# When will Climate Change become dire? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2019, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739 "2019-11-21T00:10:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/21 "2019-11-21T15:50:57Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > Personally, in my view, that’s well past dire. I respect your opinion, but I don’t see how the impending (probable) deaths of tens to hundreds of millions of people isn’t dire (between 2030 and 2050). And this is the low-end estimate. As others have pointed out, those deaths won’t largely be in North America and Western Europe, so sadly they don’t seem matter to a lot of people (I’m not accusing you of this). What will matter to the West will be the climate change refugees, and the political instability causing conflict because desperate people make desperate acts including acts of violence. I could very easily see terrorist groups using Western indifference to local human suffering as a recruiting tool and to foster hate. In fact, if you include the Syria conflict, which is thought to be aggravated climate change conflicts in the literature (I will note that there is some disagreement on this issue in the literature), then to some degree they already are doing so. > > Gleick, P. H. (2014). Water, drought, climate change, and conflict in Syria. Weather, Climate, and Society, 6(3), 331-340. > > De Châtel, F. (2014). The role of drought and climate change in the Syrian uprising: Untangling the triggers of the revolution. Middle Eastern Studies, 50(4), 521-535. It seems I have a non-standard definition of dire. I was looking at it in terms of the worst outcome. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/22 "2019-11-21T15:59:44Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > It seems I have a non-standard definition of dire. I was looking at it in terms of the worst outcome. I think you’re probably right in so far as when the West will consider it dire. Unfortunately. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/23 "2019-11-21T16:32:02Z")
I saw a documentary on HBO that showed that the dire wolves were in dire straits. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/24 "2019-11-21T16:32:44Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I saw a documentary on HBO that showed that the dire wolves were in dire straits. Money for nuffin and chickens for free?? ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/25 "2019-11-21T16:40:04Z")
Humanity’s effects on the biosphere / hydrosphere are dire but don’t worry, humanity will pass, and cockroaches will inherit a suitable planet. When aliens land and survey the lush wastelands, they’ll smile, and colonize. Some of humankind’s artifacts may surface. Look, another golden arch! ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/26 "2019-11-21T21:20:05Z")
The most dire consequence of Climate Change will happen if we listen to the people who think we need to dismantle global capitalism to fix it. The destruction from that would dwarf the damage from climate change. Another dire consequence would come from panicking and shutting down fossil fuel use before the alternatives are ready for prime time. Yet another one would be to start ‘green’ megaprojects that won’t work while ignoring nuclear power - the only technology available that could actually make a large dent in emissions without screwing up the power grid. Another one would be condemning millions of people in Africa to poverty and starvation because they can’t get access to the kinds of concentrated power needed to create an industrial economy. Another set of damages could result if we play hardball with China and others, destabilizing the world and risking war. Another set of damages could occur if we take unilateral action without China and Russia, thereby making them the low-cost energy states and giving them a huge comparative advantage in high energy manufacturing, which will give these bad actors more economic and political clout in the world while moving dirty industry to the places where it will have the least amount of oversight. Climate change is real and serious. But our interventions can make things worse, impoverish people, and by reducing economic growth reduce the ability of people to mitigate the damages that will result when ineffective policies fail. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/27 "2019-11-21T22:02:54Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The most dire consequence of Climate Change will happen if we listen to the people who think we need to dismantle global capitalism to fix it. The destruction from that would dwarf the damage from climate change. Only that none is proposing that, and most of the ones declaring that are the usual powerful groups or the ones financed by those groups that continue to say with misleading information and false reports that proponents of controlling emissions want to dismantle capitalism. There is fearmongering alright, but is coming from the ones opposing change. > **[Climate Deniers Are the Hysterical Alarmists](https://newrepublic.com/article/154014/climate-deniers-hysterical-alarmists)** > > They, not climate scientists or activists, are stoking fear with exaggerated rhetoric and outright lies. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/28 "2019-11-21T22:31:35Z")
I think a good mark for “dire” would be when one of two things happens: 1. Global GDP falls year over year 2. The global poverty rate starts increasing Certainly, there can be dire effects locally. If your house burns down or your town floods or whatever, that’s a catastrophe, but it’s not a global catastrophe. As long as total wealth is increasing and the percentage of the world in abject poverty is decreasing, you’re going to have a hard time convincing many people that the situation is dire. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/29 "2019-11-21T22:35:13Z")
> [@cjackson](#): > > Going at the rate we’re going now, how long until the most dire consequences of climate change occur? How long until even the billionaires are suffering its effects? When there are wars fought over the dwindling resources. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/30 "2019-11-22T17:54:56Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > When there are wars fought over the dwindling resources. This seems pretty fuzzy. We’ve fought wars over scarce resources since basically forever, and while climate change will likely exacerbate the scarcity of water, it was pretty likely there’d have been wars fought over water even in the absence of climate change. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/31 "2019-11-22T18:04:52Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > As noted, what dire consists of is an opinion. Mine is that we’re nowhere close to dire. In my opinion dire is when major coastal cities which are above current sea level (Venice and New Orleans need not apply) start sinking underwater. How do you feel about [Jakarta](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44636934) or the [Seychelles](http://www.seychellesnewsagency.com/articles/1594/An+uncertain+future+for+Seychelles+Study+shows+sea+levels+are+at+their+highest+in+the+past+%2C+years)or [pretty much all of Bangladesh](https://www.dhakatribune.com/climate-change/2019/02/19/bangladesh-s-geography-will-naturally-counter-sea-level-rise-until-it-becomes-too-rapid-due-to-climate-change)? ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/32 "2019-11-22T19:46:51Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > When there are wars fought over the dwindling resources. You mean like in Syria? ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/33 "2019-11-22T20:07:39Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > You mean like in Syria? Yes, exactly. I was going to mention just that very example. Consider as well that it was a war that affected not only the Near East, but it also impacted the European continent with one of its largest refugee crises in recent memory, which was a politically destabilizing event. That’s what we can look forward to. Subtle events that increasingly cause disruption and destabilization over large areas. This will become more noticeable in industrialized societies almost certainly within the next 10-20 years. Consider agriculture, for instance. Even if a healthy market economy can find ways to maintain a healthy food supply, if weather conditions destroy hundreds or thousands of farms, that will be politically destabilizing even if it’s not immediately economically problematic (although it could well be). There will be a point at which we’re dealing with multiple crises at the same time: water shortages, vanishing coastal cities, devastating hurricanes, wildfires burning across entire regions. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/34 "2019-11-22T20:10:18Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > This seems pretty fuzzy. We’ve fought wars over scarce resources since basically forever, and while climate change will likely exacerbate the scarcity of water, it was pretty likely there’d have been wars fought over water even in the absence of climate change. That is quite true, but what I am saying is that climate change will accelerate this changes and nation-states and local states won’t be prepared for them. Climate change is occurring at the same time that our population is expanding. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/35 "2019-11-23T00:30:34Z")
It’s become an article of faith among global warming activists that the Syrian civil war was due to global warming. I think [there’s scant science to support that belief](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-climatechange-syria/claims-that-climate-change-fueled-syrias-civil-war-questioned-in-new-study-idUSKCN1BI2O3). ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/36 "2019-11-23T01:10:41Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > It’s become an article of faith among global warming activists that the Syrian civil war was due to global warming. I think [there’s scant science to support that belief](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-climatechange-syria/claims-that-climate-change-fueled-syrias-civil-war-questioned-in-new-study-idUSKCN1BI2O3). The actual position I see is that there is not much into declaring that climate change was the sole cause\*, the point is that it was a factor. A factor that it is bound to increase unrest as there are not many places the climate refugees will go if very little is done. > **[Climate Change Helped Spark Syrian War, Study Says](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/150302-syria-war-climate-change-drought)** > > Drought, worsened by climate change, led to mass migration that helped spark the Syrian conflict, researchers say. > **[Does Climate Change Cause More War?](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/does-climate-change-cause-more-war/553040/)** > > A new paper questions the growing body of evidence that weather fluctuations can prompt wars, but researchers have doubts about its value. > **[Study finds that global warming exacerbates refugee crises | John Abraham](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/15/study-finds-that-global-warming-exacerbates-refugee-crises)** > > John Abraham: Higher temperatures increase the number of people seeking asylum in the EU > [@](#): > > Separating out the influences of climate change from general social instability may be impossible, because they are intimately linked. But we do know that climate change can cause social and economic instability. We also know that these instabilities can boil over into larger problems that lead to mass exodus. The problem isn’t knowing the connection between climate and refugees exists – rather the problem is quantifying it. > > All of this is important because we want to be able to plan for the “now” as well as the “tomorrow.” If we are already seeing climate-related migrations, can you imagine what’s in store in the next few decades as temperatures and extreme weather continue to increase? > > A very recent publication appearing in the journal Science investigates this complex subject. The paper, Asylum Applications Respond to Temperature Fluctuations, was published by Anouch Missirian and Wolfram Schlenker from Columbia University. It focused not just on Syria and the Mediterranean area, but expanded their study to be worldwide. > > The researchers identified 103 countries that contributed to asylum applications to the European Union. Collectively, these nations submitted 350,000 applications to the EU per year. The authors combed the weather histories from these 103 source sites and explored how the weather varied in the 2000–2014 time period. > > They found that when temperatures in agricultural areas and seasons at the source countries varied away from an optimal value (of about 20°C), the number of people seeking asylum increased. And the increase wasn’t just proportional. They found it was nonlinear, meaning that initial increases in temperature only mildly changed the asylum application numbers. But as temperatures varied more and more, the number of seekers increased more quickly. > Sign up to the Green Light email to get the planet’s most important stories > Read more > > After making this connection to observations, the authors then projected into the future. Using a collection of climate models that are able to predict Earth’s future climate, the authors estimated that on a business-as-usual emissions pathway (where countries don’t meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions), asylum applications will increase by almost 200% by the end of the century. On the other hand, under a modest warming scenario, where humans take some meaningful action to reduce emissions, the increase falls to about 30%. Again, this shows that what humans do today to combat climate change really matters. - As it usually happens in discussions like this one, that is mostly a straw man, when one reads the research it is clear that they have not said that climate is the sole reason for the conflict. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/37 "2019-11-23T01:38:11Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > In the Pacific Northwest, for example, in the last many years there has been a big cloud of smoke settling over Seattle for a couple of weeks each year, from all the vast forrest fires in Alaska. That was never a thing before and now it’s normal and people just consider it to be part of living in Seattle and not an indication that “the world is changing considerably”. Speaking of the PNW, with the exception of the end of September, our fall season here in Eugene has been very dry. October was down by half, and so far this current November we’ve had exactly one day with any measurable precipitation. This isn’t something that really impacts us so far, and I’m sure a lot of us are actually glad to have a few more dry weeks; so many people do complain about rain. But it’s troubling to picture what this could mean if the whole region becomes dryer over the long term. For one thing, hydro power would become less viable and we would have to build fueled power plants, or buy such power from elsewhere in the grid. It’s disappointing to think it could be possible, without increasing our power consumption, to still ramp up our carbon footprint. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/38 "2019-11-23T03:50:10Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > You mean like in Syria? So Bashar Assad is a dwindling resource? ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/39 "2019-11-23T03:56:09Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > Personally, in my view, that’s well past dire. I respect your opinion, but I don’t see how the impending (probable) deaths of tens to hundreds of millions of people isn’t dire (between 2030 and 2050). And this is the low-end estimate. Psst– There would be hundreds of millions of deaths in any 20-year time span even if the climate was static. > [@](#): > > In 2015, there were approximately 141 million births. In the same year, around 57 million people died. > **[How many people die and how many are born each year?](https://ourworldindata.org/births-and-deaths)** > > Changes in the world population are determined by two metrics: the number of babies born and the number of people dying. Ever hear of something called “old age”? It’s a real killer. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/40 "2019-11-23T04:09:18Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Psst– > There would be hundreds of millions of deaths in any 20-year time span even if the climate was static. > [How many people die and how many are born each year? - Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/births-and-deaths) > > Ever hear of something called “old age”? It’s a real killer. Those are extra deaths from climate change effects. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739.md?page=3)