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Yeah, but that strategy isn't bad in the abstract. There just needs to be one good reason to keep going as we are. I met a person from a town in Russia where t

by roenxi 3y ago

Yeah, but that strategy isn't bad in the abstract. There just needs to be one good reason to keep going as we are. I met a person from a town in Russia where the record low is a hair higher than -50 degrees Celsius and the annual mean is -1 degree Celsius. The town is habitable. The worst case for the pro-climate change in terms of getting to say "I told you so" is that the climate crowd turn out to be right about literally every prediction, and we still ignore them and continue our merry way. We know humans are remarkably adaptable, and the climate trying to kill us every so often isn't new to us as a species. War is a substantially worse threat. The chart is concerning, but it still doesn't break my top 3 worries right now (#1 being nuclear war, #2 being lack of cheap energy and #3 being a resurgence of authoritarianism from poor economic policy in places like the US [0]). The indicators are still pretty good that our ability to just barrel through climate-related problems is good enough. If there is an honest-to-goodness problem with climate change that we can't deal with people need to talk about it more. [0] 5 minutes of thought later, I'd swap in overpopulation in somewhere there and bump out authoritarianism to #4

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
I think you underestimate the costs of climate change. When areas of the planet become uninhabitable for humans without air conditioning, then there's going to be a mass movement of people which will most likely lead to famine and wars. Currently we rely on stable weather patterns to produce most of our food and that's not likely to be able to continue. I fear that war is going to come about because of the changing climate.
- roenxi 3y ago
  That scenario is so complicated and requires so many tenuous assumptions that it might just happen anyway. The demographic stats already suggest that the future is going to be very African, that there will be lots of migration and we've had a couple of migration waves triggered by stuff that isn't climate change. The problem isn't climate, it is that there are too many people and they keep having kids. Although right now the trend in global birth rates is extremely promising and if that keeps up (keeps down?) we'll be fine.
  - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
    I don't understand what you mean by "tenuous assumptions". There's almost certainly going to be areas which are already near the limits of human survivability without air conditioning (high wet bulb temperatures of more than 30 degrees Celsius) and some of those areas will become even hotter in a warming earth. The problem most definitely is a changing climate and especially if it becomes unstable as we rely on stable conditions to grow food. Yes, there are too many people, but we're not going to have to wait for declining birth rates as lots of people will die from famine and wars due to the pressures involved with climate change.
    - roenxi 3y ago
      You start with "climate is changing", then there are a lot of implicit steps and you end up at "there's going to be a mass movement" and transition to "most likely lead to famine and wars". There are two jumps there; both unlikely to play out. People might import food from newly created foodbowls for example - as far as I recall China technically can't feed its own population without imports and that hasn't caused any famines. Or it may turn out edible plants can adapt really easily to temperatures in the 40+ range, it wouldn't be the first time we've adjusted our food to suit conditions that it wouldn't naturally cope with. And we already have mass movements; something like 4% humans [0] migrated during their life. Things like people fleeing world wars I & II were probably extreme too. The movements were generally net positives for the receiving country. It isn't clear mass movements do lead to wars, or implicitly need to. And to top it all off, people might just not migrate. It is most likely cheaper to build local shelters than uproot a family and move countries. As I mentioned upthread, if you describe normal conditions in a random Russian town it sounds like hell on earth - it is hell on earth, 9th circle stuff - people still live there. No mass migrations. [0] https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/wmr-2022-interactive/ https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/wmr-2022-interactive/
      - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
        Okay, you don't seem to appreciate the scale of the issues. It's not just a case of getting crops to adapt to higher temperatures - it's the unpredictability of rainfall that's going to cause (and is starting to cause) crop failures. People have already suffered famines in countries where crops have failed due to unusual dry or wet periods, so it's hardly a jump to predict that those kinds of famines are going to become more frequent and severe. You don't seem to understand the concept of high wet bulb temperatures either as building a shelter is not going to be of any help unless those shelters have extensive cooling or air conditioning. Humans just can't survive a wet bulb temperature of more than 31 degrees Celsius or so, even with unlimited access to drinking water and fans. I don't see how it is possible for people to continue living in their current country if they have to cope with lack of food, water and survivable temperatures. I think you're being excessively optimistic, but I hope you're right. Unfortunately, experts don't agree with you. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/...
realusername 3y ago
I wish I were so optimistic, I think we are truly screwed and there's pretty much no safe place on earth. What isn't vulnerable to fire is to flooding, tornados or other extreme events. The current change is absolutely disastrous already and the climate lag will push us even further into chaos no matter what happens. I really hope we do invent some miraculous tech because that's the only thing I can see being a mattress on the fall down. I'd be in a position of power now, I'd push every last resource I could into this last hope.
- roenxi 3y ago
  > I wish I were so optimistic, I think we are truly screwed and there's pretty much no safe place on earth. Yeah. But that isn't that unusual in the human experience. In fact, that was the default state of play for pretty much the period from 1900 (conditions become ripe for world wars) -> 1990 (end of the pressing nuclear threat of the cold war). The start date can be dragged back in time if you include the risk of being overrun by Europeans which was a substantial global concern and from which there was no escaping.
  - realusername 3y ago
    These threats will probably add up together. When you have economic decline and harder conditions, it's a sure receipe for wars to start. We already have some local food shortages here and there caused by climate change which are somewhat smoothed out by global trade for now but that's only the beginning right now so I don't know how long it's going to last.
    - roenxi 3y ago
      The current global situation is consistent with the lead up to a World War II style event. The future is never guaranteed so hopefully it isn't that consistent and doesn't spiral any further out of control. We didn't need any climate change to get us to this point as a combination of bad policy, lousy diplomacy and the COVID insanity seems to have done it. These risks exist independently of climate change and, frankly, the link the climate people make between crop pressure and these wars is tenuous. There'll be some bad years as farmers adapt. If the scientists are worth the money we spend on them that might be averted. > When you have economic decline... I don't think there is any strong reason to suspect that climate change will cause economic conditions to decline. Glancing at Wikipedia, there are figures suggesting that global GDP will be down 30% from baseline by 2100, which assuming 1% real growth rates globally would still leave us better off than we are now. Even though that sort of model is notoriously delicate.
hackerlight 3y ago
Consider that your geographical location may be biasing your top 3 worries. If you were forced to live near the equator and suffered the wet bulb temperatures for yourself, and you couldn't afford air conditioning, I am confident you would beg to differ. Remember that you can't keep removing clothes to cool down. At a certain point you just die.
- roenxi 3y ago
  I cannot argue with the premise; if I were someone else I'd be someone else. But I suspect my #1 concern would be earning enough to get an air conditioner and #2 would be that no war breaks out that would threaten the ability to run it.
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    Maybe that would be your mindset, but I think you haven't grappled with the potential consequences of global warming. If we get to 3-5C warming, what do you think will happen to equatorial countries where half the population can't afford air conditioning? Given that they often have wetbulb temperatures at the threshold of survivability today in the era of 1-1.5C warming, a 3-5C warming world would be catastrophic. We're talking a tremendous amount of human suffering, potential death and likely political instability and waves of mass migration to colder climates like NA and Europe. I can't see how you'd rank internal US political stability above this particular problem in the scheme of things. What about 6C warming? At what point does it become a primary concern? And what is your plan for these people in such a world, are you willing to have an open border mass migration intake policy in the global north?
    - roenxi 3y ago
      I see 3 options - the community will need to come together to prepare a communal area with air conditioner; the people with air conditioners will need to take other people in, or they will die. And I doubt they will get any help from us, but I expect it'd be more cost effective to donate air conditioners and expertise in setting up an electrical grid (which would promote prosperity) than any other approach. The answer isn't to make their life comfortable in poverty, it is to drag them up into the middle class. > At what point does it become a primary concern? If someone comes up with an outcome that makes me think "wow, this is worse than people being born without access to cheap energy!" then it'll probably make it to top 3. That is my basic test.
TeMPOraL 3y ago
FWIW, global warming will start making large swathes of Earth uninhabitable, and compromise global food production. Way before this starts killing people directly, there will be enormous migration pressure, and that leads directly to your worries #1, #3 and #4. The real problem of climate change is, and has always been, global stability - because that will get us first.
- EnigmaFlare 3y ago
  All that is already present without climate change. By not quantifying it, your claims are meaningless. Perhaps burning oil (and all the technology enabled by it) is what gave us global stability in the first place since countries could get richer by being productive instead of conquering each other.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > Perhaps burning oil (and all the technology enabled by it) is what gave us global stability in the first place since countries could get richer by being productive instead of conquering each other. That, and nuclear weapons (MAD), very much yes. It's not oil per se, but cheap energy (non-energy use of petrochemicals notwithstanding). We're not in danger of running out of that resource. Climate change is threatening food supply and habitability. That much is obvious, since it's already happening. The rest is not hard to guess, as mass migrations (albeit on a much lower scale) are also a thing that happened in the past.

by roenxi 3y ago

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

I think you underestimate the costs of climate change. When areas of the planet become uninhabitable for humans without air conditioning, then there's going to be a mass movement of people which will most likely lead to famine and wars. Currently we rely on stable weather patterns to produce most of our food and that's not likely to be able to continue. I fear that war is going to come about because of the changing climate.

roenxi 3y ago
That scenario is so complicated and requires so many tenuous assumptions that it might just happen anyway. The demographic stats already suggest that the future is going to be very African, that there will be lots of migration and we've had a couple of migration waves triggered by stuff that isn't climate change. The problem isn't climate, it is that there are too many people and they keep having kids. Although right now the trend in global birth rates is extremely promising and if that keeps up (keeps down?) we'll be fine.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  I don't understand what you mean by "tenuous assumptions". There's almost certainly going to be areas which are already near the limits of human survivability without air conditioning (high wet bulb temperatures of more than 30 degrees Celsius) and some of those areas will become even hotter in a warming earth. The problem most definitely is a changing climate and especially if it becomes unstable as we rely on stable conditions to grow food. Yes, there are too many people, but we're not going to have to wait for declining birth rates as lots of people will die from famine and wars due to the pressures involved with climate change.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    You start with "climate is changing", then there are a lot of implicit steps and you end up at "there's going to be a mass movement" and transition to "most likely lead to famine and wars". There are two jumps there; both unlikely to play out. People might import food from newly created foodbowls for example - as far as I recall China technically can't feed its own population without imports and that hasn't caused any famines. Or it may turn out edible plants can adapt really easily to temperatures in the 40+ range, it wouldn't be the first time we've adjusted our food to suit conditions that it wouldn't naturally cope with. And we already have mass movements; something like 4% humans [0] migrated during their life. Things like people fleeing world wars I & II were probably extreme too. The movements were generally net positives for the receiving country. It isn't clear mass movements do lead to wars, or implicitly need to. And to top it all off, people might just not migrate. It is most likely cheaper to build local shelters than uproot a family and move countries. As I mentioned upthread, if you describe normal conditions in a random Russian town it sounds like hell on earth - it is hell on earth, 9th circle stuff - people still live there. No mass migrations. [0] https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/wmr-2022-interactive/ https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/wmr-2022-interactive/
    - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
      Okay, you don't seem to appreciate the scale of the issues. It's not just a case of getting crops to adapt to higher temperatures - it's the unpredictability of rainfall that's going to cause (and is starting to cause) crop failures. People have already suffered famines in countries where crops have failed due to unusual dry or wet periods, so it's hardly a jump to predict that those kinds of famines are going to become more frequent and severe. You don't seem to understand the concept of high wet bulb temperatures either as building a shelter is not going to be of any help unless those shelters have extensive cooling or air conditioning. Humans just can't survive a wet bulb temperature of more than 31 degrees Celsius or so, even with unlimited access to drinking water and fans. I don't see how it is possible for people to continue living in their current country if they have to cope with lack of food, water and survivable temperatures. I think you're being excessively optimistic, but I hope you're right. Unfortunately, experts don't agree with you. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/...

realusername 3y ago

I wish I were so optimistic, I think we are truly screwed and there's pretty much no safe place on earth. What isn't vulnerable to fire is to flooding, tornados or other extreme events. The current change is absolutely disastrous already and the climate lag will push us even further into chaos no matter what happens. I really hope we do invent some miraculous tech because that's the only thing I can see being a mattress on the fall down. I'd be in a position of power now, I'd push every last resource I could into this last hope.

roenxi 3y ago
> I wish I were so optimistic, I think we are truly screwed and there's pretty much no safe place on earth. Yeah. But that isn't that unusual in the human experience. In fact, that was the default state of play for pretty much the period from 1900 (conditions become ripe for world wars) -> 1990 (end of the pressing nuclear threat of the cold war). The start date can be dragged back in time if you include the risk of being overrun by Europeans which was a substantial global concern and from which there was no escaping.
- realusername 3y ago
  These threats will probably add up together. When you have economic decline and harder conditions, it's a sure receipe for wars to start. We already have some local food shortages here and there caused by climate change which are somewhat smoothed out by global trade for now but that's only the beginning right now so I don't know how long it's going to last.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    The current global situation is consistent with the lead up to a World War II style event. The future is never guaranteed so hopefully it isn't that consistent and doesn't spiral any further out of control. We didn't need any climate change to get us to this point as a combination of bad policy, lousy diplomacy and the COVID insanity seems to have done it. These risks exist independently of climate change and, frankly, the link the climate people make between crop pressure and these wars is tenuous. There'll be some bad years as farmers adapt. If the scientists are worth the money we spend on them that might be averted. > When you have economic decline... I don't think there is any strong reason to suspect that climate change will cause economic conditions to decline. Glancing at Wikipedia, there are figures suggesting that global GDP will be down 30% from baseline by 2100, which assuming 1% real growth rates globally would still leave us better off than we are now. Even though that sort of model is notoriously delicate.

hackerlight 3y ago

Consider that your geographical location may be biasing your top 3 worries. If you were forced to live near the equator and suffered the wet bulb temperatures for yourself, and you couldn't afford air conditioning, I am confident you would beg to differ. Remember that you can't keep removing clothes to cool down. At a certain point you just die.

roenxi 3y ago
I cannot argue with the premise; if I were someone else I'd be someone else. But I suspect my #1 concern would be earning enough to get an air conditioner and #2 would be that no war breaks out that would threaten the ability to run it.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  Maybe that would be your mindset, but I think you haven't grappled with the potential consequences of global warming. If we get to 3-5C warming, what do you think will happen to equatorial countries where half the population can't afford air conditioning? Given that they often have wetbulb temperatures at the threshold of survivability today in the era of 1-1.5C warming, a 3-5C warming world would be catastrophic. We're talking a tremendous amount of human suffering, potential death and likely political instability and waves of mass migration to colder climates like NA and Europe. I can't see how you'd rank internal US political stability above this particular problem in the scheme of things. What about 6C warming? At what point does it become a primary concern? And what is your plan for these people in such a world, are you willing to have an open border mass migration intake policy in the global north?
  - roenxi 3y ago
    I see 3 options - the community will need to come together to prepare a communal area with air conditioner; the people with air conditioners will need to take other people in, or they will die. And I doubt they will get any help from us, but I expect it'd be more cost effective to donate air conditioners and expertise in setting up an electrical grid (which would promote prosperity) than any other approach. The answer isn't to make their life comfortable in poverty, it is to drag them up into the middle class. > At what point does it become a primary concern? If someone comes up with an outcome that makes me think "wow, this is worse than people being born without access to cheap energy!" then it'll probably make it to top 3. That is my basic test.

TeMPOraL 3y ago

FWIW, global warming will start making large swathes of Earth uninhabitable, and compromise global food production. Way before this starts killing people directly, there will be enormous migration pressure, and that leads directly to your worries #1, #3 and #4. The real problem of climate change is, and has always been, global stability - because that will get us first.

EnigmaFlare 3y ago
All that is already present without climate change. By not quantifying it, your claims are meaningless. Perhaps burning oil (and all the technology enabled by it) is what gave us global stability in the first place since countries could get richer by being productive instead of conquering each other.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > Perhaps burning oil (and all the technology enabled by it) is what gave us global stability in the first place since countries could get richer by being productive instead of conquering each other. That, and nuclear weapons (MAD), very much yes. It's not oil per se, but cheap energy (non-energy use of petrochemicals notwithstanding). We're not in danger of running out of that resource. Climate change is threatening food supply and habitability. That much is obvious, since it's already happening. The rest is not hard to guess, as mass migrations (albeit on a much lower scale) are also a thing that happened in the past.