[MCN] Could effects of climate change really be "worse than you think"?

[Lance Olsen]

Excerpts: AUSTRALIAN scientists have said a hugely controversial article that predicts a climate change driven apocalypse is “scary” and “embellished” but entirely plausible despite the extreme scenario dividing climatologists worldwide.
David Wallace-Wells’ startling — and unashamedly doom ridden — essay in  <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html>New York <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html> magazine, entitled ‘ <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html> The Uninhabitable Earth <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html> ’, <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html> has ruffled feathers.
“I promise, it is worse than you think,” he says in the opening line of the article published last week.
But Australian climate scientists news.com.au <http://news.com.au/> spoke to said while some of the descriptions of the future earth were fanciful (one called them “dramatised”), fanciful didn’t mean they were false.
“It’s absolutely true these things could happen,” said Dr Liz Hanna, President of the Climate and Health Alliance and a researcher into the health impacts of climate change at the Australian National University (ANU).
“It’s alarming but not alarmist.”
Professor Will Steffen of the Climate Council of Australia said the predictions were not from “ultra greenies” but were a sober assessment of the societal collapse extreme climate change could bring.
Mr Steffen, an ANU emeritus professor, told news.com.au <http://news.com.au/> there were issues with the piece but it still painted a realistic picture.
“[The article] was dramatised and somewhat embellished but it did raise an important issue and that’s if you look at this one per cent to five per cent risk you get pretty scary and plausible scenarios.”
Despite the low probability of the various horrors coming true, we ignored them at our peril, he said.
“A one per cent risk to aviation industry would mean maybe ten planes crashing a day and that’s not a risk we would tolerate.”
Current projections suggested these far-fetched outcomes were becoming, if anything, more likely.
“These are not wild risks being put forward by ultra greenies — they are sober risks understood by people in the Pentagon and Australian military,” Prof Steffen told news.com.au <http://news.com.au/>. 
“By the end of the century the population could drop from seven billion to one billion because what you’re facing is a changing rainfall regimen that will wreak havoc with global food systems and see sea level rises which could inundate industrial areas,” he said.
End excerpts, full article here:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/backlash-against-doomsday-article-that-predicts-a-climate-change-induced-apocalypse/news-story/bf95087d2f7c5f7f9c198f7e59532927 <http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/backlash-against-doomsday-article-that-predicts-a-climate-change-induced-apocalypse/news-story/bf95087d2f7c5f7f9c198f7e59532927>
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Despite recognizing the downsides of debt, the lure of spending remains strong.  After covering off on necessities, Americans said 40% 
of their monthly income goes toward discretionary spending on entertainment, leisure travel, hobbies, etc. In fact, when asked what 
financial pitfalls they are prone to, one quarter of Americans flagged “excessive/frivolous” spending.

https://www.northwesternmutual.com/about-us/studies/planning-and-progress-study-2017






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