Reminds me of a bit that George Carlin did regarding climate change: “The planet’s gonna be fine. The people are FUCKED!”
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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Sounds conservative to me. I feel like to cap it to a billion we'd need massive agriculture overhaul and renewable energy investment, and neither of those are valued in profit or political capital.
It will be a few more than that. The global demand for fresh water will be 40% over capacity by 2030, if we even make it that long.
We're losing massive amounts of polar ice daily and if the next 5 years are as hot as 2023, the Blue Ocean Event will happen in 2027.
What are the most likely causes of death? Are we talking average life expectancy drops by a couple of years, but quality of life remains constant? Or are we talking famine and war due to a loss of areable land?
I assume it’s a little of both, but it’s useful to know which sides the scales tip.
It's an estimate of premature deaths based on CO2 emissions.
"Pearce and Parncutt found the peer-reviewed literature on the human mortality costs of carbon emissions converged on the "1,000-ton rule," which is an estimate that one future premature death is caused every time approximately 1,000 tons of fossil carbon are burned.
"Energy numbers like megawatts mean something to energy engineers like me, but not to most people. Similarly, when climate scientists talk about parts per million of carbon dioxide, that doesn't mean anything to most people. A few degrees of average temperature rise are not intuitive either. Body count, however, is something we all understand," said Pearce, a Western Engineering and Ivey Business School professor.
"If you take the scientific consensus of the 1,000-ton rule seriously, and run the numbers, anthropogenic global warming equates to a billion premature dead bodies over the next century. Obviously, we have to act. And we have to act fast.""
That sounds low enough to ensure a dystopian future. It could be much higher and still get there easily.
This doesn't account for the fear of rich humans as the poorer humans aggressively seek relief and/or completely justified revenge.