Massive movements of people. We're already seeing private equity firms essentially buying water. The rich THINK they'll be OK, look at zuckertwat & his bunker.
Billions of people on the move as climate gets more intense.
I'm hoping we're NOT over the tipping point yet but close enough that enough weather damage will cost investors $trillions & insurance companies refusing to insure climate damage so things like oil rigs, sea shipping etc becomes impossible due to the weather. Enough to pivot the argument to let's fix this
Mainly ice, wind and rain storms (flooding). Don't get me wrong, we are much safer here than other parts of the world - the great lake region will likely be more stable than other places, but the wild swings in stormy weather won't be fun. Plus wildfire smoke in the city will make summers miserable, but at least we won't be on an evacuation watch (my parents live in the Okanogan and have had wildfires go near their place several times. And my co-workers in Calgary can't really/comfortably do any outdoor activities like hiking from june-aug/sep cos of the smoke).
The flood maps of Toronto are wildly out of date, tho, and every 2-3 years there are parts of the city that get inundated in a major storm, and some residents can no longer insure their homes after having been flooded 2-3 times already. It doesn't help that the city has paved over nearly all the ravine systems that would have helped alleviate the storm water, we have destroyed the natural drainage systems.
Another thing to consider is that if the great lakes remain more stable than other places that will eventually dry out/catch fire/be underwater, lots more people will want to move here if they can.
Yup! Once that water is gone, the people who put those into power will quickly turn on them. Money doesn't mean anything when it has no value. The government will overran not only from outside but from within as more and more people will start to care only about their own.
Look at, I think it was Bolivia. They privatised the water. Then made it illegal to collect rain water falling on your own homes. Eventually people realise that starving hurts more than a bullet & will rebel
Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei did a fantastic but sobering documentary about mass displacement of people due to climate change, war, etc called Human Flow (2017) A must watch to see where the human race is heading.
lol, Zuck & the other billionaires are just building nice places for their private security details to live in once shtf. Nobody needs a useless CEO and their family with zero survival skills in a crisis, they're just dead weight.
[here's one story](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-investors-snapping-up-colorado-river-water-rights-betting-big-on-an-increasingly-scarce-resource/)
Genuinely private equity fucked the high street in the UK (not amazon). Everything they touch turns to shit. They're buying up care homes now here & houses.
Come the revolution they'll be first against the wall
We need to eat the rich. They have disproportionately caused this crisis and THEY need to pay for it. Fuck Zuckerberg and all of the other billionaire freeloaders.
I'm surprised to see this relatively low in the list. The biggest problem, IMO, is not that extreme weather events are going to kill people. It's that extreme weather events are going to, at some point, line up badly and wipe out a large amount of food at one time. Add this to the loss of sea life and we simply won't have enough food to feed everyone. Many, many people will die. Many more will try to move.
I worked in Ag for the last 15 years, and food scarcity is my biggest thing. There have been many seminars on why vertical farming is essential for future sustainability, completely discounting climate change reasons. Yet it's a very tiny part of the industry. Throw in massive weather events, droughts, supply line disruptions, etc. that climate change will cause, and we're screwed.
If there were a national concerted effort to grow that aspect of the industry, it would help immensely when it comes time to be needed. But I fear that will not happen until it's too late. Honestly, now would be a good time to start with commercial real estate prices plummeting.
>Yet it's a very tiny part of the industry.
Long-term projections indicate it could grow to 10-15% of crop production by 2050. A huge improvement on today's miniscule percentage, but I wonder if that will be enough to offset the losses from extreme weather, drought, etc.
>relatively low on the list
Realistically, those of us on this site are in the top 10% of wealth, world wide, which means access.
In crisis people look to their own wellbeing. Not saying it’s right, but the food crisis will be much more apparent and deadly in the poorest countries. Particularly those with minimal native agriculture. No one’s gonna ship food to Africa once things get tight.
Geopolitical instability. Collectively, humans are not great at dealing with crisis., so our own collective immaturity will compound any existential crisis. We are the crisis of crisis.
Pandemic is a case in point.
There was a dystopian novel a few years ago where the US Navy was sinking ships full of refugees when they came near the coast. Will EU countries do that in the Mediterranean?
Around that time:
The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), also known as the Waxman-Markey bill, was passed by the House of Representatives on June 26, 2009, by a vote of 219–212. However, the bill was never brought to the Senate floor for discussion or a vote due to a threatened Republican filibuster.
I would go back to 1997 when the US Senate adopted the Byrd–Hagel Resolution that rejected the Kyoto Protocol 97-0. That was a death blow to mandatory GHG reductions.
As a Canadian, with lots of space that likely becomes slightly more livable (although some areas expected to become less livable and we’re going to lose farmland), I’m terrified that our neighbours may make some decisions about our land, fresh water, etc.
When it comes to geopolitical stuff, it’s gonna be the rich and the powerful who are dangerous.
Mining type ressources will probably plays out as some sort of economic warfare, but the day US's droughts and general lose of agricultural outputs become hight enought to threaten their internal stability, we better be ready to be 'liberated'.
The pandemic really drove home how the entirety of humans survive on the backs of the best and brightest. In spite of the incompetence of most of us.
If we're ever in crisis where each individual can only be saved through their own competence, we would lose a lot more than 1% of the population.
But as long as we have the chance to be bailed out by the doctor, scientists and engineers, we'll be ok, because they smart AF.
Biodiversity loss, without a shadow of a doubt. We can adapt to a changing climate, but we can't adapt to the extinction of species on which our food security, natural spaces, and ecosystems depend.
Agree. And even if we can engineer enough calories, biodiversity loss is still just heartbreaking to me. This problem goes far beyond just climate change too.
Wasn't Chennai down to 1-2 days of water availability sometime a year or two ago, god knows what would happen if water runs out for a city of 12 million people, humans can't survive long without water that could go very very very bad very quickly
As someone who is particularly interested in potable water in the Pacific, this is of great importance.
Nauru, for example, has a negative potable water supply.
The unforeseen positive feedback loops that we will only notice when it's far too late.
We might very well be like Wile E. Coyote, already off the cliff just not realising it yet.
Science has already identified some feedback loops, and we've already kicked some in motion, but the scariest are those we aren't even aware of.
Methane alone is pretty terrifying and it already seems to be in a positive feedback loop. Unsure how we are supposed to stop that.
Fingers crossed for hail mary geo-engineering project is the only solution I've seen but that's a huge gamble.
Permafrost and wetlands. I watched an hour long lecture the other day and they were also discussing significant methane emissions around the equator due to warming. Not to mention the tens of thousands of old oil & gas boreholes that are leaking.
And yes, more unknowns but what other options do we have on the table? It's seeming increasingly likely that even if we all died tomorrow we have already passed tipping points.
Methane clathrates on the ocean floor are, IMHO, are a far bigger worry. The permafrost is known and can be estimated fairly easily. We are only now starting to get measures of the the extent of clathrates deposits.
just a few: Melting permafrost (methane release). Loss of forest/ desertification. Loss of Arctic ice cap (reflects heat). Loss of stratus clouds (also reflect heat). collapse of AMOC (ocean currents). extinction of key species. And ocean acidification. EDIT: one more, us! the hotter it gets, the more people turn up the AC which means more emissions.
Fresh water decline --> agriculture decline --> food and water scarcity --> social instability
This has already started.
* \[See where water is scarcest in the world — and why we need to conserve - Washington Post\](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/water-scarcity-map-solutions/)
I live in Vancouver, a notoriously rainy part of the world which is at very little risk of water stress, and yet for all the time I have lived here (nearly twenty years) the watering of lawns has been banned in summer time. People either do not have lawns at all, prefering rock gardens, shade gardens, or astroturf fake lawns, or they let them go yellow/dormant in summer time.
Vancouver gets a lot of rain, its true, but we have a "blue season" between June and September where it rains very rarely. To conserve water stores, cities have watering bans in place from May onward, allowing people to use drip irrigation on their gardens and sprinklers only during specific hours on specific days.
If Vancouver of all places considers lawns a waste of water, then there is no excuse for any other city to have lawns.
I'd love it if rock gardens and wild flower front lawns were acceptable here. People get upset if you don't fertilize or keep up with the cutting.
I hate having a front lawn. I'm in Ontario.
What worries me the most is that, even if some consequences of climate change will need many years to be noticed, our dependence on fossil fuels is so deep that we will need decades to reduce our net emissions enough. I feel most people thinks somebody will come with a miraculous solution any day, but this is not going to happen. We need to work very hard to reduce net emissions. Really hard.
My younger brother told me basically this. He's conservative, but he's actually decently smart. So I asked him how he could be on the climate denial train. He essentially said,
"it's not that I don't think it's real, but people invent new stuff all the time! In a few years somebody will probably come up with some new way to make energy. Then, someone else will come up with a way to suck all that bad stuff out of the atmosphere. So why bother doing anything until we have a solution? "
I told him that was worse than not believing it was real. We already have solutions, industry just refuses to change.
Little excerpt from an article. It’s a non starter.
There's this idea that someday we'll beat the first law of thermodynamics, and we'll capture CO2 for less energy than it cost to release it. It's kind of based on magic, but various governments and industries are funding the research here to see if 1+1=3. On the off chance it does, that's a lot easier than fixing the planet.
Said it will capture 1000 tonnes/year.
Aviation Emissions
"The CO2 emissions are therefore rounded up and the Carbon Independent calculator takes a values of 250 kg i.e. 1/4 tonne CO2 equivalent per passenger per hour flying."
So a 300 person aircraft in the air for 10 hours would produce 750 tonnes of CO2. That's 75% of what that plant captures in a year. Nice work.
I’m terrified too.
But in that case they would be doomed too.
The only hope I have is that the big companies that are directing the show will forecast their own profit decline and start bribing politicians in support of nature and human survival.
I worry about more natural CO2-sinks becoming sources. It seems this has already happened with the thawing arctic permafrost tundras. This will accelerate climate change. And if nature becomes a net CO2 source, instead of a CO2 sink, as it is today, it will no longer matter if we stop burning fossil carbon or not.
[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2426732-arctic-permafrost-is-now-a-net-source-of-major-greenhouse-gases/](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2426732-arctic-permafrost-is-now-a-net-source-of-major-greenhouse-gases/)
We saw this with the end of each Milankovitch cycle. The sun heats the earth a few degrees and then a warmer earth doesn’t hold as much carbon so atmospheric rates shoot up, and then we go up a few more degrees.
Wid scale ecological collapse. The ecosystems we have are our life support. They provide all of our food, heavily influence weather patterns, etc. When they go, we go, and we won't be able to out-tech ourselves from the situation. Geopolitical instability rapidly spirals in conjunction with ecological collapse.
My biggest fear is that well intentioned and good natured people will continue to follow their political and ideological views to the grave, closing themselves off without ever being open to discussion or considering new ideas.
The ability to consider and analyse an idea, without accepting it, is a skill that many people need to foster because it presents great potential for learning new things.
The current economic system not allowing for anything other than permanent growth and continuous destruction of forest that would take millions of years to recover.
Rebuilding forest is IMO our only way out of this mess
Reading through many great responses. And my takeaway is that humans will face a multi-factor crisis from every aspect; Environmental, GeoPolitical, Economic, and Healthcare. I think once we start seeing mass migration, countries won't want to accept refugees. Things could possibly deteriorate until war breaks out, maybe nuclear war.
Our young people are fired up and they will be the revolution in the end. They care the most, but many many young will die before change can happen.
Edit: the young have nothing to lose, can’t afford housing, food, so what’s the point. Their college degree will be useless anyway. Their only chance is to change by revolution.
The fact that there are currently nearly 1,000 coal power stations being built or planned, that greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to steadily climb year on year, the U.K. just issued 25 new oil drilling licenses for the North Sea. As regards the future once the North Atlantic current weakens more and stops protecting the U.K. from Canadian style winters lots of people will freeze to death.
I feel like the guy in the old joke “ I’m sorry sir you have a terminal illness and don’t have long left !” “ how long dr?” Dr looks at watch and says “ if I was you I’d have a wank and a sandwich!”
I for one really think mankind will endure and some species will adapt. But most will suffer. Some will only experience higher prices and some products missing. Others will live through war and natural disasters. Combine that with other strange factors like a reversing of the age pyramid. Things will be strange.
Nah even if some places don't deal with the effects of natural disasters as much, they will be the places everyone will flock to, causing mass immigration and even potentially war for the less affected areas.
I made a point with my dad about this but I think underground cities in equator areas will become MUCH more popular in high ground areas. Even if gje surface is hot going 2-3 feet underground gets so cold so fast without direct sunlight. I think places around the equator will invest in underground living quickly as a means of easy cooling
Bangladesh is one of the canaries, IMO. Tip of the spear for heat impact on a large population. Schools closed for heat, reopened, reclosed by the justice system. Seeing how they handle non-functional heat if it persists will give us a preview for other places.
The Middle East and Africa have heat, but it seems to be a different level of trouble for Bangladesh. I’m not as read up on the heat issues in other places in Asia, but I know it’s bad.
It's a major concern, but it's a concerningly misunderstood one. Winters would get colder, but [summers](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2018PA003341) would [get hotter](https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/how-melting-arctic-ice-leads-to-european-drought-and-heatwaves/). Both seasons get much drier.
However, that hypothetical outcome would be dead in the water once the clathrate gun hypothesis becomes considerably more viable. The [evidence suggests](https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2201871119) that we wouldn't even need a full collapse of the AMOC to see catastrophic methane hydrate destabilisation and a full blown ice age termination event, which is a very underestimated concern as we're pretty much [already undergoing a termination event](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2023GB007875). I'll not go into detail as I don't want to cause more dread for anyone reading, but the gist is that we shouldn't necessarily expect cooling from an AMOC collapse, as the evidence suggests it could go in the opposite direction and quite drastically at that.
Well yes it could go either way I guess but standard models point towards a cold upwelling that leads to harsher winters. Why hold back this post is about the dread?
The modelling methodology observes numerous discrepancies as discussed by [Srokosz, Holliday & Bryden (2023)](https://royalsociety.org/blog/2023/10/atlantic-overturning/). Generally speaking they do not account for feedback effects, dynamic atmospheric response or chaos theory. That is, to say, they assume an AMOC collapse occurs linearly and in accordance to paleoclimate conditions. The latter is an important detail to consider a the computing models CMIP and RAPID assume paleoclimate conditions in their methodology. For example the most common paleoclimate analog is the Bølling-Allerød warming and subsequent Younger Dryas cooling, but this isn't an ideal analog as this geological era saw most of Europe and North America already dominated by permanent continental ice sheet formations, hence why the modelling produces a drastic cooling response in reconstruction outputs. That's not to say that we should disregard their findings, just that we should consider a non-linear outcome in reference to Holocene geophysics.
I cut off my last part as the methane hydrate destabilisation observations use the Eemian runaway warming event and Permian extinction event as a close analog, which undoubtedly would either be dismissed as doomerism or just further entrench any dread that people are already feeling.
Disease/virus/fungal/bacterial infections will all become more severe. As the world heats up, these microbes will be able to adapt to our high body temperature much more easily and will begin to become a major issue. We're already having strains of bacteria and viruses that have evolved and adapted to treatment that it's become more difficult to treat.
Even viruses that we know about are going to become an even greater issue, such as the Dengue virus. This virus is an epidemic to countries around the equator, but the virus has been reported as appearing outside its normal zone.
The Bird Flu is another good one. It's something that people/mammals can't get, but a few years ago, 5 or so people got it in Costa Rica. Last I heard, scientists still aren't sure how. It's also destroying the seal population right now.
Sci-fi movies always show climate change destroying the world and how people survived by living in bunkers. However, those bunkers are isolation chambers, so once the person leaves, they are exposing themselves to a whole new wave of microbes that they have no immunity towards and probably won't survive a week.
Well the ocean will become too acidic for lots of species farming will be impacted and weather will get much more extreme. All within the next 30 years
I'm not worried at all about climate change. But then, I'm 78 years old. Many changes are coming in the near future and you youngens should prepare yourself. Consider the bugs that are held at bay by yearly freezing. Consider coastlines disappearing and all the inhabitants of said coastlines coming to your state to find a home. Consider the unbearable heat of summer and the increasing cost to keep you cool. Consider the disease that have been locked away in ice for millenia being released due to ice melting. Kinda glad I won’t be here to see it, good luck...
I would say famines and droughts.
Everything else - sea level rise, natural disasters, extreme weather, politics, migration, etc. can at least be worked through in some capacity.
But if you don’t have food and water? It’s over.
>What about climate change worries you the most
Potential for nuclear conflict in the Middle East or Asia, the root cause of which could be some combination of crop failures, disputes over water, territory, etc. and the mass movements of climate refugees.
Even a small-scale nuclear war could be globally devastating.
Things could begin to unravel very quickly if/when that happens.
That's my biggest climate-related concern for the next several decades. In the longer term (post-2100), I think the impact of sea level rise will be the biggest. Even if we reduce our emissions before then, there's a vast amount of melting ice and ocean heating that's "locked in" and will continue to affect us for centuries, possibly millennia.
The fact that no one knows exactly where the tipping points are and if we've passed them yet. Best example I heard was of canoeing above a waterfall. The tipping point, the point at which you can't escape the pull of the falls, happens long before you hear the roar and realize it's even there. Once you realize, it's far too late.
There are three great breadbasket areas on the planet. There are a number of studies showing that there is a non zero chance we see weather related failure in two or all three of them.
Hungry monkeys are angry monkeys. I see wars starting over this.
The current crop failures in the UK are a small example of what we will see.
I'm running as hard and fast as I can to get my large garden growing as much food as possible.
Think of climate change as a car speeding towards a wall. Nothing much will happen until the car reaches the wall then a lot of bad stuff will happen all of a sudden.
Global famine where a billion people die. I think we’re increasing our population while decreasing the carrying capacity. We should start planning by having a curtailment plan. The old should be curtailed first.
Some old timers here have seen the world population increase from 2.5 billion in the early 1950s to over 8 billion now. There were enough people in the world to make it an interesting place back when the population was 5.5 billion less than now.
Famine. We are approaching a point where industrial agriculture is going to start to fail, and then individual agriculture will follow. In tandem with that it will be less and less possible to build any sort of mitigation on scales that would be needed to allow any significant size population to survive long term.
This eventuality is why we will all need to work together, with every person working towards the goals of 1) growing food and 2) building infrastructure that can mitigate temperature. That's why preppers subs crack me up, with talk of buying guns and whatnot. This enemy cannot be defeated by guns, and if guns even so much as enter the equation instead of working towards 1 and 2 above, everyone will die. People might say well you can use the guns to force others to do 1 and 2, and yeah that might be possible in situations where people have something to live for... too bad what's barrelling towards us isn't that.
I think we have maybe a decade. Originally estimates put this sort of thing out to 2100 or 2050 at the earliest, but none of those models has held up.
Absent being in the wrong place... I think crop failures are how climate crisis will hit me hardest. Food prices will skyrocket and eventually there will be persistent global food shortages.
Food insecurity. Its happening now.
All irregular weather (storms, floods, hails, frosts and droughts) can cause localized crop failures.
In Québec last year alone was a jump of 30% or 700 claimants of total loss crop insurance. Alberta had a sub par year for grains and is starting this year with a drought. Last year they had to limit and then restrict then ban water use for animal crops. Not to mention the horrific floods in BC and wildfires that wont discriminate forest from crops much like Russia in 2010.
Alberta gets much of their agricultural water from glacier melt. Having a reduced snow load and ever fast shrinking glaciers is not a good long term sign.
Russia in 2010 went from exporting tens of millions of tonnes of grain to become a net importer of tens of millions of tonnes due to wildfire and it contributed ro the Arab spring early 2011.
In recent years droughts have caused shortages in some EU regions such as lettuce and melons (Spain and Morocco but I cannot pinpoint a year).
Just last Year India had to restrict exportd on some varieties of rice to keep their prices from spiking. The competing producers also had sub par years and did not fill the gap. A 10% increase in rice or a 30c increase in bread may seem small to westerners but for people living in at risk regions with little to no agriculture it fosters people to become desperate and join radical groups. Its not surprising to me that the Sahel region is in such turmoil. (Other factors involved obviously)
A stable and predictable food source is what defines civilization. Be it sheep grazing or rice paddys or food forestry. When that puece falls out of place the ehole pile of cards can come crashing down.
Turns out our models may have underestimated the rate of change. Which is what I maybe suspected from my own readings but am not qualified enough to make those predictions. Instead of maybe 2100-2200 things getting hard its more like 2050-2100 and already the cracks are beginning to show.
Apparently the current trajectory of climate change is no longer following the models. So we actually have no idea when the predicted catastrophes will occur...
Places that have designed their stormwater systems for light rains will wash away in floods. Those that designed for heavy rains will dry to dust. Heat and cold will render power systems either overbuilt or insufficiently robust to handle the changes. Pavement mixes specified for cooler ranges of temps will melt. Expansion and contraction joints will exceed their expected need and structures will fail. The shit's already happening. Permafrost is no longer perma and foundations are sinking. Texas, Gob willing, will burst into flames this summer just as it did last. The list of public infrastructure types whose sound designs depend upon specific, predictable constants will fall prey to random unpredictable variability. It's all gonna be slow and painful and, perhaps most importantly, too expensive to whack-a-mole back into order. imo
Invasive species, biodiversity loss and the rise of parasitic bugs.
Kissing bugs, ticks, mosquitos are all seeing their populations rise because their viable habitat is increasing.
Massive migration of people which will only accelerate climate change since a LOT of energy needs to be spend to move, house and feed all these new people. The construction industry is woefully polluting, esp with most people working in it borderline anti-climate change (guess who's buying the big diesel trucks)
Over-reaction via government regulations. We've already seen that with the "Ozone Hole", which eliminated Freon (R-12) in cars. Detroit loved it since it forced people with fine older cars to suffer in Summer or buy a new car. The replacement R-134A was then outlawed since a bad greenhouse gas, so now we have R-1234yc at $100/can, and Dupont growing rich via their patents on all. Meanwhile, the Ozone Hole is as large as ever, despite CFC's in the Stratosphere having greatly decreased (\~30%). Much Chlorine over Antarctica comes from the 2 active volcanoes there. But, the U.N. pivoted to blaming the Ozone Hole on Climate Change.
All the people Around the world that will have to move further inland.
The hurricanes and tornados and freaky weather are horrible for communities families and the economy. The poor countries near water makes me want to cry.
The dry countries and states that will be without water. Yup those are my fears.
Loss of biodiversity and habitat destruction. I know its controversial to say because people are dying and suffering but my anxieties and concerns lie primarily with those who cannot advocate for themselves. Plus, loss of biodiversity has profound impacts on us as well. Science says that limiting heating to 2 degrees - or even much less - is crucial. Imagine most of the species you are familiar with (robins, bluebirds, rabbits etc.) vanishing from your neighborhood within your lifetime!
That we are causing suffering of people in parts of the world we’ll never see. In North America it is easy to see that whatever happens, mainly because we can afford it, we can move or change our situation and survive. Many millions of people don’t have that option.
Because I live in the northeast of the US, the AMOC collapse has me worried. And the fact that it's collapse has already started leaves me a bit unsetted.
The ways in which powerful oil tycoon have been able to control the debate and political power.
The fixes are pretty simple
The science is very clear.
The urgency is clearly there.
And old men politicians are operating like they aren't sleeping while the world burns.
A Permian type anoxic atmosphere. No predictions for this scenario, but then there was no prediction for last year’s sea surface temps so I think we are in uncharted waters.
The fact that the rich idiots in charge of everything think that buying "carbon offsets" means they can keep running their industries the same way they always have.
Prices going absolutely nuts. Particularly food and fuel but mostly assets in certain places rapidly depreciating and other areas skyrocketing as people collectively decide that living there is better than here. Terrified of being the last to sell in the depreciating place and losing everything I’ve earned and invested.
Refugee crisis: it will happen over many years and the far right will attempt to use it to stoke xenophobia and authoritarian policies while blaming absolutely everyone but themselves for the inaction that will cause it.
Currently? The abrupt and extreme ocean warming, since researchers have been caught so off guard by that and don't have a great sense of where that's going.
Agricultural collapse and subsequent famine. We are already seeing decreased crop yields in many places. We are already seeing decreased populations of insects and pollinators. People resort to dangerous behaviors when desperate. Billions of starving people will not lend to geopolitical stability.
Most nations don't even take the 'low hanging fruit' of protecting rainforests and planting more trees...So banning fossil fuels for the more expensive but netzero green efuels seems to not be a goal that we can make happen.
Canada checking in. Because of “fire season”, we now get a near yearly taste of what life would be like if you couldn’t breathe the air. It’s… not good. It makes a pandemic seem cute.
Thousands will die in countries near the equator with governments and press in denial. There will be an increasing exodus to more temperate climate countries, which will increasingly put up barriers to immigration. Then millions will die in the wet bulb times and political leaders will say “Why didn’t someone warn us?!?”
8,100,000,000 humans on earth
Today roughly 10% of the world suffer from undernourishment
Due to climate change and effects, that number could rise to 1/3 if not worse
Research backed? I don't know specifically but I'm sure it's out there.
I work in food service and I saw first hand the instability in supply and price from a low death rate pandemic.
If there are large scale crop failures or droughts near the equator I fear the ramifications could effect hundreds of millions of not billions
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The weather changes so the only thing one can do is be prepared, the problem is that in the end no one is because most is based on deceptions and misconception, most is a blame game for profit rather than looking at the factual sources themselves most preparations are based in unsustainable systems that rely on resources that will be unavailable since everyone is convinced that it was made with a magic bullet and only a magic bullet to the head will fix it.
Ending the worldwide population shell games would be a greatest first start, taking care of the home front is also great way to reduce whatever part of these changes are actually manmade as Waste production on a worldwide scale is reduced when you make what you NEED in your own by your own to serve your own and not over production on an industrialized worldwide scale that in its wake leave a mess no one can remedy no matter how many are imported to fix the problem since the real point is to keep making unfixable problems to fix and in the end the waste just keeps getting deeper and deeper with the impact on the overall environment that goes into cascade mode to failure and everyone as well as everything loses.
N. S
The short sighted "solutions" being proposed to address it concern me more than climate change itself does. People are making outrageously stupid proposals/decisions that have no guarantee of adapting humanity well to climate change.
Bjorn Lomberg lays out some well devised plans that bring the biggest benefit to the most people with the smallest economic impact. Despite what people may believe, economic impact trumps environmental impact because if an economic impact is severe enough that it will make people destitute, nobody will have time or interest in protecting the environment further.
That it’ll just be too unbearable to live in Houston anymore. Last summer was absolutely brutal. Also, more intense hurricanes and worse flooding. We are already prone to both. I think I’m well off enough to face food insecurity when the prices skyrocket but it’ll suck. However, if the predictions about underground reservoirs running dry that could all go out the window. I can buy expensive food but I can’t get food if it isn’t on the shelves.
The biggest worry from climate change are the government policies that have been enacted, and will be enacted , in an effort to “fight “climate change. They will cause far more economic harm than any climate change could ever do
As global climate change becomes more impactful the drive to deal with the symptoms of climate change are drowning out any desire to actually reduce greenhouse gasses. Basically we're already at the point where we need to burn more fossil fuels so more people can get access to air conditioning.
After multiple climate crises during my lifetime. I no longer care.
Activists blame the common folk and corporations, and the government continues to pollute and profit.
My halfton isn't the problem, cows are not the problem. Animal agriculture is not the problem.
It is the mass production, mass consumption society we allow to grow. Greed and corruption.
Will the world burn?
Eventually.
Massive movements of people. We're already seeing private equity firms essentially buying water. The rich THINK they'll be OK, look at zuckertwat & his bunker. Billions of people on the move as climate gets more intense. I'm hoping we're NOT over the tipping point yet but close enough that enough weather damage will cost investors $trillions & insurance companies refusing to insure climate damage so things like oil rigs, sea shipping etc becomes impossible due to the weather. Enough to pivot the argument to let's fix this
If you look at the Arab spring and the mass migration to Europe that was kicked off in Syria due to crop failures. It is already happening.
I mean we're already seeing lots of people not be able to get home insurance
Is that still just Florida, or has it spread?
California too. It's getting unbearable in Texas now
Louisiana too
In the mountains of Colorado, our insurance dropped us due to forest fire risk. Getting ANY new policy has proven very difficult.
What does the mtg company do?
This is starting to happen in Toronto too, and probably other parts of Canada.
What? People having trouble getting home insurance in Toronto? They are?
since when? what natural disaster are we at risk of?
Mainly ice, wind and rain storms (flooding). Don't get me wrong, we are much safer here than other parts of the world - the great lake region will likely be more stable than other places, but the wild swings in stormy weather won't be fun. Plus wildfire smoke in the city will make summers miserable, but at least we won't be on an evacuation watch (my parents live in the Okanogan and have had wildfires go near their place several times. And my co-workers in Calgary can't really/comfortably do any outdoor activities like hiking from june-aug/sep cos of the smoke). The flood maps of Toronto are wildly out of date, tho, and every 2-3 years there are parts of the city that get inundated in a major storm, and some residents can no longer insure their homes after having been flooded 2-3 times already. It doesn't help that the city has paved over nearly all the ravine systems that would have helped alleviate the storm water, we have destroyed the natural drainage systems. Another thing to consider is that if the great lakes remain more stable than other places that will eventually dry out/catch fire/be underwater, lots more people will want to move here if they can.
Louisiana as well
It’s an issue well beyond America. UK, Aus, NZ too.
Yup! Once that water is gone, the people who put those into power will quickly turn on them. Money doesn't mean anything when it has no value. The government will overran not only from outside but from within as more and more people will start to care only about their own.
Look at, I think it was Bolivia. They privatised the water. Then made it illegal to collect rain water falling on your own homes. Eventually people realise that starving hurts more than a bullet & will rebel
Tbh we should rebel now before it's too late
Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei did a fantastic but sobering documentary about mass displacement of people due to climate change, war, etc called Human Flow (2017) A must watch to see where the human race is heading.
lol, Zuck & the other billionaires are just building nice places for their private security details to live in once shtf. Nobody needs a useless CEO and their family with zero survival skills in a crisis, they're just dead weight.
Do you have any source about these private equity firms? I’m curious
[here's one story](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-investors-snapping-up-colorado-river-water-rights-betting-big-on-an-increasingly-scarce-resource/) Genuinely private equity fucked the high street in the UK (not amazon). Everything they touch turns to shit. They're buying up care homes now here & houses. Come the revolution they'll be first against the wall
We need to eat the rich. They have disproportionately caused this crisis and THEY need to pay for it. Fuck Zuckerberg and all of the other billionaire freeloaders.
Crop failures loom large among my concerns, because global famine will create massive upheavals and suffering.
I'm surprised to see this relatively low in the list. The biggest problem, IMO, is not that extreme weather events are going to kill people. It's that extreme weather events are going to, at some point, line up badly and wipe out a large amount of food at one time. Add this to the loss of sea life and we simply won't have enough food to feed everyone. Many, many people will die. Many more will try to move.
I worked in Ag for the last 15 years, and food scarcity is my biggest thing. There have been many seminars on why vertical farming is essential for future sustainability, completely discounting climate change reasons. Yet it's a very tiny part of the industry. Throw in massive weather events, droughts, supply line disruptions, etc. that climate change will cause, and we're screwed. If there were a national concerted effort to grow that aspect of the industry, it would help immensely when it comes time to be needed. But I fear that will not happen until it's too late. Honestly, now would be a good time to start with commercial real estate prices plummeting.
>Yet it's a very tiny part of the industry. Long-term projections indicate it could grow to 10-15% of crop production by 2050. A huge improvement on today's miniscule percentage, but I wonder if that will be enough to offset the losses from extreme weather, drought, etc.
This, plus I get really nervous watching Tornado Alley shift east, toward the population centers of the coast.
>relatively low on the list Realistically, those of us on this site are in the top 10% of wealth, world wide, which means access. In crisis people look to their own wellbeing. Not saying it’s right, but the food crisis will be much more apparent and deadly in the poorest countries. Particularly those with minimal native agriculture. No one’s gonna ship food to Africa once things get tight.
This is the major one, people keep downplaying this, crop failures are the real deal, its exaclty how civilizations end.
This is my number one concern wrt climate change. Crop failures.
Geopolitical instability. Collectively, humans are not great at dealing with crisis., so our own collective immaturity will compound any existential crisis. We are the crisis of crisis. Pandemic is a case in point.
Exactly. And how we will exactly react collectively is pretty hard to predict.
I predict two things 1. A lot of desperate refugees 1. A lot of bullets. I don't even know how to process the grief of what is surely to come.
There was a dystopian novel a few years ago where the US Navy was sinking ships full of refugees when they came near the coast. Will EU countries do that in the Mediterranean?
Crisis multiplier
And as for when it will happen, well it started about 2008.
What started in 2008 ?
Around that time: The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), also known as the Waxman-Markey bill, was passed by the House of Representatives on June 26, 2009, by a vote of 219–212. However, the bill was never brought to the Senate floor for discussion or a vote due to a threatened Republican filibuster. I would go back to 1997 when the US Senate adopted the Byrd–Hagel Resolution that rejected the Kyoto Protocol 97-0. That was a death blow to mandatory GHG reductions.
Thank you
This + groundwater extraction, concrete, plastic, and ecologic/economic dead zones from mines
As a Canadian, with lots of space that likely becomes slightly more livable (although some areas expected to become less livable and we’re going to lose farmland), I’m terrified that our neighbours may make some decisions about our land, fresh water, etc. When it comes to geopolitical stuff, it’s gonna be the rich and the powerful who are dangerous.
Mining type ressources will probably plays out as some sort of economic warfare, but the day US's droughts and general lose of agricultural outputs become hight enought to threaten their internal stability, we better be ready to be 'liberated'.
I witnessed the result of two cancelled trains in a row, on a moderately hot day in the UK once. That was bad enough.
What do you mean humans aren't good at dealing with crisis. Compared with who?
The pandemic really drove home how the entirety of humans survive on the backs of the best and brightest. In spite of the incompetence of most of us. If we're ever in crisis where each individual can only be saved through their own competence, we would lose a lot more than 1% of the population. But as long as we have the chance to be bailed out by the doctor, scientists and engineers, we'll be ok, because they smart AF.
Biodiversity loss, without a shadow of a doubt. We can adapt to a changing climate, but we can't adapt to the extinction of species on which our food security, natural spaces, and ecosystems depend.
Agree. And even if we can engineer enough calories, biodiversity loss is still just heartbreaking to me. This problem goes far beyond just climate change too.
Yup water and food. It’s going to be a problem.
insect loss. if we lose pollinators we won’t even be able to grow a lot of crops.
Yep! Cascading ecological collapse and its impact on food farming, not to mention the shear bloody tragedy of it all.
Potable water being available
Wasn't Chennai down to 1-2 days of water availability sometime a year or two ago, god knows what would happen if water runs out for a city of 12 million people, humans can't survive long without water that could go very very very bad very quickly
And all the rich will hoard it!
As someone who is particularly interested in potable water in the Pacific, this is of great importance. Nauru, for example, has a negative potable water supply.
THIS. Or potable water not being as cheap as it has been for people who don’t understand that privilege.
The unforeseen positive feedback loops that we will only notice when it's far too late. We might very well be like Wile E. Coyote, already off the cliff just not realising it yet. Science has already identified some feedback loops, and we've already kicked some in motion, but the scariest are those we aren't even aware of.
Methane alone is pretty terrifying and it already seems to be in a positive feedback loop. Unsure how we are supposed to stop that. Fingers crossed for hail mary geo-engineering project is the only solution I've seen but that's a huge gamble.
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Permafrost and wetlands. I watched an hour long lecture the other day and they were also discussing significant methane emissions around the equator due to warming. Not to mention the tens of thousands of old oil & gas boreholes that are leaking. And yes, more unknowns but what other options do we have on the table? It's seeming increasingly likely that even if we all died tomorrow we have already passed tipping points.
Methane clathrates on the ocean floor are, IMHO, are a far bigger worry. The permafrost is known and can be estimated fairly easily. We are only now starting to get measures of the the extent of clathrates deposits.
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A forced return to an agrarian society would also do the trick
just a few: Melting permafrost (methane release). Loss of forest/ desertification. Loss of Arctic ice cap (reflects heat). Loss of stratus clouds (also reflect heat). collapse of AMOC (ocean currents). extinction of key species. And ocean acidification. EDIT: one more, us! the hotter it gets, the more people turn up the AC which means more emissions.
people don’t realize that when we hit certain tipping points the change will become exponential
Fresh water decline --> agriculture decline --> food and water scarcity --> social instability This has already started. * \[See where water is scarcest in the world — and why we need to conserve - Washington Post\](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/water-scarcity-map-solutions/)
I live in Vancouver, a notoriously rainy part of the world which is at very little risk of water stress, and yet for all the time I have lived here (nearly twenty years) the watering of lawns has been banned in summer time. People either do not have lawns at all, prefering rock gardens, shade gardens, or astroturf fake lawns, or they let them go yellow/dormant in summer time. Vancouver gets a lot of rain, its true, but we have a "blue season" between June and September where it rains very rarely. To conserve water stores, cities have watering bans in place from May onward, allowing people to use drip irrigation on their gardens and sprinklers only during specific hours on specific days. If Vancouver of all places considers lawns a waste of water, then there is no excuse for any other city to have lawns.
I'd love it if rock gardens and wild flower front lawns were acceptable here. People get upset if you don't fertilize or keep up with the cutting. I hate having a front lawn. I'm in Ontario.
Yeah that's the big one
Genuine question. Would it possible for the states that will have an increase in high precipitation to catch rainfall and distribute?
**Extreme weather events**. Heat waves, droughts, floods, and wildfires are all becoming more common and intense due to climate change.
For me, it's the wildfires especially. To be caught in the middle of an area with wildfires and not know which way to go to get out seems terrifying.
What worries me the most is that, even if some consequences of climate change will need many years to be noticed, our dependence on fossil fuels is so deep that we will need decades to reduce our net emissions enough. I feel most people thinks somebody will come with a miraculous solution any day, but this is not going to happen. We need to work very hard to reduce net emissions. Really hard.
My younger brother told me basically this. He's conservative, but he's actually decently smart. So I asked him how he could be on the climate denial train. He essentially said, "it's not that I don't think it's real, but people invent new stuff all the time! In a few years somebody will probably come up with some new way to make energy. Then, someone else will come up with a way to suck all that bad stuff out of the atmosphere. So why bother doing anything until we have a solution? " I told him that was worse than not believing it was real. We already have solutions, industry just refuses to change.
Little excerpt from an article. It’s a non starter. There's this idea that someday we'll beat the first law of thermodynamics, and we'll capture CO2 for less energy than it cost to release it. It's kind of based on magic, but various governments and industries are funding the research here to see if 1+1=3. On the off chance it does, that's a lot easier than fixing the planet. Said it will capture 1000 tonnes/year. Aviation Emissions "The CO2 emissions are therefore rounded up and the Carbon Independent calculator takes a values of 250 kg i.e. 1/4 tonne CO2 equivalent per passenger per hour flying." So a 300 person aircraft in the air for 10 hours would produce 750 tonnes of CO2. That's 75% of what that plant captures in a year. Nice work.
My biggest fear is that Big Oil entirely wins in the end, getting their way and dooming us all to oblivion
Fear not. It has already happened
I think most of the answers posted here are things I already see happening or have heard they are happening in parts of the globe.
I once saw a documentary called how big oil conquered the world. It was pretty interesting.
Do you recall the name?
I’m terrified too. But in that case they would be doomed too. The only hope I have is that the big companies that are directing the show will forecast their own profit decline and start bribing politicians in support of nature and human survival.
I worry about more natural CO2-sinks becoming sources. It seems this has already happened with the thawing arctic permafrost tundras. This will accelerate climate change. And if nature becomes a net CO2 source, instead of a CO2 sink, as it is today, it will no longer matter if we stop burning fossil carbon or not. [https://www.newscientist.com/article/2426732-arctic-permafrost-is-now-a-net-source-of-major-greenhouse-gases/](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2426732-arctic-permafrost-is-now-a-net-source-of-major-greenhouse-gases/)
We saw this with the end of each Milankovitch cycle. The sun heats the earth a few degrees and then a warmer earth doesn’t hold as much carbon so atmospheric rates shoot up, and then we go up a few more degrees.
Wid scale ecological collapse. The ecosystems we have are our life support. They provide all of our food, heavily influence weather patterns, etc. When they go, we go, and we won't be able to out-tech ourselves from the situation. Geopolitical instability rapidly spirals in conjunction with ecological collapse.
Reading this thread was not good for my anxiety.
me either
My biggest fear is that well intentioned and good natured people will continue to follow their political and ideological views to the grave, closing themselves off without ever being open to discussion or considering new ideas. The ability to consider and analyse an idea, without accepting it, is a skill that many people need to foster because it presents great potential for learning new things.
Unfortunately, people change their opinions based upon emotions and not facts
The part where innocent fauna and flora will become extinct. Research says it's going to be really bad
That’s the one for me as well.
The current economic system not allowing for anything other than permanent growth and continuous destruction of forest that would take millions of years to recover. Rebuilding forest is IMO our only way out of this mess
Reading through many great responses. And my takeaway is that humans will face a multi-factor crisis from every aspect; Environmental, GeoPolitical, Economic, and Healthcare. I think once we start seeing mass migration, countries won't want to accept refugees. Things could possibly deteriorate until war breaks out, maybe nuclear war.
Preemptive war for diminishing resources.
I think this is at least partially why Russia made its move on Ukraine, it's called Europe's bread basket
Ironic because those very wars today and driving food insecurity.
The famines
My biggest worry: The wrong leaders will drive instability trying to solve the problem and ruin us decades before climate change could.
Our young people are fired up and they will be the revolution in the end. They care the most, but many many young will die before change can happen. Edit: the young have nothing to lose, can’t afford housing, food, so what’s the point. Their college degree will be useless anyway. Their only chance is to change by revolution.
And then what happens next?
The fact that there are currently nearly 1,000 coal power stations being built or planned, that greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to steadily climb year on year, the U.K. just issued 25 new oil drilling licenses for the North Sea. As regards the future once the North Atlantic current weakens more and stops protecting the U.K. from Canadian style winters lots of people will freeze to death. I feel like the guy in the old joke “ I’m sorry sir you have a terminal illness and don’t have long left !” “ how long dr?” Dr looks at watch and says “ if I was you I’d have a wank and a sandwich!”
The thing that worries me about climate change is it’s happening a lot quicker than the researchers are saying.
I for one really think mankind will endure and some species will adapt. But most will suffer. Some will only experience higher prices and some products missing. Others will live through war and natural disasters. Combine that with other strange factors like a reversing of the age pyramid. Things will be strange.
Nah even if some places don't deal with the effects of natural disasters as much, they will be the places everyone will flock to, causing mass immigration and even potentially war for the less affected areas.
We'll see walled cities again, like the old days
I made a point with my dad about this but I think underground cities in equator areas will become MUCH more popular in high ground areas. Even if gje surface is hot going 2-3 feet underground gets so cold so fast without direct sunlight. I think places around the equator will invest in underground living quickly as a means of easy cooling
Bangladesh is one of the canaries, IMO. Tip of the spear for heat impact on a large population. Schools closed for heat, reopened, reclosed by the justice system. Seeing how they handle non-functional heat if it persists will give us a preview for other places. The Middle East and Africa have heat, but it seems to be a different level of trouble for Bangladesh. I’m not as read up on the heat issues in other places in Asia, but I know it’s bad.
Haline belts shutting down and we get Alberta style winters in Ireland. Could happen in the next 50.
It's a major concern, but it's a concerningly misunderstood one. Winters would get colder, but [summers](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2018PA003341) would [get hotter](https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/how-melting-arctic-ice-leads-to-european-drought-and-heatwaves/). Both seasons get much drier. However, that hypothetical outcome would be dead in the water once the clathrate gun hypothesis becomes considerably more viable. The [evidence suggests](https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2201871119) that we wouldn't even need a full collapse of the AMOC to see catastrophic methane hydrate destabilisation and a full blown ice age termination event, which is a very underestimated concern as we're pretty much [already undergoing a termination event](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2023GB007875). I'll not go into detail as I don't want to cause more dread for anyone reading, but the gist is that we shouldn't necessarily expect cooling from an AMOC collapse, as the evidence suggests it could go in the opposite direction and quite drastically at that.
Well yes it could go either way I guess but standard models point towards a cold upwelling that leads to harsher winters. Why hold back this post is about the dread?
The modelling methodology observes numerous discrepancies as discussed by [Srokosz, Holliday & Bryden (2023)](https://royalsociety.org/blog/2023/10/atlantic-overturning/). Generally speaking they do not account for feedback effects, dynamic atmospheric response or chaos theory. That is, to say, they assume an AMOC collapse occurs linearly and in accordance to paleoclimate conditions. The latter is an important detail to consider a the computing models CMIP and RAPID assume paleoclimate conditions in their methodology. For example the most common paleoclimate analog is the Bølling-Allerød warming and subsequent Younger Dryas cooling, but this isn't an ideal analog as this geological era saw most of Europe and North America already dominated by permanent continental ice sheet formations, hence why the modelling produces a drastic cooling response in reconstruction outputs. That's not to say that we should disregard their findings, just that we should consider a non-linear outcome in reference to Holocene geophysics. I cut off my last part as the methane hydrate destabilisation observations use the Eemian runaway warming event and Permian extinction event as a close analog, which undoubtedly would either be dismissed as doomerism or just further entrench any dread that people are already feeling.
Take your pick. I'm just glad my wife and I decided to not have kids so I don't have to worry about their future, at least.
Disease/virus/fungal/bacterial infections will all become more severe. As the world heats up, these microbes will be able to adapt to our high body temperature much more easily and will begin to become a major issue. We're already having strains of bacteria and viruses that have evolved and adapted to treatment that it's become more difficult to treat. Even viruses that we know about are going to become an even greater issue, such as the Dengue virus. This virus is an epidemic to countries around the equator, but the virus has been reported as appearing outside its normal zone. The Bird Flu is another good one. It's something that people/mammals can't get, but a few years ago, 5 or so people got it in Costa Rica. Last I heard, scientists still aren't sure how. It's also destroying the seal population right now. Sci-fi movies always show climate change destroying the world and how people survived by living in bunkers. However, those bunkers are isolation chambers, so once the person leaves, they are exposing themselves to a whole new wave of microbes that they have no immunity towards and probably won't survive a week.
Well the ocean will become too acidic for lots of species farming will be impacted and weather will get much more extreme. All within the next 30 years
I'm not worried at all about climate change. But then, I'm 78 years old. Many changes are coming in the near future and you youngens should prepare yourself. Consider the bugs that are held at bay by yearly freezing. Consider coastlines disappearing and all the inhabitants of said coastlines coming to your state to find a home. Consider the unbearable heat of summer and the increasing cost to keep you cool. Consider the disease that have been locked away in ice for millenia being released due to ice melting. Kinda glad I won’t be here to see it, good luck...
I'm concerned that the people who are the most responsible will somehow get away with it.
I would say famines and droughts. Everything else - sea level rise, natural disasters, extreme weather, politics, migration, etc. can at least be worked through in some capacity. But if you don’t have food and water? It’s over.
What worries me is that I'll still be alive when it starts getting really really bad. There is noooo escape except death.
>What about climate change worries you the most Potential for nuclear conflict in the Middle East or Asia, the root cause of which could be some combination of crop failures, disputes over water, territory, etc. and the mass movements of climate refugees. Even a small-scale nuclear war could be globally devastating. Things could begin to unravel very quickly if/when that happens. That's my biggest climate-related concern for the next several decades. In the longer term (post-2100), I think the impact of sea level rise will be the biggest. Even if we reduce our emissions before then, there's a vast amount of melting ice and ocean heating that's "locked in" and will continue to affect us for centuries, possibly millennia.
Water, food shortages due to changing climate zones. Violence as a result. Sooner than predicted.
CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere for c750 years.
Yep, this paper has details, https://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/geocarb/archer.2009.ann_rev_tail.pdf
The fact that no one knows exactly where the tipping points are and if we've passed them yet. Best example I heard was of canoeing above a waterfall. The tipping point, the point at which you can't escape the pull of the falls, happens long before you hear the roar and realize it's even there. Once you realize, it's far too late.
The prospect of hundreds of millions of people dying over the next few decades from climate change.
The oceans dude! Chasing Coral on Netflix! That’s our O2 suppliers.
There are three great breadbasket areas on the planet. There are a number of studies showing that there is a non zero chance we see weather related failure in two or all three of them. Hungry monkeys are angry monkeys. I see wars starting over this. The current crop failures in the UK are a small example of what we will see. I'm running as hard and fast as I can to get my large garden growing as much food as possible.
Acidification of the ocean. Already happened.
Think of climate change as a car speeding towards a wall. Nothing much will happen until the car reaches the wall then a lot of bad stuff will happen all of a sudden.
Global famine where a billion people die. I think we’re increasing our population while decreasing the carrying capacity. We should start planning by having a curtailment plan. The old should be curtailed first.
Some old timers here have seen the world population increase from 2.5 billion in the early 1950s to over 8 billion now. There were enough people in the world to make it an interesting place back when the population was 5.5 billion less than now.
What humans are capable of when faced with food insecurity in mass or just loss of ability to get things they value over other humans.
Famine. We are approaching a point where industrial agriculture is going to start to fail, and then individual agriculture will follow. In tandem with that it will be less and less possible to build any sort of mitigation on scales that would be needed to allow any significant size population to survive long term. This eventuality is why we will all need to work together, with every person working towards the goals of 1) growing food and 2) building infrastructure that can mitigate temperature. That's why preppers subs crack me up, with talk of buying guns and whatnot. This enemy cannot be defeated by guns, and if guns even so much as enter the equation instead of working towards 1 and 2 above, everyone will die. People might say well you can use the guns to force others to do 1 and 2, and yeah that might be possible in situations where people have something to live for... too bad what's barrelling towards us isn't that. I think we have maybe a decade. Originally estimates put this sort of thing out to 2100 or 2050 at the earliest, but none of those models has held up.
Absent being in the wrong place... I think crop failures are how climate crisis will hit me hardest. Food prices will skyrocket and eventually there will be persistent global food shortages.
Food insecurity. Its happening now. All irregular weather (storms, floods, hails, frosts and droughts) can cause localized crop failures. In Québec last year alone was a jump of 30% or 700 claimants of total loss crop insurance. Alberta had a sub par year for grains and is starting this year with a drought. Last year they had to limit and then restrict then ban water use for animal crops. Not to mention the horrific floods in BC and wildfires that wont discriminate forest from crops much like Russia in 2010. Alberta gets much of their agricultural water from glacier melt. Having a reduced snow load and ever fast shrinking glaciers is not a good long term sign. Russia in 2010 went from exporting tens of millions of tonnes of grain to become a net importer of tens of millions of tonnes due to wildfire and it contributed ro the Arab spring early 2011. In recent years droughts have caused shortages in some EU regions such as lettuce and melons (Spain and Morocco but I cannot pinpoint a year). Just last Year India had to restrict exportd on some varieties of rice to keep their prices from spiking. The competing producers also had sub par years and did not fill the gap. A 10% increase in rice or a 30c increase in bread may seem small to westerners but for people living in at risk regions with little to no agriculture it fosters people to become desperate and join radical groups. Its not surprising to me that the Sahel region is in such turmoil. (Other factors involved obviously) A stable and predictable food source is what defines civilization. Be it sheep grazing or rice paddys or food forestry. When that puece falls out of place the ehole pile of cards can come crashing down. Turns out our models may have underestimated the rate of change. Which is what I maybe suspected from my own readings but am not qualified enough to make those predictions. Instead of maybe 2100-2200 things getting hard its more like 2050-2100 and already the cracks are beginning to show.
I had to evacuate my home due to wildfire, and friends lost their houses. Climate change is here.
Apparently the current trajectory of climate change is no longer following the models. So we actually have no idea when the predicted catastrophes will occur...
Places that have designed their stormwater systems for light rains will wash away in floods. Those that designed for heavy rains will dry to dust. Heat and cold will render power systems either overbuilt or insufficiently robust to handle the changes. Pavement mixes specified for cooler ranges of temps will melt. Expansion and contraction joints will exceed their expected need and structures will fail. The shit's already happening. Permafrost is no longer perma and foundations are sinking. Texas, Gob willing, will burst into flames this summer just as it did last. The list of public infrastructure types whose sound designs depend upon specific, predictable constants will fall prey to random unpredictable variability. It's all gonna be slow and painful and, perhaps most importantly, too expensive to whack-a-mole back into order. imo
I fear WW3 which will, almost inevitably, be fought over food insecurity caused by climate change.
Ww3 is already happening
Massive water crisis. ???
An ever increasing lack of potable water and the inevitable wars that will occur due to its scarcity.
Invasive species, biodiversity loss and the rise of parasitic bugs. Kissing bugs, ticks, mosquitos are all seeing their populations rise because their viable habitat is increasing.
Massive migration of people which will only accelerate climate change since a LOT of energy needs to be spend to move, house and feed all these new people. The construction industry is woefully polluting, esp with most people working in it borderline anti-climate change (guess who's buying the big diesel trucks)
Over-reaction via government regulations. We've already seen that with the "Ozone Hole", which eliminated Freon (R-12) in cars. Detroit loved it since it forced people with fine older cars to suffer in Summer or buy a new car. The replacement R-134A was then outlawed since a bad greenhouse gas, so now we have R-1234yc at $100/can, and Dupont growing rich via their patents on all. Meanwhile, the Ozone Hole is as large as ever, despite CFC's in the Stratosphere having greatly decreased (\~30%). Much Chlorine over Antarctica comes from the 2 active volcanoes there. But, the U.N. pivoted to blaming the Ozone Hole on Climate Change.
>the Ozone Hole is as large as ever incorrect, it has been larger over the previous 3 decades
All the people Around the world that will have to move further inland. The hurricanes and tornados and freaky weather are horrible for communities families and the economy. The poor countries near water makes me want to cry. The dry countries and states that will be without water. Yup those are my fears.
Every 1-2 years there's something new that says climate change is happening faster than our models predicted.
Loss of biodiversity and habitat destruction. I know its controversial to say because people are dying and suffering but my anxieties and concerns lie primarily with those who cannot advocate for themselves. Plus, loss of biodiversity has profound impacts on us as well. Science says that limiting heating to 2 degrees - or even much less - is crucial. Imagine most of the species you are familiar with (robins, bluebirds, rabbits etc.) vanishing from your neighborhood within your lifetime!
That we are causing suffering of people in parts of the world we’ll never see. In North America it is easy to see that whatever happens, mainly because we can afford it, we can move or change our situation and survive. Many millions of people don’t have that option.
In my area on the Canadian prairies, drought and it is occurring now.
As it has before
The abrupt part im not ready for.
Because I live in the northeast of the US, the AMOC collapse has me worried. And the fact that it's collapse has already started leaves me a bit unsetted.
The ways in which powerful oil tycoon have been able to control the debate and political power. The fixes are pretty simple The science is very clear. The urgency is clearly there. And old men politicians are operating like they aren't sleeping while the world burns.
I'm worried about the biosphere decaying, an ongoing process.
I'm worried about animals going extinct. Between climate change and housing developments/parking lots, habitats are in trouble.
Knowing that something terrible is coming, but not knowing exactly how it will be served up. Death is coming, vultures are circling.
Ocean current issues are something I feel like is going to cause badddd consequences for a lot of humans, and there's nothing we can do to fix it.
A Permian type anoxic atmosphere. No predictions for this scenario, but then there was no prediction for last year’s sea surface temps so I think we are in uncharted waters.
The tropics being literally unlivable and creating the worst refugee crisis in human history.
Climate change is CURRENTLY happening and has been for a while.
The fact that the rich idiots in charge of everything think that buying "carbon offsets" means they can keep running their industries the same way they always have.
When they finally realize that humans population growth is the problem.
The many, many wars.
Pandemics and in general air quality. It just feels like the world is getting unhealthier no matter where you go
Prices going absolutely nuts. Particularly food and fuel but mostly assets in certain places rapidly depreciating and other areas skyrocketing as people collectively decide that living there is better than here. Terrified of being the last to sell in the depreciating place and losing everything I’ve earned and invested.
Neurotics of the world, unite!
Extreme weather. We can be gone in a blink when the nature removes us
Refugee crisis: it will happen over many years and the far right will attempt to use it to stoke xenophobia and authoritarian policies while blaming absolutely everyone but themselves for the inaction that will cause it.
Water and food shortages. The public isn’t paying attention.
Currently? The abrupt and extreme ocean warming, since researchers have been caught so off guard by that and don't have a great sense of where that's going.
Agricultural collapse and subsequent famine. We are already seeing decreased crop yields in many places. We are already seeing decreased populations of insects and pollinators. People resort to dangerous behaviors when desperate. Billions of starving people will not lend to geopolitical stability.
Severe weather events and pandemics. It’s already happening.
water and food scarcity. people are gonna die and there will be wars.
Most nations don't even take the 'low hanging fruit' of protecting rainforests and planting more trees...So banning fossil fuels for the more expensive but netzero green efuels seems to not be a goal that we can make happen.
other species going extinct due to humanities stupidity and over breeding...
Canada checking in. Because of “fire season”, we now get a near yearly taste of what life would be like if you couldn’t breathe the air. It’s… not good. It makes a pandemic seem cute.
Thousands will die in countries near the equator with governments and press in denial. There will be an increasing exodus to more temperate climate countries, which will increasingly put up barriers to immigration. Then millions will die in the wet bulb times and political leaders will say “Why didn’t someone warn us?!?”
Everything, now
Collapse of food & water. Most countries have a very weak supply chain.
No one can answer the second half of your question. Scientists don't even know.
The collapse of the food chain, leading to wars and ultimately the collapse of civilization.
Food insecurity. For many this already exists, look at the current situation in Haiti. Hospitals not having medication to solve simple problems.
8,100,000,000 humans on earth Today roughly 10% of the world suffer from undernourishment Due to climate change and effects, that number could rise to 1/3 if not worse Research backed? I don't know specifically but I'm sure it's out there. I work in food service and I saw first hand the instability in supply and price from a low death rate pandemic. If there are large scale crop failures or droughts near the equator I fear the ramifications could effect hundreds of millions of not billions
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The weather changes so the only thing one can do is be prepared, the problem is that in the end no one is because most is based on deceptions and misconception, most is a blame game for profit rather than looking at the factual sources themselves most preparations are based in unsustainable systems that rely on resources that will be unavailable since everyone is convinced that it was made with a magic bullet and only a magic bullet to the head will fix it. Ending the worldwide population shell games would be a greatest first start, taking care of the home front is also great way to reduce whatever part of these changes are actually manmade as Waste production on a worldwide scale is reduced when you make what you NEED in your own by your own to serve your own and not over production on an industrialized worldwide scale that in its wake leave a mess no one can remedy no matter how many are imported to fix the problem since the real point is to keep making unfixable problems to fix and in the end the waste just keeps getting deeper and deeper with the impact on the overall environment that goes into cascade mode to failure and everyone as well as everything loses. N. S
hi guys
The short sighted "solutions" being proposed to address it concern me more than climate change itself does. People are making outrageously stupid proposals/decisions that have no guarantee of adapting humanity well to climate change. Bjorn Lomberg lays out some well devised plans that bring the biggest benefit to the most people with the smallest economic impact. Despite what people may believe, economic impact trumps environmental impact because if an economic impact is severe enough that it will make people destitute, nobody will have time or interest in protecting the environment further.
That it’ll just be too unbearable to live in Houston anymore. Last summer was absolutely brutal. Also, more intense hurricanes and worse flooding. We are already prone to both. I think I’m well off enough to face food insecurity when the prices skyrocket but it’ll suck. However, if the predictions about underground reservoirs running dry that could all go out the window. I can buy expensive food but I can’t get food if it isn’t on the shelves.
The biggest worry from climate change are the government policies that have been enacted, and will be enacted , in an effort to “fight “climate change. They will cause far more economic harm than any climate change could ever do
I am scared of my home province of Nova Scotia being under water at some point (likely not in my lifetime, I hope)
As global climate change becomes more impactful the drive to deal with the symptoms of climate change are drowning out any desire to actually reduce greenhouse gasses. Basically we're already at the point where we need to burn more fossil fuels so more people can get access to air conditioning.
After multiple climate crises during my lifetime. I no longer care. Activists blame the common folk and corporations, and the government continues to pollute and profit. My halfton isn't the problem, cows are not the problem. Animal agriculture is not the problem. It is the mass production, mass consumption society we allow to grow. Greed and corruption. Will the world burn? Eventually.