The unforeseen positive feedback loops that we will only notice when it's far too late.
We might very well be like Wile E. Coyote, already off the cliff just not realising it yet.
Just like my cartoon!
Preemptive war for diminishing resources.
Wid scale ecological collapse. The ecosystems we have are our life support. They provide all of our food, heavily influence weather patterns, etc. When they go, we go, and we won't be able to out-tech ourselves from the situation. Geopolitical instability rapidly spirals in conjunction with ecological collapse.
I'm surprised to see this relatively low in the list. The biggest problem, IMO, is not that extreme weather events are going to kill people. It's that extreme weather events are going to, at some point, line up badly and wipe out a large amount of food at one time. Add this to the loss of sea life and we simply won't have enough food to feed everyone. Many, many people will die. Many more will try to move.
Looks like Malthusianism is back on the menu!
Geopolitical instability. Collectively, humans are not great at dealing with crisis., so our own collective immaturity will compound any existential crisis. We are the crisis of crisis.
Pandemic is a case in point.
And as for when it will happen, well it started about 2008.
2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 THE YEAR OF MILLENNIAL APOCALYPSE
!ifrickinglovescience !biology !chemistry I'm unironically concerned about climate change as well, but these doomers focus on the most extreme worst-case-scenarios on a very unhealthy way to the point it just discourages any climate action, I don't see much discussion about adaptation neither, not that is a silver bullet but things like more research on GMO heat or drought resistant crops will be necessary and could help with food insecurity. Research on solar geoengineering should also be encouraged.
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This is their pivotal line. We absolutely can, do, and should research more green tech. That's mainly why I'm not worried about the climate change. What I am worried about is these eco-r-slurs kneecapping good solutions because they are not perfect solutions
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Read The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles Mann.
Is basically the biography of 2 men representing 2 conflicting environmental views.
Wizard: Norman Borlaug, make use of technology to increase yields to avert famine.
Prophet: William Vogt, talk about incoming doom while promoting degrowth, population control and sustainability also to avert famine (neo-malthusianism).
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