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Why can't humanity survive an increase in 10 degrees? I understand polar bears or other animals that need specific levels of Ice or vegetation in specific areas

Why can't humanity survive an increase in 10 degrees? I understand polar bears or other animals that need specific levels of Ice or vegetation in specific areas, but humans are an extremely adaptive species. Edit: I'm getting a lot of responses. It seems like there is a general misunderstanding of what happened during the previous ice age. Humans existed during the previous ice age and humanity survived a major increase in temperature. Obviously any tribe or culture that needed to be able to walk across the bearing straight didn't survive, but humanity did. And without any modern technology. I get that an unknown future is scary, but just giving into the gloom and doom isn't productive. We need to increase out technologies for many reasons, not just climate change and we can survive and thrive, even if the world will be different that doesn't mean it will be terrible.

lm28469 3y ago
Its not like we won't survive, it's more like moving from your New York 100k/month penthouse to a tent under an LA highway ramp. You can still live/eat/sleep/&c. it's just a bit less nice
blueflow 3y ago
If humans can survive in Australia, Humanity surely will survive the climate change.
- gorjusborg 3y ago
  The world isn't just a collection of independent climates. Surviving in one of today's extreme climates doesn't necessarily provide proof of surviving when the previous extreme is now the mildest climate. Even if the human body can take the heat, it still needs to be fed and watered. Those systems currently aren't in your climate, in many cases.
  - blueflow 3y ago
    Humans live anywhere in the world with a average temperature range from -20 to 30 degrees. This is a range of 50 degrees. 10 degrees increase wont kill us.
    - adamwong246 3y ago
      Surely you understand that the danger that climate change poses is not "heat exhaustion"?
      - blueflow 3y ago
        We had it 14 degrees warmer 50 million years ago and earth is still hospitable. Burning all the fossil fuels is (at worst) just going to put us back into a Cambrian/Devonian greenhouse earth configuration.
OwseiWT 3y ago
floods, droughts and that kind of stuff. I'll will not die on a 40c heat, but some may, and the consequences on other systems will also affect me. The panama canal, the lake more specifically, is drying up because of this stuff. And ~40% of US cargo ships use it.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  > I'll will not die on a 40c heat That will really depend on how humidity changes. A earth with 10C more energy can hold a whole lot more water in the air, and that drops the wet bulb temperature. "Ah, but it's a dry heat" in the future could mean the difference between life or death.
changoplatanero 3y ago
Human beings as a species surviving seems possible. The modern world economy surviving seems much less likely. And without a modern economy then much of the population will die.
wenebego 3y ago
Humans require other animals or vegetation to consume for energy
SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
Because it wouldn't be just a 10 degree (not sure where this number is coming from) average increase. It's a 10 degree average as calculated across an entire world full of extremes. A 10 degree average is a huge increase in energy in the system, and that energy will be expressed in all sorts of ways. It'll be colder in winter due to an erratic jetstream pulling cold air down further than ever before, hurricanes will be bigger because of all that extra energy, summer storms will have that much more potential and the clouds will be able to hold way more water before bursting. But also because the atmosphere can hold more water it'll rain less, leading to drought. The whole system will be energized, and the energy won't be evenly distributed. Our natural disasters will be massive.
boxed 3y ago
The previous ice age was 4 degrees below preindustrial. Just for scale.
astrospective 3y ago
There’s going to be more moisture in the air, wet bulb temperature is gets deadly at much lower temperatures than dry, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-worry-about-the-wet-bulb-temperature https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need...
tgv 3y ago
Have you seen what 10 degrees difference did to the world some 20k years ago? Now double the change from the last ice age to today. 60% of the Earth will be desert. The polar caps will be gone. It will be impossible to sustain 8 billion people. Billions will die. Humanity survives, but at what cost?
adamwong246 3y ago
Such an event would render swaths of the planet truly uninhabitable and much more land un-farmable. Humanity must abandon the tropics entirely. Every costal city is now 300 feet underwater. Billions die in mass migrations and wars on a scale hitherto unseen. The ecosystem of the planet is ravaged by this rapid change, being unable to evolve quickly enough to adapt. The life that remains is agriculture that directly sustains the few human survivors. Scientific progress halts entirely. The ultra-rich retreat into their enclaves while what remains of humanity regresses into Morlocks. In short, 10 degrees should be regarded as apocalyptic. It would turn back human progress by millennia, and the state of planet would not return to "normal" for several millennia more, if ever. Perhaps for a century or two some outposts in greenland cling to survival but over the longest term, it's not clear if humanity can survive such conditions. Perhaps we can adapt to this terrible "new normal" but our ancestors will tell myths about "The Earth that Was". Their children will marvel at the idea that Earth once had "wildlife". They will tell cautionary tales about their foolish and near-sighted predecessors who had inherited a garden of eden and but destroyed it to fuel their insatiable appetites.
- southernplaces7 3y ago
  Where the hell are your comments above getting a 10 degree increase from and on what basis? Even the supposedly likely worst scenarios from the IPCC mention an increase of roughly 3 degrees. If you're going to talk about the dangers of climate change it would be nice to stick to evidence-based scenarios, not just the scariest unsubstantiated things that can be pulled out of one's ass for the sake of doom fetishism. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2020/10/IPCC_SR15_Worlds_Apart.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2020/10/IPCC_SR15_Wo...
thelastgallon 3y ago
The temperature is a metric of energy in the system. 10 degrees means a significantly more energy in the system. This energy manifests as weather events. No infrastructure in any climate will be left standing with that change. We already see extreme events increasing. And, lookup wet bulb temperature. Humans usually regulate their internal body temperature by sweating, but above the wet-bulb temperature, we can no longer cool down this way, leading our body temperature to rise steadily. This essentially marks a limit to human adaptability to extreme heat – if we cannot escape the conditions, our body’s core can rise beyond the survivable range and organs can start failing: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-worry-about-the-wet-bulb-temperature https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need...

lm28469 3y ago

Its not like we won't survive, it's more like moving from your New York 100k/month penthouse to a tent under an LA highway ramp. You can still live/eat/sleep/&c. it's just a bit less nice

blueflow 3y ago

If humans can survive in Australia, Humanity surely will survive the climate change.

gorjusborg 3y ago
The world isn't just a collection of independent climates. Surviving in one of today's extreme climates doesn't necessarily provide proof of surviving when the previous extreme is now the mildest climate. Even if the human body can take the heat, it still needs to be fed and watered. Those systems currently aren't in your climate, in many cases.
- blueflow 3y ago
  Humans live anywhere in the world with a average temperature range from -20 to 30 degrees. This is a range of 50 degrees. 10 degrees increase wont kill us.
  - adamwong246 3y ago
    Surely you understand that the danger that climate change poses is not "heat exhaustion"?
    - blueflow 3y ago
      We had it 14 degrees warmer 50 million years ago and earth is still hospitable. Burning all the fossil fuels is (at worst) just going to put us back into a Cambrian/Devonian greenhouse earth configuration.

OwseiWT 3y ago

floods, droughts and that kind of stuff. I'll will not die on a 40c heat, but some may, and the consequences on other systems will also affect me. The panama canal, the lake more specifically, is drying up because of this stuff. And ~40% of US cargo ships use it.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
> I'll will not die on a 40c heat That will really depend on how humidity changes. A earth with 10C more energy can hold a whole lot more water in the air, and that drops the wet bulb temperature. "Ah, but it's a dry heat" in the future could mean the difference between life or death.

changoplatanero 3y ago

Human beings as a species surviving seems possible. The modern world economy surviving seems much less likely. And without a modern economy then much of the population will die.

wenebego 3y ago

Humans require other animals or vegetation to consume for energy

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago

Because it wouldn't be just a 10 degree (not sure where this number is coming from) average increase. It's a 10 degree average as calculated across an entire world full of extremes. A 10 degree average is a huge increase in energy in the system, and that energy will be expressed in all sorts of ways. It'll be colder in winter due to an erratic jetstream pulling cold air down further than ever before, hurricanes will be bigger because of all that extra energy, summer storms will have that much more potential and the clouds will be able to hold way more water before bursting. But also because the atmosphere can hold more water it'll rain less, leading to drought. The whole system will be energized, and the energy won't be evenly distributed. Our natural disasters will be massive.

boxed 3y ago

The previous ice age was 4 degrees below preindustrial. Just for scale.

astrospective 3y ago

There’s going to be more moisture in the air, wet bulb temperature is gets deadly at much lower temperatures than dry, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-worry-about-the-wet-bulb-temperature https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need...

tgv 3y ago

Have you seen what 10 degrees difference did to the world some 20k years ago? Now double the change from the last ice age to today. 60% of the Earth will be desert. The polar caps will be gone. It will be impossible to sustain 8 billion people. Billions will die. Humanity survives, but at what cost?

adamwong246 3y ago

Such an event would render swaths of the planet truly uninhabitable and much more land un-farmable. Humanity must abandon the tropics entirely. Every costal city is now 300 feet underwater. Billions die in mass migrations and wars on a scale hitherto unseen. The ecosystem of the planet is ravaged by this rapid change, being unable to evolve quickly enough to adapt. The life that remains is agriculture that directly sustains the few human survivors. Scientific progress halts entirely. The ultra-rich retreat into their enclaves while what remains of humanity regresses into Morlocks. In short, 10 degrees should be regarded as apocalyptic. It would turn back human progress by millennia, and the state of planet would not return to "normal" for several millennia more, if ever. Perhaps for a century or two some outposts in greenland cling to survival but over the longest term, it's not clear if humanity can survive such conditions. Perhaps we can adapt to this terrible "new normal" but our ancestors will tell myths about "The Earth that Was". Their children will marvel at the idea that Earth once had "wildlife". They will tell cautionary tales about their foolish and near-sighted predecessors who had inherited a garden of eden and but destroyed it to fuel their insatiable appetites.

southernplaces7 3y ago
Where the hell are your comments above getting a 10 degree increase from and on what basis? Even the supposedly likely worst scenarios from the IPCC mention an increase of roughly 3 degrees. If you're going to talk about the dangers of climate change it would be nice to stick to evidence-based scenarios, not just the scariest unsubstantiated things that can be pulled out of one's ass for the sake of doom fetishism. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2020/10/IPCC_SR15_Worlds_Apart.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2020/10/IPCC_SR15_Wo...

thelastgallon 3y ago

The temperature is a metric of energy in the system. 10 degrees means a significantly more energy in the system. This energy manifests as weather events. No infrastructure in any climate will be left standing with that change. We already see extreme events increasing. And, lookup wet bulb temperature. Humans usually regulate their internal body temperature by sweating, but above the wet-bulb temperature, we can no longer cool down this way, leading our body temperature to rise steadily. This essentially marks a limit to human adaptability to extreme heat – if we cannot escape the conditions, our body’s core can rise beyond the survivable range and organs can start failing: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-worry-about-the-wet-bulb-temperature https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need...