So would you rather be Peter Theil's blood bag or a War Boy in Lord Musk's army?

  • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Civilization collapse in this context still means north america will be fine, northern europe (especially north east Europe) will also most likely be fine. I want everyone to make sure they understand who will be most impacted by this shit.

    It's places closer to the equator that don't have the insanely large fresh water supplies that north america have that are going to be absolutely fucked. Especially because they don't have nearly as high tech of an agricultural industry.

    Canada will be the richest country in the world because of its by far the highest population to fresh water ratio.

    • Infranto [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Americans not being able to fill the cold, dead void in their hearts with endless consumer goods that were produced by people earning slave wages will probably cause a lot of instability, though.

      • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 years ago

        As a matter of fact I think the opposite is more likely. America will be able to maintain global hegemony as the world's largest supplier of food. It could if anything return the US back to an era like it was in the 60s where the US represented a much larger percentage of the worlds economic activity.

        • Coolkidbozzy [he/him]
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 years ago

          Nope. The central valley of California will face Sahara-like conditions which will fuck up the domestic food supply https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/temperature-climate-change-greenhouse-gas-niche-emissions-hot/

          • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
            ·
            4 years ago

            Food exports such as soybeans and corn for cattle feed are produced largely in the watershed created by the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. This is a key geopolitical strength that the US has that few countries come close to having. Climate change can result in more hurricane type events that damage crops there, but it isn't the same sort of problem we see in the central valley.

            The central valley is a real concern, but so would the foreign supplies for most of the premium food products that are produced their in other parts of the world. Avocados aren't a sustanence crop. Still relative to other countries the US isn't in an especially bad spot.

            • Oxbinder [any]
              ·
              4 years ago

              I wonder if nuking a few mountains would get rid of that rain shadow?

    • Crispo [they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Poorer countries will definitely be the worst off, but “fine” paints a very different picture than what I’ve seen scientists say about North America.

      • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        At the 2 degree climate change that's currently what we're on track for, the decline in crop production within the Mississippi/Missouri River watershed will still produce far more food than it did prior to the green revolution of the 60s which doubled crop yields. Reductions in crop yields are far worse in other regions of the world like say, India or within south america.

          • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            4 years ago

            Even the most extreme of alarmists point at 3-5 degrees of warming and even then that wouldn't happen for a very long time for the upper part of that even in a worst case scenario.

        • Crispo [they/them]
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 years ago

          I see where you’re coming from, but this line of thinking tends towards a soft denialism imo. There is no place on earth that will be “fine”, just places that will be somewhat less catastrophically changed. I’m skeptical this is a useful exercise.

    • Will2Live [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Canada will be the richest country in the world because of its by far the highest population to fresh water ratio.

      Great, as a Canadian I (don't) look forward to the super ecofash anti-refugee movement that will pop up here sometime in my lifetime once people start realizing this...

    • Mardoniush [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Strongly disagree. At 3 degrees or more we're looking at the majority of European and NA Agricultural zones collapsing from seasonal instability. And no you can't farm permafrost.

      This is a "New Zealand with 300 million people" scenario.

      • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        4 years ago

        3 degrees is considered an extreme scenario, currently people are focused on fighting off 1.5 degrees change and more practically fighting off 2 degrees.

        3 degrees is theorized to only be what happens if we do absolutely nothing over the next 30 years and only then begin a project to decarbonize.

        • Mardoniush [she/her]
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 years ago

          No. It assumes that none of the feedback cycles have begun, which they almost certainly have.

          6-12 degrees is the BAU scenario, and honestly unless we get to negative carbon by 2030 it looks like we're headed to 4 degrees minimum.

          Source is depressing dinner conversations with pals at the Australian Board of Meteorology.

            • Mardoniush [she/her]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Some say it's unethical, others point out the meta effects.

              Children encourage longer term thinking, and educated ecologically aware children are going to be needed in the key crisis years.

          • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            4 years ago

            This is a fair point, but it still comes off as being alarmist relative to other well sourced and circulated studies on this stuff.

            There is very limited discussion about things getting as bad as your saying. We haven't really been seeing governments really anywhere raise alarms for such a level of warming. Abet most assumptions that feedback cycles don't start until significantly worse levels of warming than what exist today.

            • communistthrowaway69 [none/use name]
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              4 years ago

              Not much point in arguing about how bad the future will be but, I'd point out that people would have called our current situation alarmist in 1995.

              Like, the alarmists have been consistently right, and maybe have even underestimated things.

              The former worst case scenarios are what's happening. And the ways out of them assume a trajectory on climate action that is not happening, and essentially fictional technology like global mass carbon capture.

              4 degrees by 2100 really seems like what we're heading for. The Trump admin might have been trolling, but their estimates say 7c.

              • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                4 years ago

                The one area where I will say there is substantial unsubstantiated alarmism is around the issue of sea level rise which to me has raised some skepticism around other certain aspects of climate change in terms of how bad it could practically get. By the time there is major sea level rise, everything else would be so fucked it wouldn't matter.

              • aqwxcvbnji [none/use name]
                ·
                4 years ago

                4 degrees by 2100 really seems like what we’re heading for. The Trump admin might have been trolling, but their estimates say 7c.

                I thought 7°C would be insane, so I googled it, and found this article in the Washington post about it which says:

                A rise of seven degrees Fahrenheit, or about four degrees Celsius

                So you were right with the 4°C. It's just confusing that they use two different ways to measure it.

        • Superduperthx [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          3 degrees is theorized to only be what happens if we do absolutely nothing over the next 30 years and only then begin a project to decarbonize.

          I'd say that's a pretty optimistic future if we're looking at how things have been going so far.

    • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Civilization collapse in this context still means north america will be fine, northern europe (especially north east Europe) will also most likely be fine. I want everyone to make sure they understand who will be most impacted by this shit.

      Not sure about Northern Europe, but from what I've heard Central Europe is quite vulnerable. I remember reading that The Atlantic Ocean current is in danger of disappearing/reversing, which will make the relatively mild climate of Central Europe similar to the northeast of the United States. Which obviously isn't an extinction event, but it can be catastrophic as they'd need to adapt their crop growth and increase their dependence on natural gas (which if I'm not mistaken is the primary means of heating homes there).

      • kristina [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        finland, russia, and sweden have a ton of fresh water lakes. norway might get fucked by mountainside collapses though

    • Awoo [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      What is the ecological impact on China? I know it's a very large region but some general ideas must exist.

      • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        China is much more arid than the US, especially in the north. The southern part gets a ton of rain, but can be hilly and would be the part of the country most impacted by climate change. Their agricultural sector will always depend on imports if they want to provide things like meat to their entire population.

        • pooh [she/her, love/loves]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 years ago

          Could Siberia become viable farm land? I realize Siberia isn't part of China, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had their eye on it.

          • kacwawa [none/use name]
            ·
            4 years ago

            Lol Russian nationalists have been warning that the Chinese will invade Siberia any day

            • pooh [she/her, love/loves]
              ·
              4 years ago

              I mean, if we're talking potential global collapse, it would make sense if the Chinese were at least considering it, given how sparsely populated and resource rich Siberia is.

          • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
            ·
            edit-2
            4 years ago

            Siberia is huge, but it's also both mountainous and relatively arid depending on what part we're talking about as a whole. The fertile land in Russia is in the west

      • kacwawa [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        PAAG production down 50% since there is no food imports to fuel expanding posteriors

    • dallasw
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

      • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 years ago

        Environmental related problems have hurt people for as long as human civilization has existed is the thing. Climate change would have to accelerate far worse than people are predicting to result in a collapse of the various nation states within north america.

        The green revolution of the 60s resulted in far greater crop production per acre than climate change is expected to decrease production within the key regions for US food production less California kinda.

        The US is so highly developed that it's impact here is far from civilization ending, that isn't true in other parts of the world both for development and broader geographical reasons.