
We’re Still Not Prepared for Global Warming - mooreds
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/climate/summer-heat-global-warming.html
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bArray
There are multiple crisis's about to happen: Oil becomes too expensive
(affecting infrastructure, transport, plastic production, etc), we use wood
more heavily due to lack of plastic and cause deforestation, we can't build
enough batteries due to materials demands for electric vehicles (which are
needed more as oil cost increases), warmer climate increases need of air
conditioning units (with some companies using banned CFCs to cut time/costs),
water shortages, food shortages (due to water shortages and failed harvests
due to climate)... The list goes on. Any combination of those would probably
trigger a global economic collapse too (stock markets in chaos as "stable"
markets suddenly become unstable).

We're likely already past the point of no return, we should be considering
plan B - which is: How do we live in an inhospitable world as a result of
global warming?

I think if we end up in such a state, the two most important resources to have
will be energy and raw materials. If it were me, I would consider harboring
precious metals (for building electronics, batteries, infrastructure, etc),
building renewable energy sources, building nuclear power plants (particularly
salt reactors - to take up any additional load), investing into nuclear fusion
(it's quite close now) and making sure the military is well funded (you need
to protect whatever benefits you have). If needs be, steal technologies to
further your own capability as fast as possible. To keep your society in
order, you would probably want to reduce any internal resistance, so slowly
reducing freedom of speech and freedom of expression to keep things in order
(i.e. control the internet). Additionally, you want to protect any area
(land/sea/air/space) you have and claim as much additional resource intensive
and/or strategic area you can get away with. If you're going down anyway, you
may as well cause as much environmental damage as needed to further your own
position in the end game.

Currently the only Country that would be "ready" by this standard is China,
but the shear number of people may be their downfall. The only benefit would
be that as resources run out, you can reduce your numbers by claiming more
resources with you military (and mandatory inscription) - with their deaths
easing pressure on infrastructure.

~~~
vixen99
'crisis's' ? You mean crises.

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iron0013
It's really annoying that every discussion about global warming gets flagged
immediately.

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beerlord
Look at the equator:

[http://thwack.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/images-of-
world-...](http://thwack.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/images-of-world-map-
with-equator-new-map-world-equator-line-countries-map-world-equator-line-
countries-best-world-map-countries-download-new-equator-map-countries-south-
best-of-images-of-world-map-wit.jpeg)

And look at the countries with the highest fertility rates:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate#Country_ranking_by_verified_TFR_and_estimate)

This is not going to end well. Africa is already a net food importer, so as
growing conditions deteriorate, food-growing countries will just cut the
continent off.

Best we could do right now is quickly wean African nations off food and
monetary aid (making up about 20% of many nations' GDPs), and replace it
completely with contraception and education for women.

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sgillen
It’s unfortunate that we’ve let things get this bad. Maybe now that people are
seeing some real effects that they can point to more action will be taken.

~~~
tokyodude
Curious what you've actions yoi've personally taken. Did you stop buying
things you don't need? Did you stop traveling both for work and pleasure? Did
you stop buying fashion/shoes? Did you stop eating things shipped from too far
away or even locally that require too many resources? If you used to live
somewhere where you needed are car to commute did you start car pooling or
better yet move to a city and use public transportation?

~~~
abootstrapper
I feel like you’re trying to make some sort of point. But it’s honestly lost
on me.

~~~
tokyodude
the point is the poster is asking "them" to notice so "more action will be
taken" by "them". Why is it always "them" who needs to take the action not the
person commenting?

In other words if you're not willing to take action why should you expect
anyone else to take action?

I have tons of friends and acquaintances that love to spout off on their
concern for the environment and then are in the process of buring down the
planet with their 3rd vacations this year to the other side of the world and
their 4th 10000 mile round trip flight in the last 6 months to attend some
conference followed by Instagram pictures of all the loot they bought.

Heck, most of the tech companies fly there employees all over the place. fly
them to SV for orientation. Fly them to some city for a global off-site. Fly
them to the yearly team gathering. Apparently none of them really care either
though they all have a PR page about their concern.

~~~
dwaltrip
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)

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abootstrapper
I feel like there are two kinds of preparations: personal and societal. I’m
100% behind working together to prepare for and mitigate global warming, but
I’d really like to read more on how we can prepare personally for global
warming. Besides striving for net 0, what else can an individual do to prepare
for an unpredictable climate?

~~~
closeparen
This is an important distinction. For example, you might have adopted a
waking/cycling/transit oriented lifestyle, but if the prior inhabitants of the
urban neighborhood you gentrified are now displaced to freeway sprawl, total
emissions have not declined. Actually they’ve gotten worse, since you probably
use ridesharing and rentals sometimes, whereas the urban poor were stuck with
the bus.

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jarfil
Says who? Even if half of the world population were to die off, those in
developed countries will barely notice. Just throw some automation at it,
which we're doing anyway, and we can even increase our quality of life while
third world countries go to, quite literally, hell.

~~~
pstuart
You forgot the /s

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jandrese
It's hard to be ready for it when its worse every year. Plus, we don't even
know half of the secondary effects yet.

We are sleepwalking to oblivion.

~~~
vixen99
As indicated here: [http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-
content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_t...](http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-
content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_July_2018_v6.jpg)

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debacle
Some hard truths:

1\. The comparative impact of global warming relative to many other global
phenomenon (including ecological phenomenon) is still comparatively low, and
will continue to be comparatively low for the next 10-20 years or more. The
red tide in Florida (which many don't even know is happening) is going to have
a greater impact on the US GDP in 2018 than global warming.

2\. Until people who make more than $10 a day are impacted more than the
occasional brownout or heat wave, nothing outside of normal market forces is
going to be done.

3\. The current US administration does not accept human influenced climate
change, and the current US minority party has decided to die on Mount
Collusion rather than point out the many detrimental things that the majority
party is doing to our environmental regulations.

I understand people are dying as a result of this. I understand that the
dangers to specific parts of the globe are dire. But what's the plan? You
can't shame heartless capitalists or devout technocrats into doing something
they perceive as being against their best interests. The continued
fearmongering isn't going to rouse any bases any more than it already has.

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mirimir
What we're seeing now is, in some ways, worse than predictions from 20 years
ago. And even now, the Trump administration is in full denial. But hey, given
the lagging effects of CO2 and CH4 emissions, we're already locked into far
more extreme changes. It's sad, but so it goes.

~~~
tempestn
One thing I find somewhat galling is how the climate change denial rhetoric
smoothly shifted from "climate change is a hoax," to "there's no evidence that
climate change is caused by humans," once reality was clearly at odds with the
former, without ever acknowledging the moving of goalposts. Presumably in a
decade or two it will be, "No one could have seen this coming," with no
acknowledgement of past discourse.

~~~
mirimir
Indeed. Predictable. Maybe Google will have forgotten. And pages gone from the
Internet Archive over robot bullshit :(

