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I don't understand how people can put climate change out of all things to be afraid of. It's definitely an issue, but for me, it doesn't even make it in the top

I don't understand how people can put climate change out of all things to be afraid of. It's definitely an issue, but for me, it doesn't even make it in the top-10. I would, for example, be much, much more concerned that at any point, humankind is capable of launching an intercontinental nuclear war that would disrupt the entire civilization and create a multi-decade nuclear winter that would kill off whoever made it through round 1. That seems more scary to me than an extremely slow change that would force us to grow banans instead of potatoes and move from the beaches.

joeberon 5y ago
Climate change is demonstrably happening and already having drastic effects right now. Nuclear war is a thing that may or may not happen, but there's no sign right now that it would, so it's a distant hypothetical, much like being hit by a random meteor. It's obvious that the thing happening right now, continuously being reported on, would produce more concern.
DerArzt 5y ago
For me it is that climate change could be the trigger of many future conflicts (climate migration, water wars).
simiones 5y ago
> That seems more scary to me than an extremely slow change that would force us to grow banans instead of potatoes and move from the beaches. Then you haven't been paying attention. It's not about growing bananas where today we grow potatoes, it's about what happens in the areas where today we grow bananas. Those areas will become literally uninhabitable for large parts of the year in the next 50-100 years at the current rates of carbon emission, and the billion+ people living in those areas will move elsewhere. Looking at how the minute amount of migrants from Libya and Syria were received in some of the wealthiest countries in the world (~1 million people reaching Europe and throwing it into a political crisis), the effect of 3 orders of magnitude more migration will be devastating, and are one of the main reasons for imagining that nuclear war you fear (especially given India, Pakistan, and China have nuclear weapons, and will be at the forefront of this massive migration from Bangladesh and their own coastal areas). All this will happen, most likely even if we reduce emissions to 0 today. Perhaps it will be limited to a few hundred million instead of more than a billion if we reach some goals of the Paris agreement, but even that is unlikely to actually happen.

joeberon 5y ago

Climate change is demonstrably happening and already having drastic effects right now. Nuclear war is a thing that may or may not happen, but there's no sign right now that it would, so it's a distant hypothetical, much like being hit by a random meteor. It's obvious that the thing happening right now, continuously being reported on, would produce more concern.

DerArzt 5y ago

For me it is that climate change could be the trigger of many future conflicts (climate migration, water wars).

simiones 5y ago

> That seems more scary to me than an extremely slow change that would force us to grow banans instead of potatoes and move from the beaches. Then you haven't been paying attention. It's not about growing bananas where today we grow potatoes, it's about what happens in the areas where today we grow bananas. Those areas will become literally uninhabitable for large parts of the year in the next 50-100 years at the current rates of carbon emission, and the billion+ people living in those areas will move elsewhere. Looking at how the minute amount of migrants from Libya and Syria were received in some of the wealthiest countries in the world (~1 million people reaching Europe and throwing it into a political crisis), the effect of 3 orders of magnitude more migration will be devastating, and are one of the main reasons for imagining that nuclear war you fear (especially given India, Pakistan, and China have nuclear weapons, and will be at the forefront of this massive migration from Bangladesh and their own coastal areas). All this will happen, most likely even if we reduce emissions to 0 today. Perhaps it will be limited to a few hundred million instead of more than a billion if we reach some goals of the Paris agreement, but even that is unlikely to actually happen.