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This is an absolutely unhinged take. We're facing civilizational collapse because we couldn't be arsed to stop burning fossil fuels, not because we didn't have

This is an absolutely unhinged take. We're facing civilizational collapse because we couldn't be arsed to stop burning fossil fuels, not because we didn't have other options. We've known how to do solar, wind, and nuclear for decades, we've known about anthropogenic climate change for decades, we've known the risks, and we've done absolutely nothing about it. This is a problem of will, not capacity. Edit, because I'm guessing the "civilizational collapse" line's going to catch the response, instead of the "will, not capacity" part: Pick any one of: * Sea levels rise by 2-3ft * The jet stream breaks down * The north atlantic current breaks down * Large swaths of the globe between, say, +/-33deg off the equator experience heat waves sufficient to make being outside more than ~30 or so minutes unprotected a life threatening event for normally healthy individuals multiple times per year (note these areas of the planet contain several billion people, and not the rich ones). * Climates change sufficient to move productive agricultural zones substantially outside of where they've been for roughly the entire industrial area, causing regular crop failures and unpredictable food prices * Large scale droughts and flooding become a regular event * Category 5 becomes the low side of what we'd expect a hurricane to hit And walk through the political, economic, and social ramifications of it, and then realize we're looking at all of them - and we're already seeing the beginnings of them _today_.

jrowen 1y ago
It's not clear to me how any of these lead to civilizational collapse. That's equally unhinged doom fetishization. There is an incredible amount of resiliency baked into our society, and resourcefulness baked into our biology. Pick any one of those and explain the steps to, and what exactly is meant by, "collapse." I'm not arguing against environmentalism. I'm arguing for humanity and against doom prophesies. We are the descendants of the survivors of the last cataclysmic instant-hellfire-and-brimstone extinction event, and we've only gotten more robust since.
- cogman10 1y ago
  The biggest impact to consider is the disruption to food production. Predictable climate is key to keeping everyone fed. Random droughts, freezes, and unlivable temps will have pretty notable impacts on our ability to produce food. Will we continue to be able to produce enough food for the world? Who knows. But that's the thing that has me most concerned. If there's a doomsday related to climate it will be that.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Disruption to food production makes it more expensive. We use ~all the land to produce food not because we need to, but because that's the cheapest way. Greenhouses can produce several orders of magnitude more food per acre than dryland mechanized farming does. (Greenhouses are just one example, there are lots of other ways to produce food more expensively). If we lose ~half of US food production capacity due to climate change we don't halve food production, we switch to more expensive production methods. Increased food prices might collapse poor societies, but you're going to need a lot more than that to collapse rich societies.
    - roughly 1y ago
      And how long does it take to do that? What do our reserves look like? Where are those new greenhouses? Who pays for the food? How do we adjust our food system around that? How long does _that_ take? How many restaurants, shops, farmers go out of business? What happens to them? How does the economy shift around this? We already have people starving today, how many more do we add in this scenario?
      - bryanlarsen 1y ago
        Yes, it'll be horrible. But "collapse of civilization" is a pretty high bar.
        roughly 1y ago
        Ok, now make two tweaks to your mental model: First, think “the fall of Rome” when you hear “civilization collapse.” Second, consider that this isn’t just affecting the US, but every major populated country. And then consider you’ll be living through it, not reading about it in a book.
        bryanlarsen 1y ago
        Fall of Rome took hundreds of years, up to 1000 depending on how you measure it. And fall of Rome isn't anywhere close to collapse of civilization. Collapse of Rome scenarios I'll accept as plausible. Collapse of civilization, no.
- roughly 1y ago
  Ok, let's say US Agricultural production drops in half - I don't mean prices double, I mean for every two tons of produce we produce today, we produce one ton in this scenario. What do you think that looks like for our country? How do you think we adjust to that? Do you think it looks like the same place that it does today? Note too that this is not an uncorrelated change - there's no "somewhere else" to get food here. Let's say that India faces the same problem - that's a nuclear armed state. How does that play out? Remember the power outage in Texas? By and large, that was because Texas didn't have its grid hooked up to the rest of the country - but how many different areas do you think need to be facing the same conditions before we knock out the power across a region we can't laugh at for a substantial amount of time? What happens if we have to deal with that on a regular basis? People think "civilizational collapse" is "we're now hunter-gatherers" - typically, it means "the existing state apparatus falls apart, the wealth and health of the people diminishes significantly, and what was a previously recognizable culture and lifestyle is no more. Think "Roman Empire circa 450CE" - that's what we're facing. Yes, there will be humans in 100 years - pending that India question, of course - but that's not the victory condition here.
  - roenxi 1y ago
    > I mean for every two tons of produce we produce today, we produce one ton in this scenario. What do you think that looks like for our country? Well, the ~33% of food that gets wasted in the US would probably need to be handled a lot more carefully. Probably the obese people would need to eat less. And the strategy of growing the population every year through migration might need to be rethought if more farmland can't be found. Plus maybe there'd need to be more fertiliser produced. That involves fossil fuels. The US has an explicit strategy of growing the population every year. That is a strategy that eventually leads to famine. Pointing out that global warning might lead to famine is less scary than pointing out that business as usual certainly leads to one - the poulation of the US doubled since 1950 and that is equivalent to halving the food production per person. In fact, letting natural population decline take hold would solve both problems and let the smaller population enjoy higher living standards. > Let's say that India faces the same problem - that's a nuclear armed state. How does that play out? They're switching over to industrial farming as far as I'm aware, they're probably going to be fine. Eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_India looks like a 50% reduction in farmland would knock them back to 90s levels of production efficiency, and they were mostly ok in the 90s. That is value not calories though, doing a precise estimate is probably more than I can manage for a comment. > Remember the power outage in Texas? Civilisation in Texas didn't get anywhere near to a collapse. I'm no expert on 450CE Rome, but from what I do know it looked nothing like modern Texas. I wish I could trade for problems like that and enjoy Texan electricity prices. I don't mind having to be ready for an emergency, that is already something that I need to do. Texas got a good deal on that one. --- I want to stress here that I'm on board with the idea that these are all catastrophic risks that could end badly. But that is business as usual for humanity, we ignore a lot of catastrophic risks on an average day. These are all things we've faced before and faced anyway without the climate changing at all. Cheap energy is the best bet to manage those risks and turning away from it is madness.

jrowen 1y ago

It's not clear to me how any of these lead to civilizational collapse. That's equally unhinged doom fetishization. There is an incredible amount of resiliency baked into our society, and resourcefulness baked into our biology. Pick any one of those and explain the steps to, and what exactly is meant by, "collapse." I'm not arguing against environmentalism. I'm arguing for humanity and against doom prophesies. We are the descendants of the survivors of the last cataclysmic instant-hellfire-and-brimstone extinction event, and we've only gotten more robust since.

cogman10 1y ago
The biggest impact to consider is the disruption to food production. Predictable climate is key to keeping everyone fed. Random droughts, freezes, and unlivable temps will have pretty notable impacts on our ability to produce food. Will we continue to be able to produce enough food for the world? Who knows. But that's the thing that has me most concerned. If there's a doomsday related to climate it will be that.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  Disruption to food production makes it more expensive. We use ~all the land to produce food not because we need to, but because that's the cheapest way. Greenhouses can produce several orders of magnitude more food per acre than dryland mechanized farming does. (Greenhouses are just one example, there are lots of other ways to produce food more expensively). If we lose ~half of US food production capacity due to climate change we don't halve food production, we switch to more expensive production methods. Increased food prices might collapse poor societies, but you're going to need a lot more than that to collapse rich societies.
  - roughly 1y ago
    And how long does it take to do that? What do our reserves look like? Where are those new greenhouses? Who pays for the food? How do we adjust our food system around that? How long does _that_ take? How many restaurants, shops, farmers go out of business? What happens to them? How does the economy shift around this? We already have people starving today, how many more do we add in this scenario?
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      Yes, it'll be horrible. But "collapse of civilization" is a pretty high bar.
      - roughly 1y ago
        Ok, now make two tweaks to your mental model: First, think “the fall of Rome” when you hear “civilization collapse.” Second, consider that this isn’t just affecting the US, but every major populated country. And then consider you’ll be living through it, not reading about it in a book.
        bryanlarsen 1y ago
        Fall of Rome took hundreds of years, up to 1000 depending on how you measure it. And fall of Rome isn't anywhere close to collapse of civilization. Collapse of Rome scenarios I'll accept as plausible. Collapse of civilization, no.
roughly 1y ago
Ok, let's say US Agricultural production drops in half - I don't mean prices double, I mean for every two tons of produce we produce today, we produce one ton in this scenario. What do you think that looks like for our country? How do you think we adjust to that? Do you think it looks like the same place that it does today? Note too that this is not an uncorrelated change - there's no "somewhere else" to get food here. Let's say that India faces the same problem - that's a nuclear armed state. How does that play out? Remember the power outage in Texas? By and large, that was because Texas didn't have its grid hooked up to the rest of the country - but how many different areas do you think need to be facing the same conditions before we knock out the power across a region we can't laugh at for a substantial amount of time? What happens if we have to deal with that on a regular basis? People think "civilizational collapse" is "we're now hunter-gatherers" - typically, it means "the existing state apparatus falls apart, the wealth and health of the people diminishes significantly, and what was a previously recognizable culture and lifestyle is no more. Think "Roman Empire circa 450CE" - that's what we're facing. Yes, there will be humans in 100 years - pending that India question, of course - but that's not the victory condition here.
- roenxi 1y ago
  > I mean for every two tons of produce we produce today, we produce one ton in this scenario. What do you think that looks like for our country? Well, the ~33% of food that gets wasted in the US would probably need to be handled a lot more carefully. Probably the obese people would need to eat less. And the strategy of growing the population every year through migration might need to be rethought if more farmland can't be found. Plus maybe there'd need to be more fertiliser produced. That involves fossil fuels. The US has an explicit strategy of growing the population every year. That is a strategy that eventually leads to famine. Pointing out that global warning might lead to famine is less scary than pointing out that business as usual certainly leads to one - the poulation of the US doubled since 1950 and that is equivalent to halving the food production per person. In fact, letting natural population decline take hold would solve both problems and let the smaller population enjoy higher living standards. > Let's say that India faces the same problem - that's a nuclear armed state. How does that play out? They're switching over to industrial farming as far as I'm aware, they're probably going to be fine. Eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_India looks like a 50% reduction in farmland would knock them back to 90s levels of production efficiency, and they were mostly ok in the 90s. That is value not calories though, doing a precise estimate is probably more than I can manage for a comment. > Remember the power outage in Texas? Civilisation in Texas didn't get anywhere near to a collapse. I'm no expert on 450CE Rome, but from what I do know it looked nothing like modern Texas. I wish I could trade for problems like that and enjoy Texan electricity prices. I don't mind having to be ready for an emergency, that is already something that I need to do. Texas got a good deal on that one. --- I want to stress here that I'm on board with the idea that these are all catastrophic risks that could end badly. But that is business as usual for humanity, we ignore a lot of catastrophic risks on an average day. These are all things we've faced before and faced anyway without the climate changing at all. Cheap energy is the best bet to manage those risks and turning away from it is madness.