• magnetosphere@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    The people responsible don’t care. They will be perfectly fine letting the rest of us die. They’ll only start giving a shit once cheap labor starts getting hard to come by.

    • DieguiTux8623@feddit.it
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      1 year ago

      Automation replaces manual works, AI replaces intellectual ones. No need for cheap labor in the short term.

      • nomecks@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You know what’s in short supply right now? People who know how to automate stuff.

        • NegativeInf@lemmy.world
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          Robots don’t sleep. They don’t get sick. They don’t have federally mandates days off. They don’t commit self delete via rooftop if you overwork them. If you can be replaced by something that can do your job at 10% the speed for 1% the total cost, you will be. Such is the way of capitalist automation.

          • Aviandelight @mander.xyz
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            1 year ago

            I have never seen automation fully replace the need for human workers. You still need people to maintain the equipment. All automation does is increase the amount of output. And when you start running machines at capacity you find out real quick just how much maintenance they really need.

          • sveri@lemmy.sveri.de
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            1 year ago

            Half of what you say is true. But robots are expensive, in many cases way more expensive than child labours around the world. And while it’s possible to have robots do grunt work, true AI is still far away, like several decades.

          • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            The kind of sophisticated AI and robotics that can replace a human is much further away than some people seem to realize. That kind of technology doesn’t even exist in a lab. It will be decades before anything approaching that level even exists, and decades more before it’s an affordable, practical, mass-produced option. Even huge corporations that have the budget to invest won’t have the opportunity for quite a while.

      • TwoGems@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        AI learns from existing human work. Without innovation it will learn nothing of value.

  • uphillbothways@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    This rule is actually “an order of magnitude best estimate”, which means it’s more of a range, somewhere between 0.1 to 10 deaths per 1000 tons of carbon burned.

    That leaves a lot of room for scenarios even more dire than the one outlined here.

    “When climate scientists run their models and then report on them, everybody leans toward being conservative, because no one wants to sound like Doctor Doom,” explains Pierce.

    “We’ve done that here too and it still doesn’t look good.”

    Translation: 10 billion people will die.

    2nd translation: Almost everyone will die.

      • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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        1 year ago

        Yeah. That’s the sad part. I think most people sort of accidentally think that, without really critically thinking about it.

        The people who will suffer most area already invisible to most others.

        In NZ we’re trying to reduce carbon emissions in farming to the cries of farmers “but you’re killing our jobs” neglecting that they’re indirectly killing actual people.

    • Urbanfox@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In Europe over 60,000 people died in 2022 due to heatwaves.

      People are blind to these deaths because they’re not being taken out by a single devastating event, but rather a series of small events the people brush off as “they were going to die anyway”.

      It’s one of the reasons I’ve not, and will not have children. This is getting exponentially worse and I couldn’t image the horror that our future will face.

      • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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        1 year ago

        … meanwhile we’re compensating people who built $10m houses on cliff tops, who then cut down the trees securing the cliff edge, and are now finding out that cliffs erode, and their houses are failing into the sea.

        … we’re exempting farmers from paying the actual costs of their carbon emissions while they pollute or water ways with reckless abandon. It’s only the poor fuckers down stream who’ll get sick and die.

        … While we still argue if old and sick people should die of COVID so that fashion shops can still hock their tat manufactured halfway around the world and shipped here on ships that burn the shittiest fuel available.

        I have had kids, and lament the world I’m giving to them.

        • solstice@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          At least with the house on the cliff example it’s the insurance companies paying for it though right? Hopefully their premiums were priced appropriately and the insurer doesn’t raise everyone else’s rates to cover their folly. I’ve no doubt they would if that’s the case, but I presume their actuaries did a decent job computing that risk so who knows.

          • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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            1 year ago

            I’m fairly sure, but have no evidence, that the argument is “the council approved these plans therefore it’s the council’s fault my house is falling off the cliff”. Floating over the fact that the council approved a plan where there was 50m of vegetation securing the cliff edge… All of which has mysteriously disappeared over the last 15 years.

            Also apparently caveat emptor is only for poor people.

            • solstice@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              What council? Wouldn’t their insurance be on the hook then? Eventually somewhere an insurer has written a policy for that $10m cliff side house. Per my previous point, hopefully their actuaries accurately priced the risk.

              • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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                1 year ago

                Sorry. I lapsed into some specifics of my locale. Didn’t realise I was in world news.

                We have city councils. They are responsible for approving building plan/permits. They tend to be either unless pedantic or grossly negligent.

                There’s been a trend here to blame that council for when a property becomes uninhabitable. E.g. by a cliff face eroding over time, accelerated by actions of the property owner.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s the irony. They are probably a lot of the people who contribute the least to climate change. So any misanthropes in here saying “good, this will help” are not only evil but wrong.

  • Aidinthel@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    There are some real disgusting people here. Anyone who thinks that the solution to climate change is to kill a lot of humans should consider going first.

  • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This article is bogus. It doesn’t even mention the power or thoughts and prayers once!

  • xT1TANx@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It only took 250 years since the industrial revolution to utterly doom our world.

    • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Oh, our world will be fine, it’s not the Earth’s first mass extinction event. We - and a lot of flora and fauna we depend on - are really fucked though.

      • ComradeChairmanKGB@lemmygrad.ml
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        I hate seeing this take repeated. Just because there have been other mass extinction events doesn’t mean the earth will be fine this time. If we fuck things up bad enough it will cause a runaway greenhouse effect. At which point the earth will not be fine, because it will be Venus 2.0. Additionally if we kill ourselves off but somehow fall short of that point, who cares if the earth will be fine in our absence? As far as we’re aware we are the only sapient life in the universe. This dismissive, humanity hating attitude that its fine if we die off because the planet won’t literally cease to exist, is so dumb. How about if we just be better instead of going extinct?

      • scarabic@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s an interesting mass extinction event, too. Have we ever seen one species balloon to such predominance? Humans are like 80% of mammalian biomass on the planet. Definite loss of biodiversity. I wonder if it’s a loss of biomass too.

        • optissima@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think they meant we’re from Central Africa and technically an invasive species anywhere else in the world.

          • SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org
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            1 year ago

            I thought invasive implied a species was moved by another. I don’t think a species can be invasive just for moving north or something. Humans moved themselves gradually over time.

            • optissima@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              A quick search defines invasive species as a type of introduced species, which is outlined as

              An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there by human activity, directly or indirectly, and either deliberately or accidentally.

              So I’d say that technically they are, but even more to the point it seems like the invasive species definition is very human centric (an alien cannot create an invasive species?)

              • SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org
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                1 year ago

                Obviously this is a super semantically oriented discussion but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say human in this context really refers more to the role. Humans can control other species in that way, like an extra terrestrial also likely could have.

                I’m not saying I agree with the idea, I’m just looking for a way humans could be “invasive”

            • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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              They adapted the definition to include causing economic or environmental harm because NERDS kept pointing out that all species are either constantly invading new territory or in the process of going extinct.

              • SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org
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                1 year ago

                Lol yes if I’m not full on agent-from-the-matrix “humans are a virus” that means I’m a buffoon incapable of introspection. What’s definitely not the case? You are certainly not a jaded weirdo who isn’t particularly good with words and is looking to shit on humans as a species. Yep definitely not that.

    • Baut [she/her] auf.@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      Calling people viruses is probably not the best way to go about it. It’s the way we’re doing economy at a global scale, not inherent to us as a species.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.

  • malloc@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I wouldn’t be surprised if a majority of those casualties in the USA will be in Florida and California.

    Many of the major insurance companies stopped issuing new home owners policies in those states because it was no longer profitable or very risky. IIRC, increasing housing costs and frequency of these events was the main reason they pulled out

    • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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      Yup. The same people who deny science start paying attention once their own money becomes involved.

      In Florida, the issue is rising sea levels. If you look at one of those interactive maps showing the effects of a rising sea level, you’ll notice that all of southern Florida is at risk of major flooding.

      In California, wildfires are the problem. As the atmosphere gets warmer and rainfall becomes unreliable, forests get drier. Fires will become bigger, spread faster, and be even more frequent.

      Neither state will be a profitable place for home insurance companies.

      • cabb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        In Florida the issue has little to do with rising sea levels at the moment. There’s a Bad Faith law that makes the insurance companies responsible for the policyholders legal bills if the decision increases the amount of the settlement. There are a lot of lawyers that take cases and only bill if they win, and if they do win they bill a lot. There is also a lot of insurance fraud in Florida, both of which drove up the legal costs to insurers. Catastrophic events are more impactful to insurers in Florida since Florida has passed a law preventing international reinsurers from being used. So when a hurricane hits rather than having the costs borne by a larger number of insurers across the globe, only US insurers will be spending money on the catastrophe. This has pushed many insurers to insolvency.

        In California rate increases could allow insurers to keep up with rising costs. Note that the percent of homes affected by wildfires is only somewhat up over the past roughly 20 years, the real problem is the increase in severity due to rising property values and insurers being unable to raise rates due to Prop 103. Prop 103 allows for public interest groups to have hearings with the DOI and the insurance company to determine if a rate increase of 7% or higher is justified, and the insurance company must pay the legal costs of the public interest group(s). The lawyers who lobbied for this law have set up a public interest group and start hearing whenever an insurer tries to increase rates at 7% or more. Said group tries to drag out the hearings as long as possible, since it’s free money.

      • MajorJimmy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Because when ice melts it turns to water. When lots of ice (the arctic) melts, it turns to water (the ocean). The problem is not only does this raise the sea level (effectively causing the coast to recede inward) but it causes more common and powerful natural disasters which, in turn, wreak havoc on specific parts of the country.

        Which states typically face the worst natural disasters? Florida (hurricanes) and California (wildfires). When somebody’s house gets blown or burned away, insurance is supposed to cover the cost. But what happens when the insurance company spends more on paying out claims than it brings in in revenue? It goes out of business.

        To avoid going out of business, these insurance companies are looking at market projections that use data attempting to predict future risks, or future likelyhood that they will have to pay out to their clients. Since climate change is only going to make natural disasters more severe, but ALSO more common, the companies are (intelligently) no longer pursuing business sin these states because it they are going to pay out more than they take in. If they stay, they would lose money.

        Edit: “Wreak” havoc, not “Reek”.

        • GentlemanLoser@ttrpg.network
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          1 year ago

          Where’s the part that kills people tho?

          Original OP said the homeowners insurance debacle in FL is going to contribute to the climate change deaths mention in the article.

          I’m trying to understand how lack of property insurance results in excess deaths

          • MajorJimmy@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Fair enough. Just speculating at this point, but I would think that, since it’s rather difficult to just up and move to another state, people are going to find that they can’t insure their homes, or if they can, they would be for exorbitant rates.

            Banks require home insurance for a mortgage, so if all the insurance companies start pulling out, you’re going to have large swathes of people who can’t find or can’t afford their insurance. I’m not sure what happens to your mortgage when you lose/can’t find somebody to insure you, though, I imagine it’s nothing good.

            So if they have nobody willing to insure them (not there yet, but if all insurers start pulling out…) You’ll have swathes of people who can’t insure their homes and may go into foreclosure. Homelessness increases, and the homeless are some of the most vulnerable people in the country, so perhaps that’s what they were thinking?

            It’s certainly going to cause significant financial hardships for those states at the very least, though how climate change’s impact on the insurance industry SPECIFICALLY increases deaths, I am not sure.

        • Mio@feddit.nu
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          1 year ago

          They insurance price will need to increase in these new risk zoones.

        • cabb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          Insurance policies are short-term and climate change is going to take longer to really hit. Climate change isn’t why but rather legislative changes. I’ve left a more detailed comment elsewhere in this thread if you’re interested.

        • JustAManOnAToilet@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Put ice in a glass. Add water. Notice where the line is. Wait for it to melt. Check said line again. shocked Pikachu face

      • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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        Insurance companies don’t want to offer homeowners insurance in places where mass destruction is likely. It’s just not profitable.

        Like other companies, an insurance company generally wants as many customers as possible. If an area is considered so potentially dangerous (and therefore unprofitable) that home insurers are willing to turn business away, it may be too potentially dangerous to live in at all.

        • GentlemanLoser@ttrpg.network
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          We’re not underinsured because of climate change per se in FL, it’s because every storm results in a ton of fraudulent claims.

          Again, how does lack of property insurance kill people?

    • cabb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      It’s largely legislative changes that have made insurance unprofitable in those states. Florida’s bad faith law and banning of international reinsurers have both hurt the industry a lot. California has had wildfires for a long time and their frequency hasn’t increased much over time.

      I left a more detailed comment elsewhere in this thread if you’re interested.

  • 30mag@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The 1000-ton rule says that a future person is killed every time humanity burns 1000 tons of fossil carbon. It is derived from a simple calculation: burning a trillion tons of fossil carbon will cause 2 °C of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) [57,58], which in turn will cause roughly a billion future premature deaths spread over a period of very roughly one century [59]. On the assumption that 2 °C of warming is either already inevitable (given the enormous political and economic difficulties of achieving a lower limit) or intended (given that the business plans of big fossil fuel industries make it inevitable), it can be concluded that burning 1000 tons of fossil carbon causes one future premature death.

    https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/16/6074

    They’re predicting that a billion people are going to die if we burn a trillion tons of carbon, so the ratio of tons of carbon burned to predicted deaths is 1000 to 1. They don’t make any mention of how they concluded that a billion people were going to die. So the 1000 ton rule is only as good as their estimate of how many people would die due to an increase of 2 degrees centigrade due to AGW. It seems a little flimsy without knowing how they arrived at the conclusion that an increase of 2 degrees centigrade due to AGW would result in the deaths of 1 billion people. I’ll have to look at that in the morning.

  • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
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    “1 billion people on track to die”… I guess we’re doing an empirical test of the trolley problem.

    We have a choice between inconveniencing some people (especially some very rich people); vs saving billions of lives by switching tracks. And apparently the empirical choice is to equivocate and delay so that we stay on the path of death and ruin. … It isn’t the solution I would have chosen personally.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      If you pull the lever, ultimately nothing changes because the tipping point was wooshed past in the 1990s and this first billion will be the lucky ones who dont survive to witness the extinction of the human race

  • AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz
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    There is quite a lot of extra discussion regarding the 1000-ton rule in the artual report itself (link can ne found in the article). Here are some excerpts:

    it is likely more than 300 million (“likely best case”) and less than 3 billion (“likely worst case”) will die as a result of AGW of 2 °C.

    A more recent attempt at quantifying future deaths in connection with specific amounts of carbon was published by Bressler [69]. Coining an economically oriented term “mortality cost of carbon”, he claimed that “for every 4434 metric tons of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere beyond the 2020 rate of emissions, one person globally will die prematurely from the increased temperature”. His predictions were confined to deaths from extreme heat when wet-bulb temperature exceeds skin temperature (35 °C).

    Some interesting stuff in there.

    I would’ve added more but holy shit the mdpi.com mobile website is atrocious to copy stuff from. It keeps throwing me at the end of the entire article, highlighting everything.