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0 pointsACCount372mo ago0 comments

The world got hit with WW2 and moved on. It takes a lot to destroy "the fundamentals of civilization" on a global level. Climate change is woefully insufficient.

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applfanboysbgon2mo ago

The problem is that we will not move on from WW3, and famine, water depletion, resource exhaustion etc. are all existential problems for individual countries that will cause conflicts between previously peaceful nations. At some point the nations in conflict will have alliances and nuclear weapons, and people will use them when the choice is between that or starving to death by the millions. I would be somewhat more optimistic about humanity's ability to weather worsening circumstances if we didn't develop the human extinction button in all of our grand technological wisdom.

ACCount37OP2mo ago

Climate change is not the great equalizer people want it to be.

Nuclear superpowers are among the least likely countries to actually collapse from climate damage.

US isn't Syria, and it's Syria that's at risk.

First world countries like France can absorb a +30% spike to food prices. Countries where the same food price spike would come with a major death toll don't have the tools to kick off WW3.

applfanboysbgon2mo ago

Pakistan and North Korea have nuclear weapons. What makes you think that other countries won't develop them when push comes to shove? Right now the status quo is such that smaller countries find violating international sanctions on nuclear weapon development to be disadvantageous (no immediate benefit from having them; expensive to have them; economic punishment for having them). The calculus on the status quo changes considerably when famine or other ecological disasters are threatening to wipe out half your population. Is the US going to invade all potential nuclear weapons developers like it did with Iran? Do you have complete confidence that will always work and never escalate towards anything larger?

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triceratops2mo ago

> US isn't Syria, and it's Syria that's at risk. First world countries like France can absorb a +30% spike to food prices

And you think a second, much larger Syrian refugee migration will have 0 impact on France?

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Everything and everyone is connected.

gzread2mo ago

WW2 hit the higher layers of abstraction. You could still grow food plants in those countries during and after the war, but the governance structures were bombed. Climate change is the opposite. If you can't grow food, you're fucked.

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applfanboysbgon2mo ago

ACCount37OP2mo ago

Climate change is not the great equalizer people want it to be.

Nuclear superpowers are among the least likely countries to actually collapse from climate damage.

US isn't Syria, and it's Syria that's at risk.

First world countries like France can absorb a +30% spike to food prices. Countries where the same food price spike would come with a major death toll don't have the tools to kick off WW3.

applfanboysbgon2mo ago

2 more replies

triceratops2mo ago

> US isn't Syria, and it's Syria that's at risk. First world countries like France can absorb a +30% spike to food prices

And you think a second, much larger Syrian refugee migration will have 0 impact on France?

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Everything and everyone is connected.

gzread2mo ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse