Prospects of the Collapse of Civilization

[Bill the Piper]

(03-04-2019, 10:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I can imagine few trends more dangerous than global warming. The inundation of the world's greatest cities will be a cultural and likely a commercial calamity in  itself. Even worse will be the disappearance of much of the world's most productive farmland. Think of Bangladesh, to be sure a very poor country, but one that as it is produces much food. It's a country of peasant farmers who mostly have no other way of life readily available to them. That is one of the  most vulnerable countries. Where do the people go?

Inundation of property invalidates property rights as effectively as any Bolshevik commissar could dream of doing. Such will create legal anarchy that will rend such social order as there is. The easiest aspect of global warming to understand will be the inundation of lowlands. What is not so clear will  be how weather patterns change.

It is not clear that tropical zones will not get hotter. If they do, life will be harder for the heat alone. Warmer waters have less oxygen to support fish life. But will deserts appear where we now have marginal or even rich farming? Should the climate belts move poleward, then places that now have Mediterranean climate will get very dry. Can you imagine San Francisco getting less rain in a year than Phoenix gets now? If the winter rains that bring plant-fostering rain as far south as the mountains of northern Baja California retreat to about Eureka, then San Francisco could have some interesting ruins in what begins to resemble the Atacama Desert. The ruins of Lisbon, Madrid (not a Roman city),  Marseilles, Rome, Dubrovnik, Athens, and Istanbul could appear just above the shoreline, testaments to a modern world that no longer has its economic validity.

I saw one projection for Michigan that suggests that much of the state could enjoy a Mediterranean climate instead of its alternation between Russian winters and Dixie summers. Does that look like an improvement? Hardly. Sure, places like Muskegon and Traverse City would be pleasant due to mild winters and summers -- but note well that the rich agriculture of California depends heavily upon snowfalls in the Sierra that dams now impound in valleys in the Sierra. Michigan has no mountains for such purposes.  But that is only one projection. Another simply has the subtropical zone moving north  with the Cfa/Dfa divide in the Köppen climate classification between rainy winters and snowy winters that now divides the eastern United States roughly along Interstate 70 in Indiana and Ohio in turn to about the Indiana Toll Road and Ohio Turnpike, Interstate 94, Michigan 21 (which connects Grand Rapids and Flint), US 10, Michigan 72,  US 2, and finally Michigan 28 before the line crosses Lake Superior. A hint: Indiana and Ohio become cotton country, and alligators start devouring pet dogs and cats in Cincinnati and St. Louis. Tropical diseases also begin appearing in the American Southeast.

So -- does western Texas become simply hotter and drier or does a subtropical monsoon bring lush vegetation to places like Lubbock and Amarillo? Who knows?

AGW is a very bad gamble. We don't know the odds except to know that it is a losing proposition. I'd rather do casino gambling, which I recognize as a rip-off, then let AGW happen.

Societies under economic stress succumb to dictators. AGW is not part of this Crisis Era, but it could be the cornerstone of the Crisis of 2100. Just imagine leaders who have never talked to people who remember the  Second World War and see nothing wrong with killing millions in a nuclear exchange.

The environmental models talk about global temperatures rising by 2 or 3 degrees. Summer in England will be more pleasant, that's sure. Many areas of northern Canada or Scandinavia will be more habitable. For an Iraqi, does it really make a difference if it's 41 or 44 degrees in July? Of course, if the trend continues for a few centuries, it might indeed become really dangerous. But the Earth's oil deposits are finite, and without oil and other fossil fuels carbon dioxide emissions won't be as massive. I cannot imagine sea levels going up by 80 meters, it's make-believe like late 19th century horse poop apocalypse.

The best thing we have that could replace oil is nuclear power, and the Greens hate it too. If Western nations restrain themselves with environmental regulations, while China, India and Africa don't, then the economic leadership will belong to the latter.

Quote:The detonation of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki reflect that the United States expected Japan to fight to the bitter end -- and I could make the case that a society that makes the Bataan Death March possible is making itself a target for the harshest judgment of its enemies.

I've read somewhere that the Emperor wanted to negotiate an honourable act of surrender, and asked the Pope to mediate, but Truman decided to fight to bitter end because he wanted to humiliate Japan and spread achievements of the American Revolution there. He succeeded, but I still cannot approve of the nuclear attack. Looking from a long-term perspective, Japan is definitely a success story, the American political system blended well with the native community-oriented culture, and the economy boomed after men's energy was no longer directed to war. Although Japan is now somewhat culturally decadent.

The post-1945 world order can be characterized as bureaucratic internationalism (not cosmopolitanism). It was meant to make it impossible for a country gone mad to do what Germany did. But postwar tyrants learned how to make an impression that they play by the system's rules. Saddam was able to murder Kurds with chemical weapons, and the UN didn't do anything to stop him. Maybe because of postwar dogma that brown people are always victims?