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Climate change has never struck me as an existential risk. Certainly it is a major problem. But it's slow moving. Slow moving problems are way more soluble than

by gfodor 6y ago

Climate change has never struck me as an existential risk. Certainly it is a major problem. But it's slow moving. Slow moving problems are way more soluble than fast moving problems. (For comparison, a hostile AI takeoff theoretically could wipe out humanity in a few minutes given the proper means.) The worst case scenario from climate change itself seems to be a small population of humans living in an artificial habitat in 1000 years. And of course there is a broad spectrum of other outcomes from there. If, for example, we master interplanetary colonization quickly by our effort to get to Mars, this would greatly minimize the impact since we could adapt the technologies used to survive on Mars. The biggest argument in favor of climate change being a true existential risk is if the conflicts it would spawn would result in a global war.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
A lot of people don't seem to understand that this has always been the real nature of the threat. Climate change will cause severe cultural and economic stresses which will have political consequences which will eventually spill over into physical consequences. It's far more of a threat to human culture and knowledge than to human DNA. The latter is likely to survive it in some form - albeit probably not a very interesting one. The former is already showing signs of stress and climate change has barely started.
- gfodor 6y ago
  At a macro level in that sense climate change is just increasing scarcity. Humans have been pretty good at dealing with issues of scarcity. There is no shortage of matter and energy in the universe, and we are very close to the knowledge needed to create enough energy for our needs through fusion. Frankly, my belief is the only thing needed to parlay climate change into an accelerant for human progress as opposed to believing it's a hurdle to leap over is for us to see it that way, and use it as an excuse to build energy generation technologies 100x better than our current ones. The focus on renewables is depressing, and the memes around the solution to climate change to be "use less, consume less, focus on more clean energy" are equally so, since they creates a cynical belief there is a tradeoff between energy use and conservatism. We can have both.
  - smolder 6y ago
    We can't have the status quo and environmental conservatism together. A great deal of damage has been done and the trajectory is awful. I appreciate your optimism but I think climate change is only a slow moving problem in the tiny span of a human life. The chances that fusion is still 20 years away at the time civilization violently collapses seem decent to me.
    - SCNP 6y ago
      Not to mention that if the problems created by climate change start costing lives and infrastructure, our ability to implement solutions dwindle as well. We need to have done the research and start on fixing the issues before populations and research facilities have been decimated or destroyed. The only reason we have the ability now to even think about colonizing mars and developing a new and unproven energy generation method is because we have such large societies where these things can eke out of the cracks.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      The solutions to climate change already exists and the status quo can be preserved. For proof, you only have to compare the per capita carbon footprint different countries like Sweden, Switzerland and France to to the USA, which has similar GDP and ~1/3 the carbon footprint. Alternatively, you can compare France to China, which has a greater CO2 footprint per capita, and half the GDP per capita. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
      - papeda 6y ago
        These low-CO2 countries are effectively exporting CO2 production (e.g. manufacturing) to China, no?
        s1artibartfast 6y ago
- yreg 6y ago
  That's right. Even _if_ the climate change killed off all the members of a civilization, provided there is any life left, it should rise up again in 100M years and presumably not do it again.
- scarmig 6y ago
  I don't even think it's a risk to culture and knowledge, speaking as someone who ranks climate change as our highest long-term priority. Unmitigated it will cause millions of excess deaths and have a substantial drag effect on GDP growth, but it's not going to cause us to revert back to paleolithic or even 19th century living standards. Humanity will just be substantially better off in a century if we deal with it now instead of shrugging our shoulders.
MichaelMoser123 6y ago
Depends on how resilient the ecosystem of the planet is. There might be differences between planets.

by gfodor 6y ago

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

A lot of people don't seem to understand that this has always been the real nature of the threat. Climate change will cause severe cultural and economic stresses which will have political consequences which will eventually spill over into physical consequences. It's far more of a threat to human culture and knowledge than to human DNA. The latter is likely to survive it in some form - albeit probably not a very interesting one. The former is already showing signs of stress and climate change has barely started.

gfodor 6y ago
At a macro level in that sense climate change is just increasing scarcity. Humans have been pretty good at dealing with issues of scarcity. There is no shortage of matter and energy in the universe, and we are very close to the knowledge needed to create enough energy for our needs through fusion. Frankly, my belief is the only thing needed to parlay climate change into an accelerant for human progress as opposed to believing it's a hurdle to leap over is for us to see it that way, and use it as an excuse to build energy generation technologies 100x better than our current ones. The focus on renewables is depressing, and the memes around the solution to climate change to be "use less, consume less, focus on more clean energy" are equally so, since they creates a cynical belief there is a tradeoff between energy use and conservatism. We can have both.
- smolder 6y ago
  We can't have the status quo and environmental conservatism together. A great deal of damage has been done and the trajectory is awful. I appreciate your optimism but I think climate change is only a slow moving problem in the tiny span of a human life. The chances that fusion is still 20 years away at the time civilization violently collapses seem decent to me.
  - SCNP 6y ago
    Not to mention that if the problems created by climate change start costing lives and infrastructure, our ability to implement solutions dwindle as well. We need to have done the research and start on fixing the issues before populations and research facilities have been decimated or destroyed. The only reason we have the ability now to even think about colonizing mars and developing a new and unproven energy generation method is because we have such large societies where these things can eke out of the cracks.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    The solutions to climate change already exists and the status quo can be preserved. For proof, you only have to compare the per capita carbon footprint different countries like Sweden, Switzerland and France to to the USA, which has similar GDP and ~1/3 the carbon footprint. Alternatively, you can compare France to China, which has a greater CO2 footprint per capita, and half the GDP per capita. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
    - papeda 6y ago
      These low-CO2 countries are effectively exporting CO2 production (e.g. manufacturing) to China, no?
      - s1artibartfast 6y ago
yreg 6y ago
That's right. Even _if_ the climate change killed off all the members of a civilization, provided there is any life left, it should rise up again in 100M years and presumably not do it again.
scarmig 6y ago
I don't even think it's a risk to culture and knowledge, speaking as someone who ranks climate change as our highest long-term priority. Unmitigated it will cause millions of excess deaths and have a substantial drag effect on GDP growth, but it's not going to cause us to revert back to paleolithic or even 19th century living standards. Humanity will just be substantially better off in a century if we deal with it now instead of shrugging our shoulders.

MichaelMoser123 6y ago

Depends on how resilient the ecosystem of the planet is. There might be differences between planets.