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Comment by glitchc | Hacker News Reader

I don't think there's any proof, just projection and speculation, that the overall net result will be bad. For much of human history, the equator has been the Goldilocks zone while the poles have been uninhabitable. If that were reversed, humans would adapt. It only feels scary because we're used to the equator norm and take it be the natural state of affairs, whereas there's nothing objectively natural about that.

Change is always scary. Trying to preserve something when change is inevitable is the mistake.

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Humans as a species would adapt, but that adaptation will likely manifest in the suffering of billions.

This is hyperbole. The entire world's population is only 8 billion, very small on the scale of "billions". And it's unlikely given the timescale on which things occur. As patches of the Earth become uninhabitable, humans will migrate to other areas, as they have multiple times in the past.

A proximal cause of the Syrian civil war is drought [1].

> Factors contributing to social disenchanment in Syria include socio-economic stress caused by the Iraqi conflict, as well as the most intense drought ever recorded in the region.[

This has led to half a million deaths, and the migration of 6 million refugees has caused political fractures in several developed nations.

The world is not set up for mass migration on the scale that will be needed if regional agricultural productivity changes unpredictably, even on the scale of decades. I could easily believe that a larger number of these events could compound into millions of famine deaths and a conflagration of military conflicts. 1+ billion deaths is well within range if global food logistics break down or a general military conflict is triggered.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_revolution

Sadly, I don't think this is hyperbole.

On a more positive note, maybe we can stave off the long-term effects if we're able to develop and deploy a world-wide carbon capture technology. We are living in the Anthropocene after all!

Large parts of India and Pakistan will become uninhabitable in the next few decades. A billion people will be impacted just from there... throw in people from North Africa and South Europe facing droughts and all the related conflicts around them, and yes, billions sounds legit.

I think many HN users are fine with technological changes though (it will always create other jobs)...could be wrong.

So, the mass migrations required to respond to climate change will present no problem? That's interesting seeing as how HN is hosted in a country having a major political party claiming its being "invaded" from its southern border. I doubt that country will suddenly become very welcoming as the climate situation deteriorates.

You don't think increased volatility in weather and storms is bad? I would love to hear how increased uncertainty over next year's growing season, floods, storms, etc would be a good thing.

It's not like deserts become green with calm weather...

I'm saying that thinking things won't change is bad. Change is an inevitable result of progress. Folks who want to reduce change want to slow progress down to "a manageable speed." And of course, no two individuals can agree on what that speed is. There are some for whom any forward progress is too much, so they'll never agree. That's why it's a mug's game, not worth playing.

If death of the species lies anywhere, it's in stagnation. As soon as we stagnate, we will start to die. That's the fundamental lesson of nature.

The way we're going to prevent unnecessary climate change is to progress beyond historic methods of energy generation, transportation, contruction, etc. rather than stagnating and just sticking with what we know how to do. The only people I see promoting stagnation are those with a large financial stake in legacy industries who see recent technological advancements as a threat to their bank accounts.

There are plenty of species that hit a local maxima are cruising along just fine, like horseshoe crabs. We're probably not one of them though.

Looks like global warming is killing the horseshoe crabs too.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100830131344.h...

I'm not against change, I'm against change in a bad direction. I don't want democracies to change into autocracies. I don't want peace to change into war. I don't want the equator to change into a place that's too hot to live in, creating a lot of suffering and refugees and political instability in colder countries that have to receive refugees.

I do want good sources of change, like the GHG-decoupled economic growth we've been seeing, and technology and science breakthroughs.

How is global warming progress? Or are you saying the consequence of progress is massive amounts of pollution, and that anyone trying to stop said pollution is out there to stop progress?

Nothing is indicating to me that we are actually progressing. What I'm seeing is stagnation (we keep doing the same stupid things).

Progress to me would mean fewer problems, not more.

This particular change is not inevitable. Humanity as a whole would adapt, but individual humans on the order of millions and billions would needlessly suffer and die during the centuries of adaptation.

"Humans will adapt" -- yeah, through mass migration away from the equator into Europe. That's how humans have adapted in the past, they move.

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