Comment by imoverclocked
2 days ago
Good thing we are working so hard to automate the kind of work where you sit in the shade at a desk. (/sarcasm)
I think the disconnect between many people hearing "2C of warming" and the overall effects that will have is grossly underestimated. I kinda wish we could talk about how much raw energy that is ... even if we use American units of barrels of oil, or something.
We tried talking about sea level rise and land area inundation, and more severe storms, and amongst many the collective response was to stick their fingers in their ears.
The real conversation we should have is about money talking; a huge amount of assets are facing being stranded by insurers. Insurance doesn't really care about ideology, they care about making money, and so the fact they are losing money to climate change is pretty irrefutable evidence. Though right now politicians are just reframing this as "greedy insurance", which isn't exactly untrue.
> ...the fact they are losing money to climate change is pretty irrefutable evidence.
Insurance prices risk. If risk goes up, so do prices. They will not lose (much) money (or not for long) [1], your insurance will just get a lot more expensive, maybe to the point you can no longer afford it. If the government tries to control prices, then insurers will just exit the market, or the only entrants will be severely under-capitalized, merely providing the veneer of insurance (e.g., because your mortgage lender requires it). This is already happening in Florida and Louisiana [2]. These insurers will simply go bankrupt in the event of a catastrophe, and you will be stuck with the loss.
[1] Technically, in a competitive environment, many insurance companies will operate with a (small) underwriting loss, but they make up the difference by investing the float during the time between when they collect the premiums and when they pay out on claims. They will not operate with an unbounded loss.
[2] https://www.wsj.com/finance/small-insurance-company-hurrican...
How do you price in whole mountsin regions beeing in for repeatet flooding events basically forcing continuous rebuilds and thus having way overpriced houses? How do you price insurrance on objects that shouldnt exist ?
I think interpreting the rejection of broad, impersonal, policy based remediation to climate response is a way or expressing a preference for a more personal response, sharing their homes with climate refugees. Does anyone have something catchier than these?
"Climate denialism: A personal guarantee to host the displaced."
"Denying the crisis? Congratulations, you've just RSVP'd to house the refugees."
Probably cause we bailed out south Jersey and instead of packing up and heading inland Margate boasts homes over 1.5 million dollars
Number of tanks of gas for a Ford F-150 Supercab is the American standard unit.
well shit, my F150 uses 0 tanks of gas, does that complicate things?
It does for your resale value ;)
1 reply →
I read the 6 Degrees book and basically didn’t leave the house for about 3 months and stopped looking for client work. My finances took a bit of a device. Thankfully my partner helped me out of it.
So… I don’t know where that leaves us. The moment you’re aware of what’s coming to us, you shut down. It’s not a great response, but that’s a big reason why we (the people) are not talking a lot about the future of climate.
That’s my best guess. It’s a really, really shitty conversation where the few winners are those with lots of money.
> I think the disconnect between many people hearing "2C of warming" and the overall effects that will have is grossly underestimated.
The problem is that the loudest voices in the global discussion are people living in relatively cold-ish Western climates because, well, we are the rich and powerful people. And for many of us (maybe bar the Southern-most part of the US), even 10 °C increase of yearly average temperatures or even peak temperatures would still be perfectly fine.
The fact that 2 °C is probably enough to render the space of potentially billions of people uninhabitable is completely outside of the experienced reality in Western countries, we cannot relate from our lived reality to theirs.
And that kind of disconnect is prevalent among any kind of discourse in humanity. The fact that we can even do so, that right here on this website we have people worth billions of dollars (e.g. sama is Sam Altman!) debating with people that barely scrape by on their national poverty level, is a wonder that would have been unimaginable 200 years ago. Human biology, human society hasn't evolved mechanisms to keep up with our technological progress, and it breaks apart everywhere.
> The fact that 2 °C is probably enough to render the space of potentially billions of people uninhabitable is completely outside of the experienced reality in Western countries, we cannot relate from our lived reality to theirs.
Surely they'll reconsider once potentially billions of climate refugees flood countries up north.
Also I think the impact of weather extremes is underestimated. You can reinforce buildings against stronger winds. You can move people into climate-controlled buildings. Desalinate seawater when the rains stop.
But that's impossible for the bulk of agriculture. Now imagine extreme winds, droughts and/or wildfires decimate 1 or more staple crops - worldwide, in a single season. Economic chaos, wars & famine will ensue.
Compound effects are a thing. And there's an ever-growing list of candidates.
>3°C global warming is nuclear-WW3 level.
10 degrees increase would collapse any industry, it would turn Norway into Italy.
Do you drive to Norway for your beach holiday?
>And for many of us (maybe bar the Southern-most part of the US)
Actually look at median temperatures in the US. Summers in Atlanta and Chicago are remarkably similar as it is.
Plants would just keep chugging at temps 10 °C hotter than they're evolved for?