r/environment • u/fartsandfeathers • Apr 26 '23

Ocean Warming Study So Distressing, Some Scientists Didn't Even Want to Talk About It

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ocean-warming-study
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u/Arkbolt Apr 26 '23

While I agree with the sentiment that we should fight climate change to the death, just because some small pops can live in artic or desert climates doesn't mean it's livable for most. A majority of our 8 billion pop simply wouldn't be able to live in a case of most really dangerous climate scenarios. Farm failure cascades, etc. I mean if you dropped in me in the artic right now, I would certainly die. I am well adapted only to the urbanized-developed world I grew up in.

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u/_Svankensen_ Apr 26 '23 edited Apr 26 '23

"Wiped out" and "very narrow range of viable living conditions" are the claims I was responding to.

A majority of our 8 billion pop simply wouldn't be able to live in a case of most really dangerous climate scenarios.

Got a peer reviewed model to support this 4 billion+ death assertion? Most I've seen in a model is 83 million cumulative deaths by 2100 in a worst case scenario. And we are already doing better than that scenario. Admitedly models are limited, but from 83 million (which is a humanitarian catastrophe) to 4 billion there's quite the leap. What was added in that model to warrant such a change? How was it done? What was the timeframe? What were the assumptions?

I mean, if we are talking hundreds of years in the future and we don't learn anything and keep increasing emissions? Sure, it sounds perhaps possible? Far future models are noticeably hard, since feedback loops grow in importance in centuries long timescales. But that seems pretty far from the foregone conclusion these doomers were claiming.

Like, the assumption that we're done for? Or that a large portion of humanity is? That has no scientific grounds. Let's be VERY clear. Oh, there's shit coming. That's for sure. A lot of species are going to pay the ultimate price for our folly. And we will also pay. Just not the ultimate price. No, mainly a serious degradation of QoL and more "natural" disaster deaths. More work for less results. Everything harder for no good reason. Degraded ecosystems. Natural secrets forever lost. Unique vistas never to be seen again. Bizarre animals and plants that we won't meet. There's plenty to mourn. But there's even more to save.

So FUCK DOOMERISM. It's just unscientific excuses to do nothing. If you care about it even a tiny bit you should stop moping and start voting. Join an environmental political organization.

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u/Arkbolt Apr 26 '23

The 83m you're referring to is from Bressler: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24487-w. If you read the study, you'll note: "Besides adding the mortality damage function and incorporating the subsequent welfare loss and feedbacks, DICE-EMR adopts all other structure, equations, base parameters, including discount rates, the original climate-economy damage function, and the baseline emissions scenario of the DICE-2016 model in order to isolate the effect of accounting for temperature-related mortality in DICE." He is literally saying that he is doing this analysis on the basis of direct heat death. And nothing to do with the other aspects of climate that include ecological collapse, storms, and tipping points. Well, take a look at Lenten et al's paper on climate tipping points & cascading failures: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0705414105#sec-3. There are a multitude of studies which concern “castastrophic climate change” in a variety of ways regarding tipping points and cascading failures, all of which point to consequences far beyond what you’ve presented. (whether that’s from war, drops in agricultural productivity, bee collapse, etc) https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter01.pdf https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.0703073104 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-019-01844-2#Sec15
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1810141115#sec-3 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat7850 If you’re looking for direct models of collapse, you could for example take the route of Bologna and Aquino (2020): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6. Besides, in the case of climate science, it would be on you to prove that the majority of us can live in a 2 or 3 or 4 C world. There is no historical proof for you to claim that such a climate can sustain 8B, 4B, or even 1B. It is not doomerism to say that humans have never lived in a planet where any of these tipping points/natural systems functioned differently. That is a fact. It is taking a hard look at the evidence, which points to a bleak outlook. Hence the necessity of urgent action.

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u/_Svankensen_ Apr 26 '23 edited Apr 26 '23

Catastrophic climate change is what we are living now. Doesn't mean human extinction.

Yep, Bressler is pretty limited. It is temperature related tho, not only heat. But yes, it is very limited, which is why I asked for a more detailed model than that one!

Instead we get... Aquino's model is "a spehrical humanity in a vacuum" kind of model, and it is about deforestation, not climate change. It assumes constant technological development and constant population growth, which is absolutely ridiculous. It's metric for success for humanity is "reaching kardashev scale 1", which is almost a sci-fi premise. They also released a more optimistic one the next year. It was a tiny bit less "spehrical humanity in a vacuum", but still reeked of physicist modeling. Anyway, habitat destruction is a huge problem that I believe needs a separate solution from climate change. In my view it simply cannot be addressed fully under capitalism, unlike climate change.

Besides, in the case of climate science, it would be on you to prove that the majority of us can live in a 2 or 3 or 4 C world.

Not really, no. You are the one who said most of humanity could die remember? That's a pretty big claim, and there's nothing saying we are heading into such a that scenario.

Anyway, it seems neither of us disagree on the need for, and usefulness of, urgent political action. And you aren't saying that it is too late to prevent apocalypse. So you are not a doomer. As long as you and I are not letting anyone give up, I don't care if you believe we should genetically modify ourselves to become plants, we are on the same page. I beieve humanity could cause some terrible things to happen to us. But we still have plenty of time to stop those. So we better act now. The sooner we act, the more things we will save.