this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Spoiler alert: The civilization disrupting aspects of climate change are still decades out and the rich countries will probably be fine.
They'll be fine because they can afford the infrastructure projects and increased costs of energy and food.
Now Africa, South America, the poorer Asian countries, tiny Pacific Island nations... Oh boy. I would not want to be a citizen there in 20 or 30 years.
Eventually sea level rise will become a really big fucking problem, like for every single coastal city in the world, even the rich ones. Luckily none of us will be around to see that unless some sort of miraculous life extension technology becomes available.
On the one hand I don't like mentioning this because it gives the right wing ammunition to ignore climate change. But on the other hand some people have such existential dread about it that it's damaging their mental health, they are really overestimating how damaging it will be in their lifetime in their rich country they live in.
I mean, I feel like this year in particular illustrates quite well that there are already very real impacts of climate change in rich countries, with Canada, Greece, Hawaii etc. burning. Which makes it worth to delay climate change as much as possible, even if we can't or don't want to stop it at livable levels.
Problem is also that there have always been catastrophes... Earthquakes, wildfires, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc.
Maybe in the past they should have also been attributed to climate change, but I don't think the average human being can draw the distinction yet
considering the massive heat domes spread worldwide, I suspect the average human has been more impacted than you have.
Brazil had a scorcher of a winter. Antarctica is falling apart much faster than anyone predicted.