4 ms·

And Europe has nukes, too. Not sure nukes give anyone an advantage there.

ben_w 2y ago
The UK and France have nukes; but (1) not many compared to the rest of the planet having a war with them, and (2) MAD still prevents industrialised production of super-greenhouse gasses. Russia has nukes but I don't think they're helped by AMOC anyway and thus wouldn't care. The scenario of "post AMOC collapse Europe tries to compensate with more global climate change" is an existential threat to at least some other nations, how many depends on the scale of the change caused by the AMOC collapse and thus the scale of the change from the super-greenhouse-gasses produced in this scenario to compensate for it; even if the UK/France nuclear arsenals were significantly larger, this would not be sufficient to deter India from using nukes in this scenario if conventional methods failed. Also, again, deliberately trying to push through an AMOC with even more greenhouse gasses is something most people don't model, so all parties would have to seriously consider if this would be at the level to melt global ice-sheets causing a (58m Antarctica + 7m Greenland =) 65m sea level rise rather than the much smaller one we'd expect in a business-as-usual scenario. Set this map to 65m: https://www.floodmap.net https://www.floodmap.net Then consider each scenario. If the AMOC fails, it's an open question how severe that even is — I've seen estimates between 2°C and 30°C of local cooling, and I expect the lower range of that hence my previous statement "Europe north of about Paris will look like southern Canada already does". At lower levels of that range, Europe just goes back to where we were a century ago, at higher levels it could only be "solved" by greenhouse gas emissions that would cause the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets to fully melt. Looking at the global map, my guess is that Spain and France end up like the USA Pacific coast, which isn't too bad, while the UK and Ireland have severe issues. But even a "mere" extra 2°C globally is enough to be an existential threat to certain populations including in parts of India, who would do whatever it takes to prevent that. If it's really a 30°C collapse — and it would have to be on that scale to seriously consider global geo-engineering rather than retrofitting buildings and building greenhouses over the farmland — then that risks the aforementioned ice sheet collapse, which neither the UK nor Ireland can risk because that would turn the problem from "it's cold and we need to import food" to "and now 50% of the country is underwater", likewise half of Belgium, all of the Netherlands, much of Denmark, and a significant part of the most densely populated regions across the continent including Italy. France, the only other nuclear armed state in the EU besides the UK, is only affected a little bit by the sea level rise, and thus the only one which might consider that course of action. But even they would have a serious engineering project to stop the Seine from flooding back to Paris. And even with that, silver bullets (your nukes) can't stop golden guns (other people's nukes). - No, if this particular disaster happened we might try to mass-migrate to Africa (to a chorus of "oh no not again" from the destination), but I don't see our governments trying to solve it in the "old lady who swallowed a fly" approach.
- RandomLensman 2y ago
  Europe is currently discussing an expansion of its nuclear capabilities - by 2050 things might look quite different from today. MAD is not impossible to happen (and nuclear is only one possible avenue there). Anyway, given that Europe is in some scenarios heating up a lot while in others (like here) it freezes - not sure any deserve much effort on speculation. Too much uncertainty.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Agreed, 2050 is too far into the future to predict much of anything beyond mere physics. I could believe anything from half of us being dead from an accidentally mis-engineered industrial GM algae, to von Neumann probes having been let loose on the moon for mass production of aluminium sheets to be placed in Earth-Sun L1 as a solar shade, to the escalation of current conflicts into WW3, to a random terrorist getting one nuke and missile and using that to trigger a continental-scale EMP that shuts down industrial civilisation in a densely populated area. (Only things I won't believe involve large-scale cooperation, so we're not all going to speak Esperanto by then :P)
- sebastiennight 2y ago
  Nothing says "your assumptions might be too simplistic" more than using espressions such as "[Country X] would do whatever it takes to prevent 2° of climate warming". What is [Country X] currently doing about it, then? I'd assume Country X is currently banning/disincentivizing cars, cement, AI clusters, plane travel, and all kinds of much easier measures than literal nuclear attacks on other nuclear-equipped countries. The world is complex. There are very few (maybe zero?) cases where any given nation state is willing to do "whatever it takes" to do anything.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > What is [Country X] currently doing about it, then? > What is [Country X] currently doing about it, then? I'd assume Country X is currently banning/disincentivizing cars, cement, AI clusters, plane travel, and all kinds of much easier measures than literal nuclear attacks on other nuclear-equipped countries. Country X in this case being India, here's what they're currently up to: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/climate-policy-india/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/climate-policy-india/ I was wondering if I'd emphasised strongly enough "in the scenario where AMOC has collapsed and Europe tries to resolve this by overcoming it with extra greenhouse gas emissions". This scenario is trying to correct a local 2°C reduction with enough extra greenhouse gas for a global 2°C *more than today*. Current temperatures are about 1.25°C over the pre-industrial average, so that brings us to a minimum lower bound of 3.25°C over the pre-industrial average. This is in the region of "about half the world population experiences deadly humid heatwaves every year, the Himalayan glaciers stop supplying fresh water to half of the Indian population, marine ecosystems collapse, nearly all crops are negatively affected and yields fall rapidly, 18% loss of global GDP": https://unclimatesummit.org/comparing-climate-impacts-at-1-5c-2c-3c-and-4c/#:~:text=At%203.5°C%2C%20the,C%20hotter%20than%20surrounding%20waters https://unclimatesummit.org/comparing-climate-impacts-at-1-5.... We're not currently on a course for that in the first place, the current policies reach 2.6°C relative to the pre-industrial average (1.35°C relative to today) by 2100, so what India (and everyone else) has to do to prevent that is… basically what everyone is already currently doing. Though we can do better, and we should, because 2.6°C over pre-industrial (1.35°C over today) is still pretty bad. But if it came to that scenario? That hypothetical where the European continent (including the UK) gives the world a two fingered salute? The negative consequences of being on the receiving end of the UK and France nuclear arsenals, would still be less bad for India and its people even if they acted unilaterally than allowing the extra impact of that much additional greenhouse gasses. Never mind that all those problems with an additional 2°C beyond current would cause to everyone else which means that the USA won't be on Europe's side if Europe was hubristic enough to try to solve this with geo-engineering rather than something less drastic. And I did also only say that as a follow-on if "Not selling them stuff to burn" was shown to be insufficient. There are of course many stops between "don't sell them stuff" and "nuke them", I didn't feel it was a good use of time to enumerate them.

The UK and France have nukes; but (1) not many compared to the rest of the planet having a war with them, and (2) MAD still prevents industrialised production of super-greenhouse gasses. Russia has nukes but I don't think they're helped by AMOC anyway and thus wouldn't care. The scenario of "post AMOC collapse Europe tries to compensate with more global climate change" is an existential threat to at least some other nations, how many depends on the scale of the change caused by the AMOC collapse and thus the scale of the change from the super-greenhouse-gasses produced in this scenario to compensate for it; even if the UK/France nuclear arsenals were significantly larger, this would not be sufficient to deter India from using nukes in this scenario if conventional methods failed. Also, again, deliberately trying to push through an AMOC with even more greenhouse gasses is something most people don't model, so all parties would have to seriously consider if this would be at the level to melt global ice-sheets causing a (58m Antarctica + 7m Greenland =) 65m sea level rise rather than the much smaller one we'd expect in a business-as-usual scenario. Set this map to 65m: https://www.floodmap.net https://www.floodmap.net Then consider each scenario. If the AMOC fails, it's an open question how severe that even is — I've seen estimates between 2°C and 30°C of local cooling, and I expect the lower range of that hence my previous statement "Europe north of about Paris will look like southern Canada already does". At lower levels of that range, Europe just goes back to where we were a century ago, at higher levels it could only be "solved" by greenhouse gas emissions that would cause the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets to fully melt. Looking at the global map, my guess is that Spain and France end up like the USA Pacific coast, which isn't too bad, while the UK and Ireland have severe issues. But even a "mere" extra 2°C globally is enough to be an existential threat to certain populations including in parts of India, who would do whatever it takes to prevent that. If it's really a 30°C collapse — and it would have to be on that scale to seriously consider global geo-engineering rather than retrofitting buildings and building greenhouses over the farmland — then that risks the aforementioned ice sheet collapse, which neither the UK nor Ireland can risk because that would turn the problem from "it's cold and we need to import food" to "and now 50% of the country is underwater", likewise half of Belgium, all of the Netherlands, much of Denmark, and a significant part of the most densely populated regions across the continent including Italy. France, the only other nuclear armed state in the EU besides the UK, is only affected a little bit by the sea level rise, and thus the only one which might consider that course of action. But even they would have a serious engineering project to stop the Seine from flooding back to Paris. And even with that, silver bullets (your nukes) can't stop golden guns (other people's nukes). - No, if this particular disaster happened we might try to mass-migrate to Africa (to a chorus of "oh no not again" from the destination), but I don't see our governments trying to solve it in the "old lady who swallowed a fly" approach.

RandomLensman 2y ago
Europe is currently discussing an expansion of its nuclear capabilities - by 2050 things might look quite different from today. MAD is not impossible to happen (and nuclear is only one possible avenue there). Anyway, given that Europe is in some scenarios heating up a lot while in others (like here) it freezes - not sure any deserve much effort on speculation. Too much uncertainty.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Agreed, 2050 is too far into the future to predict much of anything beyond mere physics. I could believe anything from half of us being dead from an accidentally mis-engineered industrial GM algae, to von Neumann probes having been let loose on the moon for mass production of aluminium sheets to be placed in Earth-Sun L1 as a solar shade, to the escalation of current conflicts into WW3, to a random terrorist getting one nuke and missile and using that to trigger a continental-scale EMP that shuts down industrial civilisation in a densely populated area. (Only things I won't believe involve large-scale cooperation, so we're not all going to speak Esperanto by then :P)
sebastiennight 2y ago
Nothing says "your assumptions might be too simplistic" more than using espressions such as "[Country X] would do whatever it takes to prevent 2° of climate warming". What is [Country X] currently doing about it, then? I'd assume Country X is currently banning/disincentivizing cars, cement, AI clusters, plane travel, and all kinds of much easier measures than literal nuclear attacks on other nuclear-equipped countries. The world is complex. There are very few (maybe zero?) cases where any given nation state is willing to do "whatever it takes" to do anything.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > What is [Country X] currently doing about it, then? > What is [Country X] currently doing about it, then? I'd assume Country X is currently banning/disincentivizing cars, cement, AI clusters, plane travel, and all kinds of much easier measures than literal nuclear attacks on other nuclear-equipped countries. Country X in this case being India, here's what they're currently up to: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/climate-policy-india/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/climate-policy-india/ I was wondering if I'd emphasised strongly enough "in the scenario where AMOC has collapsed and Europe tries to resolve this by overcoming it with extra greenhouse gas emissions". This scenario is trying to correct a local 2°C reduction with enough extra greenhouse gas for a global 2°C *more than today*. Current temperatures are about 1.25°C over the pre-industrial average, so that brings us to a minimum lower bound of 3.25°C over the pre-industrial average. This is in the region of "about half the world population experiences deadly humid heatwaves every year, the Himalayan glaciers stop supplying fresh water to half of the Indian population, marine ecosystems collapse, nearly all crops are negatively affected and yields fall rapidly, 18% loss of global GDP": https://unclimatesummit.org/comparing-climate-impacts-at-1-5c-2c-3c-and-4c/#:~:text=At%203.5°C%2C%20the,C%20hotter%20than%20surrounding%20waters https://unclimatesummit.org/comparing-climate-impacts-at-1-5.... We're not currently on a course for that in the first place, the current policies reach 2.6°C relative to the pre-industrial average (1.35°C relative to today) by 2100, so what India (and everyone else) has to do to prevent that is… basically what everyone is already currently doing. Though we can do better, and we should, because 2.6°C over pre-industrial (1.35°C over today) is still pretty bad. But if it came to that scenario? That hypothetical where the European continent (including the UK) gives the world a two fingered salute? The negative consequences of being on the receiving end of the UK and France nuclear arsenals, would still be less bad for India and its people even if they acted unilaterally than allowing the extra impact of that much additional greenhouse gasses. Never mind that all those problems with an additional 2°C beyond current would cause to everyone else which means that the USA won't be on Europe's side if Europe was hubristic enough to try to solve this with geo-engineering rather than something less drastic. And I did also only say that as a follow-on if "Not selling them stuff to burn" was shown to be insufficient. There are of course many stops between "don't sell them stuff" and "nuke them", I didn't feel it was a good use of time to enumerate them.