> it was a scenario where the world is functionally ruined for human life as we know it

Sure. The AMOC collapsing doesn’t do that. It makes life shit for a lot of people. But it doesn’t make the Earth uninhabitable for humans or technological civilization.

“Destroy the earth” is hyperbole. Cause mass starvation, associated wars and refugee crises, and mass extinctions with renewed vigor are not.

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withinboredom 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It’s like being invited to a party in someone’s house. One person starts smoking in the house. Sure, one person is no big deal. Then another person lights up because someone else did, and hey, they don’t have to live there tomorrow. Before you know it, 5–10% of people are smoking and making it stink for everyone, but it’s fine. They’ll stop eventually, and it’s not like you have to live there.

Unless someone stands up and says "no smoking in the house" ... people are going to keep smoking.

	▲	JumpCrisscross an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> Unless someone stands up and says "no smoking in the house" ... people are going to keep smoking Sure. But if if someone says the house will burn down when the first person lights up, and they’re ignored, and it doesn’t, that doesn’t help. Most importantly because it isn’t true.

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Teever 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We live in the atomic age. The idea that calamity could befall one part of the world and the others will be fine just isn't possible.

Here's a plausible scenario -- European countries decide that they will just power through the cold Frostpunk style by burning massive amounts of hydrocarbons and some other societies in regions suffering from the heat due to climate change decide that this course of action is unacceptable and war breaks out.

The theme of climate change is feedback loops and one way checkpoints. The increasing rates of change from these feedback loops and how societies respond may doom the plant and life as we know it.

This isn't hyperbole.

	▲	JumpCrisscross an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Here's a plausible scenario As you said, we’ve had plausible scenarios for actually destroying industrial civilisation since the middle of the Cold War. We dealt with it by having the population ignore it while a few nuclear states manage the risks. That doesn’t work for climate change.
	▲	kortilla 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		War breaks out involving nuclear capable countries and nuclear bombs haven’t been used so far. If Russia hasn’t used one on Ukraine, it doesn’t seem likely that a country mad about its climate would just destroy the world.