I'm of the unpopular opinion that climate change has the potential to be a net positive for humanity over the long term:
+ Protecting coastal (and some inland) populations against higher water levels will be huge infrastructure projects that will allow us to re-imagine cities, many of which are even now burdened by very ancient designs and infrastructure. This will be a great use of resources that will put people to work on grand and civically engaging projects. Work to be proud of.
+ New coastal land will be created and deserts will slowly re-green, encouraging populations to migrate to and develop areas previously thought worthless. With that we'll have an opportunity to build thoughtful, efficient cities and the infrastructure to connect them from the ground up. Imagine the wealth and opportunities, economic and political, that would be created developing Greenland, Antarctica, or the Sahara.
+ Total potential agricultural output of the world will increase drastically, possibly making food cheaper for all.
+ Human civilization will be forced to recognize that we exist at the mercy of a bountiful Earth, which might make some of those other celestial bodies a bit more appealing.
Of course some obvious consequences will be painful, but I think change isn't automatically bad, and that the best of humanity always comes through during periods of non-violent adversity. A slow but certain and predictable warming of the Earth's climate is just that.
So I'll preface this by saying that it's my belief climate change is real, that it's being accelerated this time by human behaviour etc.
However I would suggest that it is not an existential threat to humanity. It IS a threat to an enormous number of individuals (literally billions) but humans will continue to populate the earth long after the climate has changed.
Humans have proved to very adaptable, living sustainably in the deserts of the Sahara as well as the ice of Alaska. I don't think we'll see the decision of humanity here.
Life as we know it? Civilization? Sure I can see cataclysmic change there over the next 100 years. Then again life now is completely different to 100 years ago, so that's no surprise.
Here's the part that I don't get (and I would be afraid to admit to this in a non-anonymous setting among my peer group).
I completely accept the evidence and the consensus that human action is causing global carbon levels and therefore temperature to rise. The part I don't get is what exactly happens to the planet, our species and other animals given say, a 2C rise by 2200. Say that's a 2 metre sea level rise. Ecosystems and societies are pretty robust to that level of change over 200 years. There would be very bad effects on some low-lying coastal cities, and the areas of the earth that are productive for different kinds of agriculture and habitats would change.
This is bad and we should work to avoid it, but I think that we lose credibility when we speak of the end of civilisation, or even major threats to our normal way of life globally.
I don't understand why people are focused on rising sea levels. This is at best the 3rd most important consequences of global warming. In my list it is barely 5th, and the one whith the longer term.
* Food insecurities will be the first challenge, as it will come first probably and will have impact on democracy and will transform food import-dependant countries in powderkegs. US and Europe will be spared by this (southern Spain and Italy not so much, but still). Syria and Liban will be crushed.
* Wet-bulb temperature will become the second challenge by 2080, and 2060 if nothing is done by 2040. When Florida, South carolina and south cali will be hit by this, people might start consider moving, or living underground more than half the year. Europe will be spared by this as most projection say the Gulf stream will likely still work until the north pole ice melt, so 2150-2200.
* As the troposphere warms up and the stratosphere cool down, we will witness harsh meteorological events that will strain infrastructure all around the world.
* Ectothermics species will work at an higher level, their metabolism will be boosted and we will see pests working harder (and at higher latitudes). While endothermic species will disappear quietly. Same thing with mushrooms (that will worsen the 1st issue)
* Yes, sea levels will rise. It proably wont have any impact until 2080 for island nations (unless is contaminate their fresh water reserves).
The issue isn't really that the world is going to turn into an inhospitable dustball or watery doom. It's that climate change is going to obliterate the apple cart for humanity.
We like to build big complicated high-cost centers right on the coast. Rising sea water = bad for us.
We like to build expensive permanent buildings. Crazy weather = bad for us.
We like to farm monocultures in predictable climates. Unstable seasons = bad for us.
'Life' is going to be just fine. It's just gonna be super inconvenient for us humans.
Because changes in climate mean that the existing infrastructure (in the form of cities, farmland, etc) that are optimized for the current conditions are no longer optimal. Very few cities are designed for conditions below sea level or in a desert, but if the city already exists and the desert and oceans comes to where they are then bad things will happen.
I mean you're right that conditions in some places might get better, but that doesn't help if people have to build the infrastructure there to support a modern settlement in order to take advantage of it. When people talk about the cost of climate change, they're taking about the costs of building or adapting infrastructure.
I seriously disagree. The “climate” part of climate change isnt the threat to civilization, it’s the “change” part.
Sure, with an average warmer global climate, many places will become worse for human life and worse for agriculture with warming. But there is an absolutely enormous amount of land that moves into a better habitable and agriculture zone with warming as well. It’s not that a warmer climate makes human life impossible; we currently thrive from the Equator to Scandinavia just fine. It’s the change part thats the problem. It’s difficult to deal with whole agricultural areas needing to switch crops. Cities suddenly flooding when they used not to. New areas entering a death zone of heat index that previously were manageable
Why do you think climate change is going to make industrialized society and global trade disappear? Are warming oceans going to melt container ships? Not to be snide, but this comment is just postulating the collapse of industry and trade as fact without a cohesive picture as to why climate change will cause this.
The overwhelming majority of the earth will still be habitable with even the most pessimistic predictions of 4-5 degrees of warming. Those areas that stand to become uninhabitable, like the Sahara Desert, are very sparsely populated. Only 2.5 million people in an area the size of the continental USA. A big swath on a map, but not a very big impact on global demographics. As far as resources go, the world already has a substantial overproduction of food. Water can be secured from alternative sources, like desalination (Israel already obtains ~40% of its water from desalination) and reclamation of waste water.
To reiterate, I see a massive gap in how the effects of climate change lead to the collapse of global civilization.
To say that the benefits of increased vegetation outweighs the rise in sea levels and summer temperatures is breathtaking in its stupidity and cruelty. The people who are the most affected by climate change are the poorest and least able to relocate. In which way does humanity benefit if millions die in Africa and South East Asia whilst wealthy industrialists get to farm further north than previously.
It's also bizarre to be thinking so short term. So we benefit if there is a 1.2 degree increase in the next 70 years. What about the 70 years after that, and after that ?
I wonder how much of the benefit from all this type of work will be wiped out due to climate change. Seems like increased coastal flooding, conflicts over scare resources, droughts, etc. will harm the most vulnerable far more than the benefit of all these programs combined. Like we'll win a battle but will lose the war.
The issue with climate change is exactly that: change. Doesn't matter if it get colder, dryer, wetter, warmer than it used too. It is a huge undertaking to change the built environment to handle conditions that were once seen as exceptional. Houses, streets and waterways are normally replaced/adjusted on the scale of multiple decades or even centuries. Significant climate change is affecting areas everywhere on a single decade timescale. So infrastructure is now outdated much more quickly, and needs to be replaced/upgraded at a higher pace. This if hugely expensive and will lead to more waste and more emissions. And that is just for the built world on which we have a lot of influence. The natural world doesn't always have the ability to adjust; lots of habits are suffering and species are going extinct.
Is there any reason to be optimistic about our ability to deal with climate change? I have to admit that this topic depresses me deeply, as the United States' tepid response does not match the magnitude of the problem. It is shockingly easy to imagine scenarios resulting in the collapse of civilization (agricultural collapse places significant pressure on a few areas which leads to a domino effect of instability triggering nuclear war).
Not to diminish the threat, but I think the impact of climate change on human civilization is often overrated. Countries most affected will include India, Bangladesh, Indonesia... none of them in the modern global powers. What I expect 50-100 years from now is:
In most affected countries, mass precarity, mass migrations, hardening of borders, end of the relative post-WW2 world peace.
In Europe/USA, flooded areas will be evacuated/relocated. Living conditions will worsen as a result of the end of globalization.
In Russia/Greenland/Canada, warming temperatures will create more temperate areas. This will create new economic hubs, and the economic growth paradigm will prevail. Business will continue, and conditions will worsen for another 100 years.
After that, a sizeable portion of Earth will be unfit for humans, and human population will have decreased a great deal. But no end of the human race visible for now.
the only thing that really worries me is humanity going back to pre-modern technology levels, this time with full-on communism added for good measure, all in the name of climate protection.
otherwise i find climate change to be something that prepares us for colonising other places: planets and climates change; 300 million years ago Venus was the place to be, today it's Earth, tomorrow it will be the outer planets, specifically their satellites. we weren't really aware of these changes, especially their magnitudes.
climate change brought it all out. it's up to us to learn from it so that we can control it. especially for the moment when we will unshackle ourselves from this solar system.
yes, i am extremely optimistic about the human race.
There's another link between climate change and jobs, but it's a lot less pleasant. If we fail to do anything about climate change, chances are large chunks of the planet will become uninhabitable for humans. The rich and useful will move where they can live and work in comfort, and those countries that become uninhabitable will slowly become unable to afford the social welfare necessary to keep their population alive. Climate change will thus 'fix' the joblessness problem by causing widespread death of immobile humans.
I hope we do something about this because it sounds fucking awful.
+ Protecting coastal (and some inland) populations against higher water levels will be huge infrastructure projects that will allow us to re-imagine cities, many of which are even now burdened by very ancient designs and infrastructure. This will be a great use of resources that will put people to work on grand and civically engaging projects. Work to be proud of.
+ New coastal land will be created and deserts will slowly re-green, encouraging populations to migrate to and develop areas previously thought worthless. With that we'll have an opportunity to build thoughtful, efficient cities and the infrastructure to connect them from the ground up. Imagine the wealth and opportunities, economic and political, that would be created developing Greenland, Antarctica, or the Sahara.
+ Total potential agricultural output of the world will increase drastically, possibly making food cheaper for all.
+ Human civilization will be forced to recognize that we exist at the mercy of a bountiful Earth, which might make some of those other celestial bodies a bit more appealing.
Of course some obvious consequences will be painful, but I think change isn't automatically bad, and that the best of humanity always comes through during periods of non-violent adversity. A slow but certain and predictable warming of the Earth's climate is just that.
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