I would consider all of these to be "catastrophic" but some may not consider migrations + damagaes to be "catastrophic."
So what will happen if that gets disrupted? And badly disrupted, while at it. And while that is happening, multiple other things pile up in different ways everywhere?
Thats the danger. You don't die from climate change. You may occasionally die from increasingly frequent extreme weather, a flood because rains, some dam break, extended forest fires and so on. But that is not a single catastrophic event that kill billions. What will kill billions are losing food security in big scale, no safe/climate controlled place to live, violence and wars, widespread diseases and no way to help. In some years to decades millions to billions may die by that combination of factors.
So no, it wont be a single day, sudden event that will kill billions. Is the breakup of the system that holds it together. Agriculture needs a stable climate, megacities need food, the economic system depend on more things, and everything else is packed together. And the first wave of deaths will be just the start.
Really underestimating the amount of deaths that will occur when our food production systems start collapsing.
I have not seen evidence that there will be food system collapse driven by climate change that would be worse than those events, but my ears are open if you have some.
Doing my best to not come off condescending here in case you are being sincere, but the comparison of totalitarian gov crackdowns and local drought are not exactly comparable to an almost worldwide heat increase and less water availability for key high density areas... Once countries have to start hoarding their resources and other countries run out of resources, things will not be good and there's plenty of data, studies and articles out there discussing this that are not hard to find.
If you are being sincere, apologies, but living in the US lately has shown a level of bad actors trying to grift that's made it really difficult to be patient with climate change denial/dismissiveness.
If you have any papers, please share. If you have sections of the IPCC to point to, please share. I am very sincere, in all my comments. But if you can't point to actual scientific documents, then you're doing no better than the climate denialists.
https://sustainability.stanford.edu/news/climate-change-cuts...
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/07/25/climate-change-...
> “If the climate warms by 3 degrees, that’s basically like everyone on the planet giving up breakfast.” That’s a high cost for a world where more than 800 million people at times go a day or more without food because of inadequate access.
If our food production goes down significantly, that will raise prices which will let wages for farm workers rise to the point where more people will be willing to do the job. Will it be unpleasant? Sure, but not to the point of famine, we'll just go back to spending a larger portion of our household budgets on food like we used to fifty years ago.
A common theme found in various sources about using American labor in the fields is that American laborers are too slow, damage too much produce, and don't show up after a couple days. Another common theme is that immigrant labor works hard and uses their resources to ensure their children don't do the same work.
A study that attempts to quantify the damage done by ICE enforcement actions. https://arxiv.org/html/2508.03787v1#:~:text=The%202025%20ICE...
Interview with a farmer and his experience of the impact of ICE actions, the farming life, and produce economics.
https://www.thepacker.com/news/industry/some-farms-may-not-r...
It my late thirties, I wouldn't do the job because I have better options, but when I was high school or college age I would have killed to do that job if it was paying $30 (in 2025 dollars)/hour. My dad literally did that type of job for a while in his younger years.
Will that raise prices of food? Absolutely, but we're talking about going back to 1950s prices relative to wage, not about famine.
ICE enforcement and immigration laws are also a choice. We can change those if we need to.
The higher global average temperatures alone are already a yearly catastrophe, by this standard.
I think you’re showing a lack of imagination. The COVID shutdown was not that long ago. People lost their minds when they were asked to wear a mask in public.
All you need to do to make a “catastrophe” is imagine the trauma response played out over shorter and shorter time periods.
Now take the speed of natural disasters measured over hours and days. Recovery time over months and years.
Now pile multiple such events back to back and dispersed across the nation.
You will have a Tipping Point where public opinion and suffering overwhelm any attempts by government to restore order with a speech.
Finally, Marshal Law and empty stores.
There you go. Have a nice day.