Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios (opens in new tab)

(pnas.org)

12 pointsprimroot3y ago6 comments

6 comments

Models like this should be used to design efficient response and mitigation efforts. Like "there's a chance of a drought emptying the water reservoir, so let's closely monitor the levels, move the water-intense agriculture to less affected areas, and use controlled burns to minimize the chance of massive wildfires".

Except instead, they get spearheaded by various kinds of attention seekers and corporate PR departments, and end up with policies that inconvenience the consumer while doing little to address the root cause. So no, we are not taxing agricultural water usage to make almond growing in areas with limited water supply unprofitable, we'll instead shame people who want to have a shower every day. We won't do anything about the planned obsolescence of plastic consumer-grade items with no spare parts, but we'll force everyone to buy paper grocery bags (for more corporate profit) and separate garbage bags. The examples are endless - we make the policies based on emotions rather than the repeated cycle of quantifying, prioritizing and verifying, and then we wonder why everyone is depressed and does not believe in the future anymore.

walleeee3y ago

these policies are a product of pathological incentives as well as emotional decision making - there are scientists and engineers building free, open source tools to do exactly as you propose, but more of them are building things attention seekers can use to grease (g)ears for cash or clout, and the systems making this possible are fusing with or already indistinguishable from evolving models of governance

millions of people and machines are busy quantifying, prioritizing and verifying - where these efforts don't actively perpetuate flagrantly bad policy, they are too often inadequately coordinated to prevent it

it's not only our brains that are poorly equipped to optimize for long term human wellbeing but our social technologies - luckily we have more choice in the latter, we ought to exercise it

stuntkite3y ago

> PNAS was established in 1914

Unrelated, but they have been running an org called "penis" for almost 90 years. Wild.

PM_me_your_math3y ago

We've been exploring them for 60 years.

None of the scenarios have come true.

How do you square that circle?

Below are 50 failed doomsday predictions

1. 1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975

2. 1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)

3. 1970: Ice Age By 2000

4. 1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980

5. 1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030

6. 1972: New Ice Age By 2070

7. 1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast

8. 1974: Another Ice Age?

9. 1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life

10. 1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent

11. 1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes

12. 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend

13. 1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s

14. 1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs

15. 1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)

16. 1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000

17. 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)

18. 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is

19. 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy

20. 2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024

21. 2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018

22. 2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013

23. 2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says we Have 96 Months to Save World

24. 2009: UK Prime Minister Says 50 Days to ‘Save The Planet From Catastrophe’

25. 2009: Climate Genius Al Gore Moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014

26. 2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015

27. 2014: Only 500 Days Before ‘Climate Chaos’

28. 1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide

29. 1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources

30. 1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years

31. 1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years

32. 1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 1990s

33. 1980: Peak Oil In 2000

34. 1996: Peak Oil in 2020

35. 2002: Peak Oil in 2010

36. 2006: Super Hurricanes!

37. 2005 : Manhattan Underwater by 2015

38. 1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985

39. 1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable

40. 1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish

41. 1970s: Killer Bees!

42. 1975: The Cooling World and a Drastic Decline in Food Production

43. 1969: Worldwide Plague, Overwhelming Pollution, Ecological Catastrophe, Virtual Collapse of UK by End of 20th Century

44. 1972: Pending Depletion and Shortages of Gold, Tin, Oil, Natural Gas, Copper, Aluminum

45. 1970: Oceans Dead in a Decade, US Water Rationing by 1974, Food Rationing by 1980

46. 1988: World’s Leading Climate Expert Predicts Lower Manhattan Underwater by 2018

47. 2005: Fifty Million Climate Refugees by the Year 2020

48. 2000: Snowfalls Are Now a Thing of the Past

49.1989: UN Warns That Entire Nations Wiped Off the Face of the Earth by 2000 From Global Warming

50. 2011: Washington Post Predicted Cherry Blossoms Blooming in Winter

I think we'll be just fine.

makerofspoons3y ago

Are these scientific predictions (with citations) or sensationalist predictions plucked from headlines?

tuatoru3y ago

Do you have insurance against house fires or vehicle theft? Nah. I think you'll be just fine.

First two sentences from the abstract:-

Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly understood.

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