Could people survive intense global warming?
Suppose the Earth entered a period of intense global warming, say by 50° Fahrenheit (28° Celsius), and then levelled off at the new, higher, temperature. Obviously, anywhere near the equator would not be inhabitable, and melting icecaps would cover much of the coastal regions.
However, would this necessarily spell the end of humanity on Earth? Could people survive just by moving to higher latitudes, and have societies similar to the ones that exist nowadays?
Or would the heat mean the end of the world as we know it?
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1 answer
First and foremost, not everyone would be able to survive. Much of it depends how quickly this warmup happens: if it's quick and the ice melts very quickly, people on the coast aren't going to get out in time and you'll get much loss of property and life. If it's slower, you'll get less loss but more people competing for the remaining land.
This is the important point really: all the remaining people are going to be competing for much less land. It has been estimated (I'd link it if I could find it) that we'd lose 10% of the Earth's landmass if the ice all melted. The current estimate is that Earth can support around 9-10 billion people (call it 9.5 for now). With 10% less land, that figure goes down around 10% as well (not exactly because of other factors such as percentage arable land, but near enough), so we'd only be able to support 8.65 billion. Theoretically that's doable, but it's not going to work out that nicely.
The heat wouldn't be too much of a problem. 50F is what, 30C? If we stay inside most of the time and most buildings are air conditioned we could survive. It won't be comfortable though.
Finally, think of the impact of more people trying to squidge into the same space. We'd have to make space for some less desirable groups in our countries, such as IS and Al-Qaeda. Admittedly them killing people faster than ever before is going to make more space for everyone else, but do you really want another Holocaust?
So yes, in theory this global warming is survivable. However, I for one would be very interested to read about how humanity gets through without destroying itself. Does technology save it? Is there some diplomatic miracle? Who knows.
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