Climate change may have pushed ancient humans into extinction • Hacker News Board

Re: Climate change may have pushed ancient humans into extinction

#21

Post by lobocinza » Tue, May 11, 2021, 1:59 AM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #6

The previous climatic changes were to “cool” periods because of vulcanology, etc. Humans at that time may not have had the technological know how to counteract the change in climate: agriculture, grain silos, hybrid plants, synthetic materials, medicines, etc., etc. We have full blown plans to survive a nuclear winter, so I think with respect to les anciens, we have a better chance of beating it, unlike the other hum…

Non-extinction scenarios are still bad. People will survive but many will perish. Also, we have more technology but we may be more fragile as our 'efficiency oriented economy' show us.

Re: Climate change may have pushed ancient humans into extinction

#22

Post by adrianN » Tue, May 11, 2021, 4:44 AM UTC

whodidwhatnow wrote: post #8

bioinformatics wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do something then, you can be the example to us all.

> We are fucked, there is no known scalable way to fix the damage if we wanted But there isn't anything to do. We missed our chance.

We likely missed our chance to limit warming to 1.5°, but we haven't missed our chance to stay below 2.5°. Every tenth of a degree counts.

Re: Climate change may have pushed ancient humans into extinction

#23

Post by adrianN » Tue, May 11, 2021, 4:47 AM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #10

yogthos wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and currently pushing modern humans into extinction again

Ridiculous statements like this do not encourage people to take the real serious problems of global warming seriously. It's a crisis which will be a catastrophe, but under no plausible endgame is extinction for us.

Well yeah, humans can survive underground huddled around breeder reactors for hundreds of years. It's pretty hard to get us extinct. It's imho a lot easier to destroy modern civilization as we know it. Widespread wars for water and arable land could totally do it.

Re: Climate change may have pushed ancient humans into extinction

#24

Post by yogthos » Tue, May 11, 2021, 12:21 PM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #10

yogthos wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and currently pushing modern humans into extinction again

Ridiculous statements like this do not encourage people to take the real serious problems of global warming seriously. It's a crisis which will be a catastrophe, but under no plausible endgame is extinction for us.

meanwhile in the real world

* [defaunation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction#Defaunatio...) * [humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild mammals](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-ra...) * [humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970, report finds ](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity...)

We're currently seeing a global ecosystem collapse:

* [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://phys.org/news/2020-03-planet-largest-ecosystems-coll...)

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://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://www.researchgate.net/publication/263472623_Feeding_1...) * [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...)