Comment by gzread
16 hours ago
There's only so much worse things can get before the fundamentals of civilization aren't there any more. 3 meals a day from anarchy.
16 hours ago
There's only so much worse things can get before the fundamentals of civilization aren't there any more. 3 meals a day from anarchy.
The world got hit with WW2 and moved on. It takes a lot to destroy "the fundamentals of civilization" on a global level. Climate change is woefully insufficient.
The problem is that we will not move on from WW3, and famine, water depletion, resource exhaustion etc. are all existential problems for individual countries that will cause conflicts between previously peaceful nations. At some point the nations in conflict will have alliances and nuclear weapons, and people will use them when the choice is between that or starving to death by the millions. I would be somewhat more optimistic about humanity's ability to weather worsening circumstances if we didn't develop the human extinction button in all of our grand technological wisdom.
Climate change is not the great equalizer people want it to be.
Nuclear superpowers are among the least likely countries to actually collapse from climate damage.
US isn't Syria, and it's Syria that's at risk.
First world countries like France can absorb a +30% spike to food prices. Countries where the same food price spike would come with a major death toll don't have the tools to kick off WW3.
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WW2 hit the higher layers of abstraction. You could still grow food plants in those countries during and after the war, but the governance structures were bombed. Climate change is the opposite. If you can't grow food, you're fucked.