[youthfulbacon]

I tend to agree. Better precision is nice, but the linked piece states explicitly that they don't expect extinction, but a decrease in viable population from 8+ billion to near 1 billion.

I haven't heard numbers that precise before. It's unclear what society looks like with that level of food insecurity. From what I've read, much smaller reductions in food security are correlated with large political upheaval throughout history.

[jjoonathan]

Malthusian predictions have a long and storied history of reliably underestimating human adaptation to a staggering degree, even when coming from otherwise reputable sources, and I see the claims in the piece in much the same light.

That said, I agree with you that food insecurity and upheaval will become issues, big ones -- but only because they'll become big issues long before 7 billion people starve.

[youthfulbacon]

Very true on historical predictive accuracy. I can not back the claim that the carrying capacity of the earth will substantially decrease in a warmer climate. From what I have read, changes in local weather patterns have caused reductions in local food security in recent and ancient history and these triggered significant upheaval (even without the presence of mass starvation).

Based on recent research, a warming climate has the potential to reshape the availability of arable land.

My concerns are primarily around upheaval (seems likely in most scenarios), potentially needing to divert more resources to food acquisition (seems unlikely in the long term as you note), and a coincident reduction in perceived value of nature preserves (a selfish concern from my love of wildlife).

[DoctorOetker]

>That said, I agree with you that food insecurity and upheaval will become issues, big ones -- but only because they'll become big issues long before 7 billion people starve.

and they can only become big issues long before 7 billion people starve by accepting the worldview of looming distant doom