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[MetalSlimeHunt]

... so only one billion or so dead instead of three? Only five instead of seven? Only six and some change instead of the whole shebang? Or are we talking really lucky and only losing a few tens or hundreds of millions? What you're describing still has a death toll unseen in human history. I'd like to know ahead of time what to expect, so we can start trying to figure out ahead of time how to deal with all the corpses.

I fully believe that there will not be a massive number of people perishing due to climate change. I am convinced that we will deal with this threat in the same way we have dealt with all other threats to civilization: successfully.

S'just... yeah. I've reached a point of damned morbid now. Throwing out a few comments, then eating supper and throwing in for the night. And for the record, MSH, I wish to hell I could see this issue like you seem to, right now. You seem to be considerably more optimistic, or at least less hopeless, about it.

A hopeless attitude does not achieve the desired result. To reach a goal one must first accept that the goal is possible, and then appropriate the proper level of conviction to fit the difficulty of reaching said goal. This is a very difficult problem. I accept that solving it is possible. Therefore, it follows that I must maintain great conviction that we will succeed and attempt to contribute.

You do realize that the vast majority of the human population lives in those coastline cities and low areas, right? Moving them is definitely possible, but the logistics of doing so is terrifying.

The logistics are unimportant. If it is necessary to relocate communities, it's necessary to relocate them. On the bright side, the issue of forced relocation won't be an issue unless they can breath water.

Another solution would be flood protection walls, which should be able to mitigate the problem from anywhere from a little while to forever, depending upon the end sea level change.

Plenty of strains could be, maybe. Why aren't they now? The states alone are going to be taking a massive hit to at least one of our primary food crops this year. It's not quite so simple to go from "having viable species that can survive in GW situation" to "growing enough to feed the human population." Throwing shiny new tech at the problem only does so much if it's not done preemptively.

The thing you have to understand is that right now, in the US, a massive hit to primary food crops is a minor inconvenience at worst. If that changes, I can guarantee that enforcement of GM strain patents will fail and concentrated effort will be poured into solving the problem through creating viable strains. The threat of losing our collective food source is one of the things that will result in rapid development from necessity.

Sticking people in small spaces causes massive issues. Logistics, psychological, and physiological issues we still haven't fully been able to deal with, as well as a very, very notable reduction in quality of life for tremendous swaths of the population involved.

The existent examples we have to work with on this aren't the same as the hypothetical example. The developed world has resources and technologies to help the issue of space reduction that the developing world doesn't, but in our current situation only the developing world has faced serious overcrowding. If overcrowding does come to the West we'll be able to deal with it with far fewer problems. Not problem free, but as before, doable. And that it can be done is all that will matter if the alternative is chaos.

Yeah, it's mainstream politics. The bigger issue is if it's mainstream business. If huge swaths of populations across the world are saying, "Do something about this goddamn now," and the powers that are actually funding the major sources of the problem are saying, "Nah." what the hell do we do?

The powers that are actually funding the major sources of the problem will change their tune once either there is either a major social rejection of their actions or a change in the situation that makes ecological sustainability more profitable, which it is. One of these will result in the other, but either could come first.

[scriver]

I fully believe that there will not be a massive number of people perishing due to climate change. I am convinced that we will deal with this threat in the same way we have dealt with all other threats to civilization: successfully.

There has never been a threat like this before, not at this scale, so I'd like to ask you what those "other threats applies" would be and why they applies. Because as far as I can tell, most times human "civilization" has faced dramatic climate changes they've lost, and lost big. Especially when their own convenience were the cause of those changes, like on Easter Island.

[Frumple]

Guess my biggest problem is much of our successful dealings with varying threats weren't unqualified successes. Many... possibly most... had a cost, all too often in lives or, at best, in quality of life. I take that measure, scale it up to the approaching problem and... even on the least extreme projections that aren't outright denial, the cost is heavy. Too heavy to be hopeful about it. Resigned, maybe, and willing to do what I'm able to help achieve at least that much, but baseline survival isn't something I can be hopeful for, especially when it comes with a cost much greater than mere resources.

With any luck, as the issue continues to escalate in severity and the response in turn -- hopefully before the former gains too much inertia for the latter to make much of a difference in the short term (i.e. generation, maybe two) -- there will be more of what you're talking about, wide scale response demonstrating that we're actually going to be able to weather this without unacceptable costs in life or livability.

What I see now, though, is stuff like the article that sparked this discussion -- major powers hellbent on making the problem insurmountable, or close enough to it that it won't matter for much of us on the bottom of the economic food chain, and people in power making an incredibly lukewarm effort toward reducing the effects of that. It doesn't build conviction towards an acceptable solution, one where loss of life and livability isn't wide spread.

Anyway, re: overcrowding, (instead of quoting, which this damned iPad I'm borrowing makes a long and frustrating process), I was actually talking about urban areas in first world countries, especially examples like in Japan. Heavy population density -- even to the lesser extremes of existent urbanization, never mind hypotheticals like fitting mankind in LA -- has a host of problems associated with it that we just haven't figured out how to deal with, and a very disturbingly sized underclass. Again, when we scale that problem up even further, I see an underclass even larger and in worse conditions. That's the sort of associated price that troubles me to the extent it does.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There has never been a threat like this before, not at this scale, so I'd like to ask you what those "other threats applies" would be and why they applies. Because as far as I can tell, most times human "civilization" has faced dramatic climate changes they've lost, and lost big.

The most recent threat to civilization recognized before this one would have been global nuclear war, or any nuclear war for that matter. We've averted that so far, even when we came to the brink, and the threat is being lessened as stockpiles are lessened.

Especially when their own convenience were the cause of those changes, like on Easter Island.

Easter Island was a pretty tiny place filled with people who's level of knowledge did not allow them to foresee the rather serious issue of running out of trees entirely.

Guess my biggest problem is much of our successful dealings with varying threats weren't unqualified successes. Many... possibly most... had a cost, all too often in lives or, at best, in quality of life.

Examples?

I take that measure, scale it up to the approaching problem and... even on the least extreme projections that aren't outright denial, the cost is heavy. Too heavy to be hopeful about it. Resigned, maybe, and willing to do what I'm able to help achieve at least that much, but baseline survival isn't something I can be hopeful for, especially when it comes with a cost much greater than mere resources.

Projections of the future are not a definitive authority on the future that will actually come to pass. Much can change in even a decade, much less half a century. We will find a solution because we'll have to.

What I see now, though, is stuff like the article that sparked this discussion -- major powers hellbent on making the problem insurmountable, or close enough to it that it won't matter for much of us on the bottom of the economic food chain, and people in power making an incredibly lukewarm effort toward reducing the effects of that.

Their current response is nothing more than a shocked state of denial to the mounting threat. The powerplayers will shift, and thus will also the focus of the major powers shift.

Anyway, re: overcrowding, (instead of quoting, which this damned iPad I'm borrowing makes a long and frustrating process), I was actually talking about urban areas in first world countries, especially examples like in Japan. Heavy population density -- even to the lesser extremes of existent urbanization, never mind hypotheticals like fitting mankind in LA -- has a host of problems associated with it that we just haven't figured out how to deal with, and a very disturbingly sized underclass.

Tell me the exact problems you're worried about, then. I've been operating on you taking examples from things like China's urban sprawl.

[Frumple]

Suicide rates in Japan is a good start... there's more going on there than just density issues, of course, but they're a good way of pointing out some of the psychological issues related to heavy population density. Psych problems in general are more prevalent in denser areas, as I understand it. Increase the density, logically, you increase the problem -- if not proportionately, then at least in raw numbers.

Many of the lower income or slum areas in the larger US cities are also stuff I'd point to and say, "This is what would be a problem." The issues related to those are tremendous and far from adequately addressed, as well as affecting already tremendous populations. Increasingly sophisticated methodology and technology will help offset that sort of thing, of course! But. The cost is still very, very high.

Then logistic issues... trash disposal, ferex, for larger urbanized areas -- better and more ubiquitous recycling efforts might reduce the problem, but it's still both incredibly non-trivial and something we're not really dealing with. That's far from the only one -- how much arable land does it take to support these places? -- but it's notable and representative. There's a lot needing to be done. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but there is a hell of a lot of invention that needs doing, and even with necessity and genius, it takes time.

High density living is something we've only solved in a sort of engineering sense -- we can build the infrastructure for it, at least as far as the strictly residential requirements go. There's considerably more that needs to be done for that project to really be done. I worry about it, y'know?

Re: Examples: I've been living in Florida for a good long while, now. Most of my immediate experience related to environment related disasters is flood or hurricane related and... in some ways it's incredibly impressive, what we manage. In other ways, well. We've got areas that are scarred several years after the fact, and families that never actually recover from the damage. I see that, and extrapolate. Again, even if the proportion does not change -- even if it gets considerably better! -- the raw numbers would be much, much higher. That's basically what I'm worried about. 99% effectiveness on a global scale is still a death toll of many, many millions. Even if it's better than that, how many decimals back will it go? There's a flat number related to that percentage, and I'm not sure we're going to be capable of getting it low enough to be anything short of horrific. That's basically what worries me, what troubles me at the core.

[scriver]

There has never been a threat like this before, not at this scale, so I'd like to ask you what those "other threats applies" would be and why they applies. Because as far as I can tell, most times human "civilization" has faced dramatic climate changes they've lost, and lost big.

The most recent threat to civilization recognized before this one would have been global nuclear war, or any nuclear war for that matter. We've averted that so far, even when we came to the brink, and the threat is being lessened as stockpiles are lessened.

That isn't at all the same kind of threat. Not having nuclear war doesn't inconvenience anyone, it's beneficial for everybody. You can't make money of nuclear war (even if you can from selling nuclear arms), but you can and do make money from destroying the climate.

Easter Island was a pretty tiny place filled with people who's level of knowledge did not allow them to foresee the rather serious issue of running out of trees entirely.

But they did foresee it (putting aside for a moment that thinking they were so stupid they couldn't realise "no trees == no more trees" is pretty insulting, you cultural imperialist you ), and even made peace among the different tribes/clans to deal with this issue. But it was too late to, the change was already in motion. Pretty much like our situation. The way I see, it, it's not a wall across the road. It's a tunnel that has collapsed, and we only had a chance to avoid that dead end if we had swerved away from the tunnel twenty years ago. But we drove straight into it instead, and there isn't any room for swerving any more. Now, it's just a matter of how hard we'll hit wall, if we can find out how the breaks work at all.

[DJ]

If Easter Island is a bad example, how about the Mayans? Their civilization had a virtually total collapse thanks to climate change.

[Lagslayer]

If Easter Island is a bad example, how about the Mayans? Their civilization had a virtually total collapse thanks to climate change.

Those fools, wiping themselves out with their ancient SUVs!

[kaenneth]

If Easter Island is a bad example, how about the Mayans? Their civilization had a virtually total collapse thanks to climate change.

Those fools, wiping themselves out with their ancient SUVs!

I did read recently that the native americans did a pretty good job of deforestation.

[GalenEvil]

Considering the possibility / probability within the coming century of having enough of the world's polar ice melt, would it be a viable idea to attempt to build waterborne cities out in the doldrums? If it is, then would it be possible to model any possible shifts in where the doldrums are located and allow the cities to move around in some way? These are speculative questions and I am not in any way qualified to do any of the sciencing required to come to a decision other than "That would be really cool!" If anyone is willing to run with that idea and explain pros/cons to the idea that would be awesome.

[Lagslayer]

Floating cities? Possible, but poses numerous additional maintenence challenges, like maintaining a city-sized boat (then again, maybe it would be like our nuclear aircraft carriers). Food could be harvested from the ocean or grown inside, but propulsion would be more difficult. To move something that massive would require a lot of energy, more than solar panels could provide. Perhaps my idea of putting hydroelectric plants that harvest ocean currents could be implemented. That could theoretically generate tremendous power, but maintenence could be an issue. On one hand, salt water is corrosive and the sheer size and scope of the project is in an entirely new league. On the other hand, conditions in the ocean are relatively stable, so the devices wouldn't need to be built to withstand so many different things. Once they are installed and can be properly maintained, we could just plug in the cities and have them charge up, but that would require radically better battery technology to be feasible. Or perhaps they could move along rails? Then there's the option of still using fossil fuels, but they may be harder to obtain at this point (how much harder is not entirely certain). In any case, huge infrastructure overhaul. Dwarfiest megaproject ever.

[SalmonGod]

As long as we're talking super-ambitious global megaprojects, why don't we just directly filter bad shit out of the atmosphere.

[Lagslayer]

Also very possible. We have the technology, just not the energy to run the machinery.

[Heron TSG]

Bio-engineered super trees would be nice. 10x the efficiency or your average pine tree, forest up the Great Plains. Macedonia had 1,000 people plant more than  3,000,000 trees in a day, I'm sure we can find 1,000,000 people willing to plant 3,000,000,000 trees. It's not like they're going to be usable for farming much longer, anyway. (At this rate.)

[kaijyuu]

Rebuild the rainforests! ...somehow.