
Future of the human climate niche - origgm
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/28/1910114117
======
9nGQluzmnq3M
The definition of "suitability" here seems a bit suspect. For example, this
image [1] implies that a vast swathe of western and northern Australia is
currently "highly suitable", whereas the actual Pilbara [1] and Kimberley [2]
are both very hot and dry, and (outside a narrow coastal fringe) generally
thoroughly unsuitable for agriculture and settlement.

[1]
[https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2020/04/28/191011411...](https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2020/04/28/1910114117/F4.large.jpg?width=800&height=600&carousel=1)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilbara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilbara)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberley_(Western_Australia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberley_\(Western_Australia\))

------
hnburnsy
Interesting that it appears by looking at the visuals, a great deal more of
land mass will become more suitable over the next 50 years, mostly in Canada
and Russia. Investment opportunity?

~~~
btrettel
I recall watching a documentary in the 00s where someone claimed to be buying
land in Russia specifically because of this.

~~~
blaser-waffle
Not someone buying land, Russian Oligarchs who already own it. They're cool
(har har) with global warming because it lets them use whole swaths of land
and get easy access to resources -- otherwise most of Russia is just frozen
tundra.

Who cares if a bunch of Indian coastal cities get flooded if you have a
breadbasket and tons of oil?

------
jillesvangurp
This is a study on migration patterns resulting from an assumed combination of
global warming as predicted by other scientists and nothing changing in
between now and then. It's not actually predicting this extreme heat; merely
citing studies that do and extrapolating from that.

That's an interesting scenario to explore from a demographics point of view
under the assumption that nothing changes. But it's not necessarily what is
going to happen given the current technical progress on clean energy, farming
practices, tackling desertification, etc. IMHO taking coal plants and most ICE
vehicles out of the equation in the next decades is going to help reduce smog
and co2 emissions. Concrete and cement are currently actually a bigger problem
and there too there are alternative technologies emerging.

It won't stop global warming but it will enable us to engineer our way out of
(or at least around) some of its consequences. Clearly anything over 50-60
degrees C is not sustainable. The Saudi's are currently dealing with those
kind of temperatures already on a regular basis. However, replanting forests
in e.g. Africa or India or large scale ecosystem engineering in China seems to
result in drastically different micro climate in those places where that
happens. We've barely scratched the surface of what is possible there in a
relatively short amount of time at relatively modest expense. Lower
temperature, better water retention, higher farming yields, etc. Three decades
is a long time for absolutely nothing to happen on that front.

As for northern regions. What's bad for the world is not necessarily
unpleasant there. I live in Berlin at 52 degrees latitude and used to live in
Finland at 60 degrees latitude. Most of the world at similar southern
latitudes are ocean. But longer nicer summers are not necessarily a punishment
for people living there. And actually it's quite enjoyable. It's not all
universally bad. And also it's not historically unprecedented for things to be
a bit warmer up north given fossil records.

------
westurner
How many degrees Celsius hotter would that be for billions of people in 50
years?

> _The Paris Agreement 's long-term temperature goal is to keep the increase
> in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial
> levels; and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 °C, recognizing
> that this would substantially reduce the risks and impacts of climate
> change. This should be done by reducing emissions as soon as possible, in
> order to "achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and
> removals by sinks of greenhouse gases" in the second half of the 21st
> century. It also aims to increase the ability of parties to adapt to the
> adverse impacts of climate change, and make "finance flows consistent with a
> pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient
> development."_

> _Under the Paris Agreement, each country must determine, plan, and regularly
> report on the contribution that it undertakes to mitigate global warming.
> [6] No mechanism forces [7] a country to set a specific emissions target by
> a specific date, [8] but each target should go beyond previously set
> targets._

And then this is what was decided:

> _In June 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to
> withdraw the United States from the agreement. Under the agreement, the
> earliest effective date of withdrawal for the U.S. is November 2020, shortly
> before the end of President Trump 's 2016 term. In practice, changes in
> United States policy that are contrary to the Paris Agreement have already
> been put in place.[9]_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement)

~~~
mistermann
Does anyone meet their targets?

~~~
westurner
That's a good question,

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dnhz
The crops we cultivate to feed ourselves and our animal slaves are grown
outside. It’s a obvious statement, but it feels easy to forget when we spend
most hours of the day indoors. Key stages in plant development are sensitive
to temperatures. I used to think, it’s just a few degrees of warming. Well a
few degrees hotter at a critical time of plant growth will affect yields of
key staple crops like rice [1]. There’s a lot of suffering to come this
century.

[1]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012387...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780123876898000047)

------
cranekam
This is so depressing. Covid is obviously terrible (and I’m one of the
fortunate ones for whom it has barely touched) and but at least it has
temporarily distracted me from dwelling on the unfolding climate disaster.

When is humanity going to get a grip on this? We know what the outcomes are
and we know what the fixes are yet we’re doing ~nothing. I have a huge feeling
of constant background dread for the future.

~~~
makx
> we’re doing ~nothing

A lot of people are doing something.

Some do a lot by actively working on solutions, many do a little by preserving
energy and reducing their personal consumption (especially meat and
transportation/travel).

If you feel dread you should do more.

------
brainless
And we will ignore all these warnings, because why should we care?

Extinction is a goal we have unconsciously targeted and we are going to
achieve it.

~~~
Bombthecat
I have the same weird feeling, like, if a culture or society grows too old. It
acts more and more like a real old human. Like a real 90 year old...

~~~
loopz
Humanity is acting more like a Toddler, with guns.

------
jb775
This reminds me of the "Glaciers will melt within X years" studies, which
ended up being wrong[1].

[1] [https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/07/glacier-national-
park...](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/07/glacier-national-park-quietly-
removes-its-gone-by-2020-signs/)

~~~
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
The 70s and 80s were great times for failed predictions. There’s unfortunately
never any accountability with this type of thing, and instead we have a slow
erosion of trust and general apathy.

[https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-
pocalyp...](https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyptic-
predictions)

~~~
saagarjha
Taking the most extreme predictions and then pulling them from headlines that
misrepresent them, then cherry picking from that is a fairly poor way to
organize an argument.

~~~
b3nji
I agree, what models and predictions have come true that have been presented
in the headlines?

To start with accurate predictions as a base, then present the models and
predictions that failed would put things into perspective.

------
slicktux
Reminds me of this: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-
bulb_temperature](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature)

------
ARandomerDude
We'll see. I remember when Al Gore said we had 10 years in 2006.

~~~
adrianN
Climate denialists love to cite the various "We have X years left" claims that
are more than X years old, but rarely note that the goal posts have shifted
from "almost no warming" to "catastrophic but survivable" warming in the
meantime.

If we had started in earnest to reduce emissions in the early nineties when
the science was crystal clear, we could be mostly done by now. The current
climate is measurably different from thirty years ago, but obviously not so
bad. Unfortunately we barely did anything in the last thirty years, so we can
only hope to finish decarbonization in another thirty years. By then we'll
have locked in another two degrees of warming and, if we're unlucky, hit some
trigger points that cause runaway warming (e.g. Greenland losing most of its
ice, large parts of the permafrost thawing...) which we're powerless to stop.

~~~
marcus_holmes
How is 0.1-0.2 degrees warmer "measurably different"? (I'm curious - I haven't
been reading much of the literature lately, and this is new to me).

~~~
cranekam
Firstly, where did you get 0.1-0.2 degrees (did you mean C or F?) from? We are
currently 0.98C above 1951-1980 averages [0], and presumably a bit more above
pre-industrial times.

Secondly, as for measurably different: there are a million articles on the
internet detailing how weather patterns have changed across the world in the
last few decades.

For some personal perspective: I live in Zurich, where winter temperatures
once hovered around freezing and there were 20 days of snow per year [1].
Winter gets milder and milder and this year it almost didn't happen. Autumn
just became spring at some point. It snowed for 10 minutes. I look around at
all the buildings here with snow protection fences on their roofs and wonder
when people will remove them through lack of use. Nearby ski resorts were
brown and grassy, not white. And as winters have gotten warmer, so have
summers. There was a huge number of days over 30 last year -- something that
used to be quite extreme.

Also, although global temperatures have "only" risen ~1C this increase is not
uniformly distributed. In particular the Arctic is heating much faster,
accelerating melting ice caps and sea level rise [2].

[0] [https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-
temperature/](https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/) [1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%BCrich#Climate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%BCrich#Climate)
[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/climate/climate-change-
ar...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/climate/climate-change-arctic-
warming.html)

I encourage you to read up on what's going on, get scared, and vow to do
something (vote, lobby, educate, etc).

(Edit: added NASA source)

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
Meanwhile today in Hamburg it went down from 4 to 3°C between 00:50AM and
01:11AM at some point, and later, 1,5km away on the outskirts next/near to
open fields it went down to 2 to 1° at 04:50AM. That felt rather cold for
early May. (I've been walking to the gas station, and ventilating my rooms at
these times. BRRR!)

As i understand it, it all depends on the shape of the polar vortex pattern
which in turn shapes/modulates the jet stream.

------
blackrock
Then live underground?

~~~
Mengkudulangsat
Alternatively; an enormous roof, Buckminster-fuller style.

------
29athrowaway
In 50 years:

\- Groundwater will be gone.

\- Fish will be gone.

\- Arctic methane will be a problem.

\- Topsoil will die.

~~~
xpe
Can you provide the sources for these claims?

Please consider this a friendly suggestion to help improve the persuasiveness
of your comment.

The above claims are non-obvious, to say the least. Many appear to be
exaggerations.

Here on HN, it is my experience that people seek out useful discussion. It may
be based on personal experiences and/or credible sources. If you have sources,
share them.

~~~
29athrowaway
Source: wait 50 years.

The evidence is overwhelming, worldwide. Pick any source you want at this
point.

~~~
xpe
I invite you to reflect on what you wrote. Please offer a substantive
response.

------
ykevinator
The best thing you can do to help is get your family to vote Democrat. They're
the only viable party who acknowledges the problem.

~~~
tzs
The Republican party used to acknowledge the problem, just differing from
Democrats in how to address it. There are still such Republicans, including
some who were quite prominent a few years ago, e.g., [1].

If you live in a state where a Republican is quite a bit more likely than a
Democrat to win the general election, it would probably be more effective to
register as a Republican so you can participate in the primaries or caucuses
that select the Republican candidate for the general election.

There you can support candidates more like Republicans of a few years ago who
would acknowledge and address the problem.

[1] [https://www.clcouncil.org/media/2017/03/The-Conservative-
Cas...](https://www.clcouncil.org/media/2017/03/The-Conservative-Case-for-
Carbon-Dividends.pdf)

