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The fact that it might be 20 million rather than 40 million Americans who might die immediately doesn’t exactly fill me with comfort.

by rgmerk 4y ago

chiefalchemist 4y ago
Keep in mind similar simulations underestimated climate change. They underestimated Covid. It would be naive to have faith in the 20 million estimate.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  These 3 simulations are so much different from each other that you can't really extrapolate behavior of one from behavior of another. And, yeah, it would be naive to have faith in almost any simulation of this complexity. Also, what is your source that the climate simulations underestimated? It was my impression that global warming has been much less dramatic than people expected it to be back in the 90's.
  - data_maan 4y ago
    > it would be naive to have faith in almost any simulation of this complexity. Careful now. There is a thin line between no having faith in a simulation and dismissing it entirely. If you would take a look at last year's IPCC report in climate change you can see how dire the situation is, never mind that potentially in the 90s in was predicted to be even more dire. The point is that complex simulations do show the trend, and in light of extinction the most rational response would be to assume the worst outcome and work as hard as possible to avoid that. BTW "global warming" is linguistically a bad word, since it makes it seem that "oh well, it's just getting warmer". What is actually happening, among many things, is that weather will get more extreme (remember these one-in-a-thoisand-year events that now happen almost regularly, like the heat dome last year in SF https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_heat_wave https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_h... ? This is where it's going.)
    - fallingknife 4y ago
      Right now the effects aren't "dire," they're pretty meh, unless you are in an industry that is very sensitive to temp changes or small sea level rises. They are forecast to be dire, but that's what they said it would be like now back when I was in school. 2nd order effects like extreme weather getting worse is a lot less supported than the first order that temperatures are getting warmer, which is 100% proven, so "global warming" is really more accurate. Also, we don't even have the data set to determine what a 1000 year event is. This itself is based off of a model. And, in any event, the land area of the earth is 200 million sq miles, so in any given year, you would expect to see a 1000 year event over 200K sq miles, which is bigger than California. The blaming individual extreme events on global warming in general is also an error. The same exact error that people make when they say "it snowed a lot this winter. Global warming is a hoax."
      - data_maan 4y ago
        Within the next decade they are "meh". Within the next 5 decades they are dire. Read the IPCC report. Please.
- mikewarot 4y ago
  >Keep in mind similar simulations underestimated climate change. They underestimated Covid. It would be naive to have faith in the 20 million estimate. I think it would be safe to assume that all those estimates were politically motivated, rather than based in fact.
  - chiefalchemist 4y ago
    Assume? I would never assume, especially about motivations. Princeton might be a prestigious university, but the simulation was done by humans. I wouldn't assume anything other than human fallibility.

The fact that it might be 20 million rather than 40 million Americans who might die immediately doesn’t exactly fill me with comfort.

by rgmerk 4y ago

The fact that it might be 20 million rather than 40 million Americans who might die immediately doesn’t exactly fill me with comfort.

chiefalchemist 4y ago

Keep in mind similar simulations underestimated climate change. They underestimated Covid. It would be naive to have faith in the 20 million estimate.

fallingknife 4y ago
These 3 simulations are so much different from each other that you can't really extrapolate behavior of one from behavior of another. And, yeah, it would be naive to have faith in almost any simulation of this complexity. Also, what is your source that the climate simulations underestimated? It was my impression that global warming has been much less dramatic than people expected it to be back in the 90's.
- data_maan 4y ago
  > it would be naive to have faith in almost any simulation of this complexity. Careful now. There is a thin line between no having faith in a simulation and dismissing it entirely. If you would take a look at last year's IPCC report in climate change you can see how dire the situation is, never mind that potentially in the 90s in was predicted to be even more dire. The point is that complex simulations do show the trend, and in light of extinction the most rational response would be to assume the worst outcome and work as hard as possible to avoid that. BTW "global warming" is linguistically a bad word, since it makes it seem that "oh well, it's just getting warmer". What is actually happening, among many things, is that weather will get more extreme (remember these one-in-a-thoisand-year events that now happen almost regularly, like the heat dome last year in SF https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_heat_wave https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_h... ? This is where it's going.)
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    Right now the effects aren't "dire," they're pretty meh, unless you are in an industry that is very sensitive to temp changes or small sea level rises. They are forecast to be dire, but that's what they said it would be like now back when I was in school. 2nd order effects like extreme weather getting worse is a lot less supported than the first order that temperatures are getting warmer, which is 100% proven, so "global warming" is really more accurate. Also, we don't even have the data set to determine what a 1000 year event is. This itself is based off of a model. And, in any event, the land area of the earth is 200 million sq miles, so in any given year, you would expect to see a 1000 year event over 200K sq miles, which is bigger than California. The blaming individual extreme events on global warming in general is also an error. The same exact error that people make when they say "it snowed a lot this winter. Global warming is a hoax."
    - data_maan 4y ago
      Within the next decade they are "meh". Within the next 5 decades they are dire. Read the IPCC report. Please.
mikewarot 4y ago
>Keep in mind similar simulations underestimated climate change. They underestimated Covid. It would be naive to have faith in the 20 million estimate. I think it would be safe to assume that all those estimates were politically motivated, rather than based in fact.
- chiefalchemist 4y ago
  Assume? I would never assume, especially about motivations. Princeton might be a prestigious university, but the simulation was done by humans. I wouldn't assume anything other than human fallibility.