# DOOMSDAY 2035: Choose between climate catastrophe or anthrocidal massacre
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 2, 2009, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677 "2009-07-02T06:30:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2009, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/21 "2009-07-02T22:15:58Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#):
>
> For Pete’s sake, don’t burn the 3 billion bodies that you’ve just executed!
Don’t be foolish; do you want them to rise as zombies ? Burning the bodies is mandatory in Apocalypses.
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### Author:  [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2009, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/22 "2009-07-03T00:58:48Z")
Plus dead bodies are a carbon neutral fuel source!
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/23 "2009-07-03T01:20:17Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#):
>
> For Pete’s sake, don’t burn the 3 billion bodies that you’ve just executed!
They like to think of them not as people, but as little tiny carbon sinks. Kill a thousand, and Al Gore can buy up the carbon offset and get himself another SUV for his entourage.
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### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2009, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/24 "2009-07-03T02:11:50Z")
> [@Todderbob](#):
>
> The _planet_ doesn’t need saved.
> The _planet_ will be fine.
Yes. It should be ‘the human habitat’ that needs to be saved. It is more alarming (or alarmist) to frame it as the planet.
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### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/25 "2009-07-03T02:22:53Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> Just out of curiousity, do you actually believe that this scenario is even remotely plausible?
>
> You do know that the worst-case scenarios for warming from reputable scientific sources predict very little warming by 2035, and only the worst of the worst-case scenarios from the IPCC has warming between 2.4 and 6.4 degrees C, with corresponding sea level rises between 10 and 23 inches by the year 2100?
>
> Or is this a science fiction project?
No, I think it is pretty out there. The idea was inspired by Blake’s comments on various GW threads about (something along the lines of) hysterical global warming alarmists.
The ‘all the ice in the world will melt’ scenario is the most extreme GW doomsday scenario I’ve heard, along with the end of the European heat conveyor plus other drastic effects. Add them all up and it is certainly a cause for alarm, if not hysteria.
I’m definitely interested in what the is real worst-case scenario though, and how it compares to the alarmist version. Thanks for the info. 6.4 degrees C doesn’t sound like a joke for sure, but is pretty mild compared to my scenario.
Longer term, how likely is the ‘all the ice will melt’ scenario?
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### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2009, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/26 "2009-07-03T02:44:51Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> And besides, the scenarios aren’t going to work that way. It isn’t like if we halved CO2 emissions tomorrow then, hey climate change averted. We’ve dumped a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere over the last 100 years, just lowering the current rate of CO2 emissions isn’t going to erase the CO2 already emitted.
Ah, but you’re forgetting the nuclear-powered carbon sequesterers mentioned in the OP. They’re not even keeping up with emissions before the anthrocide- not good enough.
> [@](#):
>
> If we’re facing the Antarctic ice sheet melting then even reducing CO2 emissions to zero isn’t going to help. We’d need some sort of geoengineering project to stop it.
The idea is that in the future the ‘tipping point’ can be predicted, and it is predicted to be right around the corner. Drastic action now, or doom later.
> [@](#):
>
> The other annoying part of the scenario is the postulate that there’s nothing we can do to change carbon emissions except reduce population. As if every person in the world emits exactly the same amount of carbon, and there’s no way to change that number.
I _did_ make the world’s poorest 1/3 off limits to population reduction, and allowed bigger emitters to ‘count more’. I didn’t think it was necessary to nail the math for an example like this…
> [@](#):
>
> Except that’s not true in the real world. You can change carbon emissions simply by putting a steep tax on carbon. If you’re head of the Illuminati this is easy to do across the globe. Lower sales taxes or value added taxes and replace them with carbon taxes. Make the carbon taxes steep enough to replace the revenue generated through reduction in sales taxes and you’ll see drastic changes in the carbon budget. Make the carbon taxes really really high and you’ll cut carbon emissions like crazy, the only problem is that you won’t be generating much revenue from carbon taxes because no one will be emitting any.
>
> Or just ban coal mining. There, problem solved. It was easy!
Obviously it is a flaw in the theory that the head of the Illuminati can’t control places like Russia and Saudi Arabia that will sell their oil no matter what, yet can kill as many people as needed. I guess you’re not the type to be swayed into activism by apocalyptic GW drama.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2009, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/27 "2009-07-03T02:56:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> It’s easy to be cavalier about other people’s lives.
It sure is. I have a list that will take care of at least 40% of the world’s population. No huhu. I don’t know any of the personally, so what do I care?
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### Author:  [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walker_in_Eternity)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2009, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/28 "2009-07-03T09:46:30Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> It sure is. I have a list that will take care of at least 40% of the world’s population. No huhu. I don’t know any of the personally, so what do I care?
Agreed. Besides which if we intervene early it will mean fewer deaths in the long term, so actually we’d be doing the people of the future a favour.
Also technically if we introduced global birth control right now (I know that is not actually possible, but this whole thread is hypothetical) then no one would need to be killed as it would be possible to get to 2038 with the"right" amount of people.
But to quote Spock, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…” so it makes logical sense to reduce the total number of the species so that the species can continue.
Of course, I wouldn’t want to be culled, but who would?
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2009, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/29 "2009-07-03T12:53:51Z")
It depends on the global catastrophe - and I’d view an impending Ice Age as a more serious threat to which, if necessary, slaughter on the mass scale would be the lesser of two horrendous evils.
You know how it is. Many are culled, but few are frozen.
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### Author:  [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/30 "2009-07-03T14:47:07Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#):
>
> I _did_ make the world’s poorest 1/3 off limits to population reduction, and allowed bigger emitters to ‘count more’. I didn’t think it was necessary to nail the math for an example like this…
Why not then just reduce the 1/3 people that need killing to third world standard and so make them off limits? Surely that must be preferable to killing? Ask me if I’d rather be a farmer in Etiopia or be dead, then farming sounds very nice.
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/31 "2009-07-03T18:20:19Z")
I’ll take option 3, Alex. Humans in and of themselves are carbon neutral. I’ll find ways of supplying my fellow humans with food etc in a carbon-neutral manner.
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### Author:  [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2009, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/32 "2009-07-04T17:10:32Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#):
>
> I’m definitely interested in what the is real worst-case scenario though, and how it compares to the alarmist version. Thanks for the info. 6.4 degrees C doesn’t sound like a joke for sure, but is pretty mild compared to my scenario.
>
> Longer term, how likely is the ‘all the ice will melt’ scenario?
Just throwing out there non-alarmist scenarios from an [earlier thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11155232&postcount=52)…
> [@wevets](#):
>
> Let’s say we take CO2 concentrations up to 550 ppm by 2100 (level 2 scenario from the US Climate Change Science Program.) With that concentration, there would be a ~70% chance of temperatures reaching 2-3°C higher global average than without human GHGs and ~10% chance of 3-4°C (cite.)
>
> Or we could say we take CO2 concentrations as high as anyone (including, to my mind, inactivists) could want – somewhere around 700-900 ppm. Then there would a ~1% chance of temperatures reaching 2-3°C higher than preindustrial global averages without GHGs, and a ~12% chance of 3-4°C higher, and ~78% chance of \>4°C higher (cite.)
>
> At the 2-3°C change level we have:
>
> ```
> * Droughts that expose 0.4 to 1.7 billion people to water scarcity.
>
> * An additional 3 million people at risk of flooding.
>
> * An increase in the agricultural productivity in wealthy nations such as Canada and Russia, and a decrease in agricultural productivity in poor tropical nations such as Congo (both of ‘em,) India, and Peru.
>
> * Bleaching a majority of the world’s coral reefs with negative consequences for communities that rely on them for fishing and tourism.
>
> * Rapid increase in frequency and breadth of heat waves with attendant crop failures and forest fires.
>
> * Widespread deglaciation of the ice sheets on Greenland and the West Antarctic.
>
> * High risk of extinction for 20-30% of the planet’s species.
>
> ```
>
> At the 3-4°C change level we have:
>
> ```
> * High probability of total melting of Greenland’s and West Antarctica’s ice sheets.
>
> * Falling global food production – no longer to wealthy northern nations enjoy and increase.
>
> * Tens of millions more exposed to increased flooding risk.
>
> * Hundreds of millions to a billon more exposed to increased water scarcity.
>
> * Ecosystems on land may completely switch from soaking up atmospheric carbon to a net balance of adding carbon to the atmosphere.
>
> * Widespread complete elimination of coral reefs.
>
> ```
>
> (From Hot Topic by Walker and King, but similar information can be found in the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report, WGII, chapters 19 & 20, especially tables 19.1 and 20.4.)
> The higher the temperature gets, the worse the potential consequences, and eventually too many people will be affected to ignore.
As far as I know, we don’t have good information on what might happen beyond 4°C, but if over a billion people get limited access to fresh water before we hit that temperature, it’s unlikely to be good for us. (ETA: I don’t think it would be like killing a couple billion people, though, that sounds too extreme.)
ETA: The links didn’t carry through in the quote, but if you click through to the post I’m quoting they’re there.
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### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2009, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/33 "2009-07-04T19:22:40Z")
> [@Rune](#):
>
> Why not then just reduce the 1/3 people that need killing to third world standard and so make them off limits? Surely that must be preferable to killing? Ask me if I’d rather be a farmer in Etiopia or be dead, then farming sounds very nice.
The world is too crowded in 2035 for that. All these new farmers would push the original ones out of existence. They’re fiercer competitors- it is why they aren’t already in the bottom 1/3. In a way you would be achieving the same thing, but it still amounts to anthrocidal massacre. I suppose if you ‘reassign’ only people who emit double the average CO2, because they ‘count’ more then only 1/6 of the world’s population would be affected in this (hypothetical) example.
And besides, history shows that this approach is problematic. Look at Stalin’s USSR or Pol Pot’s radical agrarian reform. A sizable chunk of the population-in radically different cultures- would sooner die than be reduced to subsistence farmers. Of course Stalin’s and Pol Pot’s answer was, ‘that can be arranged.’
You, you’re not such a hard case. But history shows not everyone shares your opinion.
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### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/34 "2009-07-04T19:31:55Z")
> [@wevets](#):
>
> At the 3-4°C change level we have:
>
> - High probability of total melting of Greenland’s and West Antarctica’s ice sheets.
>
> - Falling global food production – no longer to wealthy northern nations enjoy and increase.
>
> - Tens of millions more exposed to increased flooding risk.
>
> - Hundreds of millions to a billon more exposed to increased water scarcity.
>
> - Ecosystems on land may completely switch from soaking up atmospheric carbon to a net balance of adding carbon to the atmosphere.
>
> - Widespread complete elimination of coral reefs.
> As far as I know, we don’t have good information on what might happen beyond 4°C, but if over a billion people get limited access to fresh water before we hit that temperature, it’s unlikely to be good for us. (ETA: I don’t think it would be like killing a couple billion people, though, that sounds too extreme.)
Thanks for the info!
If the IPCC worst-case estimate is over 6 degrees C, and we get total melting of Greenland’s and Western Antarctica’s ice sheets at 4 degrees C, how far does that put us from the catastrophic ‘all the ice in the world’ scenario? What percentage of ice is still left in the 4 degrees scenario?
And- what kind of time frames are we talking about for total ice melt? My hypothetical forces you to act right away, but in reality of course all this ice can’t just vanish overnight…
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/35 "2009-07-05T06:29:54Z")
[QUOTE=Try2B Comprehensive]
And- what kind of time frames are we talking about for total ice melt? My hypothetical forces you to act right away, but in reality of course all this ice can’t just vanish overnight…
[/QUOTE]
My (possibly wrong) understanding is that we are looking at the possibility of no sea ice during the summer months in the north by the end of this century…which is different than no ice at all world wide. I don’t think that any but the most gloom and doomy type predictions are looking at more than a couple of feet sea level rise this century…the most I’ve seen is something on the order of 5-10 feet possible (no idea how probable even this would be though) during that time frame. Even that would be bad…but nothing like the 200 feet you were talking about in the OP.
I’m sure there are models that predict much more radical events, but afaik no one is going to the extremes you are talking about…at least not in the next 50-100 years anyway.
-XT
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### Author:  [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/36 "2009-07-05T06:40:41Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#):
>
> …You must decide right away. _ **There isn’t any more time!!!** _
We can reduce the worlds population in about 4 days , between nuclear and binary nerve gas warheads , to about 4 billion. Add in unrestricted bio warfare, and you could be down to somewhere between couple hundred million and two billion in say another two months, systemic breakdown with food distrabution, fuel distrabution adds further mayhem to the really bad year.
If what ever your talking about happens, the choice of who survives may not entirely be in your hands.
Declan
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### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/37 "2009-07-05T19:55:58Z")
It is good to know that the alarmist version is so far from the reality.
One more question though, concerning this prediction:
> [@](#):
>
> - Ecosystems on land may completely switch from soaking up atmospheric carbon to a net balance of adding carbon to the atmosphere.
So. If carbon in the atmosphere raises temperatures, and rising temperatures cause ecosystems to emit rather than absorb carbon, what mitigates the process after it has started? IOW, if things reach this point, are we facing a runaway climate change to Venus-like conditions?
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### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2009, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/38 "2009-07-05T21:28:53Z")
> [@Declan](#):
>
> We can reduce the worlds population in about 4 days , between nuclear and binary nerve gas warheads , to about 4 billion. Add in unrestricted bio warfare, and you could be down to somewhere between couple hundred million and two billion in say another two months, systemic breakdown with food distrabution, fuel distrabution adds further mayhem to the really bad year.
>
> If what ever your talking about happens, the choice of who survives may not entirely be in your hands.
>
> Declan
Nah. For this outlandish scenario we have to assume that somehow the choice is in the hands of the Autocrat.
It could be that he takes out anyone who refuses to hand over Bin Laden (still alive in 2035), until there is no one left within a 950-mile radius of Kabul (except OBL of course). Or, who knows, death-by-email. I know I’m giving absurdity in response to a real-world population-reduction method. The method in this scenario is more free, in case one method may be considered more moral or acceptable than another. Under the circumstances.
You don’t presume the Supreme Chancellor of the Illuminati would be so gauche as to nuke the planet?!?
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2009, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/39 "2009-07-06T16:07:39Z")
[QUOTE=Try2B Comprehensive]
So. If carbon in the atmosphere raises temperatures, and rising temperatures cause ecosystems to emit rather than absorb carbon, what mitigates the process after it has started? IOW, if things reach this point, are we facing a runaway climate change to Venus-like conditions?
[/QUOTE]
My guess would be that because we know there have been much higher concentrations of CO2 in the past, and that the Earth didn’t become Venus-like, that this is probably not a likely possibility in the foreseeable future. I seriously doubt the Earth is slated for Venus-like conditions in the next few hundred million years (or so).
-XT
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-2035-choose-between-climate-catastrophe-or-anthrocidal-massacre/501677/40 "2009-07-06T17:33:25Z")
A lot of the Earth’s atmosphere was lost early on (presumably in the collision which created the Moon), and of what’s left, a lot of the carbon was sequestered in limestone and other carbonate rocks, as well as in the biosphere. Plus, of course, we’re further from the Sun. So even in the absolute worst-case scenarios, we couldn’t be another Venus.
Of course, “not as bad as Venus” still leaves plenty of room for things to get pretty darned bad.
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