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Evidence that we have been living in an increasingly risk-averse culture
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this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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My message literally starts by saying climate change is bad. It will be catastrophic. At no point have I claimed otherwise.
It will however not be civilization ending. It's not an existential threat to humanity like an asteroid impact or super volcano eruption would be.
According to WHO: "Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year, from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone."
Also: "Even after accounting for adaptation, an additional 1.5 million people die per year from climate change by 2100 if past emissions trends continue."
That's about the same as what road accidents or diabetes kills every year.
I think that depends on how you define 'civilisation'. My inclination is that most people would say civilisation has ended if life is drastically different to how they perceive their life/world they live in. Think 'civilisation as we know it' rather than a dictionary definition.
However, I disagree that it's not an existentisl threat, if only on the basis of possible crop failiures on a massive scale (reduced crop yields are a global issue already). Don't underestimate the impact of food shortages on everything else, we in the west have become accustomed to easy access to food.
An asteroid impact or super volcano eruption has the potential to kill every single human on earth and end the human race. That's what I mean by existential threat. I feel like many people think of climate change as something that's on the same scale but it really isn't. Saying stuff like "climate change will ruin us all" just isn't true. There are degrees of bad and while climate change definitely is up there in the bad end of the spectrum there's still events that are orders of magnitude worse.
If we trigger tipping point after tipping point, we can turn earth into venus. You're just wrong.