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Comment by The_Colonel | Hacker News Reader

It heavily depends on the nature of catastrophe.

* meteor coming to earth in 20 years, obliterating everything - the humanity will unite

* gradual reduction of temperature by 20 degrees. Every nation for themselves.

Agree. It's the onset of the problem that makes it tricky to judge what will happen. Look at the response to the effects of chlorofluorocarbon gasses on the ozone layer. Relatively swift, united action to ban their use, despite having the producers like DuPont doing everything they could to avoid measures, or at least question the fact that CFC gasses were causing something catastrophic. (https://timharford.com/2022/11/cautionary-tales-the-inventor... gives a good insight in the process) I think we're witnessing a similar dynamic with global temperature rises and greenhouse gasses. In this case though, the ones who are negatively affected by preventive measures are the people instead of 1 big company, the cause-effect is disputed more and the onset before we really see the consequences is way longer. Frog, boiling pot, more room for dispute and friction.

A pandemic wasn't able to unite humanity to fix it, why would a meteor be any different?

With a pandemic the problem generally arrives in your country from another one - there's a major "blame game". Same with climate change.

Meteor is different, the problem comes from outside.

In a pandemic, politicians have no incentive to give up on their autonomy as their electorate doesn't demand a global solution.

If a meteor is about to wipe out everything, global interests are actually aligned. That's not the case in a pandemic.

Because the meteor would affect rich people.

Wasn't it?

No? At times, eu-internal borders were closed, for some time the fall of the european union was a serious concern. And that's within a political union.

It was each country on their own.

EU internal borders being closed was agreed between countries in the EU though. It wasn't every country for themselves.

The pandemic doesn't have a clear fix. Lockdown, vaccinations, etc. only slowed it down. Even China's extreme measures to achieve zero COVID was not able to make it happen.

Kung Flu was an internal threat since it was created by the chinese with american money.

In the latest case it is not clear to everybody that the consequences are gonna be catastrophic. Therefore, everybody only sees that they will lose a lot when taking action.

Yes, although I think it would hold even if it was known in advance.

Another key part is that some areas on earth would remain habitable / producing food. Rich (northern) nations could try some novel approaches to mitigate the effects on a local scale (greenhouse agriculture). Yet other nations could attempt to conquer/buy better placed weak/poor countries.

We've got better odd's handling cooling than warming. Wet Bulb Temps are not to be stifled with.

In you're first scenario, I think there'd be a lot of 'the last of us' style horror to go around.

In the second, the north face would make a killing and we'd get really good at green houses.

I agree, but even in the 'obvious external threat' scenario, I'd expect plenty of machinations, jockeying, gaming, secret plan-Bs, etc.

There's always the question of where, exactly, the meteor is going to hit..

"Why should America pay for a meteor that's going to hit Russia?"

If the meteor is big enough, it doesn't matter where it's going to hit. We're all fucked.

A gradual rise of temperature is far more likely. And yes, it will be every nation for themselves but the refugees from the equatorial regions will swarm the northern and southern regions. And that will likely happen in such quantities that the northern and southern nations will not be able to prevent it. Not to mention the element of "we must help everybody, even at the expense of ourselves" people who will assist the invasion of refugees.

> And that will likely happen in such quantities that the northern and southern nations will not be able to prevent it.

I think it depends. US and Europe for example have quite "defensible" (against civilian migrants) southern border.

What might happen, though, are some conventional or mixed wars for cooler territory.

> Not to mention the element of "we must help everybody, even at the expense of ourselves" people who will assist the invasion of refugees.

I think the opinion would turn around. With the gradual increase in temperature, you'll get gradually more migrants, which will either shift the Overton window or increase the preferences of (far) right parties.

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