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A 3°C world has no safe place

economist.com

91–100 of 291 posts

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#91

What are they talking about? In the US this will mean more rain in many regions and longer growing seasons. A lot of plants will quickly adapt. Historically, our planet for most of its history was warmer. It’s all going to be fine, while we will need to adjust the world will continue on. Note: I’m not saying it won’t be hard, but this will be a gradual change and will actually assist some places, while others get mor…

The geopolitical reality of, say, a billion people in India becoming climate refugees is likely to have worldwide implications.

The ballistics industry should be rubbing their hands.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly both of them are small, and I think citing the degrees is just terrible messaging altogether. I think people would gladly accept & adapt to even a 5°F increase; I know I would. The problem is that doesn't capture anything about the local variation (and impacts like hurricanes, fires, etc.), and that even beyond that, we're absolutely destroying everything about our planet as we know it, and a single-degree c…

Try to sit in a bath of 36°C. You can sit there for hours. Now switch to a bath of 38°C. After a while you'll be sweaty, sluggish, tired, breath harder etc. They have this at the St. Gellert baths in Budapest: https://afar-production.imgix.net/uploads/images/post_images...

People live in extremely hot weather. And air conditioning is a thing. A few degrees in temperature change is quite manageable.

(And btw, not everyone lives in 36°C. Try to get those who live in a 20°C weather to care about a 2°C change even without air conditioning.)

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#94

What are they talking about? In the US this will mean more rain in many regions and longer growing seasons. A lot of plants will quickly adapt. Historically, our planet for most of its history was warmer. It’s all going to be fine, while we will need to adjust the world will continue on. Note: I’m not saying it won’t be hard, but this will be a gradual change and will actually assist some places, while others get mor…

"Gradual" ... Ob. xkcd:

https://xkcd.com/1732/

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The northern US and Canada were barren mud and rock 12000 years ago. They'll adapt.

Like the wooly mammoths did!

Adaptation by extinction, the best one.

Except people can adapt to living in very warm areas and will adapt even more by using science. e.g. better (GMO) crop, bioreactors, solar powered desalinators, huge water pipes (why not? when we can have huge oil pipes) and so on

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#96
post #17

What are they talking about? In the US this will mean more rain in many regions and longer growing seasons. A lot of plants will quickly adapt. Historically, our planet for most of its history was warmer. It’s all going to be fine, while we will need to adjust the world will continue on. Note: I’m not saying it won’t be hard, but this will be a gradual change and will actually assist some places, while others get mor…

Will they adapt to the raging wildfires that ~1.2C has already induced across much of the west coast? That's some adaptin'!

Wildfires on the west coast are far less common than they were 80 years ago. Humans are going to be a-ok

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#97
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of fresh water in the US is a solvable issue. We have oceans all around us and the US has the know-how to ship fresh, desalinated water from the coast to middle america.

Not for agricultural use in the Midwest, that the current issue. I mean, this is an issue right now, not in 20 years. BTW, this issue is solvable if everyone agree that meat should be rationned: no corn and some GMO wheat to produce carbs for human consumption only, a lot more vegetables and more forestry could do the trick.

US uses 118B gallons of water/day in agricultural usage. Desal costs about 2k/acre-foot (325,851 gallons).

That's ~724MM/day in water costs or 264B/year for water. US GDP is 21 Trillion.

As cost of water increases, conservation becomes more economical. Say all agriculture switches to hydroponics as a result. Hydroponics uses 1/10th the water of traditional methods...so we're talking now just 26B/year of water costs.

In 2017 US farms spent 359B on operations.

Food will become more expensive, but overall we'll be fine.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#98
post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

I’ll try to help you feel less bitter it may not work. The problem is not your fellow man or the need to burn to keep warm and provide energy… the problem is simple, there are too many of us. I don’t view this as an impossible thing to over come rather I trust we will over come this - you will wake up tomorrow drive or not to work and continue on your merry way. The economy is shifting to more efficient energy sources. And tomorrow will be another day. Earth has the best atmosphere and gravity of any planet in the solar system. Whether we live in domes here or not it’s the best option until we break the light barrier and learn to live forever.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#99
post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

There's a lot of concrete and steel in the urban lifestyle, which according to Gates are the biggest contributors to global warming. Not saying urban lifestyle is the worst, but there's a good chance it's just not enough.

My guess is no matter what we do we're over the limit, a reduction in one thing leads to an increase in another, and probably population reduction is the only solution.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#100
post #90
post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

You're asking people to suffering annoyances and spend lots of money when the average income has been going down for 40 years. I'm surprised you're surprised.

> average income has been going down for 40 years

Not true [1]. This is true across economic strata, with real stagnation being the plague of our most destitute.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RPI

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