I suspect that climate change is both overhyped and underhyped.
I expect that the current models underestimate the rate of change, and that the Arctic, permafrost, Greenland and eventually Antarctic will melt much sooner than projected, with the corresponding sea level rise. A lot of formerly livable places will stop being so, whether due to temperature extremes or ending up underwater.
That said, even the highest possible global warming will not exceed what happened 50 million years ago. And that time was actually one of the best for the diversity of life on Earth, and it could be again. What we have now is basically frozen leftovers of what once was.
That said, the scale of the warming is unprecedented, and so a lot of wildlife will not be able to adapt, and will go extinct, only for the new varieties of species to take their habitats.
That said, humans will suffer from various calamities and from forced migration north into livable areas. There will be population pressures that will result in disappearance of the current Arctic states like Russia, Canada and Denmarkâs Greenland. And this will not happen without a fight, hopefully not a nuclear one, but who knows.
That said, there are plenty of potential technological ways to cool the planet down, and some may end up being implemented, whether unilaterally or consensually. This may happen as a short-term measure until other technologies are used to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
I suspect that climate change is both overhyped and underhyped.
I expect that the current models underestimate the rate of change, and that the Arctic, permafrost, Greenland and eventually Antarctic will melt much sooner than projected, with the corresponding sea level rise. A lot of formerly livable places will stop being so, whether due to temperature extremes or ending up underwater.
That said, even the highest possible global warming will not exceed what happened 50 million years ago. And that time was actually one of the best for the diversity of life on Earth, and it could be again. What we have now is basically frozen leftovers of what once was.
That said, the scale of the warming is unprecedented, and so a lot of wildlife will not be able to adapt, and will go extinct, only for the new varieties of species to take their habitats.
That said, humans will suffer from various calamities and from forced migration north into livable areas. There will be population pressures that will result in disappearance of the current Arctic states like Russia, Canada and Denmarkâs Greenland. And this will not happen without a fight, hopefully not a nuclear one, but who knows.
That said, there are plenty of potential technological ways to cool the planet down, and some may end up being implemented, whether unilaterally or consensually. This may happen as a short-term measure until other technologies are used to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
TL;DR: Climate change is a slow-moving disaster, but not an X-risk.