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The report does include a >50% human mortality extreme category and the author of the article is referring to a separate report suggesting 3°C is much more like
by tejohnso 1mo ago
The report does include a >50% human mortality extreme category and the author of the article is referring to a separate report suggesting 3°C is much more likely than expected. I think it's pretty reasonable to think that an extreme climate would cause extreme mortality. The report is pretty confusing to digest.
But because you think that particular consequence is overstated in the article, you're suggesting that the article itself is a lie? The title refers to the lie that we still have more time and that we don't need to get to work immediately to address climate change. It's about the overall lackadaisical attitude toward the climate emergency.
You seem to be suggesting a dismissal of the article's core message.
So, are you suggesting that we actually have plenty of time to deal with climate change, and that things like "Net Zero by 2050" correctly convey the severity of the situation?
What is your assessment of the current year number of deaths attributable to climate change, and expected number of deaths at a 3°C above baseline global average temperature?
- square_usual 1mo ago> I think it's pretty reasonable to think that an extreme climate would cause extreme mortality. No, it's not reasonable. They're using the same label, but there's no evidence showing that.
- b112 1mo agoThere are entirely different reasons. War. Make a people's land unliveable, and make it so they cannot grow crops any more, and those people will come for your land. Imagine if 1B people decide to move to where another 1B people live, but are still struggling with climate change? Barely making it by? So I agree with your point, 100%. You are right in the direct mortality. But also felt a tangential point of "secondary effects" was important, and this seems a good place to put it. Global warming isn't going to actually kill many people. Instead humans fighting over resources will, I think. An example. Canada has a population of 40 to 50million. Now imagine if for whatever reasons, much of the Souther US becomes unliveable, and at the same time, Northern Canada becomes viable as a place to live. Now you have 100M people wanting to cross a border in a period of a few years. How can a country of 50M absorb 100M in that period of time? Chaos. That won't end well.
- yorwba 1mo agoNowadays, a farmer who can't grow crops anymore doesn't necessarily have to find a farm elsewhere, but could also move to a nearby city and work in a factory. That option is enticing enough for many that they'll choose it even when their farm is doing fine. Agricultural employment is generally on a downward trend. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?most_rec... You may wonder where that city is going to get their food if it can't be grown nearby, but food can be traded across long distances and often already is. So a more likely scenario is that Canada massively expands agriculture with a relatively small number of agricultural workers, many of whom might certainly be immigrants, and then trades the surplus. The one case where long-distance migrations will be unavailable are island countries that can't handle rising sea levels, but fortunately even put together they don't have very large populations, and in some cases resettlement agreements are already in place.
- b112 1mo agoCanada expand agriculture. Where? Certainly not to land up north. Growing seasons are bracketed by more than just land and temperature. It's also bracketed by sunlight. Very little will grow north. (22 hour long summer days for a one month period doesn't equate to six months of sunlight half the day. It just doesn't work that way.)
- Martinussen 1mo agoEven though I agree that what the other commenter is saying is a fever dream, I do have to note that crops grow great in Norway and Sweden... so it's at least a little to do with temperature, surely.
- tejohnso 1mo agoNo evidence? The extreme global average temperatures haven't happened in the entire history of human civilization, so the kind of evidence you might be expecting is tough to come by. But there are dozens of papers suggesting what might happen using trend projection and knowledge of agricultural and sociopolitical constraints, if you care to look. There is also the fact that heat related deaths are already in the hundreds of thousands per year and the trend is upward. The fact that someone finds it unreasonable to think that an extreme climate would cause extreme mortality is ... interesting.
- mvdtnz 1mo ago> I think it's pretty reasonable to think that an extreme climate would cause extreme mortality. Is this the standard of evidence we want to use to develop policies that will upend economies and impact the lives of billions of people? "It sounds about right"?
- simmerup 1mo agoSo just crack on with a +3 degree rise. So much for human ingenuity, when being able to buy plastic shit on amazon is prized over having a temperate world. We wouldn’t want anything to threaten the line going up.
- antonvs 1mo ago> I think it's pretty reasonable to think that an extreme climate would cause extreme mortality. Classic equivocation fallacy on the word “extreme” in two different contexts. If our arguments are so transparently wrong, it makes it easier to dismiss climate change. > So, are you suggesting that we actually have plenty of time to deal with climate change As Babbage put it, I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
- tejohnso 1mo agoThe article is about not having time to waste. It is not about the expectation of what might happen at the extreme. I understand it's easier to dismiss and point out an equivocation fallacy than to discuss the main position of the article. As T.S Eliot put it, humankind cannot bear very much reality.