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> What do you think will happen if the temperatures keep rising, the oceans keep rising, and currently livable areas of land that hold billions of people become
by Gareth321 3y ago
> What do you think will happen if the temperatures keep rising, the oceans keep rising, and currently livable areas of land that hold billions of people become inhabitable?
It’s really not so bad. Not compared to killing millions of people today by increasing the price of energy. Estimates are of a rise of [2-4 degrees centigrade by 2100.](https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/climatechange/science#:~:text=Global%20temperature%20is%20projected%20to,7.2%20degrees%20Fahrenheit\)%20by%202100 https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/climatechange/science#:~:text=Glob....) This will likely result in an [increase](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/6/1/014014/meta#:~:text=Regionally%2C%20it%20is%20likely%20that,increases%20may%20still%20be%20possible https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/6/1/014....) of arable land. [As the number of storms are estimated to decrease, the threat vector is slightly increasing storm intensity.](https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3184/a-force-of-nature-hurricanes-in-a-changing-climate/#:~:text=While%20most%20models%20show%20either,greater%20chance%20of%20becoming%20stronger https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3184/a-force-of-nature-hurrica....) Humans can handle storms. We can rebuild homes, change where we settle and live, build with better materials and practises, and improve storm infrastructure and protections.
[Approximately 600,000 people die each year from extreme heat, while 4.5 million die from extreme cold.](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196\(21\)00081-4\/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5...) Let's ignore the ratio for now, because there are second and third order consequences beyond extreme heat like famine to account for. 4.5 million people die each year because of inadequate access to cheaper energy. This is of course linear. Every time energy prices go up, so too do the number of people dying. That is the direct cost of the war on oil, coal, and natural gas, and there are many indirect costs (and lives) which go far beyond this. The intention of climate activists is to make fossil fuels much more expensive, meaning many more deaths.
Of course, maybe the goal here is worth killing 4.5+++ million people per year. There are no perfect solutions; only compromises. Maybe many more will die if we don't act. [The IPCC estimates that an additional 250,000 people per year, between 2030 and 2050, will die from the effects of climate change.](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-cha...) That covers all modes of death, such as famine. For those in the room doing the math, many times more people will die today by making energy more expensive. Activists are asking us to sacrifice millions of lives per year today to save an estimated 250,000 lives per year decades from now.
For this reason, I no longer support making energy more expensive. I support environmental efforts to reduce pollution, but I can no longer justify the high cost of human life associated with taxes on energy. Instead, I really think activists should focus on making energy cheaper. This means working on solutions to make renewable energy and nuclear cheaper per unit of energy than fossil fuels. That's a path to saving lives which I think most people can get on board with.
- thinkingtoilet 3y ago>This will likely result in an [increase](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/6/1/014 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/6/1/014....) of arable land. This is my point. We already have major immigration/refugee issues all over the world. Even if we are 100% certain climate change will result in more farm land for humanity, the issue is where are the people now and where will that farm land be then? Do you think Russia (or any other country) will be happy to take in a billion people from South-East Asia? Legal immigration is an issue now. This will be a humanitarian catastrophe larger than any war humanity has ever faced by orders of magnitude.
- iamegypt 3y ago[flagged]
- Gareth321 3y agoFamine in Africa is an existential risk with or without global warming. Currently 822 million people are estimated to be malnourished. As per the citations above, global warming will provide only a slightly elevated risk of famine relative to present day. Overpopulation in Africa is a problem to be solved either way. Ameliorating global warming won’t make any meaningful improvement to that.
- thinkingtoilet 3y agoI genuinely don't understand how your comment is a response to mine. Where are we going to move the billions of people living in coastal South East Asia when oceans rise and their land becomes un-farmable due to climate change?
- Gareth321 3y agoRising oceans aren’t going to make coastal areas in Asia uninhabitable for any appreciable proportion of people for centuries. Asia has huge tracts of unused land. Over the centuries, people will migrate. I tried to explain to you that overpopulation has almost nothing to do with global warming, and conflating the two diminishes our ability to solve each.