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Climate change already caused civilization to collapse 20 years ago according to this article published in 1990: https://apnews.com/article/bd45c372caf118ec999

Climate change already caused civilization to collapse 20 years ago according to this article published in 1990: https://apnews.com/article/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0 https://apnews.com/article/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0 >" UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees,′ ′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control...Coastal regions will be inundated; one-sixth of Bangladesh could be flooded, displacing a fourth of its 90 million people. A fifth of Egypt’s arable land in the Nile Delta would be flooded...UNEP is working toward forming a scientific plan of action by the end of 1990, and the adoption of a global climate treaty by 1992...

voldacar 5y ago
I sometimes wonder where we would be without the UN. Such luminaries.
adrianN 5y ago
You misread the article. Climate change will cause those problems, but not by the year 2000. Carbon emissions have very long term effects that are hard to reverse. Twenty years ago we had already emitted enough CO2 to cause dramatic changes over the next couple of generations. That's why all IPCC scenarios with tolerable warming nowadays include magical atmospheric carbon scrubbing technology.
jlmorton 5y ago
It really shouldn't be necessary to link to this on Hacker News, but Snopes [1] does a good job putting this article into context. 1. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nations-vanish-global-warming/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nations-vanish-global-warm...
abraae 5y ago
That quote doesn't support your hot take at all. > if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000 The trend was not reversed, so now we wait to see if the prediction comes true. Given the low lying geography of some nations (esp pacific islands) I would bet money that this does indeed come true in the future. Nowhere in the quote does it say, as you claim, that civilization would collapse in 2000.
- mrjangles 5y ago
  I'm sorry but this is such an poor attempt to nit pick the obviously false claims made by the UN back then. It's been 20 years since they said we would be past the point of no return and almost no one today believes we are past the point of no return. Furthermore, those unspecific weasel words they were using back then to try and wriggle out of any predicitons they made back then, they are still using today when they say we will be past the point of no return in 10 years from now. Their wording was clearly meant to trick people into believing there would be mass destruction and climate refugees in 10 years, and people believed it back then, just like people today believe we will be seeing the same in 10 years from now.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    The goal posts have moved significantly since the early nineties. Back then we had a realistic chance of limiting warming to well below one degree. We're now far past the point of no return for that. Today we talk about approaching the point of no return for 2° warming. Chances are good that we'll still talk about approaching the point of no return in another decade, only this time we'll talk about 3°.

voldacar 5y ago

I sometimes wonder where we would be without the UN. Such luminaries.

adrianN 5y ago

You misread the article. Climate change will cause those problems, but not by the year 2000. Carbon emissions have very long term effects that are hard to reverse. Twenty years ago we had already emitted enough CO2 to cause dramatic changes over the next couple of generations. That's why all IPCC scenarios with tolerable warming nowadays include magical atmospheric carbon scrubbing technology.

jlmorton 5y ago

It really shouldn't be necessary to link to this on Hacker News, but Snopes [1] does a good job putting this article into context. 1. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nations-vanish-global-warming/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nations-vanish-global-warm...

abraae 5y ago

That quote doesn't support your hot take at all. > if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000 The trend was not reversed, so now we wait to see if the prediction comes true. Given the low lying geography of some nations (esp pacific islands) I would bet money that this does indeed come true in the future. Nowhere in the quote does it say, as you claim, that civilization would collapse in 2000.

mrjangles 5y ago
I'm sorry but this is such an poor attempt to nit pick the obviously false claims made by the UN back then. It's been 20 years since they said we would be past the point of no return and almost no one today believes we are past the point of no return. Furthermore, those unspecific weasel words they were using back then to try and wriggle out of any predicitons they made back then, they are still using today when they say we will be past the point of no return in 10 years from now. Their wording was clearly meant to trick people into believing there would be mass destruction and climate refugees in 10 years, and people believed it back then, just like people today believe we will be seeing the same in 10 years from now.
- adrianN 5y ago
  The goal posts have moved significantly since the early nineties. Back then we had a realistic chance of limiting warming to well below one degree. We're now far past the point of no return for that. Today we talk about approaching the point of no return for 2° warming. Chances are good that we'll still talk about approaching the point of no return in another decade, only this time we'll talk about 3°.