5 ms·
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 reducin
by 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 agoWe 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 agoOr alternatively, personal CO2 scrubbers (already used as a part of diving rebreathers) become standard equipment for knowledge workers.
- ItsDeathball 7y agoI'm skeptical of that claim without some good supporting evidence. Submarines tend to maintain CO2 concentrations 10x higher than atmospheric, and they have a better reactor safety record than civilian power plants.
- LorenPechtel 7y agoNo. The CO2 increases won't be at this level.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gbrown 7y ago> We have a unique tendency to blame each other for unwelcome changes rather than to adapt to them. The collective freakout in the USA over the migrant "caravan" really cemented this point for me. It's like... jeez people, do you have any idea what we're in for in the next few decades? It's a really good time to start building the capacity to effectively and ethically handle big influxes of people (which works out demographically for the US anyway, as the birth rate drops). Unfortunately, we seem to be doing the exact opposite.
- triceratops 7y ago> The collective freakout in the USA over the migrant "caravan" The reporting on it was designed to cause a freakout, timed to coincide with elections.
- rjsw 7y agoIt would also be good if the US didn't try to prevent migrants from reducing their birth rate before setting off.
- gbrown 7y agoThat, and also good if the US gave a more serious look at capacity and resiliency building worldwide.
- einpoklum 7y ago> It's a really good time to start building the capacity to effectively and ethically handle big influxes of people The problem with that is, that one of the bases of Capitalism is the maintenance of SCARCITY. That is, it's necessary to put most people in a situation of want, of low availability of resources, products, services - so that they have no choice but to work for capital-owners (= owners of commercial companies) to make a living. But to provide a decent life for a lot of incoming people means that there has to be an available glut of a lot of stuff.
- thepangolino 7y agoHow about we get into cloud seeding. I’ve seen plans costing it at under $10 billion a year per 1°C decrease. Seems like the most sensible option for me. There’s already ample literature proving the tremendous impact of cloud cover on global temperatures.
- mistrial9 7y agosurgery with a chainsaw works ok, too, in certain cases
- jlevers 7y agoMy understanding is that once you start cloud seeding, you can't really stop...if you stop, you'll have runaway warming at a significantly accelerated rate[0]. I'm pretty wary of geoengineering, just because we don't really know the second/third/nth-order effects geoengineering solutions might have. I'm not saying it should never be done, but I think much more research is in order before doing something that literally affects the entire planet. [0] I believe I learned that from this book (which I thought was excellent), although I'm not 100% sure: https://www.amazon.com/This-Changes-Everything-Capitalism-Climate/dp/1451697392/ https://www.amazon.com/This-Changes-Everything-Capitalism-Cl...
- halfjoking 7y agoAccelerated Olivine weathering is my geoengineering method of choice. It's exactly how the earth brought itself back into equilibrium over millions of years after the mass extinction events. As an added bonus it fixes the acidity of the oceans. For more info check out this project: https://projectvesta.org https://projectvesta.org
- 323454 7y agoThis is really cool but seems almost too good to be true. Why isn't this being talked about more?
- poiuyt098 7y ago"borders become irrelevant" On the contrary, citizens become more nationalistic. The pendulum will swing right again. EU falling apart already due to it.
- nostrademons 7y agoI think we'll see some citizens become more nationalist, while the number of people who are either stateless or consider themselves only loosely attached to a state grows dramatically. At the same time non-state organizations (multinational corporations, drug cartels, city-states, religious fundamentalists) will grow in power to fill the void left by the shrunken state, taking over many of the functions of the state like physical security, dispute resolution, taxation, infrastructure, etc. This is already happening as well: while the hinterlands of Britain voted for Brexit, it was widely unpopular in London, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and other regions, and may lead to the breakup of the UK. I could easily see a future where cities declare their independence and then organize a loose global confederation of free-trade agreements and mutual assistance pacts, leaving behind rump states ruling over the rural areas of what used to be their country. Then add in private corporations (incubated within the cities) to provide physical security for travelers and migrants who pay for the service.
- einpoklum 7y ago"City-states" - I doubt that, unless they have their own army, currency etc. However, the model of the Hanseatic cities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League may be something that certain cities or city-regions could theoretically try to set up.
- thepangolino 7y agoThe concept is not that far away. You already have city tolls coming back into fashion with the implementation of fees to enter “Low Emissions Zones”
- 7y ago
- einpoklum 7y agoHumanity produces sooo much food already, and that's with a huge fraction of people in under-developed countries doing low-yield production. Food shortages these days are artificial, in the sense that the deciding factors are socio-political, not physical/climatic. Other than that, agreed. I'm very worried popular movements will not be strong enough to prevent the emergence of authoritarian regimes who try to keep the migrating masses out with extreme violence (a more extreme version of how Europe has been trying to stop the flow of immigrants from Syria and Libya).