[Steve_American]

Yes, I said extinction of all people forever.
This is what a majority of climate scientists think, but don't say.
What is the chance of this? Well, here is where the disagreements come in.
I am no expert. I do tend toward pessimism. So, you can evaluate my opinion accordingly.
From what I have seen the range of chances that the experts have of will it come to extinction is ---
1] From 100% certain in the next 10 years == maybe 1% or less of the experts.
2] About 50% chance in the next 200 years == maybe 30% of the experts.
3] About a 10% chance in the next 200 years == maybe 70% of the experts.

The experts all agree [in their thinking but not their words] that the best case if we do nothing is almost as bad as the worst case within the 200 year window. With a huge human die off in about 20-40 years. Your children, grand or great-grand children will live just long enough to die in that die off.

If those numbers are even close to right, why the fuck is humanity still nibbling around the edges of doing *what it takes* to avoid the worst case? If those numbers applied to your family and talked about hours instead of years, then would you be quaking in your boots? Would you be looking for any solution no matter what the cost. Would you be lulled by shills for the 1% telling you not to worry because it is all just fake news?

I'm telling you that printing cash to "do whatever it takes" is not an extreme idea. Even in the worst case and there is high inflation; that is nothing compared to *extinction*.
And one economic theory says that the 21st Cent. way of printing cash [= deficit spending without borrowing to offset it] will not hurt the economy until full employment is reached. Here, full employment means 99.5% of people in the working age group working 40 hours a week [unless disabled]. With just 0.05% between jobs.
In another thread I linked to a TED talk about the IMF's fiat currency being used for this in a limited way. I would suggest that if the speaker of that talk is right, then his numbers are way to small. We could spend 10 times that much newly created fiat money to save humanity and not be doing wrong.
The 1% are acting now to create their own personal/family safe space where they will survive while 90% of the rest of us die. Or, so they think. Actually, in the worst case, they would just live maybe 2-5 years longer before they die too.
The worst case will see conditions that are worse that the great extinction at the end of the Permian. And those conditions will go on for thousands of years at least [experts say a million years but a thousand is enough to kill every single human]. Look it up.
some links ---

[Godstud]

No matter what happens, humans are not going to go extinct. We are worse than cockroaches!

[Steve_American]

The experts disagree with you.
When the weather gets too hot crops will not grow. People will die from heat stroke. Look it up. When the wet-bulb temperature is too high, your body can''t get rid of the heat it generates, so you die.

[Godstud]

Greenhouses.

I take it that you've never heard of Air Conditioning?

Man can create and manipulate certain aspects of their environment, and whilst everyone might not survive in a bleak future like you talk about(and I myself doubt it'll ever become THAT hot- we lack the atmospheric pressure), some will survive.

There is a HUGE amount of fear-mongering amongst climate change proponents that is not always justified.

[One Degree]

You are worried about global warming causing a human die off, when the solution to global warming is a human die off. There is no other solution. People are just suggesting if we quit playing with matches, the forest fire won’t be a problem.

[Steve_American]

Greenhouses.

I take it that you've never heard of Air Conditioning?

Man can create and manipulate certain aspects of their environment, and whilst everyone might not survive in a bleak future like you talk about(and I myself doubt it'll ever become THAT hot- we lack the atmospheric pressure), some will survive.

There is a HUGE amount of fear-mongering amongst climate change proponents that is not always justified.

So, your solution is air-conditioned greenhouses.

I suspect that you didn't grant me my key assumption. I assumed that the worst case is what we got. It seems like your reply is, "That will not happen, so why worry?"
Well, I'm talking to those who do accept my main assumption. But, I'll humor you for a while.
The worst case comes to pass.

Let me explain what we are talking about with that. I'm no expert, so a back of an envelope set of numbers is ---
1] Estimate how big the greenhouse needs to be. We used to think that 40 acres and a mule was all a family needs to survive. So, each family needs 40 acres.
2] Now we need an air conditioner. How many BTUs will it need to be? How much current will it draw at peak times? Why peak times? Because if the crop dies at any time in the growing season then your harvest is zero and you're fucked.
I'm totally out of practice for this. My gut tells me that you are going to need a lot of solar electric area to get the required electricity for that many BTUs. Maybe another 40 acres.
Then you will need to build replacements every 20 years or much less. How does that get done? Who does that? How do you pay them? Who grows their food.?
If there is a hail storm, how do you replace 40 acres of clear plastic roof and/or solar panals?
If bandits come and try to kill you how will you fight them off?
And, how can you do all this for 1000 years or 1M years without failing even once?

It seems very unlikely to me.

[Godstud]

My "solution" is technology, which is something that isn't going to go away.

[Steve_American]

You are worried about global warming causing a human die off, when the solution to global warming is a human die off. There is no other solution. People are just suggesting if we quit playing with matches, the forest fire won’t be a problem.

No, I'm saying that if the worst case is what we get then every single human on earth will die and humanity will be extinct.
So, we need to move fast to avoid that worst case. And then if a lot of people die anyway, well we tried our best. And the survivors will survive instead of the last 2 survivors will die childless.

[Potemkin]

You are worried about global warming causing a human die off, when the solution to global warming is a human die off. There is no other solution. People are just suggesting if we quit playing with matches, the forest fire won’t be a problem.

Precisely. Nature always finds a balance, which usually involves a massive die-off of individual organisms. Global warming is caused by human over-population, and it will be the solution to human over-population. It's a beautiful thing.

[Steve_American]

My "solution" is technology, which is something that isn't going to go away.

OK, fine.

I am suggesting that we undertake a massive world wide program to do everything necessary. This includes inventing and building your tech. That will require [in today's economy] money.
That money must come from somewhere. We can't get enough by taxing the top 1% and taking 99% of their wealth. It isn't enough. So, where do we get it?

MMT says we can just print it. Or really create it with key strokes. If it is a matter of extinction or not, I say print it. To me it is a no-brainer.

[Steve_American]

Precisely. Nature always finds a balance, which usually involves a massive die-off of individual organisms. Global warming is caused by human over-population, and it will be the solution to human over-population. It's a beautiful thing.

You and I will just have to agree to disagree.
I will *never* agree that human extinction is a beautiful thing.

[SolarCross]

OK, fine.

I am suggesting that we undertake a massive world wide program to do everything necessary. This includes inventing and building your tech. That will require [in today's economy] money.
That money must come from somewhere. We can't get enough by taxing the top 1% and taking 99% of their wealth. It isn't enough. So, where do we get it?

MMT says we can just print it. Or really create it with key strokes. If it is a matter of extinction or not, I say print it. To me it is a no-brainer.

So your real interest in climate change is to use it sell MMT to people. That makes sense, the primitivists like climate change to try and sell primitivism to people. The totalitarians like climate change to try and sell totalitarianism on people. The genocidal misanthropists like climate change to try and sell human culling on people. Whatever is the real truth of climate change the narrative has a lot of uses for political hucksters.

[One Degree]

So your real interest in climate change is to use it sell MMT to people. That makes sense the primitivists like climate change to try and sell primitivism to people. The totalitarians like climate change to try and sell totalitarianism on people. The genocidal misanthropists like climate change to try and sell human culling on people. Whatever the real truth of climate change is the narrative has a lot of uses for political hucksters.

The human population has almost quadrupled in my lifetime, yet we have ‘experts’ telling us everything is under control. It obviously is very much not under control. We can continue lying to ourselves or we can admit nature does not give a shit about our humanitarian idealism.

[Potemkin]

So your real interest in climate change is to use it sell MMT to people. That makes sense the primitivists like climate change to try and sell primitivism to people. The totalitarians like climate change to try and sell totalitarianism on people. The genocidal misanthropists like climate change to try and sell human culling on people. Whatever the real truth of climate change is the narrative has a lot of uses for political hucksters.

"Nature is ruthless - it treats all living things like straw dogs. The sage is ruthless - he treats the people like straw dogs. " - Lao Tzu.

[SolarCross]

The human population has almost quadrupled in my lifetime, yet we have ‘experts’ telling us everything is under control. It obviously is very much not under control. We can continue lying to ourselves or we can admit nature does not give a shit about our humanitarian idealism.

The global human population has been growing exponentially for the past few hundred years.



Technological growth supports and enables this lift off in population growth but also a little less obviously the increase in technology requires a growing population. So what happens next depends very much on what can keep happening with our technology. There are three possible next stages.

1. Trend continues and we ride the exponent into the heavens. Human technology continues to increase supporting ever larger populations: space colonisation, life prolonging medical treatments, fusion power, genetic engineering.

2. Trend partially reverses, levelling out to trace a sigmoid curve.



If technology growth stalls then population growth will stall with it. Space colonisation isn't economic or desirable, human life span can't be improved further, fusion power can't be made to work, genetic engineering causes as many problems as it solves, etc.

3. Full reversal of trend, tracing a crash spike!



This is the full bore disaster scenario where human life gets reset to medieval levels of both population AND technology because don't forget the technology doesn't just support human population the human population supports the technology!

Personally I think scenario 1 is the most desirable and the most likely to happen.

[One Degree]

@SolarCross
Planning for the best scenario instead of the worse scenario just comes down to wishful thinking.

[SolarCross]

@SolarCross
Planning for the best scenario instead of the worse scenario just comes down to wishful thinking.

In this case absolutely not! There is no planning for the worst scenario, the worst scenario is where all our plans come unravelled and 99% of the human population dies off and with it 99% of our technology. It's Armageddon, nobody plans for Armageddon, there is no planning you can make for a scenario that will knock humanity back down to the middle ages. It is by definition what happens when all plans fail.

[One Degree]

In this case absolutely not! There is no planning for the worst scenario, the worst scenario is where all our plans come unravelled and 99% of the human population dies off and with it 99% of our technology. It's Armageddon, nobody plans for Armageddon, there is no planning you can make for a scenario that will knock humanity back down to the middle ages. It is by definition what happens when all plans fail.

I see no reason for technology to be lost unless we do nothing to reduce population ourselves. Armageddon only happens if we don’t choose to reduce population. Your arguments seem to be we must restrict ourselves to only choices allowing population growth. Why? Idealism?

[SolarCross]

I see no reason for technology to be lost unless we do nothing to reduce population ourselves. Armageddon only happens if we don’t choose to reduce population. Your arguments seem to be we must restrict ourselves to only choices allowing population growth. Why? Idealism?

The technology needs technologists and specialists, it needs people. If you reduce the population then you reduce the quantity and quality of specialists and technologists and so the technology stops improving, can't be implemented or supported and even becomes forgotten. I am pragmatist, never an idealist.

[One Degree]

The technology needs technologists and specialists, it needs people. If you reduce the population then you reduce the quantity and quality of specialists and technologists and so the technology stops improving, can't be implemented or supported and even becomes forgotten. I am pragmatist, never an idealist.

For every 1000 people, you will get the variety needed to perform all jobs. The overall population does not change this. To believe a population of 7 billion creates smarter people than a population of 1 million is nonsense.

Edit: @SolarCross
It would appear a lot of our technology infrastructure is based upon groups of 50,000. That is what you will find for each hospital, power plant, and super Walmart for example.