11 ms·

RCP8.5, the scenario defined in the article as "worst case", is that the global air would have >1000ppm, looking at the referenced graph i'd guess it could go u

RCP8.5, the scenario defined in the article as "worst case", is that the global air would have >1000ppm, looking at the referenced graph i'd guess it could go up to 3000ppm or more. A co2 detector warns if you have 1500+ ppm, where some people start to get headache and you should start ventilating your room. Imagine that 24h a day, on every place on the earth. Not to mention the effects of heating of 3.0°C to 5+°C . https://climatenexus.org/climate-change-news/rcp-8-5-business-as-usual-or-a-worst-case-scenario/ https://climatenexus.org/climate-change-news/rcp-8-5-busines... RCP 4.5 is really bad as well. In our last project it was kind of the worst case scenario we considered. It means that rich countries will have problems adapting to the changing environment. The changes will happen so fast (20 Years), no new infrastructure can be built to prevent natural disasters (for example dam's). Poor countries have even less possibilities to adapt. For example countries like Kazachstan completely rely for it's water resources in summer on glaciers. In Switzerland we already know that all glaciers will disappear or melt by 80% to 90% in all likely scenarios. https://ethz.ch/de/news-und-veranstaltungen/eth-news/news/2019/09/aletschgletscher.html https://ethz.ch/de/news-und-veranstaltungen/eth-news/news/20... edit: please correct me if i'm wrong, i am a designer that worked in climate visualsation research projects. However my short searches for the outcomes of rcp 8.5 are disastrous and no relief at all that it's now unlikely to come.

toxicFork 3y ago
Let's assume that the world is incapable of solving this problem. What can an individual do to not suffer? Invest in oxygen masks and a mountain cabin?
- simmerup 3y ago
  > What can an individual do to not suffer? You should be asking what an individual can do to not starve to death or die of over heating. Most answers are: move to a rich, powerful country not in the danger zone
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > Most answers are: move to a rich, powerful country not in the danger zone There might not be any. Migration pressure from uninhabitable areas will keep mounting, and some of the countries in the "danger zone" have nukes.
    - iso1631 3y ago
      New Zealand is always the obvious "lifeboat". It's a long way from populated area so difficult to get there, and it's fairly easy to sink any ships that try. It's in the southern hemisphere so will be protected from the majority of nuclear war which would be in the northern hemisphere.
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        Unless someone with nukes decides to threaten NZ to open up the borders for their people, or else. With global changes this big, we can't expect the usual MAD Mexican Standoff a couple big powers to keep everyone safe. It may be that all nuclear powers (or all that remained after a brief nuclear war) will decide together to politely ask NZ to open up or else.
        johnchristopher 3y ago
        Or else what ? They half nuke the place they intend to escape to ?
        scott_w 3y ago
        Have you ever seen a child smash a toy they tried to steal rather than give it back?
        johnchristopher 3y ago
        Can't say that I have. I say the people threatening with nukes here would turn to more subtle methods of invasion, that's their objectives. They won't destroy it because they can't have it. That'd be a waste of nukes. Now is there someone threatening another country with nukes at the moment but not using them because he knows that'd be useless anyway and would it prove my point ?
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > Let's assume that the world is incapable of solving this problem. Incapable not, but unwilling most certainly - just look at the state of politics across all Western countries and that doesn't even include China and India who're hell-bent on growth. > What can an individual do to not suffer? Move to somewhere high up north, these places are going to be those where climate change will at least not cause them to get uninhabitable.
  - marginalia_nu 3y ago
    > Incapable not, but unwilling most certainly - just look at the state of politics across all Western countries and that doesn't even include China and India who're hell-bent on growth. Unwilling and incapable are sort of two sides of the same coin. Our political and economical systems are set up as a greedy (in the CS sense) optimization process. This makes solving long term global scale problems all but impossible in any case that would entail any sort of short-term inconvenience, and anyone seeking to solve such problems by such means are (by definition) politically and economically irrelevant. I think in general there's a somewhat unfounded notion that someone is actually in control that's getting harder to defend in the light of what's been several decades of fairly public failures to address obvious problems in society. You to look very hard to find examples of public policy successfully addressing any sort of problem, and even in that case it's questionable whether the problem was actually solved or whether it's just a case of regression to the mean.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      > I think in general there's a somewhat unfounded notion that someone is actually in control that's getting harder to defend in the light of what's been several decades of fairly public failures to address obvious problems in society. You to look very hard to find examples of public policy successfully addressing any sort of problem, and even in that case it's questionable whether the problem was actually solved or whether it's just a case of regression to the mean. I think it's obvious by now when all that began: with the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia in the early 90s. With the corrective against capitalism lost, everything defaulted to greed in the following decades. Before that, humanity showed many times over that it could cooperate on critical crises and to ban dangerous stuff: sulphur in fuel was banned after "acid rain", lead and asbestos were banned, CFCs were banned after the ozone hole, nuclear weapon tests were all but abolished, biological and chemical weapon developments as well. Even the right to wage wars of aggression was under pretty solid control.
- mpreda 3y ago
  > What can an individual do to not suffer? Does "suffer" take into account "transitive suffering" from children? (from future generations, our offspring) i.e. if I'm physically fine but my child is suffering, I suffer too. Now, for what one can do, there are always two ways: one is, as suggested, to find a better spot for oneself and let the others go to hell for all I care. But what about the children? other is to become millitant, and force action. Worse outcome for oneself, but potentially a better outcome for the children.
- Lutger 3y ago
  Please consider this is not a problem that we either solve or not solve. We are at 423.70 ppm CO2 today*, which is 2.43 ppm more than last year. It is not that every increment above 0 ppm means we failed to solve the problem. Let's say we reduce that 2.43 ppm increment to 1 ppm at some point. Or even to 2.41 ppm. Does that mean we failed? In a way, yes. But was the effort meaningless? No, the 1.43 ppm we didn't put out in the atmosphere really had an impact, and in a similar way, the 0.02 ppm we reduced also had a real impact on actual people. Both would translate to less sealevel rise, less floods, droughts, storms, heatwaves, biodiversity loss, etc. Which means a reduction of death, migration, hunger, suffering, extinction, chaos, economic loss, etc. I know your question is about adaptation and not mitigation, but we need to get out of the either/or mindset. Every single action we take to reduce our emissions matters. I mean that in a very matter of fact way, not as a call to action. It is just technically incorrect to think it does not matter (though by no means I am implying you specifically think so). * https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2 https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  As they say “Collapse now, avoid the rush.” Be independent in all your supplies as much as possible (food, water, basic necessities). Cyclical gardens, Biosphere-2 like systems, etc. Then scale up and do the same with a small community. The bigger the community, more chances to repel an attack of cannibals.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Individuals should join or form diverse groups to build a resilient empathetic community. There’s nothing you can do strictly by yourself in my estimation that will help over the long term. The only way out is through as a team
  - freedude 3y ago
    This is why you fail. If you are relying on the team for success then you will not be motivated to personal success. You must decide what you do counts and you must do it. If you don't your team will fail. Because in the end success requires each team member to own the problem or failure is always the result. Why? 1+1=2 2+2=4 3+3=6 And 0.5+0.25=0.75 When two people don't give it 100% you can't get the results you are looking for. Just ask anyone who has been divorced...
    - snowwrestler 3y ago
      You’re talking about effort, the parent comment is talking about alignment.
    - adrianN 3y ago
      Good luck living any semblance of a good life without a team.
- ericmcer 3y ago
  You will be ok based on the fact that you are asking about it on HN. Tech workers in the US move their entire lives just to do something like snowboard more. I watched a documentary about bread bakers in Afghanistan and there was a whole ecosystem of wheat growers, millers and bakers who were all centered around a river and had been doing the same work for many generations. They are screwed.
- freedude 3y ago
  There is only one way to be free. Believe in the truth. Acts 16:16-40 Beyond that you are supposing based upon bad data and conjecture which results in a scenario where worry will kill you. But let's say the worst happens and you can't live in a city anymore. Can you grow your own food? Can you grow all of it? How many resources does that take near where you live? How about in the mountains near where you live? Now go learn how to do it.
- omginternets 3y ago
  That's somewhat like asking how to win a fight if you get knocked out.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Lutger 3y ago
You are correct. RCP8.5 is such a nightmare scenario, it was always quite unlikely to happen even if we were tracking it for a while. So its not a real surprise nor consolation we are not tracking that path anymore. The best possible take on this article is that change is in fact possible, that it always matters, and we need more of it. Because, like you said, we do need to step up our game. The middle of the road is not good enough. We must resist both the naivety of the techno-optimists as well as the doomist fatalism. Any perspective that leads to inaction is wrong.
- colordrops 3y ago
  One of the top things that could be done to help the climate is to remove the stigma around veganism and its promotion. It would have a tremendous impact if a significant proportion of the population stopped using animal products.
  - NotYourLawyer 3y ago
    Vegetarianism, yes. Veganism, no. The CO2 emissions from a world full of vegetarians vs a world full of vegans are pretty close to indistinguishable.
    - colordrops 3y ago
      Do you have data on this? My understanding is that dairy cows are pretty resource intensive, taking a lot more water and crops than equivalent plant based alternatives.
  - colinsane 3y ago
    what do vegans feel stigmatized in doing these days? gotta say i see the challenges between animal-free and car-free life as much the same: most people around me generally agree we’d be better off with both these lifestyles, but the issue is practicality. best way to promote veganism around me in the past couple years has literally been to cook vegan meals with friends. if the stigma you’re talking about is “vegan food stinks” or “vegan food’s hard to prepare”, then that’s an easy way to address those two.
ethor 3y ago
Wouldn't an increase in co2 in the atmosphere spur a massive plant growth, both on land and in the oceans? I have no qualifications nor merit in this field as well, so anyone please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
- icegreentea2 3y ago
  Yes, we expect increased some degree of photosynthesis. However, we hardly expect to see an proportionate increase of photosynthesis (or plant mass?) - if nothing else, we'd expect there to still be a bottleneck from nitrogen.
- csomar 3y ago
  Logically, yes. The energy will be transformed by nature if humans don't do it. However, this might not happen in a timely fashion for us to survive as a specie. Remember, earth timelines are wildly different than human ones.
  - nomel 3y ago
    > for us to survive as a species An incredibly strong feedback mechanism exists (see article above). Societal problems, yes. Extinction to the human species? I think that’s extreme hyperbole. What would the mechanism even be, to eradicate all humans, across the globe? Climate change is real, things will be bad, etc, but the possible end of the species is an incredible claim, that doesn’t follow logic.
    - earthling8118 3y ago
      Okay so it won't make us go extinct. What if it makes life full of significant suffering. I find this kind of argument quite annoying. It's the same thing was happened with COVID19. Sure, I'm not going to die from it. That doesn't mean I want to live a life without my taste or smell. I enjoy those things. Likewise I want to live on a good Earth and leave that to the people after me.
      - 3y ago
runarberg 3y ago
I call these sort of arguments Climate Optimism and I consider it a form of climate denial. The central thesis is that the climate crisis has already been solved with technology and capitalism. The worst offenders (like Max Roser of Our World in Data https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser) overemphasize success in western countries and hint the problem lies in China and India not doing enough. A more run of the mill climate optimist claims that the efforts we’ve done so far are enough to avert disaster, and we just need to do more of the same. The YouTube channel Kurzgesagt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw) is guilty if this form of denialism.

toxicFork 3y ago

Let's assume that the world is incapable of solving this problem. What can an individual do to not suffer? Invest in oxygen masks and a mountain cabin?

simmerup 3y ago
> What can an individual do to not suffer? You should be asking what an individual can do to not starve to death or die of over heating. Most answers are: move to a rich, powerful country not in the danger zone
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > Most answers are: move to a rich, powerful country not in the danger zone There might not be any. Migration pressure from uninhabitable areas will keep mounting, and some of the countries in the "danger zone" have nukes.
  - iso1631 3y ago
    New Zealand is always the obvious "lifeboat". It's a long way from populated area so difficult to get there, and it's fairly easy to sink any ships that try. It's in the southern hemisphere so will be protected from the majority of nuclear war which would be in the northern hemisphere.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      Unless someone with nukes decides to threaten NZ to open up the borders for their people, or else. With global changes this big, we can't expect the usual MAD Mexican Standoff a couple big powers to keep everyone safe. It may be that all nuclear powers (or all that remained after a brief nuclear war) will decide together to politely ask NZ to open up or else.
      - johnchristopher 3y ago
        Or else what ? They half nuke the place they intend to escape to ?
        scott_w 3y ago
        Have you ever seen a child smash a toy they tried to steal rather than give it back?
        johnchristopher 3y ago
        Can't say that I have. I say the people threatening with nukes here would turn to more subtle methods of invasion, that's their objectives. They won't destroy it because they can't have it. That'd be a waste of nukes. Now is there someone threatening another country with nukes at the moment but not using them because he knows that'd be useless anyway and would it prove my point ?
mschuster91 3y ago
> Let's assume that the world is incapable of solving this problem. Incapable not, but unwilling most certainly - just look at the state of politics across all Western countries and that doesn't even include China and India who're hell-bent on growth. > What can an individual do to not suffer? Move to somewhere high up north, these places are going to be those where climate change will at least not cause them to get uninhabitable.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  > Incapable not, but unwilling most certainly - just look at the state of politics across all Western countries and that doesn't even include China and India who're hell-bent on growth. Unwilling and incapable are sort of two sides of the same coin. Our political and economical systems are set up as a greedy (in the CS sense) optimization process. This makes solving long term global scale problems all but impossible in any case that would entail any sort of short-term inconvenience, and anyone seeking to solve such problems by such means are (by definition) politically and economically irrelevant. I think in general there's a somewhat unfounded notion that someone is actually in control that's getting harder to defend in the light of what's been several decades of fairly public failures to address obvious problems in society. You to look very hard to find examples of public policy successfully addressing any sort of problem, and even in that case it's questionable whether the problem was actually solved or whether it's just a case of regression to the mean.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > I think in general there's a somewhat unfounded notion that someone is actually in control that's getting harder to defend in the light of what's been several decades of fairly public failures to address obvious problems in society. You to look very hard to find examples of public policy successfully addressing any sort of problem, and even in that case it's questionable whether the problem was actually solved or whether it's just a case of regression to the mean. I think it's obvious by now when all that began: with the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia in the early 90s. With the corrective against capitalism lost, everything defaulted to greed in the following decades. Before that, humanity showed many times over that it could cooperate on critical crises and to ban dangerous stuff: sulphur in fuel was banned after "acid rain", lead and asbestos were banned, CFCs were banned after the ozone hole, nuclear weapon tests were all but abolished, biological and chemical weapon developments as well. Even the right to wage wars of aggression was under pretty solid control.
mpreda 3y ago
> What can an individual do to not suffer? Does "suffer" take into account "transitive suffering" from children? (from future generations, our offspring) i.e. if I'm physically fine but my child is suffering, I suffer too. Now, for what one can do, there are always two ways: one is, as suggested, to find a better spot for oneself and let the others go to hell for all I care. But what about the children? other is to become millitant, and force action. Worse outcome for oneself, but potentially a better outcome for the children.
Lutger 3y ago
Please consider this is not a problem that we either solve or not solve. We are at 423.70 ppm CO2 today*, which is 2.43 ppm more than last year. It is not that every increment above 0 ppm means we failed to solve the problem. Let's say we reduce that 2.43 ppm increment to 1 ppm at some point. Or even to 2.41 ppm. Does that mean we failed? In a way, yes. But was the effort meaningless? No, the 1.43 ppm we didn't put out in the atmosphere really had an impact, and in a similar way, the 0.02 ppm we reduced also had a real impact on actual people. Both would translate to less sealevel rise, less floods, droughts, storms, heatwaves, biodiversity loss, etc. Which means a reduction of death, migration, hunger, suffering, extinction, chaos, economic loss, etc. I know your question is about adaptation and not mitigation, but we need to get out of the either/or mindset. Every single action we take to reduce our emissions matters. I mean that in a very matter of fact way, not as a call to action. It is just technically incorrect to think it does not matter (though by no means I am implying you specifically think so). * https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2 https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2
Aerbil313 3y ago
As they say “Collapse now, avoid the rush.” Be independent in all your supplies as much as possible (food, water, basic necessities). Cyclical gardens, Biosphere-2 like systems, etc. Then scale up and do the same with a small community. The bigger the community, more chances to repel an attack of cannibals.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
Individuals should join or form diverse groups to build a resilient empathetic community. There’s nothing you can do strictly by yourself in my estimation that will help over the long term. The only way out is through as a team
- freedude 3y ago
  This is why you fail. If you are relying on the team for success then you will not be motivated to personal success. You must decide what you do counts and you must do it. If you don't your team will fail. Because in the end success requires each team member to own the problem or failure is always the result. Why? 1+1=2 2+2=4 3+3=6 And 0.5+0.25=0.75 When two people don't give it 100% you can't get the results you are looking for. Just ask anyone who has been divorced...
  - snowwrestler 3y ago
    You’re talking about effort, the parent comment is talking about alignment.
  - adrianN 3y ago
    Good luck living any semblance of a good life without a team.
ericmcer 3y ago
You will be ok based on the fact that you are asking about it on HN. Tech workers in the US move their entire lives just to do something like snowboard more. I watched a documentary about bread bakers in Afghanistan and there was a whole ecosystem of wheat growers, millers and bakers who were all centered around a river and had been doing the same work for many generations. They are screwed.
freedude 3y ago
There is only one way to be free. Believe in the truth. Acts 16:16-40 Beyond that you are supposing based upon bad data and conjecture which results in a scenario where worry will kill you. But let's say the worst happens and you can't live in a city anymore. Can you grow your own food? Can you grow all of it? How many resources does that take near where you live? How about in the mountains near where you live? Now go learn how to do it.
omginternets 3y ago
That's somewhat like asking how to win a fight if you get knocked out.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Lutger 3y ago

You are correct. RCP8.5 is such a nightmare scenario, it was always quite unlikely to happen even if we were tracking it for a while. So its not a real surprise nor consolation we are not tracking that path anymore. The best possible take on this article is that change is in fact possible, that it always matters, and we need more of it. Because, like you said, we do need to step up our game. The middle of the road is not good enough. We must resist both the naivety of the techno-optimists as well as the doomist fatalism. Any perspective that leads to inaction is wrong.

colordrops 3y ago
One of the top things that could be done to help the climate is to remove the stigma around veganism and its promotion. It would have a tremendous impact if a significant proportion of the population stopped using animal products.
- NotYourLawyer 3y ago
  Vegetarianism, yes. Veganism, no. The CO2 emissions from a world full of vegetarians vs a world full of vegans are pretty close to indistinguishable.
  - colordrops 3y ago
    Do you have data on this? My understanding is that dairy cows are pretty resource intensive, taking a lot more water and crops than equivalent plant based alternatives.
- colinsane 3y ago
  what do vegans feel stigmatized in doing these days? gotta say i see the challenges between animal-free and car-free life as much the same: most people around me generally agree we’d be better off with both these lifestyles, but the issue is practicality. best way to promote veganism around me in the past couple years has literally been to cook vegan meals with friends. if the stigma you’re talking about is “vegan food stinks” or “vegan food’s hard to prepare”, then that’s an easy way to address those two.

ethor 3y ago

Wouldn't an increase in co2 in the atmosphere spur a massive plant growth, both on land and in the oceans? I have no qualifications nor merit in this field as well, so anyone please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

icegreentea2 3y ago
Yes, we expect increased some degree of photosynthesis. However, we hardly expect to see an proportionate increase of photosynthesis (or plant mass?) - if nothing else, we'd expect there to still be a bottleneck from nitrogen.
csomar 3y ago
Logically, yes. The energy will be transformed by nature if humans don't do it. However, this might not happen in a timely fashion for us to survive as a specie. Remember, earth timelines are wildly different than human ones.
- nomel 3y ago
  > for us to survive as a species An incredibly strong feedback mechanism exists (see article above). Societal problems, yes. Extinction to the human species? I think that’s extreme hyperbole. What would the mechanism even be, to eradicate all humans, across the globe? Climate change is real, things will be bad, etc, but the possible end of the species is an incredible claim, that doesn’t follow logic.
  - earthling8118 3y ago
    Okay so it won't make us go extinct. What if it makes life full of significant suffering. I find this kind of argument quite annoying. It's the same thing was happened with COVID19. Sure, I'm not going to die from it. That doesn't mean I want to live a life without my taste or smell. I enjoy those things. Likewise I want to live on a good Earth and leave that to the people after me.
    - 3y ago

runarberg 3y ago

I call these sort of arguments Climate Optimism and I consider it a form of climate denial. The central thesis is that the climate crisis has already been solved with technology and capitalism. The worst offenders (like Max Roser of Our World in Data https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser) overemphasize success in western countries and hint the problem lies in China and India not doing enough. A more run of the mill climate optimist claims that the efforts we’ve done so far are enough to avert disaster, and we just need to do more of the same. The YouTube channel Kurzgesagt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw) is guilty if this form of denialism.