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I agree with Neil Gaiman and the many, many climate scientists watching this unfold that the Australian, Canadian and Californian fires are only the tip of a ve

I agree with Neil Gaiman and the many, many climate scientists watching this unfold that the Australian, Canadian and Californian fires are only the tip of a very large iceberg. Policy wise I think politics needs to plan to cope with living in a 4-5C world and action wise we need to do everything we can to try and plateau in a 2-3C world.

pier25 7y ago
> living in a 4-5C world It would be close to impossible to feed 8B people in a +4C world. Probably even in a +2C world. Enjoy the party while it lasts.
- chipperyman573 7y ago
  What information is that based off of? How do we know we won't be able to use technology (whatever that means in this case) to solve it?
  - pier25 7y ago
    Difficult to say since we don't even know what technology we'll discover in 10 years from now. If you look at the wildfires in Russia from 2010 which helped trigger the Arab revolutions in 2011 it should give you an idea. That occurred 10 years ago when we weren't even at +1C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires#Role_in_the_Arab_Spring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires#Role_in... Also: > Rockström [director of the Potsdam institute] doesn’t like our chances. “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate eight billion people or maybe even half of that,” he says. “There will be a rich minority of people who survive with modern lifestyles, no doubt, but it will be a turbulent, conflict-ridden world.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/climate-crisis-heat-is-on-global-heating-four-degrees-2100-change-way-we-live https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/climate-...
    - MrsPeaches 7y ago
      > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires#Role_in.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires#Role_in.... Just FYI that all the links in this are dead apart from one that links to a youtube channel called "Russia Good" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzFHWLAMQ2hWPc7fbssfSUg/about https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzFHWLAMQ2hWPc7fbssfSUg/abo... Any better sources on this?
      - chillax 7y ago
        https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-and-rising-food-prices-heightened-arab-spring/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-an...
  - netsharc 7y ago
    Gotta love this "some yet-existing technology will solve all our problems!" mindset.. /s Might as well have faith in Jesus at this point, if you're just going to pray to non-existant future tech. E.g. I think a lot people have prayed for a solution to solve problems like aging, but several millennia of civilization, and we're still aging and dying.
  - lunias 7y ago
    I dunno if "technology [will] solve it"... We'll have droughts, famine, and 16k 8g streaming VR porn. We already have the capability to solve it (we created it), it's just not profitable enough to start trying yet. Or at least it will be unfathomably more profitable when people are faced with life or death situations.
SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
I totally agree wildfires are getting worse because of climate change. But... I was asked about the far larger and far worse fires Australia had in 1974-1975, and why those were related just to mismanagement and these are related to climate change. I didn't have an answer, does anyone?
- specialist 7y ago
  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong: Because of the trend towards increased frequency. "100 year events" (fire, flood, heatwave, storms) are now happening every year.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - hcknwscommenter 7y ago
    It is likely that 100 year events, calculated on the basis of historical data are overly optimistic. That is, these events will occur with higher frequency. However, "every year"? The only way to make that a correct statement is to say that there is at least one 100 year event (fire flood earthquake viral outbreak, etc.) happening in each year globally. But that has essentially always been true. "100 year event" really only has any meaning when talking about a specific event: e.g., category V hurricane landing within 50 miles of Houston.
  - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
    > Someone please correct me if I'm wrong >"100 year events" (fire, flood, heatwave, storms) are now happening every year. Alright, that is incorrect. Perhaps you're living in age of better reporting and global information exchange?
- hcknwscommenter 7y ago
  1. It is not as if global warming wasn't happening in 1974-75. It is just that the signal was MUCH weaker, the amount of historical and contemporary data was MUCH less, our confidence in climate modeling was much lower, and processing power was much less for actually running our models. To say that 1974-75 was not related to climate change at all is likely wrong. But certainly, the amount of human-induced global warming was significantly less too, so it is likely that 74-75 had other larger underlying reasons.
nostrademons 7y ago
I think 4-5C is a pretty reasonable assumption, over the next century. The thing is that most of our current action plan for climate change consists of reducing CO2 emissions, and this is woefully inadequate for a world that the most recent science indicates has already passed the tipping point. Among the second-order changes that we should be preparing for: 1. Migration as the new norm. A 4-5C temperature rise will shift equivalent biomes over 1000 miles northward/southward, and inundate large coastal areas where major populations are currently located. Major densely-populated areas will become uninhabitable, and currently uninhabitable areas will become fertile. 2. The collapse of governments, and of the nation-state system. When migration becomes the new norm, borders become irrelevant, as do settled homogenous populations. What's the new political organization look like? 3. Large temporary food shortages. Higher temperatures, higher rainfall, and higher CO2 levels actually mean that in the long-term, plant growth and agricultural productivity will increase, and the earth's carrying capacity should go up. But in the short term - a lot of our current crops are hyper-specialized to their existing climate, and land rights, water rights, & physical crop location become problematic. Food distribution becomes critical - we'll likely make enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but the people who grow it may not want to share (or may have the inability to trade) with the people who need it. 4. Expect to see more diseases emerge. Large migrations, changes in biomes, and increased human habitation of formerly virgin ecosystems all spell chances for pathogens to jump from animal hosts to people and spread widely. Overall, I'm a lot more scared of the likelihood that humans will kill each other than that the environment will kill us. We have a unique tendency to blame each other for unwelcome changes rather than to adapt to them.
- agentultra 7y ago
  We should also consider that as the ambient CO2 density rises we're also going to lose a lot of our cognitive function. If we're going to rely on nuclear energy to see us through we might need to rely on AI to carry on operations for us.
  - mrob 7y ago
    Or alternatively, personal CO2 scrubbers (already used as a part of diving rebreathers) become standard equipment for knowledge workers.

pier25 7y ago

> living in a 4-5C world It would be close to impossible to feed 8B people in a +4C world. Probably even in a +2C world. Enjoy the party while it lasts.

chipperyman573 7y ago
What information is that based off of? How do we know we won't be able to use technology (whatever that means in this case) to solve it?
- pier25 7y ago
  Difficult to say since we don't even know what technology we'll discover in 10 years from now. If you look at the wildfires in Russia from 2010 which helped trigger the Arab revolutions in 2011 it should give you an idea. That occurred 10 years ago when we weren't even at +1C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires#Role_in_the_Arab_Spring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires#Role_in... Also: > Rockström [director of the Potsdam institute] doesn’t like our chances. “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate eight billion people or maybe even half of that,” he says. “There will be a rich minority of people who survive with modern lifestyles, no doubt, but it will be a turbulent, conflict-ridden world.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/climate-crisis-heat-is-on-global-heating-four-degrees-2100-change-way-we-live https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/climate-...
  - MrsPeaches 7y ago
    > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires#Role_in.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires#Role_in.... Just FYI that all the links in this are dead apart from one that links to a youtube channel called "Russia Good" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzFHWLAMQ2hWPc7fbssfSUg/about https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzFHWLAMQ2hWPc7fbssfSUg/abo... Any better sources on this?
    - chillax 7y ago
      https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-and-rising-food-prices-heightened-arab-spring/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-an...
- netsharc 7y ago
  Gotta love this "some yet-existing technology will solve all our problems!" mindset.. /s Might as well have faith in Jesus at this point, if you're just going to pray to non-existant future tech. E.g. I think a lot people have prayed for a solution to solve problems like aging, but several millennia of civilization, and we're still aging and dying.
- lunias 7y ago
  I dunno if "technology [will] solve it"... We'll have droughts, famine, and 16k 8g streaming VR porn. We already have the capability to solve it (we created it), it's just not profitable enough to start trying yet. Or at least it will be unfathomably more profitable when people are faced with life or death situations.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago

I totally agree wildfires are getting worse because of climate change. But... I was asked about the far larger and far worse fires Australia had in 1974-1975, and why those were related just to mismanagement and these are related to climate change. I didn't have an answer, does anyone?

specialist 7y ago
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong: Because of the trend towards increased frequency. "100 year events" (fire, flood, heatwave, storms) are now happening every year.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- hcknwscommenter 7y ago
  It is likely that 100 year events, calculated on the basis of historical data are overly optimistic. That is, these events will occur with higher frequency. However, "every year"? The only way to make that a correct statement is to say that there is at least one 100 year event (fire flood earthquake viral outbreak, etc.) happening in each year globally. But that has essentially always been true. "100 year event" really only has any meaning when talking about a specific event: e.g., category V hurricane landing within 50 miles of Houston.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  > Someone please correct me if I'm wrong >"100 year events" (fire, flood, heatwave, storms) are now happening every year. Alright, that is incorrect. Perhaps you're living in age of better reporting and global information exchange?
hcknwscommenter 7y ago
1. It is not as if global warming wasn't happening in 1974-75. It is just that the signal was MUCH weaker, the amount of historical and contemporary data was MUCH less, our confidence in climate modeling was much lower, and processing power was much less for actually running our models. To say that 1974-75 was not related to climate change at all is likely wrong. But certainly, the amount of human-induced global warming was significantly less too, so it is likely that 74-75 had other larger underlying reasons.

nostrademons 7y ago

I think 4-5C is a pretty reasonable assumption, over the next century. The thing is that most of our current action plan for climate change consists of reducing CO2 emissions, and this is woefully inadequate for a world that the most recent science indicates has already passed the tipping point. Among the second-order changes that we should be preparing for: 1. Migration as the new norm. A 4-5C temperature rise will shift equivalent biomes over 1000 miles northward/southward, and inundate large coastal areas where major populations are currently located. Major densely-populated areas will become uninhabitable, and currently uninhabitable areas will become fertile. 2. The collapse of governments, and of the nation-state system. When migration becomes the new norm, borders become irrelevant, as do settled homogenous populations. What's the new political organization look like? 3. Large temporary food shortages. Higher temperatures, higher rainfall, and higher CO2 levels actually mean that in the long-term, plant growth and agricultural productivity will increase, and the earth's carrying capacity should go up. But in the short term - a lot of our current crops are hyper-specialized to their existing climate, and land rights, water rights, & physical crop location become problematic. Food distribution becomes critical - we'll likely make enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but the people who grow it may not want to share (or may have the inability to trade) with the people who need it. 4. Expect to see more diseases emerge. Large migrations, changes in biomes, and increased human habitation of formerly virgin ecosystems all spell chances for pathogens to jump from animal hosts to people and spread widely. Overall, I'm a lot more scared of the likelihood that humans will kill each other than that the environment will kill us. We have a unique tendency to blame each other for unwelcome changes rather than to adapt to them.

agentultra 7y ago
We should also consider that as the ambient CO2 density rises we're also going to lose a lot of our cognitive function. If we're going to rely on nuclear energy to see us through we might need to rely on AI to carry on operations for us.
- mrob 7y ago
  Or alternatively, personal CO2 scrubbers (already used as a part of diving rebreathers) become standard equipment for knowledge workers.