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Comment by MisterMower | Hacker News Reader

Your comment raises an interesting question: how many places that are currently uninhabitable become habitable in 2100?

I mean, the whole continent of Antarctica is covered in ice. Sure Mexico and North Africa become unbearably hot, but I imagine lots of places actually become more hospitable with global warming. Not that you’ll ever hear the doomsdayers talk about it.

Go look at a world map. How much land mass is at the equator compared to 60 degrees north? Any person that’s serious about examining the effects of climate change will take all effects into account, not just the ones that conjure Mad Max movie scenes.

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The most pressing challenge with climate change is not average temperature, but extremes: extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme rain/floods, extreme drought, extreme storms.

What happened in Canada last year (and partly to those of us who live in PNW: it hit 108F at our house last year in the woods next to the Puget Sound) wasn't about average temperatures, it was about more energy in a quasi-stable chaotic system causing more frequent extremes on both/all sides.

The old saying goes: a human dies after three minutes without O2, three days without water, three weeks without food. More to this point, a human dies after being exposed to 95F wet bulb temperatures for three hours.

What's this have to do with living near the poles as the average warms up? There might be some use there, but wild weather is a truly global thing, and the poles are, on average, accumulating even more energy than the equator.

The point I'm making is that the effect of climate change will not always and everywhere result in negative outcomes. Some people will win, others will lose. Anyone who tries to pretend like it will be a disaster for everyone is being very disingenuous.

You might have to buy an air conditioner if you keep living in Washington state over the next few decades. Folks in Canada might save money on their winter heating bill. Folks that live in Tennessee might not notice any difference.

There are lots of places on planet earth where being outside for 3 hours in the weather can kill you. I worked in lawn and garden at Wal-Mart 15 years ago watering plants in the parking lot in the July heat in Oklahoma. It was easily 115°F for several hours in the afternoon. You go inside each hour for 15 minutes and drink lots of water.

Humanity has been living in deserts and jungles for a long time, in conditions far less comfortable than a few hours of 108°F heat in an otherwise very temperate climate. Millions of people live in Phoenix, AZ in the summertime. Modern technology makes it even easier. I'm not buying that a daily temperature outlier here and there means we're headed for a climate catastrophe.

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