How Apocalyptic Is Now?

The article seems to completely forget about climate change. The current pandemic is going to look like a tiny speed bump in a few years when we start seeing regular deadly heat waves, crop failures, and other natural disasters. Billions of people are going to be displaced, and we'll see wars for the remaining livable land. The effects of climate change are all around us already, and they're happening much faster than any of the models predicted:

* new research indicates that parts of the Amazon and other tropical forests are now emitting more CO2 than they absorb https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-carbon-cycle-feedbacks-co...

* one billion people will suffer from “unliveable” heat within 50 years, study finds https://e360.yale.edu/digest/one-billion-people-will-suffer-...

* potentially fatal bouts of heat and humidity on the rise, study finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/08/climate-...

* study finds ocean ecosystems likely to collapse in 2020s and land species in 2040s unless global warming stemmed https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/wildlife...

* studies show drought and heat waves will cause massive die-offs, killing most trees alive today https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24042020/forest-trees-cli...

* multiple overlapping crises could trigger 'Global Systemic Collapse' https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn...

* 246 academics call on government to act now to avoid global collapse https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-acad...

* Planet's largest ecosystems collapse faster than previously forecast https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15029-x

World's oceans are also acidifying to a similar rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification#Rate as the Permian extinction (but again in 100 years instead of 20k-60k), with an anoxic event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event#Consequences locked in after 1,000ppm or 360 gigatons https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170920182116.h..., which we will reach by 2100 at the latest. So that's whatever's left wiped out.

And here's what's currently happening with food production. Two different groups of 200+ scientists and academics, separately from each other, each warned of near-term global collapse:

* https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn...

* https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-acad...

Examples of record-breaking crop failures currently happening:

* https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/midwe...

* https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/19/extreme-heat-wave-hits-us-fa...

* https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/15/austr...

* https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/20/crop-fai...

* https://www.zerohedge.com/health/historic-midwest-blizzard-h...

* https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/low-rice-crop-lead...

* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...

* https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-whammy-corn-belt.html

* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/12/britain-facing-p...

* https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2019-08-01-drou...

* https://phys.org/news/2020-01-atlantic-circulation-collapse-...

* https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-threat-global-breadbas...

* https://phys.org/news/2019-12-large-atmospheric-jet-stream-g...

Scientific studies projecting future crop failures:

* Schlenker and Roberts, 2009. Nonlinear temperature effects indicate severe damages to US crop yields under climate change. PNAS, 106(37), pp.15594-15598 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/37/15594.full

* Mora et al, 2015. Suitable days for plant growth disappear under projected climate change: Potential human and biotic vulnerability. PLoS bio, 13(6), p.e1002167 https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...

* Schauberger et al, 2017. Consistent negative response of US crops to high temperatures in observations and crop models. Nature Comms, 8, p.13931. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13931

* Sakschewski et al, 2014. Feeding 10 billion people under climate change: How large is the production gap of current agricultural systems?. Ecological modelling, 288, pp.103-111 https://booksc.xyz/book/30274837/03002c

* Liang et al, 2017. Determining climate effects on US total agricultural productivity. PNAS, 114(12), pp.E2285-E2292 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/12/E2285?collection=

News articles about projected crop failures:

* UN says passing 2C will have a 'very high projected risk' of global food supply instabilities https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/news/climate-change-could-trigg...

* UN says passing 2C would cause 'multi-breadbasket failure' https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/climate/climate-change-fo...)

* UN says passing 2C would cause 60% of global wheat to be subjected to 'Severe Water Scarcity (SVS)' drought events https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/26/new-research-wa...

Given that our response to the pandemic has been to largely ignore the science and try to get back to business as usual and we're still largely pretending that climate change isn't happening, I don't really have much hope for continued existence of human civilization.

IMO, trying to understand historical processes in terms of political theories is more noise than signal.

Medieval english king alfred kept a chronicle of his time. Viking invasions such. His "political theories" were religious: righteous christians, pagans, heretics, divine justice & such. That's how they understood their history.

Biblical "chronicles" like the book of kings, judges & such offer a similar take. Sin & righteousness determine wars, invasions, usurpations & coups.... apocalyptical or otherwise.

Move into the French, American & derivitive revolutions of 1700-1800s: Reason, Industrialism, Enlightenment Philosophy & such. revolutions. Political theories. Liberty. Rights. etc. Instead of righteous & piety, radical liberals would build free & just societies.

So... French liberty culminates in a pretty vicious and vindictive early republic which soon crowns an emperor. American liberty did not seem overly bothered by an institution of slavery that was vast and cruel enough to make a pharaoh uneasy. Liberty didn't apply to native americans and often "person" meant just male landowners.

Meanwhile the theoretically opposite British, with their anti-liberal constitutional monarchy... Not really less "liberal" in practice, from a historical perspective.

Liberal or conservative commentators from the period (even modern ones) seem to think everything is derivative of the political theories battling it out. It's not that different from ancient judeans or medieval saxons interpreting every event via their religious lens.

IRL, the relationship between political theories, practice, & history is chaotic & uncorrelated.

Liberalism, socialism, communism, etc.... theory does not generate into reality, hardly ever.

It's a shame that HN has become full doomer. The virus is nowhere near as bad as the clickbait factories want you to believe because fear is such a good profit generator for them.

Europe had many more dialects and languages than now... Some of extinction stories are genocidal as well. We have to assume a lot about what happened as Rome colonised southern europe, for example, but much of it probably rhymes what happened in the americas.

this is like people comparing the indigenous african slave trade to the triangle trade - completely facile.

>Rome colonised southern europe

colonization in the ancient world wasn't rapacious like it was in the new world. conquered peoples maintained much of their way of life and simply became vassal. in the roman case (towards the end) they even got roman citizenship.

Edit:I finally figured out hn downvotes - paper over a genocide nbd - use the word facile downvotes