Worst case scenario is Venusification, where runaway climate change forces make earth literally uninhabitable for all known lifeforms. If we continue on our current path this is a likely outcome.
Your less-apocalyptic scenario is one where our global economy collapses. If this happens, no area of the earth will be safe. Food production will drop by 80-90%, which means that human population will have to drop by 80-90%.
Your assumption that the West will be a safe haven is incorrect. The West’s economic advantage relies on imports, and in a collapse scenario those imports will stop. We can see a small version of this during the current Hormuz crisis- without middle east oil, weatern farmers have limited access to fertilizer, therefore crop yields are down significantly. Without fertilizer imports, the West cannot farm. Without natural gas imports, the West cannot heat its buildings.
In the collapse scenario, the violence won’t be localized in places like the US border. Humans, even in western nations, will be desperate. Your neighbors will be watching their children starve to death. They will be willing to break down your door and beat you to death if you have food.
No current model predicts this with any degree of likelihood. The threat of climate change is largely focused on the current generation of terrestrial inhabitants. The degree to which nitrogen rich fertilizers has improved crop yields over the last century cannot be overstated. And the degree to which a shift in the biome means large scale collapse of crop yields is as terrifying as the boom in crops was uplifting.
But a sudden, globe spanning famine has second and third order consequences, not unlike the collapse of the Mississippi culture on the eve of the Little Ice Age. Or the global famines of the 1930s which starved humans from Ohio to Okinawa. A sharp drop in global food reserves would lead to mass migration and international conflicts. The resulting global wartime conflagration would likely mean a collapse in carbon emissions, as areas of the globe once thought safe from conflict come under the kind of bombardment not seen since the end of the Cold War.
We’re already seeing Iranian drones and ballistic missiles targeting US data centers across the Middle East. We’re seeing airports shut down across Eastern Europe in response to the wars. We’re seeing sea travel choked off from the Suez to Singapore. All of that puts downward pressure on carbon emissions, long long long before Venusification.
Your less-apocalyptic scenario is one where our global economy collapses. If this happens, no area of the earth will be safe.
Plenty of places were safe from the direct conflict of the World Wars during the last century. Refugees flooded into the Middle East and North Africa, precisely because the colonial era wars were forced to end in order to support direct conflict between Empires in central Europe. The great trans-Atlantic migration surged with refugees from the outset of European fascism until the end of the Cold War.
I don’t think full venisifcation is a real concern and that’s a long way off far enough I will not have to endure it’s outcomes. And yeah if food production drops the bottom 90% of the populations dies which isn’t really my problem.
The west will be a safe haven not because of economic advantage but because we hold the monopoly on violence.
U can grow food without fertiliser we did that for millions of years before we started pumping oil. Most of the united states crop supporting land is used to grow corn that is turned into ethanol for fuel crop yield can reach under 50% and we will still have the same amount of food assuming we drop the ethanol production with corn which is economically nonviable anyways.
People in old houses burning fuel for heat might die those who can afford electrical heating and solar face no risk so again it’s the problem effecting only the poor. And this not my problem
Worst case scenario is Venusification, where runaway climate change forces make earth literally uninhabitable for all known lifeforms. If we continue on our current path this is a likely outcome.
Your less-apocalyptic scenario is one where our global economy collapses. If this happens, no area of the earth will be safe. Food production will drop by 80-90%, which means that human population will have to drop by 80-90%.
Your assumption that the West will be a safe haven is incorrect. The West’s economic advantage relies on imports, and in a collapse scenario those imports will stop. We can see a small version of this during the current Hormuz crisis- without middle east oil, weatern farmers have limited access to fertilizer, therefore crop yields are down significantly. Without fertilizer imports, the West cannot farm. Without natural gas imports, the West cannot heat its buildings.
In the collapse scenario, the violence won’t be localized in places like the US border. Humans, even in western nations, will be desperate. Your neighbors will be watching their children starve to death. They will be willing to break down your door and beat you to death if you have food.
No current model predicts this with any degree of likelihood. The threat of climate change is largely focused on the current generation of terrestrial inhabitants. The degree to which nitrogen rich fertilizers has improved crop yields over the last century cannot be overstated. And the degree to which a shift in the biome means large scale collapse of crop yields is as terrifying as the boom in crops was uplifting.
But a sudden, globe spanning famine has second and third order consequences, not unlike the collapse of the Mississippi culture on the eve of the Little Ice Age. Or the global famines of the 1930s which starved humans from Ohio to Okinawa. A sharp drop in global food reserves would lead to mass migration and international conflicts. The resulting global wartime conflagration would likely mean a collapse in carbon emissions, as areas of the globe once thought safe from conflict come under the kind of bombardment not seen since the end of the Cold War.
We’re already seeing Iranian drones and ballistic missiles targeting US data centers across the Middle East. We’re seeing airports shut down across Eastern Europe in response to the wars. We’re seeing sea travel choked off from the Suez to Singapore. All of that puts downward pressure on carbon emissions, long long long before Venusification.
Plenty of places were safe from the direct conflict of the World Wars during the last century. Refugees flooded into the Middle East and North Africa, precisely because the colonial era wars were forced to end in order to support direct conflict between Empires in central Europe. The great trans-Atlantic migration surged with refugees from the outset of European fascism until the end of the Cold War.
cackles maniacally in tardigrade
I don’t think full venisifcation is a real concern and that’s a long way off far enough I will not have to endure it’s outcomes. And yeah if food production drops the bottom 90% of the populations dies which isn’t really my problem.
The west will be a safe haven not because of economic advantage but because we hold the monopoly on violence.
U can grow food without fertiliser we did that for millions of years before we started pumping oil. Most of the united states crop supporting land is used to grow corn that is turned into ethanol for fuel crop yield can reach under 50% and we will still have the same amount of food assuming we drop the ethanol production with corn which is economically nonviable anyways.
People in old houses burning fuel for heat might die those who can afford electrical heating and solar face no risk so again it’s the problem effecting only the poor. And this not my problem