Rob Wiblin: prediction

Transcript context

…That’s one of my big worries for the forthcoming future. You mentioned climate change. I don’t think it’s an existential risk; I do think the expected costs are maybe higher than most people want to admit, but the notion that it would wipe out human civilization as we know it, you would need a very extreme scenario. I don’t think that’s very likely. I agree with you. Yeah, I think it’s unlikely that climate change could lead to extinction. I mean, maybe it could lead to significant loss of life. One possible way it could go is that it turns out to be the temperature increases much more than we expect, so we get more like 6 to 9 degrees of warming. This sets us back economically, which triggers a negative cascade of consequences. Sure. That’s the most worrisome scenario. Keep in mind that regular air pollution — and I don’t mean carbon-based — just air pollution, right now it kills 6 to 7 million people a year. Obviously, a large number. Now, some of those are older people, are frail people. They might have died soon anyway, but still, it’s a number hardly anyone talks about. Climate change right now is not killing 6 to 7 million people a year, and this we just absorb and move on. As you indicated, a lot of the risk of climate change is how it might set off other kinds of conflict.…

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