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Comment by pulisse | Hacker News Reader

> I just don’t see how we’re getting out of this alive.

Even worst case predictions for climate change don't imply the human race will be threatened. But what we will see is massive geopolitical disruption as previously habitable regions become uninhabitable. What happens when coastal Myanmar is underwater or southern India experiences 130 degree days on a regular basis? Climate change is going to make itself felt over the coming decades as increases in migrant crises, regional conflicts, and famines. (Not to mention economic loss as, e.g., the agricultural viability of large areas changes.)

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How can you not think the human race will be threatened by all those factors?

Forget about the geopolitcal issues, which will indeed be massive. What about food production?

In 2010 a single heat wave triggered the Arab spring revolts a couple of months later.

> The wildfires destroyed one-third of Russia's wheat harvest. The Russian government refused to export the rest of its harvest and set a grain export ban to fight inflation. This led to extremely high food prices, which led to panicking on the global markets. Many experts including from the International Food Policy Research Institute say that the Russian wildfires in summer 2010 played a leading role in triggering the Arab Spring starting in 2010, especially in Egypt's case. Higher food prices helped to make oppression, poverty, and corruption under autocratic leaders even more aching for the local population. Also, as Russia was not even a member of the WTO at the time, banning exports was not a problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires

We are approaching a world were these kind of problems with food production will be globalized and will affect everything but specially the global economy.

Slightly off-topic: Is there data on how many people don’t put children into our world because of this?

I don't know, but I really feel like we should be talking about this. Migrant cries and famines tend to cause war. It seems like a curl joke to raise a child in this world of plenty only to destroy it before their adulthood.

Arguably, keeping evolution going aka providing our offspring a good future is pretty much the only purpose of life. I don't have a problem with anyone choosing different goals for themselves, but the crowd advising "shouldn't have children because outlook not great" just seem crazy to me. We should do better exactly for those to come after us, so at best this mindset is the same as "giving up, to late" all over again, just in a less obvious form.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "threatened". Sure, humans will continue to exist, we won't go extinct, at least not globally. But we're looking at local and possibly global societal collapse. If we're back 500 years in the past developmentally and technologically, that's a huge deal. Maybe even if you survive, can you go back to a world without vaccines, antibiotics and mass communication?

Do you think we can lose 500 years of tech development globally? I can see some areas becoming challenging and definitely a slowdown in progress but it seems unlikely that all this knowledge will evaporate

I don't have a good answer to that question, I'm not sure anyone does. But if society collapses, much of that knowledge goes with it. Our society is incredibly complex and fragile, with a very high degree of specialization. That makes us vulnerable to these kinds of issues.

While the "dark ages" were hardly dark and ignorant, the collapse of the Roman empire meant advanced road building and concrete were lost for 1500 years. So there is some historical precedent here.

500 years would put us back to 1500ish, I can’t see that, steam technology and electric motors/turbines are simply doable (and where done) with not much technology to boot strap from, hand tools made machines which made specialised machines which repeated for generations but the first step comes back to steam and electrification.

It’s not like every book in every library would or could disappear.

I think there is a problem with knowledge being very dencly concentrated and supply chains being so long.

If you took someone who worked in a steel mill I bet they would have no idea how to produce steel from first principles. They know what their job entails, they know which bits of equipment need serviced an maintained but they don't know how to get from rocks to bar stock.

Similarly if you had a perfectly working steel mill and you cut the supply of coke or iron ore few would know how to get it up and running again. If you cut the supply of the alloying elements you might get a passable mild steel but not one to the exact specifications you require.

I think it's probably surprising how few vital links you have to cut before life as we know it breaks down.

We might lose electronics and such, but we won't forget that a wood stove is more efficient than an open fireplace. We won't forget that it's a good idea to dig your outhouse far away from your source of drinking water.

as a reminder, the original comment was "I don't see how we are getting out of this alive"

A lot of people will die due to climate change and the ensuing political instability.

If extreme political instability from climate change leads to nuclear war, that could threaten human extinction.

With melting Himalayan glaciers, I am a bit worried on how Pakistan, India and China will deal with water rarefaction.

>Even worst case predictions for climate change don't imply the human race will be threatened.

I mean some obviously do https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/world-climate-ch...

here is someone who denies that it is an existential threat but provides a lot of nice links to people saying it is https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/06/04/i-denier-human-...

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