I'm going to revive this thread with my thoughts as they have not been previously presented in this manner.
This is going to be a long post, so I'll break it into numbers to make it more easily digestible.
1. In my opinion, the problem is that climate change is going to occur on a rapid scale and civilization will collapse in a sudden, and catastrophic fashion. Climate change is already occurring faster than any other point - the only close analog to what's currently taking place was Permian mass extinction. I've seen the 4C number thrown around so let's talk about that.
2. IMO - A 4-6C world would is something that Dr. McPherson represents as a realistic possibility once the methane clathrate gun is fully triggered, combined with increased water vapor (a potent greenhouse gas), AND the removal of global dimming. This sudden rise in temperature from current 1.5C above preindustrial levels to 4-6C within a decade would, in my opinion, represent the death of almost all humans on this plane. So, in my view that's probably (just a guess using my imagination) an immediate death of 5 billion dead humans within a year or two, and the "consequences" of such a die off all over the world. These consequences include pollution and nuclear radiation (I'll talk about that later). The other 2.6 billion would probably die off more slowly (over a couple of years), but it's hard to imagine how they're going to feed themselves other than eating other dead apes and canned goods in stores etc that are still around.
3. if Dr. McPherson is right, then we could experience an abrupt increase in global average temperature from around 1.5C currently, to something like 4-6C in a very short period of time. Civilization will not be able to cope. It can barely cope at 1.5C, all countries on earth are severely in debt and there's no known method for alleviating this debt other than inflating the currency away - that alone could bring civilization to its knees, regardless of climate change.
4. As a consequence of the collapse of civilization in a rapid fashion (years) all the coal power plants will stop functioning because apes will be starving to death around the world all at the same time. If coal power plants stop functioning, aerosols will drop out of the atmosphere and within a couple of months, global average temperature will increase ANOTHER .5-3C. Guy refers to this as the reversal of global dimming, and when global dimming goes away the full brunt of climate change will suddenly rear its head.
5. Anything in the range of 3-6C within 10 years would be unimaginably catastrophic to every single form of life on this planet. The higher the temperature, the more catastrophic.
6. There would be no coral reefs left, and the base of all foodchains on the planet would die.
7. **A major issue is this**:
As I indicated, one of the consequences of a full scale collapse of civilization is the melt down of spent fuel rods stored at every nuclear power plant on earth. These plants have fuel rods that require a constant supply of electricity to prevent catastrophic melt downs, similar to fukishima.
Its a distinct possibility that the northern hemisphere will be full of radioactive material being emitted out of melted down spent fuel rod containment facilities that ran out of power to circulate cold water over the rods.
8. These rods NEED cold water for 10+ years to prevent catastrophic melt downs- the material once removed from the reactor facility, maintains a very high temperature for a long period of time. This is why fukishima melted down - the spent fuel rod facilities lost power, and the spent fuel rods overheated because water was not being passed over them any longer. The spent fuel rods also weigh TONS, and require careful and orchestrated planning to move. It's not something that can be organized in a month or two - this takes years of planning, and there's 450 nuclear power plants all over the planet, most of which are in the northern hemisphere. I don't know how many hundreds of tons of spent fuel rods exist on this planet, but I do know that they all require 10+ years of constant electricity supply to prevent them from melting down after they've been removed from the reactor facility.
9. So if you folks plan on surviving, you'll have to be in the southern hemisphere, and somewhere that gets reliable precipitation for growing crops to feed your livestock and grow some sort of crops.
At best, I can't imagine more than a few million humans surviving in a 6C above baseline world. Maybe you're already living in New Zealand with the rest of the billionaires with bunkers - they will be the last surviving humans on this planet.
I'd suggest getting a new Zealand residency, with a reliable form of transportation to go wherever is livable once this all starts to accelerate.
10. In conclusion, the principle point of focus needs to be the arctic. Once the methane clathrates begin to melt and enter the atmosphere, it's game over for civilization. An ice free arctic could release these methane clathrates and permafrost methane/CO2 within a VERY short period of time. No one knows for sure, but it's sort of like poking a stick at a land mine buried in the sand - no one knows which poke will set off the detonation, but if you keep poking it at some point it's going to blow up. Once the arctic time bomb, so to speak is released, positive feedback loops of epic proportions will occur all over the earth simultaneously for the foreseeable future.
The second principle point of focus needs to be nuclear reactors and spent fuel rods. If nothing is done, and civilization collapses quickly due to exponential climate change, there's going to be hundreds of Fukishima-like events( but of much greater magnitudes) occurring simultaneously all over the planet.
That's not good for life.
