The problem is that we will not move on from WW3, and famine, water depletion, resource exhaustion etc. are all existential problems for individual countries that will cause conflicts between previously peaceful nations. At some point the nations in conflict will have alliances and nuclear weapons, and people will use them when the choice is between that or starving to death by the millions. I would be somewhat more optimistic about humanity's ability to weather worsening circumstances if we didn't develop the human extinction button in all of our grand technological wisdom.

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ACCount37 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Climate change is not the great equalizer people want it to be.

Nuclear superpowers are among the least likely countries to actually collapse from climate damage.

US isn't Syria, and it's Syria that's at risk.

First world countries like France can absorb a +30% spike to food prices. Countries where the same food price spike would come with a major death toll don't have the tools to kick off WW3.

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applfanboysbgon 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Pakistan and North Korea have nuclear weapons. What makes you think that other countries won't develop them when push comes to shove? Right now the status quo is such that smaller countries find violating international sanctions on nuclear weapon development to be disadvantageous (no immediate benefit from having them; expensive to have them; economic punishment for having them). The calculus on the status quo changes considerably when famine or other ecological disasters are threatening to wipe out half your population. Is the US going to invade all potential nuclear weapons developers like it did with Iran? Do you have complete confidence that will always work and never escalate towards anything larger?

	▲	ACCount37 12 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You know it. The country that was probably the closest to "developing nuclear weapons" is currently in the process of being bombed to shit for it. Not the only reason, no. But their nuclear ambitions certainly did contribute to their current predicament. Nuclear weapons take time, expertize, resources and sustained political will to develop and deploy. If you have all of that, you might be able to put all of that towards climate adaptation instead. Or: go for the nukes and bet hard that you aren't going to get bombed to shit for it. Worked out for NK, but doesn't seem to have worked for Iran. I think the level of tolerance US has for marginally stable autocracies with nuclear weapons has receded permanently. Not to mention that merely having a nuclear bomb doesn't automatically allow one to cause WW3. Nuclear weapons were used in a world war already, and that didn't even destroy a single country - let alone the world. It takes a lot of nukes, and a lot of delivery mechanisms, to actually move the needle on the matter of human civilization existing.
	▲	JumpCrisscross 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Is the US going to invade all potential nuclear weapons developers like it did with Iran? Invade? No. Bomb? Probably. Same if for India if e.g. Sri Lanka decides it wants nuclear weapons. Global warming will unfortunately disproportionately hit poor, equatorial countries. (Also, starving countries can’t afford a nuclear programme. There is no breakout risk in Sudan.)

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triceratops 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> US isn't Syria, and it's Syria that's at risk. First world countries like France can absorb a +30% spike to food prices

And you think a second, much larger Syrian refugee migration will have 0 impact on France?

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Everything and everyone is connected.