I think the point wasn’t that the first world is insulated from climate change, but that the negative impact won’t be apocalyptically bad. And similar to how the first world is already better than being in the developing world. For example, the quality of life of being born in 2200 worst case scenario climate in San Francisco is better than being born in 2200 best case scenario climate change in Lagos.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work on improving global health, social justice, and climate change. We should.
But if I’m choosing not to have kids because of climate change, that doesn’t seem rational since the likely quality of that child’s life is much better than other people making similar decisions around the world. Regardless of climate change.
So the author is saying that climate change will be extremely negative, but that it will be less felt in the first world. But still felt.
First, the idea that anyone living today can accurately predict what life is going to be like for anyone anywhere in 2200 is pure hubris. Heck, it's pure hubris to believe that we can do this even 5-10 years out at this point.
Second, quality of life can suffer immensely in scenarios well short of "apocalyptically bad". The author's argument appears to be that the First World can fairly easily mitigate the "symptoms" of climate change once they start to impact quality of life for enough people. I think this is hubristic too.
Using the pandemic as an example, it's worth pointing out that the US and UK were ranked first and second in pandemic preparedness according to a Global Health Security Index released in 2019[1]. Yet despite their significant resources, both have been abysmal failures.
The First World doesn't have nearly the insulation the author of this post thinks it does. And it has a lot farther to fall.
[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/11/countries-preparednes...
I’m no expert predictor, but I’ll bet you any amount of money that New York is better off than Lagos 10 years from now.
Of course no one can predict 200 years out perfectly. But you don’t need perfect prediction to say the first world will be better off than the developing worked.
Of course, Nigeria could likely be a world power that far out and may be “first world” by then.
I stated:
> First, the idea that anyone living today can accurately predict what life is going to be like for anyone anywhere in 2200 is pure hubris. Heck, it's pure hubris to believe that we can do this even 5-10 years out at this point.
Emphasis added for clarity.
> Of course no one can predict 200 years out perfectly. But you don’t need perfect prediction to say the first world will be better off than the developing worked.
Have you ever considered that today's concept of the "developing world" might not be applicable in 200 years? That the world of 2200 would likely be indistinguishable to a person living today? That the probability we're not even around in 200 years is non-zero?
> Of course, Nigeria could likely be a world power that far out and may be “first world” by then.
It's worth noting that the first world has major demographic challenges and Africa is one of the few places you'll find countries that aren't dying.
Nigeria is demographically better positioned than virtually every first world country. Its population is predicted to double by 2050 and 70% of its population is under 30.
That's not to say that you would be comfortable living in Lagos, but Africa has a lot going for it in this lifetime.
You dodged my offer of a waver for a 5 year prediction.
I’m super Bull on future Nigeria (and big parts of Africa) when it comes to 2200. That’s why I said that Nigeria could be what’s called first world in 2200.
But that’s not our point. The point discussed is that the first world is insulated over developing nations.
If we still have empty shelves in a year, I'll admit you're right about this!
I think it's telling that the main thing you can complain about is a pretty temporary disequilibrium that's only been true for a month or two and isn't really seriously threatening most people's quality of life.
I visited the US over the spring/summer and many stores had bare shelves and low stock. Starbucks in multiple states were frequently out of items and had signs about shortages. Car dealerships had sparse lots. And so on and so forth.
This isn't something that's a month or two young. It's been this way for months and from what I'm hearing from friends and family, and reading in the media, the situation is only getting worse[1][2].
> ...and isn't really seriously threatening most people's quality of life.
Tell that to a person on a middle class salary who needs to buy a new (new or used) car to get to work, or whose kid relies on school lunch for nutrition[3].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/01/americ...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/america-is...
[3] https://www.waff.com/2021/09/28/alabama-schools-facing-unpre...
The author's arguments that the "First World" is somehow largely insulated from climate change are not very convincing. For example:
> But so far, the droughts haven’t been bad enough that California stopped golf courses from watering their massive lawns to keep them perfectly green every day. So far, California has continued using 5.3 million acre-feet per year - more than enough water for every residential building in the state - to farm alfalfa. Alfalfa gets used to feed cows, and the beef industry lobby is very powerful, and so far California has preferred to ask citizens to conserve water rather than make the beef industry stop growing water-hungry alfalfa plants. But if anyone was actually dying of thirst, or even having enough trouble getting water that they might be motivated to vote out some politician over it, the government could redirect the alfalfa water, or the golf course water, or any of a thousand other things like this, and everyone would have more than enough. You see this everywhere - lots of resources are being wasted for stupid political reasons. If the political calculus ever changed - as it will, if these problems ever start inconveniencing privileged First World citizens - then we can stop wasting the resources, and use them to address the symptoms of climate change instead.
Basically, the author's argument boils down to "it can't be that bad if people in the First World don't feel it, and once they do, somehow the problems will quickly be fixed".
If that's the case though, I wonder why my friends and family back in the states keep complaining to me about the empty shelves, Amazon Prime delays, etc. Shouldn't fixing the symptoms of today's strained supply chain have been an easy task compared to climate change?