U.S. power prices rose to their highest in months in a couple of markets as homes and businesses cranked up their air conditioners to escape a brutal heatwave blanketing much of the country this week, stressing electric grids.
I see only two ways forward. One homogenous society working together, or much smaller, more “tribal” groups of people almost back to the hunter/gatherer style of society, but this would require a massive depopulation of the Earth.
I guess we’ll see what happens. Although, China seems to be doing fine with 1.4 billion people. So, perhaps there are systems that can work in a large society after all. We’ll see how their experiment goes forward.
They’re not immune to climate change, but they are in best position to adapt to it. Certainly possible that there’s going to be no way to adapt if things unravel fast enough. However, having domestic supply chains, nuclear power generation, indoor farming, and so on will all go a long way. China has demonstrated the ability to marshal resources in coordinated fashion unlike any other nation, if anybody has a chance of getting through climate change it’s definitely China.
Oh I completely agree, billions of people are likely to die at this point, and I don’t see how that can be averted. The big question now if any semblance of our technological civilization can survive this process or not. I’m also expecting massive world instability as a result of the climate breakdown. Countries will go to war over remaining livable land. There will be huge refugee crises as people flee parts of the world that are no longer habitable. Global supply chains will rapidly breakdown, and countries that rely on them will implode internally.
The three main aspects will be access to resources, food production, and energy supply. If a country has energy production secured then it can start creating temperature controlled environments for people to live in and to grow food. This would be a large scale project that would require a huge amount of central planning and coordination to pull off. And the country would need access to material resources in order to build out this infrastructure.
Maybe humanity just doesn’t scale.
It doesn’t.
I see only two ways forward. One homogenous society working together, or much smaller, more “tribal” groups of people almost back to the hunter/gatherer style of society, but this would require a massive depopulation of the Earth.
I guess we’ll see what happens. Although, China seems to be doing fine with 1.4 billion people. So, perhaps there are systems that can work in a large society after all. We’ll see how their experiment goes forward.
They are certainly not immune to climate change. No one is, and no one is doing fine.
They’re not immune to climate change, but they are in best position to adapt to it. Certainly possible that there’s going to be no way to adapt if things unravel fast enough. However, having domestic supply chains, nuclear power generation, indoor farming, and so on will all go a long way. China has demonstrated the ability to marshal resources in coordinated fashion unlike any other nation, if anybody has a chance of getting through climate change it’s definitely China.
We’ll see. I don’t think any country is going to weather the upcoming climate apocalypse without heavy casualties.
Large swaths of the currently habited Earth are going to be unlivable and possibly within a decade or less.
Oh I completely agree, billions of people are likely to die at this point, and I don’t see how that can be averted. The big question now if any semblance of our technological civilization can survive this process or not. I’m also expecting massive world instability as a result of the climate breakdown. Countries will go to war over remaining livable land. There will be huge refugee crises as people flee parts of the world that are no longer habitable. Global supply chains will rapidly breakdown, and countries that rely on them will implode internally.
The three main aspects will be access to resources, food production, and energy supply. If a country has energy production secured then it can start creating temperature controlled environments for people to live in and to grow food. This would be a large scale project that would require a huge amount of central planning and coordination to pull off. And the country would need access to material resources in order to build out this infrastructure.