of organized society before we're able to develop technology to reverse it.
      - toohotatopic 7y ago
        Don't forget the trees. Maybe it's a couple of thousand years, but let them roam earth and the CO2 is gone, like the last time. Since bacteria is digesting cellulose this time, we can't rely on earth to fold over old wood. Instead, humans will have to manage the storage. But that should be doable, given the speed with which we can harvest forests.
      - to11mtm 7y ago
        I wish I could remember the name of the plant... But there's some tree that grows like a freaking weed and is amazing for carbon sequestration. I feel like even having 'more' trees again would be helpful; where my family grew up, over the years all the big/old trees that were in people's yards were never replaced as they went away.
- Daishiman 7y ago
  Sure, but necessarily, any informed person understands that it is by the largest existential risk of humanity.
  - minikites 7y ago
    Lots of people don't believe it's a problem or even claim it will be a benefit and no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise.
    - lukifer 7y ago
      I'm reminded of Kubrick's quote about the atom bomb[0]: "People react primarily to direct experience and not to abstractions; it is very rare to find anyone who can become emotionally involved with an abstraction. The longer the bomb is around without anything happening, the better the job that people do in psychologically denying its existence. It has become as abstract as the fact that we are all going to die someday, which we usually do an excellent job of denying." A disturbing corollary: the same challenge of processing an abstraction exists amongst most non-experts who accept AGW (and I'm among them). Hence symbolic gestures (banning straws), conflation with other sacred-cow political issues (corporate capitalism), belief in looming extinction (unlikely; the threat is to civilization, not homo sapiens), all generally filtered through a "purity" moral matrix (to put it in Haidt-ian terms). As the complex reality becomes filtered through moralizing and politicizing, the other side digs in their heels for predictable tribalist and game-theoretic reasons. It's a truly wicked problem. [0]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/11/12/how-about-a-little-game https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/11/12/how-about-a-li...
    - imtringued 7y ago
      I don't understand this sentiment. After years of stagnation at around 911 million tons of CO2 Germany managed to reduce carbon emissions by 40 million tons in 2019 alone. The only thing that changed was a spike in the price of EU CO2 certificates which resulted in less electricity being produced from coal. It's absurd that this incredible progress is held back by the fear of losing 20k coal jobs when the reality is that those 20k coal jobs prevented the creation of hundreds of thousands in the renewable energy sector. Even if you think the whole thing is a scam you see that having a grand mission to invest in modern technology is an incredibly effective jobs program just like sending people to the moon. Nobody has gone to the moon again but we still benefit from all the research from that era.
roenxi 7y ago
> He pointed to the rapid disappearance of insect species around the world, including those that pollinate 75% of the world's crops, as a result of climate change and other pressures. Hmm. Do those other pressures involve massive use of insecticides? Climate becoming warmer isn't about to stop insects; little blighters are resilient as an evolutionary approach. I'm sure wiping out a species is possible but a new one would pop up in no time to fill the gap if they aren't being actively exterminated. Water and food crisises are not new risks. They are inevitable outcomes of population growth and variance in the supply chain. The evidence is that we are much better at dealing with such threats now than we were in the past because we have all this cheap energy we can use to recover.
- p1necone 7y ago
  Some insects sure, cockroaches aren't going anywhere soon for example. But plenty of species exist only in a particular ecological niche for which a few degrees of average temperature change can absolutely seriously affect their population.
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  "Hmm. Do those other pressures involve massive use of insecticides? Climate becoming warmer isn't about to stop insects; little blighters are resilient as an evolutionary approach." Insects on the whole are resilient. Specific pollinators aren't. Climate change is causing massive problems for insect life. Neonic pesticides are also devestating. Both are bad, and are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact, more pesticides are used as climate change stresses crops more and weakens them.
  - aldoushuxley001 7y ago
    Crops are generally loving climate change though, as more food will be produced than with colder temperatures, so I don't think more pesticides will be used because of climate-change induced crop stress
    - moultano 7y ago
kasperni 7y ago
Here is an outline of the actual report [1] which draws on feedback from around 800 global experts and decision-makers. Environmental threats dominate the survey’s 10-year outlook. The top five long term risks by likelihood and three of the top five spots by impact. [1] https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2020/jan/globalrisks2020.html https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2020/jan/...
allovernow 7y ago
> He pointed to the rapid disappearance of insect species around the world, including those that pollinate 75% of the world's crops, as a result of climate change and other pressures. We're barely starting to understand bee colony collapse, and that's probably one of the more pressing and therefore better explored issues to date. I think it's a little unscientific to see literally every change in ecological and weather patterns blamed automatically on climate change. It's really turning into a social and institutional catch all. Insects in particular - I find it far easier to believe that the consistent global drop in insect populations has far more to do with deforestation and chemical disbursement rather than fractions of degrees of warming that we've seen so far. Weather patterns are constantly changing even in the absence of climate forcing. Defaulting to unusual event->climate change is statistically invalid in the same way as cold snap->no climate change. More evidence that the academic institution is increasingly broken and driven by dogma.
- NikolaNovak 7y ago
  I agree that "Climate Change" != "Environment Concern", i.e. there are many, many other environmental impacts that we make in addition, over and above specific subset of climate change. I notice that some articles summarize the study as "Climate threads now dominate", others as "Environmental risks now dominate", and in my mind the two are not at all the same (to me, Climate Change is a proper subset of Environmental Risks). The original link seems to talk about "Environmental Threats" as a summation of individual concerns such as Climate Action Failure, Biodiversity Loss, Water Crises, etc. I'm OK with that summation myself.
  - baddox 7y ago
    I also agree that it's clearly possible to misattribute an environmental concern to climate change, but at the same time, it's probably reasonable to seriously investigate climate change as a cause in any significant environmental concern that does not otherwise have a clear and sufficient explanation. It feels a bit like nutrition and health. Of course there are plenty of health problems have little or nothing to do with nutrition, but if you know that you have poor nutrition it's a reasonable cause to investigate whenever you have a non-obvious health problem.
LatteLazy 7y ago
Climate is a global issue requiring global solutions. So we won't solve it because we're just not capable of globalism as a species. So all anyone can do is protect their investments.
- yodsanklai 7y ago
  What kind of investments should you make in a declining world?
  - LatteLazy 7y ago
    There are always opportunities. Right now flood defense construction companies look like a good 30 year bet don't they? The world may be declining but you will be rewarded or punished based on how your portfolio does, not the global average.
  - galangalalgol 7y ago
    Water filters and ammunition? Recreational substances will always sell too I imagine.
    - eaenki 7y ago
      One ideally longs things where demand will likely increase and short things where it will decrease. Long Wind/Solar and everything around it for instance, short petrochemical companies Obviously that’s public so it’s priced in so I wouldn’t expect major YoY returns. But You know, slightly beat the market returns probably.
      - yodsanklai 7y ago
        > short petrochemical companies Is it that obvious? The harsher the world gets, the more oil we'll need to survive. I'm not sure we'll refrain from using this energy if it can provide short term relief.
        7y ago
tempsy 7y ago
How does one prevent themselves from being consumed by existentialist thoughts caused by climate news? I really have had a lot of trouble concentrating lately because things just don’t feel important to me anymore...
- jazzabeanie 7y ago
  Get comfortable with the fact that you will die.
  - uwuhn 7y ago
    I'm a temporarily-embarrassed survivor of catastrophic climate change.
- Cougher 7y ago
  Stop paying attention to the hysteria. It's great for views and clicks. It's terrible for viewers and clickers. "We have been told that climate change is an ‘existential crisis.’ However, based upon our current assessment of the science, the climate threat is not an existential one, even in its most alarming hypothetical incarnations." https://judithcurry.com/2019/12/14/the-toxic-rhetoric-of-climate-change/#more-25488 https://judithcurry.com/2019/12/14/the-toxic-rhetoric-of-cli...
  - sxcurry 7y ago
    For context: Between 2014 and February 2019, Curry testified before at least six Republican-led House committees, expressing the idea that the dangers of global warming are overstated and difficult to predict. These testimonies include statements criticizing President Obama’s climate plan, the UN climate action plan, and other policy proposals aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
    - useragent86 7y ago
      > expressing the idea that the dangers of global warming are overstated and difficult to predict She actually expressed the idea that the effects of global warming are difficult to predict? What is she, some kind of denier? Why hasn't she been canceled yet?
narrator 7y ago
Spoiler: The solution is a global tax payed to an unaccountable organization that operates globally for the "good" of the planet. Also, China and India don't pay. You can avoid watching the movie now since you know how it's going to end. This is basically the structure of the Paris Accord[1]. This movie feels a lot like it was written from end to beginning. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement#Ensuring_finance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement#Ensuring_finan...
- apsec112 7y ago
  What's your source on that? What organization would that be?
  - narrator 7y ago
    See the wikipedia link. The sub-organization of the UN umbrella organization that gets all the money is called the Green Climate Fund[1]. Notice that China and India are not on the contributors list. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Climate_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Climate_Fund
    - hannasanarion 7y ago
      The Green Climate Fund's purpose is to coordinate action and mitigation on climate change. It's not supposed to be a solution in itself, and you know that darn well.
- arbitrary_name 7y ago
  Do you know what? I don't care if they aren't contributing, I still want us to address it and funnel money into it.
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    I would rather a planet that is 50% fucked because china and india did nothing than a planet that is 100% fucked because we all did nothing.
jdpigeon 7y ago
Does this mean I can leave my day job and start working on carbon capture technology now?
- comicjk 7y ago
  If you can find someone to pay for you to work on it.
  - born_a_skeptic 7y ago
    So, basically just need to find someone with a lot of extra money and convince them of an impending crisis. Sounds easy.
Tycho 7y ago
Climate hypochondria now dominates news headlines.
bilifuduo 7y ago
If you want to do something about climate change, consider working at a company fighting some aspect of it, whether it be wind energy, carbon removal, electric vehicles or something else. We started Dolphin (http://withdolphin.com/ http://withdolphin.com/) to create an easy way for people to find impactful jobs tackling climate change. Hope it's helpful to anyone considering a career shift.
- evanlivingston 7y ago
  Please please plese, please, please don't make me install an app.
  - mc3 7y ago
    Also, by making them available on the WWW, you will get SEO traffic, and the reduced friction will get more people applying for jobs.
- arbitrary_name 7y ago
  great idea, but I bounced as soon as I saw I needed to download an app...
- hanniabu 7y ago
  Agree with the others. I'm looking for a job now and wanted to check this out, but downloading an app for it is simply a no go. Even if I had the storage available in my phone, which I don't. I'm sure there's many others with this same opinion but you just aren't aware because you can't see the number of upvotes on the comments, which lead me to comment too.
  - evanlivingston 7y ago
    I was just thinking the same thing. 26 upvotes on my sibling comment.
- Can_Not 7y ago
  Where is the sign up form? I couldn't find any listings or a place to register.
TomCNZ 7y ago
Tech skills are high in demand; if the majority of techies only worked for companies that are actively trying to mitigate their climate impact and help their employees, customers and suppliers do the same, I believe the impact could be considerable. If 50 other professions did the same, imagine the impact.
blondie9x 7y ago
Governments of this planet are not moving quickly enough on climate change with small incremental changes over time. However, people and organizations who champion these efforts can pressure governments to drive faster change. Climate Pledge To protect all of humanity globally now and for the future of our posterity I am committing to the following. I pledge to limit eating red meat. I will restrict intake of cows and lambs etc. If I choose to have children, I will have 2 or less. I will try to use cycling or mass transit options whenever possible and to participate in efforts to expand transit. I will restrict flying to only when necessary and try to limit flying to only when no other choice is available. If I do fly I will try to offset all emissions. I will try my utmost to conserve energy and minimize use of heating and cooling appliances. I will try my best to limit energy use to renewable sources when I have the choice. When I cannot choose I will fight for the ability to have this choice. I will try to help those close to me understand these choices and the need for those able, to also join the pledge. I will only consume what I need. I will not perpetuate extravagance and will only support companies who champion sustainable efforts. I will do my best to strive for and support sustainable and minimalist technology. I will stay involved in the public discourse on environmental issues and stay engaged on efforts to mitigate climate change.
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  I know its the trend to say individual effort is useless but I think the best thing about individual effort is it gets you in the mindset of conserving and a population that has made a habit of putting in their part will be extra frustrated when they see corporations and governments not putting in their part. It also prepares people for systematic change which will result in us having to do most of these things anyway.
  - kovek 7y ago
    Would be cool if instead of me thinking about offsetting my emissions for the flight tickets I buy... The government would implement a tax that just does that. And they could do similarly for all other products relating to emissions. The government could achieve that by installing the right taxes of these energy sources destroying the environment.
jdkee 7y ago
Avocado politics will become the norm in North America and Europe. https://www.berggruen.org/the-worldpost/articles/beware-the-rise-of-far-right-environmentalism/ https://www.berggruen.org/the-worldpost/articles/beware-the-...
- airstrike 7y ago
  Yawn... I'm frankly tired of the assumption that anything right of Obama is driven by nefarious motives such as "antagonistic to African development".
  - jdkee 7y ago
    I agree. It is similar to the trope that if you want reduced immigration into a developed country where you live you are inherently racist. It shuts down productive conversations on said issues. That said, Nils Gilman raises some substantive issues surrounding possible future policy discussions.
danschumann 7y ago
I have a gripe with long commuters... Or I think they're kinda dumb. I don't think the government should get involved, but it's not a social taboo to have a long commute, it's almost celebrated and romanticized. France has shown gas taxes have bad side effects, but how about just make people feel stupid for driving too much habitually. I just think they're stupid for spending a higher percentage of their lives in traffic, which is hellish.
- gaukes 7y ago
  Not everyone has the choice, especially in a place like the Bay Area with incredibly high rents near job centers.
  - jdnenej 7y ago
    Literally anyone who lives in the bay area has a choice to live somewhere else or work remote.
- neixidbeksoxyd 7y ago
  Ah yes, how dare poor people exist. They must clearly be inferior and stupid for choosing to live somewhere they can afford.
  - danschumann 7y ago
    Poor people? I'm poor. But I integrate my life. My work meshes with my home life. I would move my house or get a new job. Fighting traffic creates rage and environmental problems. It's stupid.
    - senordevnyc 7y ago
      Wow. Do you seriously imagine that people who spend a huge portion of their life on a miserable commute have never considered the solutions of "move somewhere closer" or "get a new job closer to home"?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
blackflame 7y ago
So basically they took a poll. People and their polls smh. It may be true or it may be false, either way it’s an opinion/feeling instead of something actionable and concrete
skimming 7y ago
Surveys are very scientific.
agumonkey 7y ago
pdf report http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risk_Report_2020.pdf http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risk_Report_2020.pdf
boyadjian 7y ago
We should have listened to the Club of Rome, in 1972.
ulrikrasmussen 7y ago
Why aren't we doing more to address the source of the problem: extraction of fossil fuels? It seems that every attempt to limit the consumption of fossil fuels is going to have a limited effect if we don't reduce the supply, since a reduction in consumption will lead to an oversupply, which will in turn make burning fossil fuels for other purposes cheaper. If the leading producers committed to a 10% reduction each year, then we would have some (big!) problems to solve, but we would at least be making progress. I know that the economies of the leading producers is deeply tied to the production of fossil fuels, but at the current rate of global warming, no investment in fossil fuel production is going to be a viable long-term strategy anyway: if the sector continues to grow, then your money from the profits will be worthless for other obvious reasons anyway.
- perfunctory 7y ago
  > Why aren't we doing more to address the source of the problem: extraction of fossil fuels? This is basically the same as asking why don't we do more to stop climate change. And the answer is the same. Because we the people don't demand it from our governments. Not hard enough anyway.
  - ulrikrasmussen 7y ago
    I think the demand for action is present and will only increase in the years to come, so I am not worried about that anymore, actually. My question was more why this particular course of action is not taken? What are the main arguments against it, and can we do something to address those?
- taurath 7y ago
  Because the extractors of fossil fuels drives significant portions of the economy and we’d have to change how we measure things. Plus the amount of money they throw around. Much of the time they’re the only industry in poor or underdeveloped regions, and we have no real way to deal with the economic impact.
  - ulrikrasmussen 7y ago
yters 7y ago
Won't we run out of fossil fuels soon, making this a non issue?
Proven 7y ago
That's completely false. A politician's long term translates to how much they can steal or mess up before they retire. My long term is 5-10 years, I don't share any of their concerns and I don't even care what their concerns are.
sproketboy 7y ago
As long it kills environmentalists and vegans - I'm all in.

509 points by drocer88 7y ago

To be clear, this measures the issue global leaders think is biggest, not necessarily what issue is actually biggest. This is probably mostly a proxy for "climate threats are the most top of mind issue for global leaders" due to the recent rise in coverage.

AlexanderDhoore 7y ago
Global heating because of greenhouse gasses is an existential threat to society. It is the biggest threat we have ever faced (on par with nuclear war). And we are losing, big time.
- deadbunny 7y ago
  We're not losing, we're not even fighting.
  - yodsanklai 7y ago
    Not sure why you're downvoted. My (French) government first preoccupation is increasing growth. Sad thing is that they do what they've been elected for. Recently they decided to decrease the speed limit, which was met by a general upset. Ironically, reduction of pollution wasn't even stated as a reason for these new limitations (they are concerned about car accident apparently). These guys just don't care about the environment. People give a lot of flak to Greta Thunberg (universally hated) but she asks the right questions to our leaders. EDIT: I wish downvoters would take the time to share their point of view.
    - mayniac 7y ago
      I just wrote up and deleted a comment on why you were wrong about the gilet jaunes "[not caring] about the environment" before re-reading your comment and realising you meant Macron's government doesn't care about the environment. I think that may be why you got downvoted.
- toohotatopic 7y ago
  Global heating is not on par with nuclear war. Climate change is reversible in a couple hundred years, nuclear fallout is not. At worst many people will die but not the entire earth will be inhabitable. Keep in mind that earth cannot get worse than the last time all CO2 was in the atmosphere. Trees are younger than sharks. There was plenty of life when all CO2 was free. Somewhere in that environment will be space for life like the last time. Sharks and trees and many other animals and plants made it though that environment. And somewhere in that environment, there will be some space for humans because we will be adaptable. Instead, the biggest threat is AI. It's the new nuclear race. It will come as fast as human possible and it will have access to the most powerful weapons since any participant in that race will need that move to protect themselves. Unlike CO2, AI will add something to the system that wasn't there before. Its power will be unmatched and unlike humans, it won't miss any lost life-form.
  - electricviolet 7y ago
    > Climate change is reversible in a couple hundred years That's optimistic. Climate change is potentially reversible, but it would involve large-scale geoengineering or carbon capture that we don't have the technology for yet. Developing and deploying that currently-nonexistent technology requires a stable, organized society. It's plausible that climate change could cause the breakdown of organized society before we're able to develop technology to reverse it.
    - toohotatopic 7y ago
      Don't forget the trees. Maybe it's a couple of thousand years, but let them roam earth and the CO2 is gone, like the last time. Since bacteria is digesting cellulose this time, we can't rely on earth to fold over old wood. Instead, humans will have to manage the storage. But that should be doable, given the speed with which we can harvest forests.
    - to11mtm 7y ago
      I wish I could remember the name of the plant... But there's some tree that grows like a freaking weed and is amazing for carbon sequestration. I feel like even having 'more' trees again would be helpful; where my family grew up, over the years all the big/old trees that were in people's yards were never replaced as they went away.
Daishiman 7y ago
Sure, but necessarily, any informed person understands that it is by the largest existential risk of humanity.
- minikites 7y ago
  Lots of people don't believe it's a problem or even claim it will be a benefit and no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise.
  - lukifer 7y ago
    I'm reminded of Kubrick's quote about the atom bomb[0]: "People react primarily to direct experience and not to abstractions; it is very rare to find anyone who can become emotionally involved with an abstraction. The longer the bomb is around without anything happening, the better the job that people do in psychologically denying its existence. It has become as abstract as the fact that we are all going to die someday, which we usually do an excellent job of denying." A disturbing corollary: the same challenge of processing an abstraction exists amongst most non-experts who accept AGW (and I'm among them). Hence symbolic gestures (banning straws), conflation with other sacred-cow political issues (corporate capitalism), belief in looming extinction (unlikely; the threat is to civilization, not homo sapiens), all generally filtered through a "purity" moral matrix (to put it in Haidt-ian terms). As the complex reality becomes filtered through moralizing and politicizing, the other side digs in their heels for predictable tribalist and game-theoretic reasons. It's a truly wicked problem. [0]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/11/12/how-about-a-little-game https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/11/12/how-about-a-li...
  - imtringued 7y ago
    I don't understand this sentiment. After years of stagnation at around 911 million tons of CO2 Germany managed to reduce carbon emissions by 40 million tons in 2019 alone. The only thing that changed was a spike in the price of EU CO2 certificates which resulted in less electricity being produced from coal. It's absurd that this incredible progress is held back by the fear of losing 20k coal jobs when the reality is that those 20k coal jobs prevented the creation of hundreds of thousands in the renewable energy sector. Even if you think the whole thing is a scam you see that having a grand mission to invest in modern technology is an incredibly effective jobs program just like sending people to the moon. Nobody has gone to the moon again but we still benefit from all the research from that era.

roenxi 7y ago

> He pointed to the rapid disappearance of insect species around the world, including those that pollinate 75% of the world's crops, as a result of climate change and other pressures. Hmm. Do those other pressures involve massive use of insecticides? Climate becoming warmer isn't about to stop insects; little blighters are resilient as an evolutionary approach. I'm sure wiping out a species is possible but a new one would pop up in no time to fill the gap if they aren't being actively exterminated. Water and food crisises are not new risks. They are inevitable outcomes of population growth and variance in the supply chain. The evidence is that we are much better at dealing with such threats now than we were in the past because we have all this cheap energy we can use to recover.

p1necone 7y ago
Some insects sure, cockroaches aren't going anywhere soon for example. But plenty of species exist only in a particular ecological niche for which a few degrees of average temperature change can absolutely seriously affect their population.
throwaway5752 7y ago
"Hmm. Do those other pressures involve massive use of insecticides? Climate becoming warmer isn't about to stop insects; little blighters are resilient as an evolutionary approach." Insects on the whole are resilient. Specific pollinators aren't. Climate change is causing massive problems for insect life. Neonic pesticides are also devestating. Both are bad, and are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact, more pesticides are used as climate change stresses crops more and weakens them.
- aldoushuxley001 7y ago
  Crops are generally loving climate change though, as more food will be produced than with colder temperatures, so I don't think more pesticides will be used because of climate-change induced crop stress
  - moultano 7y ago

kasperni 7y ago

Here is an outline of the actual report [1] which draws on feedback from around 800 global experts and decision-makers. Environmental threats dominate the survey’s 10-year outlook. The top five long term risks by likelihood and three of the top five spots by impact. [1] https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2020/jan/globalrisks2020.html https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2020/jan/...

allovernow 7y ago

> He pointed to the rapid disappearance of insect species around the world, including those that pollinate 75% of the world's crops, as a result of climate change and other pressures. We're barely starting to understand bee colony collapse, and that's probably one of the more pressing and therefore better explored issues to date. I think it's a little unscientific to see literally every change in ecological and weather patterns blamed automatically on climate change. It's really turning into a social and institutional catch all. Insects in particular - I find it far easier to believe that the consistent global drop in insect populations has far more to do with deforestation and chemical disbursement rather than fractions of degrees of warming that we've seen so far. Weather patterns are constantly changing even in the absence of climate forcing. Defaulting to unusual event->climate change is statistically invalid in the same way as cold snap->no climate change. More evidence that the academic institution is increasingly broken and driven by dogma.

NikolaNovak 7y ago
I agree that "Climate Change" != "Environment Concern", i.e. there are many, many other environmental impacts that we make in addition, over and above specific subset of climate change. I notice that some articles summarize the study as "Climate threads now dominate", others as "Environmental risks now dominate", and in my mind the two are not at all the same (to me, Climate Change is a proper subset of Environmental Risks). The original link seems to talk about "Environmental Threats" as a summation of individual concerns such as Climate Action Failure, Biodiversity Loss, Water Crises, etc. I'm OK with that summation myself.
- baddox 7y ago
  I also agree that it's clearly possible to misattribute an environmental concern to climate change, but at the same time, it's probably reasonable to seriously investigate climate change as a cause in any significant environmental concern that does not otherwise have a clear and sufficient explanation. It feels a bit like nutrition and health. Of course there are plenty of health problems have little or nothing to do with nutrition, but if you know that you have poor nutrition it's a reasonable cause to investigate whenever you have a non-obvious health problem.

LatteLazy 7y ago

Climate is a global issue requiring global solutions. So we won't solve it because we're just not capable of globalism as a species. So all anyone can do is protect their investments.

yodsanklai 7y ago
What kind of investments should you make in a declining world?
- LatteLazy 7y ago
  There are always opportunities. Right now flood defense construction companies look like a good 30 year bet don't they? The world may be declining but you will be rewarded or punished based on how your portfolio does, not the global average.
- galangalalgol 7y ago
  Water filters and ammunition? Recreational substances will always sell too I imagine.
  - eaenki 7y ago
    One ideally longs things where demand will likely increase and short things where it will decrease. Long Wind/Solar and everything around it for instance, short petrochemical companies Obviously that’s public so it’s priced in so I wouldn’t expect major YoY returns. But You know, slightly beat the market returns probably.
    - yodsanklai 7y ago
      > short petrochemical companies Is it that obvious? The harsher the world gets, the more oil we'll need to survive. I'm not sure we'll refrain from using this energy if it can provide short term relief.
      - 7y ago

tempsy 7y ago

How does one prevent themselves from being consumed by existentialist thoughts caused by climate news? I really have had a lot of trouble concentrating lately because things just don’t feel important to me anymore...

jazzabeanie 7y ago
Get comfortable with the fact that you will die.
- uwuhn 7y ago
  I'm a temporarily-embarrassed survivor of catastrophic climate change.
Cougher 7y ago
Stop paying attention to the hysteria. It's great for views and clicks. It's terrible for viewers and clickers. "We have been told that climate change is an ‘existential crisis.’ However, based upon our current assessment of the science, the climate threat is not an existential one, even in its most alarming hypothetical incarnations." https://judithcurry.com/2019/12/14/the-toxic-rhetoric-of-climate-change/#more-25488 https://judithcurry.com/2019/12/14/the-toxic-rhetoric-of-cli...
- sxcurry 7y ago
  For context: Between 2014 and February 2019, Curry testified before at least six Republican-led House committees, expressing the idea that the dangers of global warming are overstated and difficult to predict. These testimonies include statements criticizing President Obama’s climate plan, the UN climate action plan, and other policy proposals aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
  - useragent86 7y ago
    > expressing the idea that the dangers of global warming are overstated and difficult to predict She actually expressed the idea that the effects of global warming are difficult to predict? What is she, some kind of denier? Why hasn't she been canceled yet?

narrator 7y ago

Spoiler: The solution is a global tax payed to an unaccountable organization that operates globally for the "good" of the planet. Also, China and India don't pay. You can avoid watching the movie now since you know how it's going to end. This is basically the structure of the Paris Accord[1]. This movie feels a lot like it was written from end to beginning. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement#Ensuring_finance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement#Ensuring_finan...

apsec112 7y ago
What's your source on that? What organization would that be?
- narrator 7y ago
  See the wikipedia link. The sub-organization of the UN umbrella organization that gets all the money is called the Green Climate Fund[1]. Notice that China and India are not on the contributors list. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Climate_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Climate_Fund
  - hannasanarion 7y ago
    The Green Climate Fund's purpose is to coordinate action and mitigation on climate change. It's not supposed to be a solution in itself, and you know that darn well.
arbitrary_name 7y ago
Do you know what? I don't care if they aren't contributing, I still want us to address it and funnel money into it.
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  I would rather a planet that is 50% fucked because china and india did nothing than a planet that is 100% fucked because we all did nothing.

jdpigeon 7y ago

Does this mean I can leave my day job and start working on carbon capture technology now?

comicjk 7y ago
If you can find someone to pay for you to work on it.
- born_a_skeptic 7y ago
  So, basically just need to find someone with a lot of extra money and convince them of an impending crisis. Sounds easy.

Tycho 7y ago

Climate hypochondria now dominates news headlines.

bilifuduo 7y ago

If you want to do something about climate change, consider working at a company fighting some aspect of it, whether it be wind energy, carbon removal, electric vehicles or something else. We started Dolphin (http://withdolphin.com/ http://withdolphin.com/) to create an easy way for people to find impactful jobs tackling climate change. Hope it's helpful to anyone considering a career shift.

evanlivingston 7y ago
Please please plese, please, please don't make me install an app.
- mc3 7y ago
  Also, by making them available on the WWW, you will get SEO traffic, and the reduced friction will get more people applying for jobs.
arbitrary_name 7y ago
great idea, but I bounced as soon as I saw I needed to download an app...
hanniabu 7y ago
Agree with the others. I'm looking for a job now and wanted to check this out, but downloading an app for it is simply a no go. Even if I had the storage available in my phone, which I don't. I'm sure there's many others with this same opinion but you just aren't aware because you can't see the number of upvotes on the comments, which lead me to comment too.
- evanlivingston 7y ago
  I was just thinking the same thing. 26 upvotes on my sibling comment.
Can_Not 7y ago
Where is the sign up form? I couldn't find any listings or a place to register.

TomCNZ 7y ago

Tech skills are high in demand; if the majority of techies only worked for companies that are actively trying to mitigate their climate impact and help their employees, customers and suppliers do the same, I believe the impact could be considerable. If 50 other professions did the same, imagine the impact.

blondie9x 7y ago

Governments of this planet are not moving quickly enough on climate change with small incremental changes over time. However, people and organizations who champion these efforts can pressure governments to drive faster change. Climate Pledge To protect all of humanity globally now and for the future of our posterity I am committing to the following. I pledge to limit eating red meat. I will restrict intake of cows and lambs etc. If I choose to have children, I will have 2 or less. I will try to use cycling or mass transit options whenever possible and to participate in efforts to expand transit. I will restrict flying to only when necessary and try to limit flying to only when no other choice is available. If I do fly I will try to offset all emissions. I will try my utmost to conserve energy and minimize use of heating and cooling appliances. I will try my best to limit energy use to renewable sources when I have the choice. When I cannot choose I will fight for the ability to have this choice. I will try to help those close to me understand these choices and the need for those able, to also join the pledge. I will only consume what I need. I will not perpetuate extravagance and will only support companies who champion sustainable efforts. I will do my best to strive for and support sustainable and minimalist technology. I will stay involved in the public discourse on environmental issues and stay engaged on efforts to mitigate climate change.

Polylactic_acid 7y ago
I know its the trend to say individual effort is useless but I think the best thing about individual effort is it gets you in the mindset of conserving and a population that has made a habit of putting in their part will be extra frustrated when they see corporations and governments not putting in their part. It also prepares people for systematic change which will result in us having to do most of these things anyway.
- kovek 7y ago
  Would be cool if instead of me thinking about offsetting my emissions for the flight tickets I buy... The government would implement a tax that just does that. And they could do similarly for all other products relating to emissions. The government could achieve that by installing the right taxes of these energy sources destroying the environment.

jdkee 7y ago

Avocado politics will become the norm in North America and Europe. https://www.berggruen.org/the-worldpost/articles/beware-the-rise-of-far-right-environmentalism/ https://www.berggruen.org/the-worldpost/articles/beware-the-...

airstrike 7y ago
Yawn... I'm frankly tired of the assumption that anything right of Obama is driven by nefarious motives such as "antagonistic to African development".
- jdkee 7y ago
  I agree. It is similar to the trope that if you want reduced immigration into a developed country where you live you are inherently racist. It shuts down productive conversations on said issues. That said, Nils Gilman raises some substantive issues surrounding possible future policy discussions.

danschumann 7y ago

I have a gripe with long commuters... Or I think they're kinda dumb. I don't think the government should get involved, but it's not a social taboo to have a long commute, it's almost celebrated and romanticized. France has shown gas taxes have bad side effects, but how about just make people feel stupid for driving too much habitually. I just think they're stupid for spending a higher percentage of their lives in traffic, which is hellish.

gaukes 7y ago
Not everyone has the choice, especially in a place like the Bay Area with incredibly high rents near job centers.
- jdnenej 7y ago
  Literally anyone who lives in the bay area has a choice to live somewhere else or work remote.
neixidbeksoxyd 7y ago
Ah yes, how dare poor people exist. They must clearly be inferior and stupid for choosing to live somewhere they can afford.
- danschumann 7y ago
  Poor people? I'm poor. But I integrate my life. My work meshes with my home life. I would move my house or get a new job. Fighting traffic creates rage and environmental problems. It's stupid.
  - senordevnyc 7y ago
    Wow. Do you seriously imagine that people who spend a huge portion of their life on a miserable commute have never considered the solutions of "move somewhere closer" or "get a new job closer to home"?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

blackflame 7y ago

So basically they took a poll. People and their polls smh. It may be true or it may be false, either way it’s an opinion/feeling instead of something actionable and concrete

skimming 7y ago

Surveys are very scientific.

agumonkey 7y ago

pdf report http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risk_Report_2020.pdf http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risk_Report_2020.pdf

boyadjian 7y ago

We should have listened to the Club of Rome, in 1972.

ulrikrasmussen 7y ago

Why aren't we doing more to address the source of the problem: extraction of fossil fuels? It seems that every attempt to limit the consumption of fossil fuels is going to have a limited effect if we don't reduce the supply, since a reduction in consumption will lead to an oversupply, which will in turn make burning fossil fuels for other purposes cheaper. If the leading producers committed to a 10% reduction each year, then we would have some (big!) problems to solve, but we would at least be making progress. I know that the economies of the leading producers is deeply tied to the production of fossil fuels, but at the current rate of global warming, no investment in fossil fuel production is going to be a viable long-term strategy anyway: if the sector continues to grow, then your money from the profits will be worthless for other obvious reasons anyway.

perfunctory 7y ago
> Why aren't we doing more to address the source of the problem: extraction of fossil fuels? This is basically the same as asking why don't we do more to stop climate change. And the answer is the same. Because we the people don't demand it from our governments. Not hard enough anyway.
- ulrikrasmussen 7y ago
  I think the demand for action is present and will only increase in the years to come, so I am not worried about that anymore, actually. My question was more why this particular course of action is not taken? What are the main arguments against it, and can we do something to address those?
taurath 7y ago
Because the extractors of fossil fuels drives significant portions of the economy and we’d have to change how we measure things. Plus the amount of money they throw around. Much of the time they’re the only industry in poor or underdeveloped regions, and we have no real way to deal with the economic impact.
- ulrikrasmussen 7y ago

yters 7y ago

Won't we run out of fossil fuels soon, making this a non issue?

Proven 7y ago

That's completely false. A politician's long term translates to how much they can steal or mess up before they retire. My long term is 5-10 years, I don't share any of their concerns and I don't even care what their concerns are.

sproketboy 7y ago

As long it kills environmentalists and vegans - I'm all in.