• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Worst case scenario is Venusification

    No current model predicts this with any degree of likelihood. The threat of climate change is largely focused on the current generation of terrestrial inhabitants. The degree to which nitrogen rich fertilizers has improved crop yields over the last century cannot be overstated. And the degree to which a shift in the biome means large scale collapse of crop yields is as terrifying as the boom in crops was uplifting.

    But a sudden, globe spanning famine has second and third order consequences, not unlike the collapse of the Mississippi culture on the eve of the Little Ice Age. Or the global famines of the 1930s which starved humans from Ohio to Okinawa. A sharp drop in global food reserves would lead to mass migration and international conflicts. The resulting global wartime conflagration would likely mean a collapse in carbon emissions, as areas of the globe once thought safe from conflict come under the kind of bombardment not seen since the end of the Cold War.

    We’re already seeing Iranian drones and ballistic missiles targeting US data centers across the Middle East. We’re seeing airports shut down across Eastern Europe in response to the wars. We’re seeing sea travel choked off from the Suez to Singapore. All of that puts downward pressure on carbon emissions, long long long before Venusification.

    Your less-apocalyptic scenario is one where our global economy collapses. If this happens, no area of the earth will be safe.

    Plenty of places were safe from the direct conflict of the World Wars during the last century. Refugees flooded into the Middle East and North Africa, precisely because the colonial era wars were forced to end in order to support direct conflict between Empires in central Europe. The great trans-Atlantic migration surged with refugees from the outset of European fascism until the end of the Cold War.