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It's unlikely that they'll die from climate change. But it is much more likely that they'll die from wars caused by climate change. It is pretty much certain th

It's unlikely that they'll die from climate change. But it is much more likely that they'll die from wars caused by climate change. It is pretty much certain that their lives will be much worse because of climate change.

treeman79 5y ago
Russia is massing troops on Ukraine’s. Most likely another war will happen there shortly. China is becoming hyper aggressive towards Taiwan. Serious war is around the corner. Not hypothetical wars.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- newyankee 5y ago
  China is also amassing troops along Indian borders with routine skirmishes
- Quarrelsome 5y ago
  serious war is always "around the corner". Remember that the fall of Rome was predicted by doom mongers for hundreds of years before it transpired to be true. Should today transpire to be similar (e.g. window of hundreds of years) than you're more likely to be wrong about this than right. For example your narrative is failing to account for the horror of mutually assured destruction which is a strong psychological factor in wars between major powers.
  - treeman79 5y ago
    MAD means nations are free to wage war up to a certain point. Maybe a couple of islands and a bit of India. Then a break for a few years. Repeat now and then.
    - Quarrelsome 5y ago
      sure that's standard fare, and a far cry from the doom drums of a world war III blitzkrieg that appears to be a general doomer theme on this subject. I mean Russia annexed Crimea six years ago and we're all still alive and Putin has a lifespan so its not even an unstoppable trend.
- Hnrobert42 5y ago
  Sure, but are you saying these are mostly because of climate change?
  - treeman79 5y ago
    These have nothing to do with Climate change. They are however immediate.
- kunagi7 5y ago
  We are under a new cold War and people don't seem to realize this. Russia has had troops around Ukraine for the last 7 years. The Donetsk and Lugansk "republics" exist since 2014. Russia is waiting for Ukraine's move since then. As long as USA has bases in Japan and has military presence in Taiwan... China won't make a move. It's easier to wait for USA to leave though. We'll see continuous provocation between the blocks (most recently, Afghanistan Taliban Regime, Belorussian usage of immigrants against the EU, etc). But a serious war around the corner sounds a bit too far from reality.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    I hope so. Putin was the first to push the limits. He got away with Ukraine without any serious response from the West. Now he is encouraged, and the only question remains is whether or not NATO is really ready to got to war over the Baltics. NATOs de-facto defeat in Afghanistan definitely didn't help in projecting strength, nor is the constant in-fighting within the EU. China is doing the same now with Taiwan. Try calling Taiwan a country as a movie star -> forced apology. Bodies like the IOC already falted. No guarantee that sometime someone tries, or feels forced to try for whatever reason, to push it. If the West doesn't react to that, well, then all the others will push the limits as well.
    - kunagi7 5y ago
      After the pro-EU Ukrainians ignited the Euromaidan movement (to remove a Kremlin aligned president) a civil war started in Ukraine. At that point Putin supported one side of the war and got Crimea for almost nothing. There's also the closely related Donbas war which never stopped. So he got the first place at it. USA has lost its image of "being the police of the world" and the countries that depend on that image are suffering. Their future looks quite grim. Besides that, Taiwan isn't recognized by the UN since 1971 and by the IOC since 1981. The west didn't react back then either.
      - hef19898 5y ago
        Regarding Taiwan, I honestly never understood why everyone caved to China already back then. Ok, today it is all about money. Back then, I don't know. Maybe there was hope to unite China under a pro-West government? Because even the DDR and North Korea are / were recognized.
- jkepler 5y ago
  > Serious war is around the corner. Not hypothetical wars. Serious war may look different from the past of nation-state wars. We're living through the emergence of network states. Given how the Internet enables non-tangible property (I.e., domain names that one can use to build businesses, associations, non-profits; bitcoin, Ethereum, and other crypto-projects) through communications protocols and cryptographic mathematics, its no longer necessary to wage physical war to gain an advantage. Thus we see a massive rise in persistent threat actors, which could be world war three already happening, but we don't recognize it yet because we're used to observing nation-state wars, not network state wars. Perhaps the modern age of nation state dominance ran from the Peace of Westphalia to 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the design of the World-Wide-Web by Berners-Lee.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    You mean WW3 was WWW and we just haven't noticed it yet?
  - count 5y ago
    There will be actual kinetic warfare between Westphalian nation states ALSO. Just because there's 'new' war, doesn't mean the old dirty war will go away. Especially because crypto can't replace aquifers or reduce flooding and other things lost in global change. So, you're not wrong, but also omitting a significant actual current threat.
refurb 5y ago
You can get killed walkin’ your doggy. Not worth dwelling on.
tonoto 5y ago
wars caused by climate change, or wars caused by actions taken (in good faith) against climate change? I believe there is a risk that the current activistic climate movement will do similar harm to the society in general as the last decades aggressive movement to liberalism in the "west part" of the world. The liberalistic movement is like running with a rubber band - it will force the societies to become repressive. I hope I'm wrong, but the climate change movement will similar cause (negative) unplanned effects..
olalonde 5y ago
I just don't see that happening, especially given the extremely slow rate at which climate is changing. Personally, I haven't really perceived the change in my lifetime (30+ years). Of course, I'm not saying it's not happening, just my perception of it. Care to share some articles that support this scenario?
- polotics 5y ago
  Where are you based if I may ask? Been watching which news?
  - olalonde 5y ago
    20 years in Canada (Montreal), 10 years in Southern China (Shenzhen). Not watching news much (other than HN). I'm a skeptical by nature.
- piva00 5y ago
  > I just don't see that happening, especially given the extremely slow rate at which climate is changing. Personally, I haven't really perceived the change in my lifetime (30+ years). Where do you live? I'm originally from Brazil, I live now in Sweden. In Brazil during my lifetime I lived through a massive deforestation of the Amazon. I saw landscapes change from lush jungles into arid and depleted soils. I went to places in the Pantanal area as a kid that were completely transformed 20 years later, rivers drying up and a different kind of flora was taking over parts of what used to be wetlands. In Sweden I have less than a decade around so my own experience is pretty limited. Here I can only get a glimpse of the changes through the eyes of my local friends, my girlfriend parents and other older people I talk to have noticed how much shorter and warmer winters have got. How hot summers are happening more frequently. The winter season used to last almost a month longer and snow wasn't a possibility but a given. Now they live through winters where less than 5 days of snowy days are a reality. Planning your skiing season varies a lot between years where when I talk to older people they just used to consider it a given that there would be a skiing season in most parts of the country (maybe except for the south in Skåne). The warming is much more prominent closer to the poles. The climate is not changing slowly in my experience, given the size of the system it's changing pretty fucking fast.
dane-pgp 5y ago
> But it is much more likely that they'll die from wars caused by climate change. For kids in rich countries, it is much more likely that they'll kill in wars caused by climate change (or vote / pay for soldiers to do the killing for them). Sadly, climate refugees will be an easy target for modern armies, and when voters see millions of starving people trying to cross their borders, they will listen to the politicians who call this an invasion that needs a forceful response. Some places are already seeing these harsh political forces playing out, for example the UK, where the government is trying to make it illegal to rescue asylum seekers in boats[0] at a time when dozens can die on a single failed crossing.[1] [0] https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/priti-patel-making-it-illegal-uk-rescue-asylum-seekers https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/priti-patel-ma... [1] https://news.sky.com/story/migrant-crossings-several-people-drown-while-trying-to-cross-channel-in-dinghy-to-uk-reports-12477536 https://news.sky.com/story/migrant-crossings-several-people-...
- techdragon 5y ago
  Australia’s been brutal with respect to anyone trying to arrive without a visa via boats. The charters, cruises and mega-yachts have no issue but the refugees and asylum seekers have a lot of effort out into preventing them getting close enough to Australian shores that we have any legal obligations to help them get the rest of the way. I wonder how similar the UK are being in terms or Pr argument and international law…
bryanlarsen 5y ago
If wide spread war happens climate change will be one cause of many. Some blame the fall of Rome on climate change, but if it hasn't been rotten at its core it would have withstood the challenge easily.
teekert 5y ago
Like mine would be worse than my parents’ because of acidic rain and disappearance of the ozon layer? I’m sorry, I don’t want your negativity near my children. Adults solved this for me as a kid, there was no need to tell me that I'd have trouble going outside if there were no clouds, in my future. They could have saved me the hardship.
- rand49an 5y ago
  Apart from those were well understood problems with relatively simple solutions unlike climate change which at current pace will change the face of the planet in the next 50 years.
  - teekert 5y ago
    Well understood… in retrospect. At the time it didn't really feel like something we were going to solve, at least to me, as a kid.

treeman79 5y ago

Russia is massing troops on Ukraine’s. Most likely another war will happen there shortly. China is becoming hyper aggressive towards Taiwan. Serious war is around the corner. Not hypothetical wars.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
newyankee 5y ago
China is also amassing troops along Indian borders with routine skirmishes
Quarrelsome 5y ago
serious war is always "around the corner". Remember that the fall of Rome was predicted by doom mongers for hundreds of years before it transpired to be true. Should today transpire to be similar (e.g. window of hundreds of years) than you're more likely to be wrong about this than right. For example your narrative is failing to account for the horror of mutually assured destruction which is a strong psychological factor in wars between major powers.
- treeman79 5y ago
  MAD means nations are free to wage war up to a certain point. Maybe a couple of islands and a bit of India. Then a break for a few years. Repeat now and then.
  - Quarrelsome 5y ago
    sure that's standard fare, and a far cry from the doom drums of a world war III blitzkrieg that appears to be a general doomer theme on this subject. I mean Russia annexed Crimea six years ago and we're all still alive and Putin has a lifespan so its not even an unstoppable trend.
Hnrobert42 5y ago
Sure, but are you saying these are mostly because of climate change?
- treeman79 5y ago
  These have nothing to do with Climate change. They are however immediate.
kunagi7 5y ago
We are under a new cold War and people don't seem to realize this. Russia has had troops around Ukraine for the last 7 years. The Donetsk and Lugansk "republics" exist since 2014. Russia is waiting for Ukraine's move since then. As long as USA has bases in Japan and has military presence in Taiwan... China won't make a move. It's easier to wait for USA to leave though. We'll see continuous provocation between the blocks (most recently, Afghanistan Taliban Regime, Belorussian usage of immigrants against the EU, etc). But a serious war around the corner sounds a bit too far from reality.
- hef19898 5y ago
  I hope so. Putin was the first to push the limits. He got away with Ukraine without any serious response from the West. Now he is encouraged, and the only question remains is whether or not NATO is really ready to got to war over the Baltics. NATOs de-facto defeat in Afghanistan definitely didn't help in projecting strength, nor is the constant in-fighting within the EU. China is doing the same now with Taiwan. Try calling Taiwan a country as a movie star -> forced apology. Bodies like the IOC already falted. No guarantee that sometime someone tries, or feels forced to try for whatever reason, to push it. If the West doesn't react to that, well, then all the others will push the limits as well.
  - kunagi7 5y ago
    After the pro-EU Ukrainians ignited the Euromaidan movement (to remove a Kremlin aligned president) a civil war started in Ukraine. At that point Putin supported one side of the war and got Crimea for almost nothing. There's also the closely related Donbas war which never stopped. So he got the first place at it. USA has lost its image of "being the police of the world" and the countries that depend on that image are suffering. Their future looks quite grim. Besides that, Taiwan isn't recognized by the UN since 1971 and by the IOC since 1981. The west didn't react back then either.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      Regarding Taiwan, I honestly never understood why everyone caved to China already back then. Ok, today it is all about money. Back then, I don't know. Maybe there was hope to unite China under a pro-West government? Because even the DDR and North Korea are / were recognized.
jkepler 5y ago
> Serious war is around the corner. Not hypothetical wars. Serious war may look different from the past of nation-state wars. We're living through the emergence of network states. Given how the Internet enables non-tangible property (I.e., domain names that one can use to build businesses, associations, non-profits; bitcoin, Ethereum, and other crypto-projects) through communications protocols and cryptographic mathematics, its no longer necessary to wage physical war to gain an advantage. Thus we see a massive rise in persistent threat actors, which could be world war three already happening, but we don't recognize it yet because we're used to observing nation-state wars, not network state wars. Perhaps the modern age of nation state dominance ran from the Peace of Westphalia to 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the design of the World-Wide-Web by Berners-Lee.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  You mean WW3 was WWW and we just haven't noticed it yet?
- count 5y ago
  There will be actual kinetic warfare between Westphalian nation states ALSO. Just because there's 'new' war, doesn't mean the old dirty war will go away. Especially because crypto can't replace aquifers or reduce flooding and other things lost in global change. So, you're not wrong, but also omitting a significant actual current threat.

refurb 5y ago

You can get killed walkin’ your doggy. Not worth dwelling on.

tonoto 5y ago

wars caused by climate change, or wars caused by actions taken (in good faith) against climate change? I believe there is a risk that the current activistic climate movement will do similar harm to the society in general as the last decades aggressive movement to liberalism in the "west part" of the world. The liberalistic movement is like running with a rubber band - it will force the societies to become repressive. I hope I'm wrong, but the climate change movement will similar cause (negative) unplanned effects..

olalonde 5y ago

I just don't see that happening, especially given the extremely slow rate at which climate is changing. Personally, I haven't really perceived the change in my lifetime (30+ years). Of course, I'm not saying it's not happening, just my perception of it. Care to share some articles that support this scenario?

polotics 5y ago
Where are you based if I may ask? Been watching which news?
- olalonde 5y ago
  20 years in Canada (Montreal), 10 years in Southern China (Shenzhen). Not watching news much (other than HN). I'm a skeptical by nature.
piva00 5y ago
> I just don't see that happening, especially given the extremely slow rate at which climate is changing. Personally, I haven't really perceived the change in my lifetime (30+ years). Where do you live? I'm originally from Brazil, I live now in Sweden. In Brazil during my lifetime I lived through a massive deforestation of the Amazon. I saw landscapes change from lush jungles into arid and depleted soils. I went to places in the Pantanal area as a kid that were completely transformed 20 years later, rivers drying up and a different kind of flora was taking over parts of what used to be wetlands. In Sweden I have less than a decade around so my own experience is pretty limited. Here I can only get a glimpse of the changes through the eyes of my local friends, my girlfriend parents and other older people I talk to have noticed how much shorter and warmer winters have got. How hot summers are happening more frequently. The winter season used to last almost a month longer and snow wasn't a possibility but a given. Now they live through winters where less than 5 days of snowy days are a reality. Planning your skiing season varies a lot between years where when I talk to older people they just used to consider it a given that there would be a skiing season in most parts of the country (maybe except for the south in Skåne). The warming is much more prominent closer to the poles. The climate is not changing slowly in my experience, given the size of the system it's changing pretty fucking fast.

dane-pgp 5y ago

> But it is much more likely that they'll die from wars caused by climate change. For kids in rich countries, it is much more likely that they'll kill in wars caused by climate change (or vote / pay for soldiers to do the killing for them). Sadly, climate refugees will be an easy target for modern armies, and when voters see millions of starving people trying to cross their borders, they will listen to the politicians who call this an invasion that needs a forceful response. Some places are already seeing these harsh political forces playing out, for example the UK, where the government is trying to make it illegal to rescue asylum seekers in boats[0] at a time when dozens can die on a single failed crossing.[1] [0] https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/priti-patel-making-it-illegal-uk-rescue-asylum-seekers https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/priti-patel-ma... [1] https://news.sky.com/story/migrant-crossings-several-people-drown-while-trying-to-cross-channel-in-dinghy-to-uk-reports-12477536 https://news.sky.com/story/migrant-crossings-several-people-...

techdragon 5y ago
Australia’s been brutal with respect to anyone trying to arrive without a visa via boats. The charters, cruises and mega-yachts have no issue but the refugees and asylum seekers have a lot of effort out into preventing them getting close enough to Australian shores that we have any legal obligations to help them get the rest of the way. I wonder how similar the UK are being in terms or Pr argument and international law…

bryanlarsen 5y ago

If wide spread war happens climate change will be one cause of many. Some blame the fall of Rome on climate change, but if it hasn't been rotten at its core it would have withstood the challenge easily.

teekert 5y ago

Like mine would be worse than my parents’ because of acidic rain and disappearance of the ozon layer? I’m sorry, I don’t want your negativity near my children. Adults solved this for me as a kid, there was no need to tell me that I'd have trouble going outside if there were no clouds, in my future. They could have saved me the hardship.

rand49an 5y ago
Apart from those were well understood problems with relatively simple solutions unlike climate change which at current pace will change the face of the planet in the next 50 years.
- teekert 5y ago
  Well understood… in retrospect. At the time it didn't really feel like something we were going to solve, at least to me, as a kid.