Last week, there were reports on water shortage in India because too much ground water is used. At the same time, Himalayan glaciers are melting, so all in all, at some point less water flowing. Global warming will increase droughts and torrential rains (that could further damage crops).
Do you think that 1 billion people will sit tight until they die from thirst or starvation ?
If there is no mass migration, there is also a real danger of war. And India is a nuclear power, as are Pakistan and China. So it could get ugly very fast with repercussions on the whole world, even if your part of the world still feels safe.
Climates changing means ecosystems are going to change. Food stuffs will disappear, lowering food diversity. Natural ecosystems will disappear lowering natural beauty. Rising sea levels and failing water cycles will cause cities to migrate. You aren't wrong that your children will probably not be very affected in a life and death sort of way, but they will lack the quality of life you do and many other people's children will die.
Or what if you start experiencing massive wildfires because the seasons get dryer and dryer?
How about if you care about eating Salmon or any number of seafood dying off as a result of a warming ocean and massive overfishing?
and sure salmon thing is bad but doesn’t mean the world is ending in 12 years. which is what the activists pretend. i just want a real conversation about solutions but neither side is reasonable
So, you might want to consider what kind of discussion you really want?
If you live in the US, you are suffering the political side effects of climate change indirectly as thousands of central American coffee farmers leave their lands and look to the north for opportunity. If you live in Europe, you are suffering the political side effects of increasing instability and resource scarcity in north and east africa, the levant and other locales.
Picture that but with millions more people; your rich country will have to divert more and more resources to either building walls or integrating the poor, all while food prices increase, natural resources are depleted, etc.
If you think living in the Bay Area, London, NY, or anywhere like that is going to insulate you from the consequences, you are really sadly mistaken.
I live in a wealthy city in Australia; we face flooding which is driving up property and insurance costs, fire which is wiping out farming land and causing air quality issues, while depleting fish stocks increase the cost of other food sources. Storm intensity is also on the rise which is causing more flooding and damaging arable land.
We can handle it, but it's more and more a cost and deadweight effect on our lives.
I urge you to isolate "what you want to happen" from "what will actually happen given the science being presented".
Billions of dollars in tax payer relief efforts need to be deployed to clean up the devastation caused by an increasing number of extreme weather events due to climate change.
Crop yields in the US have been on the decline since 2012. Numerous crop failures across the world have accelerated the pace of civil strife all over the world as famines become more severe and common. The result of this strife has led to mass migrations from affected areas and this has directly influenced US policies.
You are not immune, regardless of whether you continue pretending these events are not the result of climate change. You may have the luxury of insulating yourself from the near-term implications, but the world cares nothing of your ignorance and will eventually punish you all the same.
It will be a death of a thousand cuts. Food gets more expensive, perhaps items disappear from grocery shelves more often. Gas and electricity shortages happen occasionally. Migration happens as people can't rebuild because insurance won't cover the repeated damage to their housing. Year by year life will get a little more miserable for most people.
This is not correct; the number of extreme weather events is not increasing. The damage they do is increasing, but that's because the human population in areas exposed to such events, and the value of the property build in such areas, is increasing.
https://easac.eu/press-releases/details/new-data-confirm-inc...
Also, Fig. 1 in the PDF shows "geophysical events"--earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions--rising in frequency as well. By the argument given, that means we humans are causing more earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions by putting more CO2 into the air. Which immediately makes me read this PDF as spin, not substance.
It s a bit myopic no?
2. once again it seems like they’ll just adapt as humans always have.
my point is this apocalyptic behavior by activists is counter productive and offputting. it means we can’t have a reasonable discussion about solutions and trade offs because “the world is ending in 12 years”. this led to me just giving up because we can’t have conversation
What is known is that our entire eco-system is failing to adapt fast enough to keep up with the rate of change - what makes you think we can beat it?
Its disappointingly reductive to throw the towel in and, really, that point of view is no better than 'the world is ending in 12 years'
To deal with a problem you must first acknowledge that it exists - any action is clearly going to beat sticking ones head in the sand.
Not if the action makes things worse than they would have been if you'd done nothing. And given our very poor understanding of how the climate and ecosystems work, any action we take that is not an obvious benefit (like "bring more people out of poverty" or "make our infrastructure more robust", both of which are things we certainly should be doing) is much more likely to make things worse than to make things better.
Tell me which of those is going to make the situation worse?
Recycle costs energy.
Reuse should be ok, as long as whatever it is is in fact reusable.
But these three hardly cover all possible actions.