Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

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Then there's the issue of above-background extinction rates ... arguably already irreversible unless we're about to go all Jurassic-Park-style Pleistocene rewilding over here.

Lions have adapted to hunt seals and seabirds in Namibia, study finds

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/28/lions-ad...

India’s wild tiger population rises 33% in four years

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/29/india-wild-tig...

Science has identified some 2 million species of plants, animals and microbes on Earth, but scientists estimated there are millions more left to discover, and new species are constantly discovered and described.

https://www.livescience.com/topics/newfound-species

First wild polar-grizzly bear hybrid offspring discovered

https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/first-wild...

New wolf coyote hybrid

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-new-wolf-coyote-hybr...

I posit that some of our hysteria is rooted in our egomaniacal fantasy that we already know everything. We don't.

None of these examples help us survive. Humans are highly adaptable and live in nearly every climate. We don’t need to evolve. Unfortunately our staple crops are far less adaptable, and we’ve already done a very good job at extracting what we can from the available pool of genetic variation. Plant pathogens are however often good at adapting, and will quite possibly thrive in changing conditions. Yet somehow we’ll have to feed an extra 3-5 billion people in the next 30 years in this rapidly changing climate. As I’ve said in other threads, it’s not obvious how we’re going to do it, and if we struggle, there’ll be serious political instability, which is almost always bad for those going through it.

>Unfortunately our staple crops are far less adaptable, and we’ve already done a very good job at extracting what we can from the available pool of genetic variation.

That's very far from the truth. Out of hundreds of known natural corn varieties, we're using less than 10 natural and some genetically-engineered in industrial farming. We are so flexible in growing crops, that we can select the most efficient variants for every climate and situation.

There are lots of good solutions and ideas for solving these problems, my concern is our ability to implementing them well, quickly, at human scale, is another thing all together.

> my concern is our ability to implementing them well, quickly, at human scale, is another thing all together.

We don't need to. There is no looming climate apocalypse coming that will require large-scale measures in a few years.

FWIW, a single farmer figured out here in Austria, where it's too cold and dry for rice normally, how to grow organic rice in basically 2 years of cheap experiments. He's selling it for a living now. Don't underestimate our ability to adapt.

There are a lot of people in Africa, India and Brazil with much less stable governance systems and infrastructure. Even if in 15 years we noted some shift in the climate that was going to impact tens of millions of people in these regions within 5 years thereafter, I don't know I believe humanity is well prepared to mobilize for that. To me it feel like we're going to end up having cancer in a burning building facing knife fights as we try to escape.

> o me it feel like we're going to end up having cancer in a burning building facing knife fights as we try to escape.

It's called "climate anxiety".

To me it feel like we're going to end up having cancer in a burning building facing knife fights as we try to escape.

I have a serious medical condition. Due to physiological processes related to my health issues, I sometimes have big spikes in anxiety. I typically project that anxiety onto other things and then catastrophize about social stuff or financial stuff in my life.

I believe that dynamic is actually much more common than is generally recognized. For many people, fear of climate change may well be an unrecognized metaphor that fits with the idea that "I have a very big and threatening (personal) problem that I don't know how to solve, one so bad it is threatening to destroy my whole world."

I'm fortunate that I am aware of the somatopsychic side effects of my health issues, plus I live with my two adult sons who can tell me "Mom, we're fine. You are just having an anxiety attack because of (health thing)."

It appears that most people don't even recognize that somatopsychic effects exist at all, much less have some means to do a reality check and say "This is probably not really a reaction to The News. It's probably really a reaction to (health thing)."

That must be really difficult to deal with. I'm grateful that I feel happy and healthy. I think my analogy was mis-understood? it's certainly not me that i'm worried about, I'll be just fine.

? Assuming you meant to reply to me, I think this is orthogonal to what I posted

ETA since we seem to have reached maximum comment depth: To clarify, the context suggests you mean to disagree with me, but I don't see any incompatibility between your comment and mine. These examples are not bringing back species that are currently extinct. That is not to say that life is not adaptable or that vacated ecological niches will not eventually be re-filled. Judging from the paleontological record, they definitely will -- sometimes rapidly and sometimes not for many Myr. Sometimes, due to convergent evolution, the replacements for a given niche are shockingly close in appearance to the extinct originals, but it's never quite the same as before.

I think the only thing I actually disagree with here is the apparent (implied?) suggestion that folks concerned about climate change are in a state of "hysteria." The climate scientists I know would be among the first to agree that we don't know everything!

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