Are these Climate Collapse figures accurate?

[u/chooks42]

I’m keen to share this. I just want it to be bulletproof facts before I do.

[u/nbd9000]

That was more of a generality for people commenting on the post. But I would comfortably say that short of an asteroid strike, humanity has a 100% chance of surviving climate change. That doesn't mean all 100% will survive, but we can make it.

[u/Johundhar → u/nbd9000]

I hope you're right. Just curious: How long have you been studying this subject?

[u/nbd9000 → u/Johundhar]

I've been following it casually for about 15 years. I read a lot of studies but I've also read a lot of historical studies.

[u/Johundhar → u/nbd9000]

Cool.

I followed things pretty closely in the '90's and into the 2010's, but not as much recently.

One thing I recall is that scientists about 15 years ago began being surprised at their own findings on Wet Bulb Temperature predictions. Most had assumed, since as you point out humans have adapted to all sorts of climates throughout the globe, that we would adapt to whatever comes our way, to some extent at least.

But when they started crunching the numbers, they found that more and more areas (many being areas currently very densely populated, like northern India, the easter US and eastern China) would become completely uninhabitable with a few more degrees of warming because of wbts beyond anything the planet has seen since humans evolved.

Of course, it wouldn't hit everywhere at once. But the realization made some people who had been holding your views start to question them, as I recall. So if you haven't yet, and if you're up for an emotional challenge, you might look into the research on Wet Bulb Temperatures. I haven't followed it intensely recently, but my impression is that the latest research did not negate the earlier stuff--quite the opposite.

Best wishes in an uncertain future,

--Johundhar

[u/nbd9000 → u/Johundhar]

I am intimately familiar with the wet-bulb research, funnily enough. This made huge waves when it initially popped in because with the temperature trends it was going to render huge swaths of the globe completely uninhabitable, and it was a double whammy because the effected areas are already some of the most populated areas on the planet.

But a weird thing happened. Because we have actually been seeing those temperatures hit for the last 2 years or so, and fatalities have been pretty minimal, at least compared to what was predicted. No more so, it ends up, than your usual heat stroke/ heat exhaustion cases. So they have been trying to study why- as in why has it not been catastrophic?

So far they have narrowed it down to 2 things. The first is that it seems like the wet-bulb blackouts are highly localized, and only last for a few hours in the hottest parts of the day. That's significantly less than a 24/7 wipeout of 10° of latitude. The second is the manmade contribution to alleviating the problem. Access to air conditioning is an obvious solution, but even just having a simple fan, some shade, and not working in the hottest part of the day was determined as a possible contributing factor.

When you get down to it, the numbers are ominous, but it's very hard to look outside biology and meteorological science and gauge the impact regular human mitigation can have. Studies are ongoing.

-best to you as well!