Humanity won't drive itself extinct, the brunt of the effects will hit the weakest hardest. The west can probably afford climate change(in the purely economical sense), as most of the west is currently located in the north temperate zone.
Worst case scenario, it won't reach that point and instead you will have a lot fewer humans down the road and therefore things will go back to where they were in the long run.
There's a way bigger risk of catastrophe having 50 000+ thermonuclear warheads pointed at all major cities in the world than with climate change. Yet people act these days as if nukes did not exist anymore or something.
In my reading of history, the more likely scenario is disease will wipe out most. Mutually assured destruction has seemed to work as a deterrent thus far since the 40s.
I'm calling out bullshit by someone whom everyone believes. Just like I'm calling out the bs of Musk, Hawking, etc., about AI destroying humanity. Just because people are smart and successful in one respect, doesn't mean they automatically have any credible insight into every topic that exists.
Humanity isn't getting destroyed (much less destroying itself) any time soon. Instilling fear and panic into people about climate change, AI, terrorism, etc., is not only counter-productive, it is wrong on all levels.
Pretty sure neither Hawking nor Musk suggested humanity was going to be destroyed any time soon as you suggest. I think they were just voicing concerns that were reasonable about AI in the future. Not really scare mongering on the scale various governments are going for these days, that's for sure.
From the Bill's actual letter, it's not him, he's not scaring to "humanity getting destroyed" (your words) it's the consensus of world scientists about the effect on the climate and he just states the facts:
"Scientists say that to avoid these dramatic long-term changes to the climate, the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent by 2050, and eliminate them entirely by the end of the century.
When I first heard this I was surprised. Can’t we just aim to cut carbon emissions in half? I asked many scientists. But they all agreed that wouldn’t be enough. The problem is that CO2 lingers in the atmosphere for decades. Even if we halted carbon emissions tomorrow, the temperature would still rise because of the carbon that’s already been released. No, we need to get all the way down to zero.
That’s a huge challenge. In 2015, the world emitted 36 billion tons of carbon dioxide to produce energy. This is a mind-boggling number. (It’s worth remembering, because it will come in handy. For example, someone may tell you they know how to remove 100 million tons of carbon per year. That sounds like a lot, but if you do the math—100 million divided by 36 billion—you’ll see that they’re talking about 0.3 percent of the problem. Every reduction in emissions helps, but we still have to work on the other 99.7 percent.)"
> otherwise uber-smart idiots routinely underestimate its miraculous powers
The uber-smart idiots who call themselves human race already burned in just 100 years what nature produced during some hundreds of millions (the half of everything ever expected to be found in Earth is already used, according to the estimates), pushing to the atmosphere the results, making the rate of change in the CO2 concentration which certainly never happened since life exists on the planet. No other natural process would be able to pump half of all fluid hydrocarbon material out out the depths of the Earth crust and burn it in just hundred years.
One Russian professor half-joked that maybe the only reason why humans evolved, from the point of view of the nature, is to burn the hydrocarbons and get extinct, or that at least that is what is most probably going to happen.
I always enjoy reading what Bill Gates has to say these days. For obvious reasons at this point.
He's completely right of course on climate change. And yet, the US is about to elect likely one of two exceedingly wealthy individuals who don't remotely care about these issues right now.
It'll be interesting to see in 40 years whether or not humans take this seriously enough / avoid disaster. Let's not forget this very modern internet was created in the last like 15-20 years, huge advances can happen and Gates' optimism isn't a pipe dream that's never happened.
No, what we need a catastrophe. People will stubbornly ignore inconvenient truths until they're undeniable and until the immediate cost of denying is higher than the cost of doing something. You see this in all areas of life (regarding healthy habits, for example), and I fear that unfortunately nothing substantial will happen until the shit hits the fan.
I think Trump would be a terrible president (though probably less terrible than it feels like he would be) but it seems unlikely that he will decimate the human population. Even with the original meaning of "reduce by 10%" rather than "reduce to 10%".
And then we have the phenomenon of Freeman Dyson, Ivar Giaever, Will Happer, Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry and scores of other distinguished intellects ignoring inconvenient truths! Will they be indicted for intellectual dishonesty if that ever becomes a crime?
Scores of 'distinguished intellects' who are still a minority among their peers and are often not even remotely connected to climate science. On your list, only Lindzen and Curry are, and both also engage in various strains of intellectual shadiness. This is not the conspiracy it's being made out to be.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 47.5 ms ] threadThere's a way bigger risk of catastrophe having 50 000+ thermonuclear warheads pointed at all major cities in the world than with climate change. Yet people act these days as if nukes did not exist anymore or something.
I'd recommend you read "Command and Control" and you'd be less convinced.
Humanity isn't getting destroyed (much less destroying itself) any time soon. Instilling fear and panic into people about climate change, AI, terrorism, etc., is not only counter-productive, it is wrong on all levels.
https://www.gatesnotes.com/2016-Annual-Letter
"Scientists say that to avoid these dramatic long-term changes to the climate, the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent by 2050, and eliminate them entirely by the end of the century.
When I first heard this I was surprised. Can’t we just aim to cut carbon emissions in half? I asked many scientists. But they all agreed that wouldn’t be enough. The problem is that CO2 lingers in the atmosphere for decades. Even if we halted carbon emissions tomorrow, the temperature would still rise because of the carbon that’s already been released. No, we need to get all the way down to zero.
That’s a huge challenge. In 2015, the world emitted 36 billion tons of carbon dioxide to produce energy. This is a mind-boggling number. (It’s worth remembering, because it will come in handy. For example, someone may tell you they know how to remove 100 million tons of carbon per year. That sounds like a lot, but if you do the math—100 million divided by 36 billion—you’ll see that they’re talking about 0.3 percent of the problem. Every reduction in emissions helps, but we still have to work on the other 99.7 percent.)"
The uber-smart idiots who call themselves human race already burned in just 100 years what nature produced during some hundreds of millions (the half of everything ever expected to be found in Earth is already used, according to the estimates), pushing to the atmosphere the results, making the rate of change in the CO2 concentration which certainly never happened since life exists on the planet. No other natural process would be able to pump half of all fluid hydrocarbon material out out the depths of the Earth crust and burn it in just hundred years.
One Russian professor half-joked that maybe the only reason why humans evolved, from the point of view of the nature, is to burn the hydrocarbons and get extinct, or that at least that is what is most probably going to happen.
He's completely right of course on climate change. And yet, the US is about to elect likely one of two exceedingly wealthy individuals who don't remotely care about these issues right now.
It'll be interesting to see in 40 years whether or not humans take this seriously enough / avoid disaster. Let's not forget this very modern internet was created in the last like 15-20 years, huge advances can happen and Gates' optimism isn't a pipe dream that's never happened.
Only thing that would stop this would be population decimation.
Given the aging of our nuclear stockpiles or the possibility that Trump might be elected, we might get to see what decimation does. If we live.
He doesn't take demotions well.
Yes I mean the Roman decimate. It's what the USA did to the Iraqi population.