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How are you coping with climate change?
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this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2024
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Look at who funded that study, and the actual contents.
According to this study - funded by the Chinese government, the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions on earth - we'll see increased plant growth in the short term under controlled warming. Even ignoring the incredible conflict of interest, the fundamental assumption of the study is that we'll be able to get warming under control and stick to the goals of the Paris agreement, maintaining only 2 degrees of warming by 2070. That's absolutely absurd. We'll be incredibly lucky to not hit 2 degrees of warming by 2040 at this rate. Besides that, they are essentially just looking at how plant growth responds to changes in temp and CO2. Of course plant productivity increases with higher temps and more available CO2, that's not where the problems come in.
The problems occur when those hardy, fast growing species start really exploding. Cyanobacterial blooms that deoxygenate massive swaths of the ocean, killing millions of fish at a time. Population explosions of pests, contaminating food supplies and starting future pandemics. The ecosystem is complex and interconnected, things will adapt eventually, but the transition period will be catastrophic.
We are not a hardy, fast growing species. I have no doubt that people will survive, but it's going to effect everyone, and a lot sooner than you think.
The study looks at that particular increase in temperatures but a higher increase would probably lead to even more plant growth.
I agree that that there will be disasters during the transition period (and even if there aren't, transitioning will be very expensive). However, humans are extremely hardy and fast-growing. We're probably the most hardy, fast-growing species of large terrestrial animal that has ever existed - right now humans and domesticated animals make up the overwhelming majority of terrestrial mammal biomass. Climate change is going to affect me, at least because I live in a large coastal city and seawalls cost a lot of money, but it is unlikely to kill me.
Temperature is not the problem. No climate scientist has ever worried that plants won't produce well in higher temperatures. Acting like they're 'exploring the consequences of climate change' is a smokescreen, it's a way of making it seem like the fears are overblown. They're testing a hypothesis with an obvious conclusion that's somewhat related to global warming, while conveniently ignoring the things real scientists are actually worried about.
The fears come from the other effects of rising temperature and greenhouse gasses. Most of the real scary stuff is happening in the oceans. Things like the potential for massive amounts of algal death and the loss of potentially 60% of the oxygen creating organisms on earth. Plants are gonna grow great when oxygen levels drop to 15% and people have to wear breathing masks anytime they venture to the surface.
We are absolutely not a hardy or fast growing species. It takes years, for our children to be remotely self sufficient, and over a decade to reach sexual maturity. We have a similar growth pattern to elephants, outside of whales, we're some of the slowest growing animals alive. We can't survive extreme temperature swings, radiation, loss of oxygen. We've created things to overcome our physical mediocrity, but those things can very quickly disappear for most of the population when the infrastructure supporting global shipping and manufacturing collapses. The fact that we make up such a huge portion of mammal biomass mostly just means we'll be a great food source for whatever bugs evolve to eat us. Keep in mind that we may be about 30% of mammal biomass, but livestock make up more than 60%. That's not because they're small and adaptable, it's because they're food.
This is a 'transition period' on a geologic scale. We're talking about the next 50,000 years at best, it's not something we're just to ride out and things go back to normal.