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Nobody worried about climate change thinks that additional deaths from heatwaves are going to be a significant issue compared to ecological collapse, food short
by jakeinspace 7y ago
Nobody worried about climate change thinks that additional deaths from heatwaves are going to be a significant issue compared to ecological collapse, food shortages due to crop collapse, and of course rising sea levels causing mass migration.
- AndrewKemendo 7y ago"ecological collapse, food shortages due to crop collapse, and of course rising sea levels causing mass migration" Those statements are so vague in measurement as to mean nothing. I've read the IPCC report and the relevant section says nothing of generalized society ending collapses as people would seem to want you to believe. There's a few that you can read about: 1. A collapse in permafrost may occur (low confidence); 2. collapse of Maize in some regions, may exist under 3°C or more of global warming (low confidence) etc... Ok, those aren't great or desired things, and we need to mitigate that, but the world isn't ending. This isn't even close to a world war, a nuclear bomb going off, a massive solar event that takes out the grid etc... I'd love to see way less apocalyptic language used and more talk about tradeoffs and realistic possible future costs of how we produce and consume vs finding sustainable growth. [1]https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-3/ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-3/
- jakeinspace 7y agoI wasn't trying to be apocalyptic. Ecological collapse just means that many many organisms will (continue) to go extinct due to rapid changes in their environment. That's both from direct causes (warming, ocean acidification) and from indirect causes. As far as food shortages, that just requires a significant reduction in arable land. The US will probably be fine, but countries which rely on farming/production near the coasts will suffer.