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Part of humanity will be sure. But what about the rest? Climate change will not kill humanity off, but its likely to cause suffering we haven’t seen since WWII

Part of humanity will be sure. But what about the rest? Climate change will not kill humanity off, but its likely to cause suffering we haven’t seen since WWII (or worse). Unfortunately I've seen a glimpse of how the bottom 50% of people (not in a developed country but globally) get by today. If one doesnt care for their suffering and their lives, its easy to confirm that the society on average (not on median) will be more prosperous. But that will more likely manifest through a few hundred trillionaires living in space and a few ten thousand billionaires who serve them with their services. The bottom billions will likely just starve, move around desperately due to war, famine, fire and flood, turned away at closed borders, and who knows what new type of cruelty that will bubble up in the future. What do we tell them?

tim333 9mo ago
If you look how the lower 50% globally have done over the last 50 years they are way better off materially on the whole. Asia has gone from typically shacks and bicycles to aircon and suvs.
dash2 9mo ago
I don't know of any serious climate scientist who believes that climate change will cause billions of deaths. Can you point to one? As another comment pointed out, if you care for the bottom 50%, you should be extremely happy about progress over the past 50 (or 100 or 200) years.
- ramraj07 9mo ago
  The bottom 50% has indeed gotten better (kinda sure but not everywhere) but technological progress is not guaranteeing they'll save everyone _anymore_. Fewer nations care about climate change and taking care of the poorer parts of the world (hope you dont expect me to show why too). The billion is my number. Almost all scientists and officials underestimate deliberately and naively death tolls. I have a metric that whatever number the new york times publishes for an earthquake on day one, you should multiply it by 100 for the eventual total count. No one estimated a million plus deaths from covid in the US. The moment I read the first comprehensive report from China I assumed 1% of the population will die. Unfortunately in places like India that actually was true. So yeah I do think at the minimum a billion people will die due to climate change in the next 50 years, and billions more will suffer in unthinkable ways. Thats _my_ estimate.

tim333 9mo ago

If you look how the lower 50% globally have done over the last 50 years they are way better off materially on the whole. Asia has gone from typically shacks and bicycles to aircon and suvs.

dash2 9mo ago

I don't know of any serious climate scientist who believes that climate change will cause billions of deaths. Can you point to one? As another comment pointed out, if you care for the bottom 50%, you should be extremely happy about progress over the past 50 (or 100 or 200) years.

ramraj07 9mo ago
The bottom 50% has indeed gotten better (kinda sure but not everywhere) but technological progress is not guaranteeing they'll save everyone _anymore_. Fewer nations care about climate change and taking care of the poorer parts of the world (hope you dont expect me to show why too). The billion is my number. Almost all scientists and officials underestimate deliberately and naively death tolls. I have a metric that whatever number the new york times publishes for an earthquake on day one, you should multiply it by 100 for the eventual total count. No one estimated a million plus deaths from covid in the US. The moment I read the first comprehensive report from China I assumed 1% of the population will die. Unfortunately in places like India that actually was true. So yeah I do think at the minimum a billion people will die due to climate change in the next 50 years, and billions more will suffer in unthinkable ways. Thats _my_ estimate.