[TangoTrotFox]

If you zoomed us forward a century from today, with present day technology, and assume the worst case scenario for climate models we'd still be perfectly fine. The most impactful practical effects would be the changing of coastlines and more severe weather conditions. It's not the end of the world.

Now enter technology. Think about where we were a century ago technologically. Consider that in many ways technology today is accelerating even faster than it was then. Imagine now where we'll be in a century from now. Nobody would from 1918 would be able to guess what 2018 would look like, from a technological point of view, and I'm certain nobody in 2018 can even imagine what 2118 will look like from the same metric. I mean we are already today approaching the level of technology required to live on other planets which are completely and absolutely inhospitable. In the worst case scenarios of climate change, Earth would still be a utopia by comparison. And then enter in near future ideas like geo-engineering, atmospheric manipulation, and so on.

So I don't think it's smart to run a species level experiment on seeing what happens if we just keeping pumping out CO2, but the worst case scenario is both survivable and improbable. It could even end up changing us vastly for the better. The Black Death is something no one would have ever wanted, yet it paradoxically accelerated, if not sparked, the change that nearly everybody would have wanted of a transition away from feudal society to a more free society.

[moultano]

>If you zoomed us forward a century from today, with present day technology, and assume the worst case scenario for climate models we'd still be perfectly fine.

The average case looks like that. The worst case looks like the Permian-Triassic extinction.

[mirimir]

What about impacts on food production? And chaos from mass migrations?

[TangoTrotFox]

Remember, first and foremost, the climate change isn't something that will happen, it is happening. It's not like one day everything is just dandy and the next day everything is underwater and everybody's freaking out realizing how serious an issue it was all along. It is an extremely gradual process. The characteristics, locations, and composition of food production may change but global level starvation is not a realistic concern. One of the more cynical papers of recent time proposed up to 500k deaths related to food production by 2050. Work that out in terms of net effect on the global population over 30 years. It's certainly not something that should be shrugged off, but at the same time e.g. rising obesity rates will cause magnitudes more deaths before then.

Over time, if our models hold up, we'll see the desirability of coastal areas begin to gradually decline. As sea levels gradually rise we'll probably respond with pumping systems and other technological solutions and if/when technological solutions start to lose ground we'll begin to see demand for coastal property start to decline but as there will always be people with different appetites for risk and prospecting, it'll constantly be a gradual process. We'll probably also see the rise of entrepreneurs taking advantage of the changing landscapes to offer new solutions. For instance check out the ideas for ideas being carried out by Dutch Docklands. [1] Some phenomenal stuff there. For others, we'll likely see emigrations more inland as I imagine we've already seen, at least to some degree, from places like Louisiana.

In the worst case, there may be lots of change. But change is not necessarily bad in the longrun, even if undesirable in the shortrun.

[1] - http://www.dutchdocklands.com/Development/United-States

[mirimir]

OK, good points. I agree that it's hard to talk about such gradual changes. But what worries me is that stuff isn't always linear.

[erikpukinskis]

The problem is not climate change, it’s climate change acceleration.

A handful of extinctions over 10,000 years are no problem for an ecosystem to handle.

A handful of extinctions every year for 50 years can turn a forest into a wasteland.