I Stopped Being a Climate Catastrophist

Well, your reaction does not matter (and neither does bill gates'); only the collective response does. The

Lucky for your conscience the world doesn't give a shit about global warming, nor your realization that you can't do anything about it

Of course the world is fucked

They're agreeing that climate change is serious but not necessarily civilization ending:

  Nordhous: "The amount of warming that is conceivable … is not remotely consistent with the sorts of catastrophic outcomes … where tens or hundreds of million, perhaps even billions of lives were at stake."

  Gates: "Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise."

Whereas before the air of sophistication conned you into thinking the authors knew what they were talking about, it took AI slop for you to see how bad things really are.

Queue the “always have been” meme.

It sort of depends on the expertise of the author, right? In this case, it seems like an actual climate scientist that has moderated his opinion over time, at least that was my takeaway.

That makes it at least as valuable to me as any given "we're all going to die" article that pops up endlessly in these kinds of discussions.

I agree though, that a big problem with these conversations is dealing with complex systems, small signals and potentially large impacts and communicating all that in an effective way.

Most people (myself included) are simply not equipped to understand the details, so we rely on others to explain it to us.

My point was just that I enjoy a more balanced take on the issue.

> Will a billion people die? Probably not

Really underestimating the amount of deaths that will occur when our food production systems start collapsing.

We have a working system. That's why our world's population is so large. And it improved over time, as in more efficient ways to grow food, more productivity, the green revolution, to feed more, then roads/cities/buildings tied to single spots improving efficiency, giving safe housing to billions, mass transport and global logistics.

So what will happen if that gets disrupted? And badly disrupted, while at it. And while that is happening, multiple other things pile up in different ways everywhere?

Thats the danger. You don't die from climate change. You may occasionally die from increasingly frequent extreme weather, a flood because rains, some dam break, extended forest fires and so on. But that is not a single catastrophic event that kill billions. What will kill billions are losing food security in big scale, no safe/climate controlled place to live, violence and wars, widespread diseases and no way to help. In some years to decades millions to billions may die by that combination of factors.

So no, it wont be a single day, sudden event that will kill billions. Is the breakup of the system that holds it together. Agriculture needs a stable climate, megacities need food, the economic system depend on more things, and everything else is packed together. And the first wave of deaths will be just the start.

> “…some may not consider migrations + damagaes to be ‘catastrophic.’”

I think you’re showing a lack of imagination. The COVID shutdown was not that long ago. People lost their minds when they were asked to wear a mask in public.

All you need to do to make a “catastrophe” is imagine the trauma response played out over shorter and shorter time periods.

Now take the speed of natural disasters measured over hours and days. Recovery time over months and years.

Now pile multiple such events back to back and dispersed across the nation.

You will have a Tipping Point where public opinion and suffering overwhelm any attempts by government to restore order with a speech.

Finally, Marshal Law and empty stores.

There you go. Have a nice day.

Well, one plane crashing or one building falling, destroying something valuable and killing "only" a few dozen people is considered a catastrophe. I think we can say the bar for "catastrophe" is lower than that for "apocalypse".

The higher global average temperatures alone are already a yearly catastrophe, by this standard.

Don't forget most animal like lions tigers and bears oh my! Becoming as mythical as a dragon or fairy.... The theft from future generation and children is immeasurable imo

Nobody will notice 1m/3ft rise, except the whole Oceania disappearing, and also Florida getting basically inhabitable, and... details, details.

besides the fact that 40% of the world's population lives near the coast - and that 2-3 feet of sea level rise is not a uniform "the tide used to be 8 feet, now it's 11 feet" - Entire islands in the pacific will disappear - How do you think global trade works? What do you think happens to ports? AMOC collapsing (a byproduct of sea level rise) will have profound effects on climate, despite this author claiming without any evidence whatsoever that "actually it isn't a big deal."

And how will these engineered workarounds be paid for ? It is known workarounds will cost trillions today, NYC alone could cost $1T+. And these workarounds should have been started 5 years ago when it became very clear we will never get off fossil fuels.

I fully expect no workarounds will be done just like Climate Change Mitigations. Getting off fossil fuels should have been seriously started 30 years ago, and maybe even 50 years ago. Instead the politicians have been adding hot air talking and fighting instead of doing real work.

We are now seeing this repeat with "engineered workarounds", no one wants to pay for it, so yes I call BS on the article.

All I can say is I feel real bad the past generations did nothing to really reverse CC, people being born now are looking at a very bleak future.

Fun fact - sea level rose 120m since 20,000 years ago but people seem to have largely not noticed. If you don't have large buildings and planning laws you could just move your shack a few yards inland.

Canada, this year committed to spending $3.9 billion dollars to hopefully have just completed plans for a high-speed train line in six years [1]! The number of years and dollars to actually build the line are unknown at the moment. This is a project that has humongous potential economic upside.

Would Canada be able to build a seawall to protect Vancouver? I am not sure.

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-announces-high-spee...

So after many decades of wildly under estimating the rate of climate change, the same people in the same institutions, answering to the same money, have it sussed out? This simple fact that ALL global shipping happens at sea level, and ALL shipping infrastructue is designed and built to operate in a rarrow range, and that this whole edifice, minutly complicated, can be adjusted continiously along with the million miles of coastal roads and bridges. ?Londan just walled off, all of NYC's wharfs jacked up a bit, sure, sure, whats a few dozen cubic miles of equipment refit worth anyway, phffff

I think this mostly points to us not taking his opinion seriously on the matter.

Most others in the climate science debate have been far more realistic and measured. Similarly, I tend to ignore everything from David Wallace-Wells, another person who has written a ton on climate but from a very different political perspective, who has also been quite wrong.

> Earth's climate always changes over time, it's not unusual, although not always the best for us.

Earth's climate has been stable during the rise of human civilisation. It has changed more in the past 100 years than in the past 200,000.

It's true it's changed often over the course of the 4 billion year history of the pkanet. It's not true to claim it's fluctuated wildly over the course of human civilisation.

> What causes this climate change, how much infuence humans have on it, and how much we could possibly do about it is unclear.

False.

It's clear the cause is the increased insulation factor of the atmosphere. It's clear this change has been in the majority due to human activity dragging up millions of years worth of past captured C02 via fossil fuel extraction.

> That's not a reason to not do anything about it,

Naturally, because as stated it is false to claim the cause is unclear.

> but there's also no reason to be super intense about it.

Sure. It's true that no one alive today in a G20 non equatorial country need fuss much about it - all the real serious consequence will fall after their lives have passed.

He’s literally just giving his opinion. There’s nothing to argue against. He doesn’t provide much if any evidence for his claims and heavily relies on his “authority” on the subject to present them. Climate science largely disagrees.

One of the funnier points in this word salad is when he casually dismisses AMOC collapse without giving any real reason why then “trust me bro.”

What pragmatism?

They are getting cheap electricity from PV and batteries and cheap air conditioners to run on the electricity.

>You have to be supremely ignorant... Bordering on flat earther or evolution denial/young earth creationist... To believe this will work out like that.....

Great place to start with flames.

>This won't be a nice change of pace for your climate. It will be a mass extinction even humans have never experienced. It's obscene even.

The science clearly says that isn't the case at all. Feel free to reference IPCC RCP8.5 scenarios where we magically find extremely more fossil fuels and burn those as well. No extinction is expected even in those scenarios.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene#Climate

The eocene was approximately 14celcius warmer than it is today and life thrived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Interglacial

During the last spike, the eemian, it was about 2 celcius warmer than today. Roughly 100,000 years ago, and that's roughly all we do expect to happen now. Life was thriving.