Climate deaths drop despite population growth

[Grapemask]

Hopefully this will finally put to bed the silly notion that climate change will destroy the planet and we can focus on more pressing and immediate issues.

This insane interpretation of things needs to fucking stop.

[HumbleDuck]

I don't follow, How are the two related?

[Deleted]

Will the nuclear winter after WW3, somewhere this century, not cool the Earth though?

We humans are great problem solvers

[Samin]

Will the nuclear winter after WW3, somewhere this century, not cool the Earth though?

We humans are great problem solvers

Perfectly adaptable! No need to worry, we got this! A few of us will survive in bunkers, so really I hope we can put this discussion of nuclear disarment to bed and focus on more important things.

> Location: Netherlands

Anyway, are you opting for underwater domes or just building dikes around your entire country?

[Deleted]

Perfectly adaptable! No need to worry, we got this! A few of us will survive in bunkers, so really I hope we can put this discussion of nuclear disarment to bed and focus on more important things.

> Location: Netherlands

Anyway, are you opting for underwater domes or just building dikes around your entire country?

[PC2]

> Location: Netherlands

Anyway, are you opting for underwater domes or just building dikes around your entire country?

35mm per decade... It's not going to be much of an issue for anyone alive now.

[Powerogue]

I would think it'd be because we're better at predicting, warning people, and building infrastructure capable of withstanding climate disasters. When you know of a hurricane from the second it forms every milimeter it moves towards you for days you only have yourself to blame by continuing to stand in its path.

[Sulfate]

One major assumption being made is that the amount of climate change is proportional to the consequences. That is, one degree of temperature increase, a 1% increase in CO2 levels, or a 35mm per decade increase in water levels will always kill roughly the same amount of people and animals.

However, that's hard to know for sure. A lot of systems currently rely on specific equilibriums being met. For example, reservoirs rely on having roughly the same amount of water intake each year to provide for communities. Humans can survive indefinitely without special equipment between 40 and 95 degrees. Tropical storms can gather only a certain amount of power before making landfall.

Our biggest fear is that the climate is like a game of Jenga, and that everything will seem fine. Until it suddenly isn't.

[Kiri]

Your first point is critiquing people who aren't me. I don't know if there is no reason to worry but it is hard to argue that predictions of the future are extremely uncertain. Your reasoning seems a bit muddy here. If neither side can prove themselves 100% right (which is impossible) that seems to be an argument for inaction since imposing high immediate costs on something uncertain in the long run (which might not even work) doesn't seem wise. I haven't seen any convincing evidence that runaway climate change is more likely than temperatures eventually stabilizing. I don't think anyone believes climate change will kill everyone on Earth, at least not by temperatures fluctuating a few degrees. Current temperatures are not necessarily ideal for human life in many parts of the world, it is hard to imagine many places beyond the equator (or even in it) will become inhospitable.

Mankiw's argument for carbon taxes is based on the assessment that they are cheaper than dealing with individual externalities but then again, I've heard the opposite from others. The only way to know for sure is to wait and see.

The problem with your third point is that while climate change has a larger negative effect on countries on or close to the equator, the same thing applies with policies designed to stop climate change. The standard pattern of industrialization is that developing countries cause larger environmental problems at first (including higher CO2 emissions) which eventually becomes mitigated as incomes rise. Policies which hurt industrialization also hurt growth in developing countries. You brought up another point, the fact that national governments have the final say on policy. From the standpoint of many governments, it doesn't make much sense for a country to limit its emissions if other countries aren't forced to do so. This is why so many countries like China and India haven't signed the binding targets of treaties like Kyoto Protocol (the ones that have signed the binding targets are developed countries with lower emissions).

Predictions of the future are always uncertain. That is why risk aversion is such an important topic in this regard. After all, if you call my argument muddy, you also call the opposite muddy. It just defines 'inaction' differently.
Let's go through this real quick.
Argument: Unless we are 100% sure that lowering carbon emissions is necessary, we should do nothing, for we definitely know that doing something will cost us.
That is the most commonly used argument in this context and is, indeed, also what the person linked in the OP about. But this argument in and of itself is contradictory, since it confounds 'action' and 'change', due to path dependency.
You said it yourself, if neither side can prove their argument with 100% accuracy, inaction should happen. However, the inaction in question here is actually an action - which that standard is not applied to. [Emitting CO2 for energy purposes] is an action, undeniably so. Yet, I have not seen a climate change skeptic saying 'We should not emit any CO2 until we can conclusively prove that it does not do any harm'. That reasoning is always only applied to lowering emissions. Why? Because we have always been emitting it. That seems to be the only reason and is a prime example of path dependency. We already have economies built upon emissions, so it would be costly to change it. Hence, the burden of proof for [change the system] is arbitrarily set higher than the one for [keep the status quo].
I personally rather err on the side of caution. This is especially prudent if one side is arguing that we might be losing control soon.

As for the effects themselves, those would not only affect countries on or near the equator. Weakening of the thermohaline circulation is also a predicted effect of climate change, which can lead to moderate to severe cooling in Northern and Central Europe, as well as an increase in severe storm systems, especially during the winter, along with rising sea levels on Atlantic coasts. It certainly will not kill everyone on Earth, but let me ask a real question here.
How many lives are you willing to risk for the sake of the economy? This is not hyperbole, but it is important to know for this discussion, since we can't really argue costs here if we value lives differently.

Regarding the third point: It is true that those countries are only just now industrializing, and would have a harder time to do so due to the CO2 concentration we already have. That is why some of post-industrialized countries are helping said countries to do it more economically, in exchange for them causing less emissions. But that is kind of social justice, so there will be different opinions on the matter.
What is a fact, though, is that even with that in mind, the USA + China + the EU + Japan + Russia are responsible for around 60% of annual emissions at the moment. Putting the bulk of the emission cuts on those industrializing countries is quite pointless, it is us who can do the most about it. But we don't want to, since we are not hit too much by the effects.

Also, yes, free riding is a problem. No one in the history of climate change debate has denied that. But that doesn't mean that we should not try to change things. Quite a lot of countries have already started cutting emissions despite that issue. Even China is cutting and investing heavily in green energy. Right now, the biggest proponent of free riding is the one who accuses everyone else of doing it, i.e. the US president.

[Fat Mac]

I won't change my mind, 'cause I don't have to. 'Cause I'm an American. I won't change my mind on anything, regardless of the facts that are set out before me. I'm dug in, and I'll never change.

[Endus]

The issue is that those models tend to exaggerate the rate of increase of water levels, and they almost always err on the side of higher-than-actual level increases.

Sea levels are going to rise. The world will get warmer. Humans are a major cause of that. They are not going to rise dozens of feel in a few decades, as some have predicted. The rise has been fairly constant, and even though it will likely increase, it's not going to be to the extent that many would have us believe.

Nobody that I've read has predicted sea level rise of "dozens of feet in a few decades". And I've read a fair bit on the subject, in terms of primary source documents.

The only hypotheses of that sort I've seen have been guesses about what could happen if, say, the West Antarctic ice sheet cracked off and slid into the ocean, though that's less "decades" and more "days/weeks".

There's a potential of about 200 feet worth of sea level rise in the ice caps (and a bit more due to thermal expansion), but that's if ALL those ice caps melt completely, which nobody's predicting will happen for centuries at the current rate of warming; the ice is just too damned thick.

[Varithimas]

Actually, most of us do know who he is and know that all his degrees are in Political Science and not Environmental Science. That his main focus has been the theory of welfare economics.

I don't know who he is personally. However, I think it is funny people follow Bill Nye. Bill has a BS in mechanical engineering and has been a comedian for decades and people put him on a pedestal like Jesus Christ.

[Deleted]

35mm per decade... It's not going to be much of an issue for anyone alive now.

Indeed, plus let's be fair.. does anyone really care about people in the future?

[lummiuster]

It is crazy to see how people can be that ignorant on a subject. Here are some consequences of climate change that are not shown in your graph:
- around 16% more rain in north america (good but we dont need) and 10-40% less rain in africa (they need it badly)
- less trees (because we cut them or because of lack of water in an area) ultimately leads to more disease. Diseases are mass murderers we dont want
- More holes in the ozone (increase chances of cancer)
- PH change in water (prevent shell animal from the sea to grow well, leading to species extinction)
- Warmer oceans lead to more hurricane (tornado/hurricanes occur when warm air/water collude with colder air)
- And toxic air which cause breathing problems
- More obvious side effects that have a correlation of 99% but that still can't be proved because science only accept direct relations

Honestly the most scary stuff are the micro consequences (cancer, diseases, toxin in the air and...). Because these things we can't stop it and it takes decades of research to find a treatment/vaccine (themselves having scary side effects) to fight them. BTW don't comment on my english, most world's researchers are not english.

[Endus]

35mm per decade... It's not going to be much of an issue for anyone alive now.

It's already been an issue. This isn't even hypothesis about some distant future; we're already facing consequences.

One major assumption being made is that the amount of climate change is proportional to the consequences. That is, one degree of temperature increase, a 1% increase in CO2 levels, or a 35mm per decade increase in water levels will always kill roughly the same amount of people and animals.

However, that's hard to know for sure. A lot of systems currently rely on specific equilibriums being met. For example, reservoirs rely on having roughly the same amount of water intake each year to provide for communities. Humans can survive indefinitely without special equipment between 40 and 95 degrees. Tropical storms can gather only a certain amount of power before making landfall.

Our biggest fear is that the climate is like a game of Jenga, and that everything will seem fine. Until it suddenly isn't.

Also that most deaths and destructive impacts are due to single events; storms, earthquakes, floods, etc. The problem is those all operate as a deviation from a baseline (roughly; it's more complex than that but it serves for the moment), and it's that baseline that's changing. When it comes to how many died/how much damage was caused, our technological and social improvement over the decades will lead to mitigating some of that, but in the sense of "we managed to treat a lot of people who would have died 50 years ago" kind of thing, not "nothing bad happened at all" sense.

[Varithimas]

Which is why we are attempting to limit warming to that level. Your coideologists have stalled enough stopping the warming is no longer an option, so the Paris Agreement has set as its goal to limit warming to a maximum of 2C by 2100.

Our current emissions trajectory is projected to lead to 3.7-4.8C of warming by 2100 (page 8).

I think those numbers are grossly exaggerated, given the fact the Earth is set to cool for the next 50 years due to decreased sun activity.

[Sky High]

yet we still lose billions of dollars due to weather events caused by climate change, in case you need a reminder of all the storms and wildfires that hit the US in just the last year... but no guys just keep doing what your doing, the fiscal conservative betters will fix everything by doing nothing! yeaaaaah

[Deleted]

Well this is embarrassing

[DocSavageFan]

Models are projections, not predictions, and confusing those two is not really defensible.

Somebody is wrong on this particular point...either Wikipedia or you it seems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_modelling

"Predictions or other statements drawn from such a formal system mirror or map the real world only insofar as these scientific models are true."

"A model makes accurate predictions when its assumptions are valid, and might well not make accurate predictions when its assumptions do not hold. Such assumptions are often the point with which older theories are succeeded by new ones (the general theory of relativity works in non-inertial reference frames as well)."

"A model is evaluated first and foremost by its consistency to empirical data; any model inconsistent with reproducible observations must be modified or rejected. One way to modify the model is by restricting the domain over which it is credited with having high validity. A case in point is Newtonian physics, which is highly useful except for the very small, the very fast, and the very massive phenomena of the universe. However, a fit to empirical data alone is not sufficient for a model to be accepted as valid. Other factors important in evaluating a model include:[citation needed]

• Ability to explain past observations
• Ability to predict future observations
• Cost of use, especially in combination with other models
• Refutability, enabling estimation of the degree of confidence in the model
• Simplicity, or even aesthetic appeal

"

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Is this an actual argument being made? I mean yes human development is unprecedented right now but having better ways to deal with things than we did 100 years ago will only take us so far. Eventually we'll get to the point that increasing quality of life and increasing resistance to climate damage won't be able to coexist. Could we seal ourselves in underground bunkers so that nobody ever dies from climate problems if it hypothetically got so bad that it was our only course of action? Probably, but I'd rather we didn't reach that point personally.