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Comment by jleyank | Hacker News Reader

As expected, there is a significant fraction of the population that won’t change their behaviour no matter what situation presents itself. Hopefully, this can be managed by the rest of the population…. Otherwise, “gee, nobody said that would happen” or “why wasn’t this avoided/prevented” will be the cries. Call it head in the sand, or a lack of care about the future or other less nice descriptions but it’s there. People will just have to route around the damage or accept that it’s going to be bad.

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Screwing up food production can have massive, very immediate effects that surpass even the most wildly imaginative climate change scenarios.

I think a benefit/risk calculation is in order here.

Yeah, the farmers worried about crop yields are some really bad people.

How shitty will their crop yields be when temps are 2 or 3 degrees C higher and there’s less water?

They’ll be a lot higher.

And here's a paper [1] corroborating that, at least for Canadian crop yields:

> Canola and wheat yields were projected to increase with global warming, while maize yield was simulated to increase or slightly decrease depending on the characteristics of the currently grown cultivar and differences among the crop models. It appears that future warming accompanied by increased CO2 concentration will remain beneficial to crop yields at the global warming level of 2.0 °C for Canada.

[1]: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab17fb

Ah no wonder farmers there want to support climate change.

Then how are we going to solve climate issue? I don't think there is magic wand that can fix it? What ever policy you introduce there will always be minority of people that are going to suffer. Change is inevitable. Even if they don't face yeild issue today, I think with the advent of climate change and water crisis they are going to face same trouble in future.

How about moving towards sustainable solution with slow changes.

> I think with the advent of climate change and water crisis they are going to face same trouble in future.

That's not true, at least about global warming (which is the relevant issue here) and for Canada. See my other comment below (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32205121).

I don't know Canada's nitrogen/carbon output offhand but I am certain it is less than India or China.

Medical doctors have a maxim "primum non nocere" = "first, do no harm".

Don't assume that the farmers are the only ones hit and that they can be simply waved away as a minority that has to yield to progress. Destabilizing agriculture in food exporting countries is a potential threat to consumers of those calories worldwide.

Humanity consists of 8 billion people, most of them living in countries that are barely self-sufficient in terms of food production or not sufficient at all. Net exporters are an important player in fight against hunger. Canada itself feeds two other Canadas abroad.

If countries like Egypt or Iraq or Nigeria go off the rails because of food insecurity, there will be political instability much worse than during the War on Terror. Canada may be insulated from the consequences, Europe will definitely be not.

Gotta keep up those KPIs.

typical privileged western "humanist" demanding people die to save the climate. never a thought about second-order effects, only emotional appeals to boogeymen.

Maybe we could start with reducing emissions by the military, one of the absolute largest sources on earth? And after that maybe ban private jets and 100,000 sq ft mansions?

Let's reduce emissions by the military. Which country should go first?

Probably the one that spends more on its military than the next six countries combined? The vast majority of which is dedicated to far-flung imperial projects benefitting only a tiny sliver of its populace?

Why should we go first in eliminating fertilizer?

That would replace one big global asshole with a thousand little genocides. It's much better this way.

You think Pax Americana is the only thing standing between Honduras or Colombia or Yemen and instant genocide?

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