8 ms·

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 ?
        scott_w 3y ago
        > Can't say that I have. Then I recommend you spend more time around people. Grown men have been convicted of throwing acid in an ex-girlfriend's face because "if I can't have you, no-one can." > 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 ? It doesn't prove your point because no country today is facing imminent extinction. Rationality changes when desperation comes into play.
        johnchristopher 3y ago
        > > Can't say that I have. > Then I recommend you spend more time around people. Grown men have been convicted of throwing acid in an ex-girlfriend's face because "if I can't have you, no-one can." You come up with a stupid analogy based on children behavior and now you invoke people throwing acid ? This is nickelodeon level debate here. > It doesn't prove your point because no country today is facing imminent extinction. Rationality changes when desperation comes into play. You are making the extraordinary (and quite childish considering you started with an analogy based on children behavior) claim that a country would nuke another one to go and settle there, it's up to you to prove it. So far, in the real world, no one has used nukes like that. I'd follow the argument but if a guy would throw acid and was in position to throw a nuke over a country they were denied access to it's most likely plausible they have the means and resources to get into this country in a more discrete and safe way (safe as in: he's in a country that wasn't nuked).
    - swader999 3y ago
      Its the first place I'm sending my shelter vent seeking drones so don't bother.
    - freedude 3y ago
      much or all of it is under water...
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    If you are invoking rather insane scenarios - why rule out the use of bioweapons? Why rule out geoengineering?
    - CalRobert 3y ago
      What's insane about those scenarios?
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        Because if large-scale nuclear or biological war is reasonable likely then climate change really doesn't matter anyway. End of the world scenarios are always an easy "sell" but they are usually not helpful for constructive progress. Before nuclear war, lots of constructive things like geoengineering could happen.
        adrianN 3y ago
        Single countries will have a hard time doing geoengineering at scale. It will be much easier to start a war over local resources, like water.
        TeMPOraL 3y ago
        You're looking at it from the wrong end. Nuclear war seems unlikely now, but it might become reasonable once half of the world's population is banging on the borders of the other half. Do you think if e.g. India or Pakistan start experiencing lethal wet-bulb temperatures and people there decide to mass-migrate to survivable lands, only to be stopped at the border and denied entry, will those people and these countries just throw their hands up in the air, seeing there's nothing they could do, and accept imminent death? Or maybe they'll try to threaten or force to be let in, using any means available, up to and including nuclear weapons? (This applies to all nuclear-armed countries - I mentioned these two, because AFAIK they'll be the first nuclear powers likely to experience lethal wet-bulb temperatures - but that's not the only way climate change could make a country mass-evacuate, and such other factors could hit other nuclear powers first.)
- 12907835202 3y ago
  What counts as a rich powerful country in this instance? China? Norway? UAE? I feel like they will all fare very differently
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]

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 ?
        scott_w 3y ago
        > Can't say that I have. Then I recommend you spend more time around people. Grown men have been convicted of throwing acid in an ex-girlfriend's face because "if I can't have you, no-one can." > 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 ? It doesn't prove your point because no country today is facing imminent extinction. Rationality changes when desperation comes into play.
        johnchristopher 3y ago
        > > Can't say that I have. > Then I recommend you spend more time around people. Grown men have been convicted of throwing acid in an ex-girlfriend's face because "if I can't have you, no-one can." You come up with a stupid analogy based on children behavior and now you invoke people throwing acid ? This is nickelodeon level debate here. > It doesn't prove your point because no country today is facing imminent extinction. Rationality changes when desperation comes into play. You are making the extraordinary (and quite childish considering you started with an analogy based on children behavior) claim that a country would nuke another one to go and settle there, it's up to you to prove it. So far, in the real world, no one has used nukes like that. I'd follow the argument but if a guy would throw acid and was in position to throw a nuke over a country they were denied access to it's most likely plausible they have the means and resources to get into this country in a more discrete and safe way (safe as in: he's in a country that wasn't nuked).
  - swader999 3y ago
    Its the first place I'm sending my shelter vent seeking drones so don't bother.
  - freedude 3y ago
    much or all of it is under water...
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  If you are invoking rather insane scenarios - why rule out the use of bioweapons? Why rule out geoengineering?
  - CalRobert 3y ago
    What's insane about those scenarios?
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      Because if large-scale nuclear or biological war is reasonable likely then climate change really doesn't matter anyway. End of the world scenarios are always an easy "sell" but they are usually not helpful for constructive progress. Before nuclear war, lots of constructive things like geoengineering could happen.
      - adrianN 3y ago
        Single countries will have a hard time doing geoengineering at scale. It will be much easier to start a war over local resources, like water.
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        You're looking at it from the wrong end. Nuclear war seems unlikely now, but it might become reasonable once half of the world's population is banging on the borders of the other half. Do you think if e.g. India or Pakistan start experiencing lethal wet-bulb temperatures and people there decide to mass-migrate to survivable lands, only to be stopped at the border and denied entry, will those people and these countries just throw their hands up in the air, seeing there's nothing they could do, and accept imminent death? Or maybe they'll try to threaten or force to be let in, using any means available, up to and including nuclear weapons? (This applies to all nuclear-armed countries - I mentioned these two, because AFAIK they'll be the first nuclear powers likely to experience lethal wet-bulb temperatures - but that's not the only way climate change could make a country mass-evacuate, and such other factors could hit other nuclear powers first.)
12907835202 3y ago
What counts as a rich powerful country in this instance? China? Norway? UAE? I feel like they will all fare very differently

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]