[w8vY7ER]

Don't forget the environment subsidizing the entire fossil fuel industry- that is a bill whose payments are now behind and with a lot of interest that will be passed on to everything on the planet instead of just those responsible for the negative consequences.

[noonespecial]

That doesn't even sound that bad until you realize that the payments balloon and defaulting means extinction.

[olivermarks]

That's a little melodramatic. I just got back from Sweden and Norway and as others have noted the lavish subsidies make the extra expense of running an EV attractive. I was talking to a Swedish friend who follows climate scientist Piers Corbyn (the UK Labour party leader's brother) closely, and who wouldn't agree with your perception. https://twitter.com/piers_corbyn EV's are very cost effective for now to seed the market, but once the subsidies are turned off it is questionable haw many thrifty Scandinavians will continue if there are more economically viable option open to them.

[gridlockd]

No it doesn't. Certain species may go extinct, but almost certainly not humans.

Our ape ancestors evolved in an environment where temperatures were far higher than today. In fact, we're in a cool phase, as far as the global climate is concerned.

[gambiting]

Sure, absolutely. I don't think humans will go fully extinct. But it doesn't make me any less scared for the future. In short term - massive waves of immigrants coming to Europe because their own regions will have difficulty growing anything and having enough drinkable water. A million refugees has severely damaged the very principles of the EU, what is several million going to do, especially as the entire continent is slowly more and more right leaning?

In longer scale, Ocean gets warmer, plankton dies, we start running out of oxygen. Not immediately - but slowly the percentage of it in the atmosphere will start dropping. I wouldn't be surprised if in a 100 years it will be common to have oxygen supply stations on the streets and if you can afford them - personal supplies of oxygen just so you can operate at 100% mental capacity. The rest will have to make do with feeling crappy all day long.

And of course we're already starting to see signs that we might have triggered a self reinforcing loop - melting clathrates releasing methane, methane heating up the atmosphere, releasing more methane.

No, humans won't die, absolutely not. But I'm 100% certain that the civilization as we know it is fucked.

[consumer451]

Here is some research[0] that supports your argument, but it does get even more dire than your description in the end.

[0]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12576-016-0501-0

[gridlockd]

There's a stark difference between "people will need to resettle" and "widespread extinction". Some of the coldest climates that are now largely uninhabited may thrive again, as they have in the past.

Climate change, at any large enough timescale, is completely unavoidable. It's also (to me) inconceivable that humanity will agree to limit its standard of living now just so that climate change can be somewhat mitigated.

> No, humans won't die, absolutely not. But I'm 100% certain that the civilization as we know it is fucked.

In that regard, I'd be much more worried about the prospects of a nuclear war than about climate change.

[thfuran]

>I'd be much more worried about the prospects of a nuclear war than about climate change

Climate change seems like just the sort of thing that might start wars.

[gridlockd]

So does Twitter.

[gambiting]

While I can believe we can manage the heat somewhat, I do not believe we can manage the declining oxygen levels. I think it's actually made worse by the fact that the decline is so incredibly slow - coming up with a solution will always be something that can be left "for the next generation". And humans can survive at 20% oxygen. At 19%. At 18%. But after a certain point, you're just starting to feel like crap, but hey - just buy yourself some oxygen, right? Free market will solve that problem. If, of course, the free market still exists at that point. I am of course being sarcastic.

[gridlockd]

Why do you believe that? Tibetans, for instance, are already genetically adapted to high altitudes where ordinary people may have some health issues. Mountain climbers can adapt to lower effective oxygen levels in a relatively short amount of time.

Again, some of our ape ancestors evolved in a time with far lower oxygen levels. After that, oxygen levels rose higher, but they have been drifting downwards for millions of years since then.

[r00fus]

Our current society will go extinct and petroleum resources being exhausted means we may not be able to rebuild anything like it.

[gridlockd]

Petroleum resources will never be exhausted.

If fossil fuels become too expensive to pump out of the ground, some other process of creating them will replace that. Perhaps it'll come out of the atmosphere:

https://carbonengineering.com/about-a2f/