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we don't know the impact To your point, we know quite a bit, and it's pretty bad. Will 10% of the world's population perish? Most likely. There's already a po

we don't know the impact To your point, we know quite a bit, and it's pretty bad. Will 10% of the world's population perish? Most likely. There's already a population die-off in progress in many areas of the world as the birth rate continues to decline. People don't have to drop dead for the population to die off, they can simply not be born in sufficient numbers to replace the existing population. As for those who are alive - adversity leads to war. What we should be thinking about is how much disruption is required to foster chaos - especially in a political environment that has become so divisive. All in all it's easy to imagine a population decline of 10% over 100 years. Chillingly, it's also easy to imagine a lot higher percentage. Over the next 100 years people are going to rediscover that we are, in fact, animals. Animals who will react violently should our existence be threatened. Hopefully we'll also rediscover that we're social animals and that the key to our survival will be working together. The old saying is it's darkest before the light. I'm afraid of how dark it's going to get. There's thousands of years' worth of junk in humanity's attic we have to sort out before we come through to the other side. People are fooling themselves if they think sorting through all this will be easy and that the price won't be paid in lives lost.

coderenegade 4y ago
>Will 10% of the world's population perish? Most likely. There's already a population die-off in progress in many areas of the world as the birth rate continues to decline. People don't have to drop dead for the population to die off, they can simply not be born in sufficient numbers to replace the existing population. There are two very different points being conflated here. What's the time scale for the reduction in population? 10% of the world's population disappearing today is very different from a gradual reduction over the course of decades. 10% of the world's population disappearing over 100 years is almost certainly a good thing at our current population level, when every indication is that sustainability just isn't possible with 8 billion people. At the very least, it'll force us to challenge existing economic models that are all predicated on endless growth. And I don't see anyone saying that things will be easy. In fact, I think most acknowledge that the opposite is very much true. But a) on an individual level, there's not much you can do when income, consumption, and emissions are all Pareto distributed -- I can no more instigate a bank run on my own than I could affect carbon emissions -- and, b) the species has survived worse population declines than this before, on numerous occasions. The black plague in Europe and the Mongols tearing through Central Asia both come to mind. Tomorrow has never been guaranteed, for anyone. As an average person who does his best to live sustainably, there's only so much I have the time and energy for. I live semi-rurally within an hour of a major population center and on the edge of a state park, so believe me, I get it. But if it gets bad enough, at some point it really is out of my control. There's only so much I can care when I have bills to pay and a life to live. I'd imagine most people are in a similar position.
Retric 4y ago
Population declines on the other hand are expected because birth rates have been dropping for hundreds of years. This is a good thing you can’t support infinite growth on a finite planet. Suggesting global warming is the cause completely ignores these long term trends. Peoples quality of life globally has been consistently improving and that’s unlikely to change with global warming. China had one of the worlds largest famines in living memory 1958-1961, it’s simply been the norm for most of human history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines
- taylodl 4y ago
  Peoples quality of life globally has been consistently improving due to the "green revolution" transpiring during the 1960's, a revolution that's imperiled by GCC.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Peoples lives have been improving long before the green revolution started. Also, global yields aren’t particularly threatened by global warming due to the overwhelming surplus we currently have there’s a huge buffer before problems start. To be clear yes some declines are likely in some areas for some crops. But 2100 is expected to have a much larger problem with obesity than crop failure.
- nforgerit 4y ago
  Not sure where you take your optimism from but the network effects global warming is causing are not to underestimate. There's been plenty of research that we're talking about several threats to modern civilization at once where each of them alone could already be disastrous. And chances are high that there will emerge additional effects along the road we don't even know about. The argument of "look back, it always got better in average" is ignoring the fact we're dealing with a global chaotic situation in a world that fragile, it is already shaking because of interrupted supply chains due to a pandemic or a secondary bank for techbros going down. We have no clue what we'll be dealing with in 30 years but what we know, it's definitely not gonna be good.
tick_tock_tick 4y ago
Very few things give me as much hope as reading this kinda of doom spam. To know the people pushing this are so detached from reality gives me a lot of confidence we'll be all right.
- taylodl 4y ago
  Are we reading the same history books and watching the same global news events? Hope isn't the strategy that's going to get us through this crises.

coderenegade 4y ago

>Will 10% of the world's population perish? Most likely. There's already a population die-off in progress in many areas of the world as the birth rate continues to decline. People don't have to drop dead for the population to die off, they can simply not be born in sufficient numbers to replace the existing population. There are two very different points being conflated here. What's the time scale for the reduction in population? 10% of the world's population disappearing today is very different from a gradual reduction over the course of decades. 10% of the world's population disappearing over 100 years is almost certainly a good thing at our current population level, when every indication is that sustainability just isn't possible with 8 billion people. At the very least, it'll force us to challenge existing economic models that are all predicated on endless growth. And I don't see anyone saying that things will be easy. In fact, I think most acknowledge that the opposite is very much true. But a) on an individual level, there's not much you can do when income, consumption, and emissions are all Pareto distributed -- I can no more instigate a bank run on my own than I could affect carbon emissions -- and, b) the species has survived worse population declines than this before, on numerous occasions. The black plague in Europe and the Mongols tearing through Central Asia both come to mind. Tomorrow has never been guaranteed, for anyone. As an average person who does his best to live sustainably, there's only so much I have the time and energy for. I live semi-rurally within an hour of a major population center and on the edge of a state park, so believe me, I get it. But if it gets bad enough, at some point it really is out of my control. There's only so much I can care when I have bills to pay and a life to live. I'd imagine most people are in a similar position.

Retric 4y ago

Population declines on the other hand are expected because birth rates have been dropping for hundreds of years. This is a good thing you can’t support infinite growth on a finite planet. Suggesting global warming is the cause completely ignores these long term trends. Peoples quality of life globally has been consistently improving and that’s unlikely to change with global warming. China had one of the worlds largest famines in living memory 1958-1961, it’s simply been the norm for most of human history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines

taylodl 4y ago
Peoples quality of life globally has been consistently improving due to the "green revolution" transpiring during the 1960's, a revolution that's imperiled by GCC.
- Retric 4y ago
  Peoples lives have been improving long before the green revolution started. Also, global yields aren’t particularly threatened by global warming due to the overwhelming surplus we currently have there’s a huge buffer before problems start. To be clear yes some declines are likely in some areas for some crops. But 2100 is expected to have a much larger problem with obesity than crop failure.
nforgerit 4y ago
Not sure where you take your optimism from but the network effects global warming is causing are not to underestimate. There's been plenty of research that we're talking about several threats to modern civilization at once where each of them alone could already be disastrous. And chances are high that there will emerge additional effects along the road we don't even know about. The argument of "look back, it always got better in average" is ignoring the fact we're dealing with a global chaotic situation in a world that fragile, it is already shaking because of interrupted supply chains due to a pandemic or a secondary bank for techbros going down. We have no clue what we'll be dealing with in 30 years but what we know, it's definitely not gonna be good.

tick_tock_tick 4y ago

Very few things give me as much hope as reading this kinda of doom spam. To know the people pushing this are so detached from reality gives me a lot of confidence we'll be all right.

taylodl 4y ago
Are we reading the same history books and watching the same global news events? Hope isn't the strategy that's going to get us through this crises.