6 ms·

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 b

by 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.
        jrowen 1y ago
        I might ask you to tweak your model as well..."collapse of civilization" is such an extreme, dramatic, far-reaching term, people are always going to latch onto that. It's sensationalism. I would describe what you're talking about as "widespread suffering and hardship" more akin to a world war.
        roughly 1y ago
        What do you define as “civilization”? Is it culture, norms, practices, a lifestyle, an economy, basic assumptions about the availability of goods and services and health care and medicine, basic assumptions about government, and norms and standards thereof? Is it literally every part of your life that you live every day?
        jrowen 1y ago
        It's more about the definition of collapse. By your definition civilization collapsed during World War 2. Generally a large structure that has collapsed is hopelessly, irreparably broken - capable of performing near 0% of its function. It can't recover, it's not limping along in some form, it is "totaled" and you have to clean up the pieces and start completely over.
  - cogman10 1y ago
    > Greenhouses can produce several orders of magnitude more food per acre than dryland mechanized farming does. If we climate control them and light them. Then yes. It also depends on the crop being grown. That takes electricity. There are many crops that simply aren't well suited to greenhouses. Primarily because they are nutrient thin. Those are popular crops that people and livestock eat. And, importantly, we don't have those greenhouses built yet. Not even a fraction of a percentage of our food comes from them today. It's possible that we can make the switchover, but that will take decades of build out. The other thing to consider is we won't really have much warning before we need these greenhouses. About the only thing that will trigger action here with the way society is structured is famine. Importantly, capitalism will work against wanting to produce these greenhouses as famine will kick up prices and traditional farming will remain the cheapest way to produce food. Plenty of large corporate farmers will be happy to just continue raising prices rather than build out.
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      Greenhouse is the extreme. There are many intermediate options farmers have to increase yields that they currently don't use because they are too expensive.
  - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    Using greenhouses to prevent famine is a nice idea in theory, but in practise the world has had many famines since the introduction of greenhouses. Realistically, it's a problem with food distribution whereby the richest countries can attempt to purchase food from alternate supplies and the poorest countries simply starve.
  - M95D 1y ago
    > Greenhouses can produce several orders of magnitude more food Got any sources for that? I don't belive a greenhouse can produce even 3x wheat or corn compared to normal farming.
    - dzhiurgis 1y ago
      2-3 seasons instead of one, less losses to pests and diseases. All while it’s far cleaner from heavy metals, uses less water, less fertiliser, doesn’t pollute environment. Crazy we don’t do this already. It’s a bit of like ICE vs EV.
- PaulKeeble 1y ago
  Fresh water is what I think will do it. Most countries are depleting their ground water rapidly and suffering from increasing droughts.
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.

by jrowen 1y ago

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.
      - jrowen 1y ago
        I might ask you to tweak your model as well..."collapse of civilization" is such an extreme, dramatic, far-reaching term, people are always going to latch onto that. It's sensationalism. I would describe what you're talking about as "widespread suffering and hardship" more akin to a world war.
        roughly 1y ago
        What do you define as “civilization”? Is it culture, norms, practices, a lifestyle, an economy, basic assumptions about the availability of goods and services and health care and medicine, basic assumptions about government, and norms and standards thereof? Is it literally every part of your life that you live every day?
        jrowen 1y ago
        It's more about the definition of collapse. By your definition civilization collapsed during World War 2. Generally a large structure that has collapsed is hopelessly, irreparably broken - capable of performing near 0% of its function. It can't recover, it's not limping along in some form, it is "totaled" and you have to clean up the pieces and start completely over.
- cogman10 1y ago
  > Greenhouses can produce several orders of magnitude more food per acre than dryland mechanized farming does. If we climate control them and light them. Then yes. It also depends on the crop being grown. That takes electricity. There are many crops that simply aren't well suited to greenhouses. Primarily because they are nutrient thin. Those are popular crops that people and livestock eat. And, importantly, we don't have those greenhouses built yet. Not even a fraction of a percentage of our food comes from them today. It's possible that we can make the switchover, but that will take decades of build out. The other thing to consider is we won't really have much warning before we need these greenhouses. About the only thing that will trigger action here with the way society is structured is famine. Importantly, capitalism will work against wanting to produce these greenhouses as famine will kick up prices and traditional farming will remain the cheapest way to produce food. Plenty of large corporate farmers will be happy to just continue raising prices rather than build out.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Greenhouse is the extreme. There are many intermediate options farmers have to increase yields that they currently don't use because they are too expensive.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  Using greenhouses to prevent famine is a nice idea in theory, but in practise the world has had many famines since the introduction of greenhouses. Realistically, it's a problem with food distribution whereby the richest countries can attempt to purchase food from alternate supplies and the poorest countries simply starve.
- M95D 1y ago
  > Greenhouses can produce several orders of magnitude more food Got any sources for that? I don't belive a greenhouse can produce even 3x wheat or corn compared to normal farming.
  - dzhiurgis 1y ago
    2-3 seasons instead of one, less losses to pests and diseases. All while it’s far cleaner from heavy metals, uses less water, less fertiliser, doesn’t pollute environment. Crazy we don’t do this already. It’s a bit of like ICE vs EV.
PaulKeeble 1y ago
Fresh water is what I think will do it. Most countries are depleting their ground water rapidly and suffering from increasing droughts.

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.