Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hedora 1846 days ago
Actually, climate change is likely to have “major economic consequences” in ~2038, followed by “globally catastrophic events” in ~2067. After that, the economy and civilization as we know it will presumably no longer exist.

https://mk0insideclimats3pe4.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/upload...

(Page 14)

So, this human civilization is on schedule to collapse in about 50 years.

Of course, science in this matter has improved since 1980, but I like that report because it correctly predicted the current state of things 40 years ago. Also, it was written by the big oil companies. It’s difficult to argue they were being intentionally alarmist or had the science wrong.

2 comments

Human civilization has collapsed before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse

Like you said, what remains may no longer be as we know it, but then again humanity has gone through so many paradigm shifts (and the shifts are accelerating due to technology) that it would be surprising if civilization was the same 50-100 years from now.

Science isn’t fortune telling. It doesn’t predict the future.

I’m sorry, but a PDF from 1980 isn’t exactly a reliable source of information about the future. It’s a little scary how people think this is a real possibility.

Of course science can predict the future. Drop a pen off your desk. Newton correctly predicted what speed it would hit the floor at, and he did it back in 1687.

If not science, what do you suggest people use to predict the future?

Anyway, here’s a more modern source. It was peer reviewed, and is considered up to date and also reliable:

https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/

I suggest reading it, but if you scroll halfway down, you can type in a county, and it’ll provide more detailed predictions. I suggest checking it against recent news. You’ll find that the areas it predicts will soon be uninhabitable are already showing signs of ecosystem collapse. (Especially the US southwest)

Observations of computer models are not observations of the natural world. They can be helpful, but the map is not the territory.

Again, civilization is not going to collapse in the 2060s because an academic research paper says so.