zlacker

>>LinuxB+(OP)
The biggest takeaway here for me is that we collectively achieved something previously considered impossible: by making different behavioral choices, as a species, we achieved the largest cut in CO2 emissions in 75 years.

It's tragic that only the threat of a deadly disease could compel such a change, but perhaps we may find other levers to help us achieve such widespread beneficial changes in the future?

>>just_s+nm
All it does it prove how fruitless the prevention of climate change is.

A total shutdown of the entire world economy on an unprecedented scale still doesn't track enough to prevent climate change.

If that isn't a clear indicator of how severe the situation is then I don't know what else is.

>>breakf+7s
Unpopular prediction: we're going to solve global warming by the 22nd century, but we're going to "solve" it with nuclear winter and the destruction of 80-90% of humanity. Once we're down to a billion people or so and most of what passes for advanced civilization has been destroyed, carbon emissions and warming won't be a problem.

>>nostra+Ou
Do you realize how cheap sea walls are? The Dutch were building them 800 years ago with medieval technology and resources.

>>missed+mI
My threat model for global warming is different from most people's (hence "unpopular prediction"). I think sea-level rise is going to be a non-event: the worst models predict about 18 inches over a century, which is less than tidal variation in most places.

Changing weather and vegetation patterns is going to be a big event. We're going to see some previously fertile areas (Mesopotamia, Northern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa) suffer from decade-long droughts, while other previously uninhabitable areas (Canadian & Russian taiga and the Sahara, for example) become fertile grasslands. This will drive widespread migration, which has a tendency to destroy political stability and lead to mass wars. Nature isn't going to kill us; we're going to kill each other because some of us are going to starve and others are going to get fabulously wealthy.

>>nostra+ZU
> Canadian & Russian taiga and the Sahara, for example, become fertile grasslands

It'll take a lot more than climate for those areas to become productive. Glaciers have scraped away most of the topsoil in the Canadian shield[1], for instance. The Sahara desert's sand isn't a great growing medium. And so on.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield

>>tricer+Fg1
I'm Israeli and moved to Austria and later Germany in adulthood. I now live in Berlin, which is in the middle of an area the Germans consider unsuitable to agriculture due to poor soil quality.

And yet in Israel people managed to employ advanced AgTech to grow food in areas with much worse soil than Berlin-Brandenburg & with less abundant water reserves (and they also did this back when Israel was a much poorer country than Germany). In fact aside from some grains import Israel is mostly self-sufficient in food production. Germany is not despite being less densely populated and having much better natural conditions for growing food, because it is more expensive than importing food.

If need be these areas can produce food if the climate is suitable, it will just not be as cheap as the food we can currently get elsewhere (but then again AgTech continues to advance and economies of scale kick in). Anecdotally as a consumer groceries in Israel cost about 2-3x as much as in Germany but both countries suffer a lot more from obesity than hunger.

Also as an unintended result of the above Israel is today a significant exporter of AgTech.