[snarf21]

Agreed .. A lot of people will die as places become uninhabitable for a very very long time .. Access to clean water will become a major issue and the poor will lose (even more than they already are) .. Humans are a greedy species and this planet just can't support 8B+ (and counting of us) .. I don't know what it can support but we'll soon find out .. We are still decades away from near zero fossil fuels globally and yet we are still growing crops in the desert and watering it so people can have fun hitting a white ball .. Even if we can get to near 100% wind/solar/battery, we'll be busy polluting anything and everything with rare earth minerals as we churn through batteries like candy .. I don't see life being very fun in 50 years, even for the richest people

[oceanplexian]

> Humans are a greedy species and this planet just can't support 8B+

This seems like a pretty bold statement.

Let’s assume the only constraints on population are energy, water, and space. If you do a back of the napkin calculation on much Uranium exists on Earth, how much power we could produce by fissioning it, then how much water is in the oceans, and then assume everything else is an engineering problem?

I think the number wouldn’t be 8 Billion, but much more. That’s not even getting into mining asteroids, space-based energy, vertical hydroponics, living underground or in the oceans. I think the limits could be extraordinarily high

[lovich]

It’s a political problem first. You can’t engineer your way out of a problem when most of the people holding power or the resources needed decide to not spend the time or money because they think it’ll affect others and not them

[valval]

We’re spending an enormous amount of money on climate alarmism and various apocalyptic cults right now. Are we living a different reality?

[lovich]

Money spent != effectiveness

Its still a political problem at the end of the day if you cannot convince a large section of the people with decision making power that its worth their time to deal with, regardless of how much money youve thrown at the issue yourself

[ericd]

On your last point, lithium ion battery packs are supposedly extremely recyclable, and it’s cheaper to recycle them than to make a new one, so it seems likely that they will be recycled.

[JohnFen]

They'll have to be, because there isn't enough lithium on the planet (that we know of) to meet the expected demand.

[throwaway09223]

"A lot of people will die as places become uninhabitable for a very very long time"

Places will become uninhabitable, but what's the argument for "a lot of people will die?" These are gradual changes we're talking about. People will move.

[CatWChainsaw]

People will move to places that already have people - people that want to protect their resources, and will react with hostility to climate refugees. It's already happening. Pretzel logic doesn't change that.

[throwaway09223]

Well, this is certainly not a strong position to argue from.

[CatWChainsaw]

Ah of course, my mistake; throwing migrants, regardless of their legal status, back into rivers to let them drown, or sinking their boats, or depriving them water in historic heatwaves where people get second-degree burns from pavement surely isn't indicative of how things will play out once things get even worse.

[throwaway09223]

No, it isn't indicative at all.

The vast majority of immigration occurs without incident and there is no compelling evidence that this will change in the future.

[CatWChainsaw]

Twenty years ago these stories were not commonplace. The three I listed are from the last couple of months, and considering I could list them off the top of my head, it's more like last couple of news cycles. Not to mention the surface temps of the oceans are getting to be in the 100s fahrenheit, which wasn't predicted until closer to mid-century. They are indications.

No compelling evidence like the increase in global population, global temperatures, sea level rise, extreme weather events that cause greater amounts of people to be permanently displaced, political sectarianism, authoritarianism, extremism, and violence; and the concordant decreases in democracy, due process, habitable land, resources, and the ability of institutitions public OR private to handle the uncertainties. Because there's an "absence of evidence"? Because it would be a "black swan event"? Because it would be... unprecedented, perhaps? Have I made my point or do I need to keep going?

[t0bia_s]

- "Humans are a greedy species and this planet..."

Propaganda of collective guilt is indeed strong last decade. Just not let them divide society. We have enough experience with that from history.