I don’t buy 4C killing all the humans. We already know we can swing the climate +/- 1 C with geo engineering (at who knows what consequence for the environment at large). I think this bounds the worst case quite a bit.
Also, at 3C killing ~1/4 of the world population will decrease emissions and folks ability to continue the destruction.
What am I missing?
The collapse of society. You’re missing the human capacity for self destruction. Once food and water become scarce, people find new and creative ways to murder each other. The isolated agrarian society that survives without a government is going to be unable to defend against the Immortan Joes of the apocalypse. Movies always portray the wasteland dictators as resource hoarders cleverly managing what is left to keep the masses just content enough to avoid a revolt. Actual dictators have proven that they aren’t actually that good at managing resources, otherwise we wouldn’t be staring down the barrel of extinction in the first place.
We had pretty sizeable bands of humans surviving before modern ‘society’. I don’t understand how the purge finds, kills, and prevents all of these. Family-centric tribes seem to manage in low resource settings without unacceptable levels of neighbor murder.
Those people had access to clean water and arable land.
Both of which we’re pretty good at making these days, for cheap.
Potable water in particular: https://scitechdaily.com/mits-new-desalination-system-produces-freshwater-that-is-cheaper-than-tap-water/
(As I understand, the materials here are not rare or difficult to maintain, both liable to improve).
And one should distinguish clean water and fresh water. Clean water isn’t needed for humans to live, we survived a remarkably high death rate from using poor water sources before society. Fresh water is a concern, but can be generated in labor intensive ways.
Arable land is about both land and crops; we have and could aggressively develop more pretty resilient staples.
And the isolated agrariam societies living far away from the civilizations destroying each other, they’re going to develop these technologies on their own? Like while they are trying to stave off hunger from the microplastic blight killing all their animals and crops?
Most likely they’ll be agrarian societies descended from civilization or having had contact. We have overlap, and that overlap will increase during the mass migration being predicted, no?
Well I think it depends on how you define “extinction”. I think as long as some amount of life remains on earth some number of people will be around clinging on to scraps, humans are very resourceful. I think the 4C extinction means the vast majority of humans dying as a result of ecosystem collapse and being incapable of sustaining themselves
Part of the problem is how much of the pollution is concentrated at the top. As we continue to automate industries the people most likely to be harmed by climate change contribute the least, whereas the people with resources are actively hoarding them to be able to utilize for the rest of their lives. They seem to be fine if they’re the last humans
Guardian article is both quite old and doesn’t make or support this claim strongly. Two quotes and a discussion of the status of global policy. They even hedge: we stop living and return to merely surviving.
Nature article is based on a very simplistic simulation. If you find it persuasive, you should also believe that the singularity is due in 12 months. I see there is follow up research, perhaps some of that is compelling.
These don’t support the claim that humanity is dead in this branch. Just that life will be bad.
Hope you’re right, but the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. We’ll see.
