5 ms·

Billions of people will not die from climate change, if anything they would simply not be born. That is already happening in almost every western democracy as

by erkt 1y ago

Billions of people will not die from climate change, if anything they would simply not be born. That is already happening in almost every western democracy as fertility rates have dropped precipitously. That is not because we have any food shortages: it’s because people are choosing not to have kids because life is so expensive.

tfourb 1y ago
Europe now has hundreds of excess deaths from heat and hundreds of excess deaths from flooding due to events exacerbated or caused entirely by climate change most years. Africa likely already experiences tens of thousands of climate change related deaths each year, although attribution is tricky. Assuming that climate change and its effects are an exponentially escalating phenomenon, why would it be unthinkable that over the next 10/20/50/100 years the cumulative death toll of climate change will reach into the billions?
- HPsquared 1y ago
  It's quite a leap of faith to extrapolate from hundreds up to billions, no?
  - tfourb 1y ago
    It all depends ob your assumptions, i.e. the actual effects of climate change on extreme weather events, the capacity of various polities to adapt to these effects and how you would define "climate change related deaths" and the timeframe you are looking at. Direct fatalities from weather related natural disasters (droughts, floods, storms, etc) between 2005 and 2024 worldwide are estimated somewhere around 200.000 people, so about 10.000 deaths per year [0]. If you assume (just for the sake of the argument) that climate change will increase this death toll by 10% every year for 100 years, direct deaths from natural disasters caused by climate change alone will amount to close to 140.000.000 deaths over that time period. Add to this indirect deaths, i.e. premature deaths due to insufficient nutrition during childhood caused by drought, disease spread by floods, etc. etc. And because the effects of climate change are mostly political in nature, you'll have to make some assumptions about that, too. Sea level rise will affect (as in inundate their current homes at least once a year) more than 600 million people by the year 2100 [1]. Many of these peoples will be displaced and depending on the political and economic capacity of their societies to cope with this displacement, this alone could result in millions of deaths. Climate change is also a contributor to general political instability and the risk of both civil and nation state war. How do you account for those deaths? In summary, the death toll of climate change can inherently not be known. But if you look at the next hundred years, I doubt you can assume a number of less than in the hundreds of millions, if we assume climate change effects based on current estimates of "status quo" emissions. Which makes emission reductions essential, because there is a literal connection between an additional ton of CO2 in the atmosphere and an increase in the number of deaths. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-from-natural-disasters?time=2005..latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-from-nat... [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z
    - HPsquared 1y ago
      Simply assuming 10% compound growth year-on-year without any basis is, frankly, ridiculous.
      - tfourb 1y ago
        Which is why I wrote "for the sake of the argument". You can of course make your own assumptions, but for my money, 10% is not necessarily unrealistic. The average global temperature is already rising by several percentage points each year: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/temperature-anomaly https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/temperature-anomaly Temperature = energy and more energy will necessarily lead to an increased number of and more severe weather events which in turn will claim more lives. Natural disasters also have the nasty tendency to have tipping points. If a disaster (or a string of disasters) overwhelms the ability of a society to mitigate its effects, deaths rise exponentially not linearly with the severity of the event. I.e. the U.S. government can likely mitigate the effects of any one hurricane, but a series of catastrophic hurricanes might lead to a total collapse of the disaster response system, leading to potentially tens of thousands of deaths which otherwise could have been avoided. And again: direct deaths from natural disasters are only one aspect of climate change and likely a minor one. Indirect effects will likely play an even bigger role, i.e. premature deaths due to worsening life conditions for children and elderly people, mass displacement/migration or political crises up to and including war.
        franktankbank 1y ago
        > The average global temperature is already rising by several percentage points each year This marks you as an unserious person in the matter being discussed.
        tfourb 1y ago
        Why? Because I used the term "percentage points" incorrectly? Or do you have an issue with the facts? Those are: In 1976, global average temperature was 0.15 degrees C above the 1861-1890 mean. 50 years later, in 2024 it was 1.54 degrees above. On average, that's a 2.79 percent increase in the temperature anomaly per year over the past 50 years. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/climate-change?Metric=Temperature+anomaly&Long-run+series=false https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/climate-change?Metric=T... If you look at the graph and the scientific forecasts, it would be dumb not to assume that the rate of temperature increase will increase if we do not drastically cut down emissions quickly. If such a scenario doesn't scare the pants off you, you either have very little investment in the state of the world past 2050 or you are unreasonably confident that it won't impact you or your loved ones.
- vixen99 1y ago
  https://ourworldindata.org/part-one-how-many-people-die-from-extreme-temperatures-and-how-could-this-change-in-the-future https://ourworldindata.org/part-one-how-many-people-die-from... "Cold deaths vastly outnumber heat-related ones, but mostly due to “moderate” rather than extremely cold conditions."
  - defrost 1y ago
    That's a useful baseline for future comparisons. Currently (mostly) cities don't see Death Valley or Marble Bar range tempretures or beyond .. this will change. Government statistics show there were more than 10,000 heat-related deaths in the UK alone between 2020 and 2024. Close to 3,000 people died amidst the record-breaking 2022 heatwaves, when UK temperatures exceeded 40C for the first time. Despite this, the UK remains unprepared for extreme heat. ~ https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/07/14/to-help-people-prepare-for-extreme-heat-we-must-communicate-better https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/07/14/to-help-people-... Extreme heat could lead to 30,000 deaths a year in England and Wales by 2070s, say scientists ~ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/10/extreme-heat-death-rate-england-wales-by-2070-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/10/extreme-...
    - chopin 1y ago
      That would be roughly on par with Germany's deaths related to infections contracted in a hospital. That doesn't make it into headlines.
      - defrost 1y ago
        That's just the UK (high latitude), at tempretures lower than current tempretures in Death Valley / Marble Bar. Give it time for higher tempretures to reach dense urban centres, look to India and equatorial countries that'll experience both high temp and high humidity and you'll see heat exhaustion deaths rise to well past those anglocentric numbers. The more serious numbers will come from climate related conflict and migration in any case (assuming no change in increasing emmissions, even assuming a flattening to a steady human annual addition).
DonHopkins 1y ago
>people are choosing not to have kids because life is so expensive. Finally a positive outcome of capitalism!
- lynx97 1y ago
  Having children is subsidized where I come from. To a point where getting pregnant is a strategy to secure a form of UBI for certain low-income people. I think the reasons for lowered birth rates are much more hedonistic and less related to costs.
  - DonHopkins 1y ago
    Not wanting to bring children into an overpopulated polluted overheating stormy flooding jobless fascist warring world of burning bombed out cities and ICE concentration camps run by heath care and science denying oligarchs and religious zealots is hardly hedonism.
    - amarait 1y ago
      That is hardly a reason. People used to starve and had tens of children. Why dont we just accept that is cultural?
      - lotsofpulp 1y ago
        Culture meaning women having economic freedom, physical security, and access to birth control? Women don't have "tens" of children due to culture, they have them due to not having an option. The data says they (as a global group) barely want 2 or 3 (which makes sense to those that have seen the risks and tribulations).
      - Scarblac 1y ago
        Since then we have invented much more reliable methods of birth control and have managed to bring infant mortality way down.

by erkt 1y ago

tfourb 1y ago

Europe now has hundreds of excess deaths from heat and hundreds of excess deaths from flooding due to events exacerbated or caused entirely by climate change most years. Africa likely already experiences tens of thousands of climate change related deaths each year, although attribution is tricky. Assuming that climate change and its effects are an exponentially escalating phenomenon, why would it be unthinkable that over the next 10/20/50/100 years the cumulative death toll of climate change will reach into the billions?

HPsquared 1y ago
It's quite a leap of faith to extrapolate from hundreds up to billions, no?
- tfourb 1y ago
  It all depends ob your assumptions, i.e. the actual effects of climate change on extreme weather events, the capacity of various polities to adapt to these effects and how you would define "climate change related deaths" and the timeframe you are looking at. Direct fatalities from weather related natural disasters (droughts, floods, storms, etc) between 2005 and 2024 worldwide are estimated somewhere around 200.000 people, so about 10.000 deaths per year [0]. If you assume (just for the sake of the argument) that climate change will increase this death toll by 10% every year for 100 years, direct deaths from natural disasters caused by climate change alone will amount to close to 140.000.000 deaths over that time period. Add to this indirect deaths, i.e. premature deaths due to insufficient nutrition during childhood caused by drought, disease spread by floods, etc. etc. And because the effects of climate change are mostly political in nature, you'll have to make some assumptions about that, too. Sea level rise will affect (as in inundate their current homes at least once a year) more than 600 million people by the year 2100 [1]. Many of these peoples will be displaced and depending on the political and economic capacity of their societies to cope with this displacement, this alone could result in millions of deaths. Climate change is also a contributor to general political instability and the risk of both civil and nation state war. How do you account for those deaths? In summary, the death toll of climate change can inherently not be known. But if you look at the next hundred years, I doubt you can assume a number of less than in the hundreds of millions, if we assume climate change effects based on current estimates of "status quo" emissions. Which makes emission reductions essential, because there is a literal connection between an additional ton of CO2 in the atmosphere and an increase in the number of deaths. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-from-natural-disasters?time=2005..latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-from-nat... [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z
  - HPsquared 1y ago
    Simply assuming 10% compound growth year-on-year without any basis is, frankly, ridiculous.
    - tfourb 1y ago
      Which is why I wrote "for the sake of the argument". You can of course make your own assumptions, but for my money, 10% is not necessarily unrealistic. The average global temperature is already rising by several percentage points each year: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/temperature-anomaly https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/temperature-anomaly Temperature = energy and more energy will necessarily lead to an increased number of and more severe weather events which in turn will claim more lives. Natural disasters also have the nasty tendency to have tipping points. If a disaster (or a string of disasters) overwhelms the ability of a society to mitigate its effects, deaths rise exponentially not linearly with the severity of the event. I.e. the U.S. government can likely mitigate the effects of any one hurricane, but a series of catastrophic hurricanes might lead to a total collapse of the disaster response system, leading to potentially tens of thousands of deaths which otherwise could have been avoided. And again: direct deaths from natural disasters are only one aspect of climate change and likely a minor one. Indirect effects will likely play an even bigger role, i.e. premature deaths due to worsening life conditions for children and elderly people, mass displacement/migration or political crises up to and including war.
      - franktankbank 1y ago
        > The average global temperature is already rising by several percentage points each year This marks you as an unserious person in the matter being discussed.
        tfourb 1y ago
        Why? Because I used the term "percentage points" incorrectly? Or do you have an issue with the facts? Those are: In 1976, global average temperature was 0.15 degrees C above the 1861-1890 mean. 50 years later, in 2024 it was 1.54 degrees above. On average, that's a 2.79 percent increase in the temperature anomaly per year over the past 50 years. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/climate-change?Metric=Temperature+anomaly&Long-run+series=false https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/climate-change?Metric=T... If you look at the graph and the scientific forecasts, it would be dumb not to assume that the rate of temperature increase will increase if we do not drastically cut down emissions quickly. If such a scenario doesn't scare the pants off you, you either have very little investment in the state of the world past 2050 or you are unreasonably confident that it won't impact you or your loved ones.
vixen99 1y ago
https://ourworldindata.org/part-one-how-many-people-die-from-extreme-temperatures-and-how-could-this-change-in-the-future https://ourworldindata.org/part-one-how-many-people-die-from... "Cold deaths vastly outnumber heat-related ones, but mostly due to “moderate” rather than extremely cold conditions."
- defrost 1y ago
  That's a useful baseline for future comparisons. Currently (mostly) cities don't see Death Valley or Marble Bar range tempretures or beyond .. this will change. Government statistics show there were more than 10,000 heat-related deaths in the UK alone between 2020 and 2024. Close to 3,000 people died amidst the record-breaking 2022 heatwaves, when UK temperatures exceeded 40C for the first time. Despite this, the UK remains unprepared for extreme heat. ~ https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/07/14/to-help-people-prepare-for-extreme-heat-we-must-communicate-better https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/07/14/to-help-people-... Extreme heat could lead to 30,000 deaths a year in England and Wales by 2070s, say scientists ~ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/10/extreme-heat-death-rate-england-wales-by-2070-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/10/extreme-...
  - chopin 1y ago
    That would be roughly on par with Germany's deaths related to infections contracted in a hospital. That doesn't make it into headlines.
    - defrost 1y ago
      That's just the UK (high latitude), at tempretures lower than current tempretures in Death Valley / Marble Bar. Give it time for higher tempretures to reach dense urban centres, look to India and equatorial countries that'll experience both high temp and high humidity and you'll see heat exhaustion deaths rise to well past those anglocentric numbers. The more serious numbers will come from climate related conflict and migration in any case (assuming no change in increasing emmissions, even assuming a flattening to a steady human annual addition).

DonHopkins 1y ago

>people are choosing not to have kids because life is so expensive. Finally a positive outcome of capitalism!

lynx97 1y ago
Having children is subsidized where I come from. To a point where getting pregnant is a strategy to secure a form of UBI for certain low-income people. I think the reasons for lowered birth rates are much more hedonistic and less related to costs.
- DonHopkins 1y ago
  Not wanting to bring children into an overpopulated polluted overheating stormy flooding jobless fascist warring world of burning bombed out cities and ICE concentration camps run by heath care and science denying oligarchs and religious zealots is hardly hedonism.
  - amarait 1y ago
    That is hardly a reason. People used to starve and had tens of children. Why dont we just accept that is cultural?
    - lotsofpulp 1y ago
      Culture meaning women having economic freedom, physical security, and access to birth control? Women don't have "tens" of children due to culture, they have them due to not having an option. The data says they (as a global group) barely want 2 or 3 (which makes sense to those that have seen the risks and tribulations).
    - Scarblac 1y ago
      Since then we have invented much more reliable methods of birth control and have managed to bring infant mortality way down.