# Will having children solve climate change? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2019, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598 "2019-03-27T10:33:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/221 "2019-04-10T20:09:35Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Better than belittle, disparage, minimize, or poor-mouthing the science. … You think exaggerating is “better”? ---
**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:** [April 10, 2019, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/222 "2019-04-10T20:12:50Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You think exaggerating is “better”? Well, you have to face the fact that that “Billions” was not ever said here in this thread, so, we are not defending that, so you are \*\*\*exaggerating \*\*\*by trying to claim that we support that statement. IOW, you are right that exaggeration is not helpful. 🙂 It has to be noticed that you are not acknowledging that you, and most of the right, was wrong by trusting Lomborg on the way he misuses reports, that while accurate on an specific issue, it grossly misleads regarding the big picture. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/223 "2019-04-10T20:43:46Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Well, you have to face the fact that that “Billions” was not ever said here in this thread, so, we are not defending that … I said it, in post #214 _in this thread_, while acknowledging that the original source was “another thread”. In trying to craft a defense of that statement, Kimstu wrote this: > [@Kimstu](#): > > In terms of its overall impact? It might not be as far off as you complacently imagine… > > I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to suggest that we might lose a billion or more humans to the combined effects of climate change before we manage to regain a more stable climate system. (If we ever do.)… _You_ may not consider her post “defending that” or “support[ing] that statement”, but I suspect most reasonable readers will not see it that way. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > … while accurate on an specific issue… Finally! The admission you’ve been so loathe to make! Thank you! As for the rest of the snipped paragraph, I think it would be worthwhile to repeat something I said earlier: > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > … If the truth is that he’s actually correct about these two claims, but that you think it’s misleading because weather-related deaths are only a small slice of the coming climate change apocalypse, I’d still be interested in hearing your thoughts about the larger slices of the pie, but perhaps you could cut the stupid crap like “Lomborg is always wrong” As you can hopefully see from the quote above, I’m certainly open to hearing arguments along the lines of ‘he’s misleading on the big picture’, but that’s not the approach you decided to take. You just said “Lomborg is always wrong”. That’s not convincing and makes you look worse when you have to backtrack. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/224 "2019-04-10T20:46:25Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Out of idle curiosity, what _would_ convince you that the scientific consensus on this matter is, in fact, correct and that these experts who’ve studied and modeled for decades and have been warning us for just about that long know what they’re talking about, possibly even with a nearer degree of accuracy than your gut feelings ? What’s the “scientific consensus” on how many people are likely to die from climate change, let’s say between now and 2100? ---
**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:** [April 10, 2019, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/225 "2019-04-10T20:49:12Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > As you can hopefully see from the quote above, I’m certainly open to hearing arguments along the lines of ‘he’s misleading on the big picture’, but that’s not the approach you decided to take. You just said “Lomborg is always wrong”. That’s not convincing and makes you look worse when you have to backtrack. Like you will then when acknowledging that Lomborg pulled a fast one with those seemingly accurate statements? Again, his intention was to mislead and that is what me and others showed already. Because it is clear that you are not reading, I still stand on my statement that Lomborg is always wrong, because he has mercenary reasons to be that way and it was demonstrated that he does what gish gallopers do, buried in their statements we will find a few accurate statements, but they are geared in support of gross lies and inaccuracies. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/226 "2019-04-10T20:49:21Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > What’s the “scientific consensus” on how many people are likely to die from climate change between now and 2100? Dodging the question. Retry, Abort, Fail ? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/227 "2019-04-10T20:53:05Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Let’s try this advice out. Here is the snippet of your post that attempts to defend the “billions will likely die” quote from before: Again, you need to pay more attention to what people are actually saying rather than what you wish they’d said. What I said about that statement was just that it might not be as far off as you complacently imagine, and that we **might** lose a billion or more humans to the overall impacts of climate change. That’s not “defending” it in the sense of asserting it’s true; that’s just challenging your unthinking dismissal of it as ridiculously exaggerated “alarmist” “hyperbole”. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/228 "2019-04-10T20:57:28Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > … I still stand on my statement that Lomborg is always wrong… buried in their statements we will find a few accurate statements… You appear to be contradicting yourself in the same sentence. Or perhaps you’re using “stand by” or “always” in some non-standard way? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/229 "2019-04-10T21:01:42Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Again, you need to pay more attention to what people are actually saying … I’m paying attention to what _YOU_ are saying. You wrote: > [@Kimstu](#): > > … And that doesn’t take into account any of the indirect impacts from reduced food production, increased extreme poverty, population displacement, or disruptions in health services, nor the effects of climate change in worsening natural disasters, all of which could bump up the total by an order of magnitude. I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to suggest that we might lose a billion or more humans to the combined effects of climate change before we manage to regain a more stable climate system. (If we ever do.) … You’ve made a fairly specific claim here, about the potential deaths of 900 million people, and I’d like to know the source of it. Do you have a cite? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/230 "2019-04-10T21:04:08Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You appear to be contradicting yourself in the same sentence. Or perhaps you’re using “stand by” or “always” in some non-standard way? That should have been “stand on”, not “by”. ---
**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:** [April 10, 2019, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/231 "2019-04-10T21:06:31Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You appear to be contradicting yourself in the same sentence. Or perhaps you’re using “stand by” or “always” in some non-standard way? You seem to not be aware of what a Gish Gallop is, Lomborg is an expert on that. In that fallacy some accurate items are used with the intention to mislead others on the big picture. Again, as you told us, you will look at the evidence after it was clear that I can report that there are 2 items were he is correct, the point stands that he uses those correct bits of information and sets them up to deceive many. So, it is your turn now. It is no different from Astrologers that tell you that there is a Sun, a Mars, a Venus, etc. and you think that Lomborg is a good accurate fellow by pointing that. While ignoring the tons of bullshit that Astrologers then try to pull in their horoscopes. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/232 "2019-04-10T21:19:07Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You’ve made a fairly specific claim here, about the potential deaths of 900 million people, and I’d like to know the source of it. Do you have a cite? [Yep.](https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/un-the-best-worst-case-scenario-for-climate-change-will-be-millions-of-deaths-Vbt_uUiNSEqP7PtA-mQdmw/) > [@](#): > > The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report last week [October 2018], warning that failing to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celcius would result in hundreds of millions of deaths. The rest of that article describes a variety of unfortunately plausible scenarios in which warming would significantly exceed 1.5 degrees, worsening the catastrophic nature of the results. Honestly, **HD** , I’m baffled as to why you’re trying to insist that mortality on this order of magnitude must somehow be a “hyperbolically” unrealistic prospect. Hundreds of millions of deaths due to climate change is not at all unrealistic, based on the fairly conservative and scientifically conscientious estimates of the IPCC. And a billion or more deaths is merely the high end of the fairly short linear scale of “hundreds of millions”. Sure, **you personally** are probably not going to live in a world where climate-change impacts will be felt at such magnitudes. But your grandchildren probably will. If you just can’t wrap your head around the notion that “hundreds of millions” or even “billions” is a more reasonable estimate for total mortality from climate change than, say, “hundreds of thousands” (hell, we’re already on track to get into the “millions” well before 2030), then consciously or not, you’re engaging in some kind of irrational denial. ---
**Author:** ![PackerMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@PackerMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PackerMan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/233 "2019-04-10T21:26:02Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I’m a Republican, and one of Senator Lee’s constituents. I’ll let him flesh out his own argument: > > (emphasis mine) > > source: [https://www.lee.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/speeches?ID=2271BAF4-7F34-4BE8-81C5-B621E9BAF878](https://www.lee.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/speeches?ID=2271BAF4-7F34-4BE8-81C5-B621E9BAF878) We have a problem. According the bestest, most intelligentest and knowledgeablest president Trump, America is full. He can’t be wrong, so how are we going to fit all these new babies? What is the solution? Killing the old people? Better yet, we should kill all of the brown people, they aren’t real Americans anyway. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/234 "2019-04-10T22:26:39Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > [Yep.](https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/un-the-best-worst-case-scenario-for-climate-change-will-be-millions-of-deaths-Vbt_uUiNSEqP7PtA-mQdmw/) … Would you agree that “the Intellectualist” ([an online publisher and aggregator that covers politics, science, feminism, and secularism](https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/pages/about-the-intellectualist-nF-zU-z5NEu0ZtOvKaMbpA/)) is not among “serious sources of climate science reporting”? The author, Jake Thomas, describes himself like this: > [@](#): > > Jake Thomas is a political moderate who became passionate about politics during the 2016 election. His main interests are the social safety net, American politics, basic income, and institutions. Thomas hopes to one day return to school and earn a PhD in political science or economics. It doesn’t sound like he’s a climatologist (although I’m certainly open to correction on this point). His “article” appears to be a glorified re-telling of [this article (“UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It’s Actually Worse Than That.”) in the New York Magazine](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genocide-coming-but-its-worse-than-that.html). So what about New York Magazine? Are they intellectual heavy-weights? A source we could rightly label one of the “serious sources of climate science reporting”? I’ll let them answer for themselves (if the headline of their article wasn’t enough of a clue): > [@](#): > > [New York Media energizes people around shared interests, igniting important conversations with a cosmopolitan point of view and providing the map to shrewdly navigate a fast-moving culture.](http://mediakit.nymag.com/#_ga=2.72666003.1402363612.1554932074-1191233552.1553035650) So what about the author: David Wallace-Wells? His Twitter account says he’s the “Deputy editor and climate columnist for New York magazine” and has apparently authored a book titled “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming”. On Twitter, his publisher is touting his book as: > [@](#): > > [“David Wallace-Wells has produced a willfully terrifying polemic that reads like a cross between @StephenKing and Stephen Hawking.” @Andrew\_Solomon on #TheUninhabitableEarth by @dwallacewells, out 2/19/19: http://www.prh.com/theuninhabitableearth …](https://twitter.com/CrownPublishing/status/1083056039266783232) It gets better still though. The book is apparently based on an article he wrote in 2017 by the same title. [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uninhabitable_Earth#Reception) is how Wikipedia describes the response to the article: > [@](#): > > The story received immediate criticism from the climate change community along two fronts: the piece is too pessimistic; or it contains some factual errors.[9] > > Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic said it is an “unusually specific and severe depiction of what global warming will do to the planet.” [10] Susan Matthews writing in Slate said “The instantly viral piece might be the Silent Spring of our time”.[11] > > The NGO Climate Feedback summarized reviews by dozens of professional scientists and concluded the majority of the reviewers tagged the article as: Alarmist, Imprecise/Unclear, Misleading.[12] > > Some journalists defended the science saying it is mostly correct, “I haven’t seen any good evidence for serious factual errors,” said Kevin Drum.[9] Emily Atkin said “The complaints about the science in Wallace-Wells’s article are mostly quibbles”.[13] > > The major criticism is that David Wallace-Wells was trying to scare people.[9] This theme was then explored by journalists and commentators with some saying they thought fear was necessary given the reality of the problem, while others thought scaring people was counter-productive.[10][11][9][13][14] For example, Eric Holthaus said that “scaring the shit out of [people] is a really bad strategy” for getting them to want to address climate change.[15] > > In a later interview, David Wallace-Wells said “it didn’t seem plausible to me that there was more risk at scaring people too much than there was at not scaring them enough … my feeling was, and is, if there’s a one percent chance that we’ve set off a chain reaction that could end the human race, then that should be something that the public knows and thinks about.” [16] It seems that our friend David has made a career for himself out of hyping the consequences of global warming. Good for him, but I don’t think you should be turning to him as a source when the complaint is that there’s too much hyperbole in the global warming discussion and you’re arguing the point that it’s not really hyperbole. So let’s set aside the fear-mongering and turn to what real scientists say. After all, there was an actual IPCC report that was referenced (indirectly, without a link) in your cite: > [@](#): > > The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report last week, warning that failing to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celcius would result in hundreds of millions of deaths. AFAICT, [this](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/) is the actual IPCC report that your cite is referring to. Now, I haven’t read the whole thing yet, I just perused the “[Summary for Policymakers](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/summary-for-policy-makers/)”. I didn’t see anything in there about a billion dead (or “hundreds of millions”). Perhaps they buried it in the main report (which would be fucking _BIZARRE_ because “hundreds of millions will die” seems like exactly the sort of thing one should include in their “Summary for Policymakers”). Either way, I’m back to asking you for a cite again, preferably one from among the “serious sources of climate science reporting”, and not more of this hyperbolic bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/235 "2019-04-10T23:19:21Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > AFAICT, [this](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/) is the actual IPCC report that your cite is referring to. Now, I haven’t read the whole thing yet, I just perused the “[Summary for Policymakers](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/summary-for-policy-makers/)”. I didn’t see anything in there about a billion dead (or “hundreds of millions”). :rolleyes: Well, if you bothered to read some of the report’s details instead of just fuming about the website that summarized them, you’d see that those estimates are, again, not at all unrealistic. [Chapter 3](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SR15_Chapter3_Low_Res.pdf) is the part that talks about impacts on natural and human systems of 1.5 degrees C of warming (which is probably significantly lowballing the amount of warming we’ll actually get): > [@](#): > > Out of a contemporary population of approximately 1.3 billion exposed to water scarcity, about 3% (North America) to 9% (Europe) are expected to be prone to aggravated scarcity at 2°C of global warming (Gerten et al., 2013). […] > > Under the same scenario, the global mean monthly number of people expected to be exposed to extreme drought at 1.5°C in 2021–2040 is projected to be 114.3 million, compared to 190.4 million at 2°C in 2041–2060 (Smirnov et al., 2016). […] > > At 1.5°C in 2100, 31–69 million people (2010 population values) worldwide are projected to be exposed to flooding, assuming no adaptation or protection at all, compared with 32–79 million people (2010 population values) at 2°C in 2100 (Supplementary Material 3.SM, Table 3.SM.4; Rasmussen et al., 2018). […] > > Arnell et al. (2016) also found that the number of people exposed to flooding increased substantially at warming levels higher than 2°C, assuming no adaptation beyond current protection levels. […] > > At least 136 megacities (port cities with a population greater than 1 million in 2005) are at risk from flooding due to SLR (with magnitudes of rise possible under 1.5°C or 2°C in the 21st century, as indicated in Section 3.3.9) unless further adaptation is undertaken (Hanson et al., 2011; Hallegatte et al., 2013). > > The IPCC AR5 concluded there is high to very high confidence that climate change will lead to greater risks of injuries, disease and death, owing to more intense heatwaves and fires, increased risks of undernutrition, and consequences of reduced labour productivity in vulnerable populations K.R. Smith et al., 2014). […] > > The projected risks to human health of warming of 1.5°C and 2°C, based on studies of temperature-related morbidity and mortality, air quality and vector borne diseases assessed in and since AR5, are summarized in Supplementary Material 3.SM, Tables 3.SM.8, 3.SM.9 and 3.SM.10 (based on Ebi et al., 2018). Other climate-sensitive health outcomes, such as diarrheal diseases, mental health issues and the full range of sources of poor air quality, were not considered because of the lack of projections of how risks could change at 1.5°C and 2°C. […] > > For populations vulnerable to poverty, the exposure to climate risks in multiple sectors could be an order of magnitude greater (8–32 fold) in the high poverty and inequality scenarios (SSP3; 765–1,220 million) compared to under sustainable socio-economic development (SSP1; 23–85 million). […] Here are some examples from the same chapter of realistic possible outcomes of mid-case and worst-case scenarios (and remember that the IPCC’s scenarios have usually been relatively optimistic compared to how things turned out): > [@](#): > > Temperatures are regularly above 1.5°C of warming, although radiative forcing is consistent with a warming of 1.2°C or 1.3°C. Deadly heatwaves in major cities (Chicago, Kolkata, Beijing, Karachi, São Paulo), droughts in southern Europe, southern Africa and the Amazon region, and major flooding in Asia, all intensified by the global and regional warming (Chapter 3, Sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.3, 3.3.4 and 3.4.8; Cross-Chapter Box 11 in Chapter 4), lead to increasing levels of public unrest and political destabilization (Chapter 5, Section 5.2.1). […] > > Global warming of 1.5°C is reached by 2030 but no major changes in policies occur. Starting with an intense El Niño–La Niña phase in the 2030s, several catastrophic years occur while global warming starts to approach 2°C. There are major heatwaves on all continents, with deadly consequences in tropical regions and Asian megacities, especially for those ill-equipped for protecting themselves and their communities from the effects of extreme temperatures (Chapter 3, Sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.4.8). Droughts occur in regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea, central North America, the Amazon region and southern Australia, some of which are due to natural variability and others to enhanced greenhouse gas forcing (Chapter 3, Section 3.3.4; Chapter 4, Section 4.3.2; Cross-Chapter Box 11 in Chapter 4). Intense flooding occurs in high- latitude and tropical regions, in particular in Asia, following increases in heavy precipitation events (Chapter 3, Section 3.3.3). Major ecosystems (coral reefs, wetlands, forests) are destroyed over that period (Chapter 3, Section 3.4), with massive disruption to local livelihoods (Chapter 5, Section 5.2.2 and Box 5.3; Cross-Chapter Box 12 in Chapter 5). An unprecedented drought leads to large impacts on the Amazon rainforest (Chapter 3, Sections 3.3.4 and 3.4), which is also affected by deforestation (Chapter 2). A hurricane with intense rainfall and associated with high storm surges (Chapter 3, Section 3.3.6) destroys a large part of Miami. A two-year drought in the Great Plains in the USA and a concomitant drought in eastern Europe and Russia decrease global crop production (Chapter 3, Section 3.3.4), resulting in major increases in food prices and eroding food security. Poverty levels increase to a very large scale, and the risk and incidence of starvation increase considerably as food stores dwindle in most countries; human health suffers (Chapter 3, Section 3.4.6.1; Chapter 4, Sections 4.3.2 and 4.4.3; Chapter 5, Section 5.2.1). > There are high levels of public unrest and political destabilization due to the increasing climatic pressures, resulting in some countries becoming dysfunctional (Chapter 4, Sections 4.4.1 and 4.4.2). […] Again, think about what these massively increased risks mean quantitatively. Natural disasters already kill about 50K people per year, malaria kills one million annually, and other tropical diseases maybe half a million. Famines even during the comparatively food-rich 20th century killed about 70 million people. It is really not difficult, looking at the increased risk exposure in huge amounts of the global population **even at optimistically restricted levels of warming which we’re almost certain to exceed** , to plausibly estimate hundreds of millions of additional deaths as part of the total impact of climate change. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/236 "2019-04-10T23:30:57Z")
If the consensus about ocean level rise is accurate, it seems obvious that at the very least hundreds of millions, if not billions, will be displaced in the coming century or so, and such mass displacements always have a lot of death along with them. Just from looking at population maps. Billions of people live near low lying coasts. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/237 "2019-04-10T23:39:25Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > :rolleyes: Well, if you bothered to read some of the report’s details instead of just fuming about the website that summarized them, you’d see that those estimates are, again, not at all unrealistic. [Chapter 3](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SR15_Chapter3_Low_Res.pdf) is the part that talks about impacts on natural and human systems of 1.5 degrees C of warming (which is probably significantly lowballing the amount of warming we’ll actually get): > > Here are some examples from the same chapter of realistic possible outcomes of mid-case and worst-case scenarios (and remember that the IPCC’s scenarios have usually been relatively optimistic compared to how things turned out): > Again, think about what these massively increased risks mean quantitatively. Natural disasters already kill about 50K people per year, malaria kills one million annually, and other tropical diseases maybe half a million. Famines even during the comparatively food-rich 20th century killed about 70 million people. It is really not difficult, looking at the increased risk exposure in huge amounts of the global population **even at optimistically restricted levels of warming which we’re almost certain to exceed** , to plausibly estimate hundreds of millions of additional deaths as part of the total impact of climate change. You’ve been steadily moving the goalposts during our conversation. It started out with a quote (by another poster) that “billions will likely die”. You moved that back to one billion, and from there we’ve come down to hundreds of millions. And it’s no longer “likely”, but now to “It is really not difficult… to plausibly estimate hundreds of millions of additional deaths”. I suppose you’re right that it’s really not that difficult. Apparently anyone can do it: journalists touting their latest book, aspiring PoliSci PhD students, and random Dopers all seem to be able to estimate wildly-inflated figures. You wrote earlier “I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to suggest that we might lose a billion or more humans to the combined effects of climate change before we manage to regain a more stable climate system. (If we ever do.)”. I certainly believe that you “don’t think it’s at all unreasonable”, but I want to know WHY you think that. Is it because you’ve been reading articles by the likes of Jake Thomas and David Wallace-Wells? The IPCC reports don’t seem to back up your belief. They talk about people “exposed to water scarcity” and “exposed to extreme drought” or “exposed to flooding”, but we all know that people “exposed to water scarcity” don’t all die from dehydration and people “exposed to flooding” don’t all drown. The IPCC report did say this: > [@](#): > > The IPCC AR5 concluded there is high to very high confidence that climate change will lead to greater risks of injuries, disease and death, owing to more intense heatwaves and fires, increased risks of undernutrition, and consequences of reduced labour productivity in vulnerable populations … They don’t appear to quantify it there. You did though. You made a specific claim that you “don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to suggest that we might lose a billion or more humans to the combined effects of climate change”. Where did you get this figure from? Did you read it in an IPCC report? An Intellectualist “article”? Did you concoct it on your own with some personal napkin-figuring based off historical malaria and famine numbers? I’m not trying to pick on you, but you’re the poster that earlier advised me “If you (generic you) want to avoid implausible hyperbole and alarmism, it’s easy to do by sticking to serious sources of climate science reporting.” Should I be regarding your posts here as “implausible hyperbole and alarmism” or do they have an actual basis in “serious sources of climate science reporting”? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/238 "2019-04-10T23:47:05Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > If the consensus about ocean level rise is accurate, it seems obvious that at the very least hundreds of millions, if not billions, will be displaced in the coming century or so, and such mass displacements always have a lot of death along with them. Just from looking at population maps. Billions of people live near low lying coasts. I’m going to ask you for cites too. What’s the “consensus about ocean level rise”? Are we talking about 1 meter? 3 meters? 30 meters? And which population map(s) would you suggest I look at? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/239 "2019-04-10T23:48:03Z")
People, people, please. Unless you can provide a specific number of deaths, and prove it’s correct in a way that is both absolutely certain and yet doesn’t rely on any (so-called-)scientific publications, any claims that you make that anything bad will happen are nothing but hyperbole. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/240 "2019-04-11T00:01:31Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > In another thread, another poster wrote “the odds approach certainty that we as a species will be too late to slow down global warming. In which case, billions will likely die.” > > Do you think that’s accurate? That “billions will likely die” from global warming? Do you consider that a sober, non-hyperbolic assessment of the likely outcome? Yes, I for one certainly do. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598.md?page=13)