LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Summary of John Halstead’s Book-Length Report on Existential Risks From Climate Change” by Bentham’s Bulldog

45 min • 26 juni 2025

1 Introduction

(Crossposted from my blog--formatting is better there).

Very large numbers of people seem to think that climate change is likely to end the world. Biden and Harris both called it an existential threat. AOC warned a few years ago that “the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.” Thunberg once approvingly cited a supposed “top climate scientist” making the claim that “climate change will wipe out humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.” Around half of Americans think that climate change will destroy the planet (though despite this, most don’t consider it a top political issue, which means that a sizeable portion of the population thinks climate change will destroy the planet, but doesn’t think that means we should prioritize it over taxes and healthcare).

I was taught by my science teacher in ninth [...]

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Outline:

(00:13) 1 Introduction

(04:36) 2 How much warming will there be?

(07:33) 3 How past warming periods have gone

(11:25) 4 Agriculture

(14:42) 5 Ecosystem collapse and threats to agriculture

(20:57) 6 Heat stress and sea level rise

(22:51) 7 Tipping points

(28:25) 8 Economic costs

(31:06) 9 Migration

(33:42) 10 Conflict

(40:01) 11 Conclusion

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First published:
June 25th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Aypbvb3CDFxbGS6rj/summary-of-john-halstead-s-book-length-report-on-existential

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

Graph showing global price of computational power per watt, 1975-2023

Bar graph:
A comparative table showing climate impact studies and their analyzed sectors through 2100.
Table comparing climate impact studies by Kompas, FUND, and Takakura research teams, listing affected sectors.
Partial table showing Nordhaus (2006) study and its findings row.
Research findings table comparing studies on temperature's relationship with regional income and development.

The table presents two academic studies examining geographic and temperature effects on economic outcomes in different regions, with contrasting findings about temperature-income relationships.
Graph showing global displacement trends from disasters versus conflict (2011-2020).

The visualization compares annual displacement numbers caused by disasters (blue bars) and conflict/violence (orange bars), illustrating how natural disasters consistently displaced more people than conflict throughout the decade.
Forest plot showing international migration studies and environmental effects from 1960-2015. Two sections compare effects on internal and international migration across different regions and time periods.
Bar graph showing study findings across different geographic regions, labeled

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