Does anyone read these articles, thinking of the immense forces at work and how the feedback loop might be beyond repair, and it trivializes everything going on in your life?
I feel this way, and its part despair, part terror.
The question I have for scientists who work on climate change (especially as it affects the polar regions), is how scared are YOU?
That is, I've seen tons of articles recently about how the polar regions are heating up much faster than the rest of the planet, which is obviously bad news for sea levels. In a worse case scenario affecting Greenland and Antarctica, how much would sea levels rise in, say, the next 50 years?
There's no evidence that would happen any time in the meaningful future. That's a completely unrealistic scenario, though it's useful to put an upper bound on sea level rise.
EDIT:
Worst case prediction for 2100: 2.5 m
Best case prediction for 2100: 0.3 m
I guess the worst case includes the worst known feedback loops.
Yeah, thanks, this was the point I wanted to make. My question is, if we get positive feedback loops kicking in, what would be the worst case scenario in the next 50-100 years?
You can put it into perspective by identifying what would actually happen. The article says
"tens of millions of coastal refugees would have to flee inland, potentially straining societies to the breaking point"
First, that's the worst case, not the expected case and even if it did happen, it's not the end of the world. In WWII, we murdered tens of millions of people and strained societies to the breaking point. But the survivors picked themselves up and now we're fine.
Mao did it again in China, but they're back on their feet now too. We've already had several equivalent worst case scenarios happen in the last century.
We have picked ourselves up, precisely, by using fossil energies, the ones that are causing the current troubles, and the ones that are getting less and less available. What will happen in the future can not be inferred by how we managed in the past to get where we are ; I have no doubt that humanity will survive the collapse of our societies, but there is no possible way to know where the equilibrium will be restored in terms of number of individuals on the planet once the stress on fossil fuels is too big. It may be anywhere between where we are now and the hundred millions, combined to a dramatic lowering of the life expectancy.
I understand the feeling, if you can, harness it for action.
I am inspired by people who, on narrowly averting death or calamity, come to an internal understanding that their life is finite and they change their focus based on that to use their time, energy, and resources to make the world as they would like it. In religious teachings there is the idea of 'giving to God' the worries of the world so that one might move forward on their path.
I am not saying it is easy to do, only that it is worthwhile to do because despair and terror can lock you into immobility if you let it, and that only helps make the outcome worse.
You presume you can, or even attempt to, "repair" the nature?
What does that even mean?
I commend you for realizing how complex nature is, with its never ending loops and constant change, and our temporal lot within it. But that is a cause for awe and celebration, not freezing in terror and despair!
It certainly doesn't "trivialize everything in your life" -- you're part of the grand show, nature's "optimization grind" toward maximum entropy.
Influence, sure. "Repair", hubris. A cry for a static world that never was and never will be.
Reminds me of the doomsayers that claim humans will "destroy" the earth :D
Mind you, mine is not a call to "do nothing". On the contrary, I say there's no reason to be terrified and in despair (unless you really consider the heat death of the universe as the final outcome). There's lots we can do until then -- it's an awesome ride! Humans are fabulously ingenious, and life fabulously resilient.
Can anyone explain how the market forces of the real estate market would address this? I assume flood-risk property will become less valuable long before it actually floods, and insurance will become more expensive or unobtainable before it floods too. My feeling is that people would have already moved out before it's actually uninhabitable. Is that not going to happen? Maybe stragglers will remain because it'll be where the cheapest housing is?
Markets won't solve anything. We are talking about the see "contaminating" very large areas of arable land with brackish water, lowering fresh water supplies and preventing to cultivate a lot of what is currently done.
I feel this way, and its part despair, part terror.