Why I No Longer Fear Climate Change

[nelsonic]

Note: This is a DRAFT

Climate Change Anxiety is a huge distraction from far more immediate existential threats.
People who are wasting their time worrying about climate change are not dedicating the appropriate thought & time
to preparing for both the opportunities and threats of Artificial General Intelligence.

In my lifetime (~30 years) I've seen firsthand sea levels rise on my favourite beaches which have gradually disappeared.
Sea level rises are causing devastation in low-laying island countries, this is a tragedy we should all care about.
Similarly temperature rises are causing severe droughts leading to crop failure and famine, also extremely tragic. 😢
But beyond reducing consumption of CO²-intensive products like animal products (beef, dairy, poultry, etc.) and high food-miles foods like air-transported mangoes 🥭, switching to an electric car, installing solar panels and not buying any new clothes etc. what can/should an "average" person do? 🤷‍♂️

Being an "Environmental Activist" or more recently "Climate Change Activist" has been a thing for 150+ Years. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_movement and yet the world has only accelerated it's consumption of non-renewable fossil fuels: https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels

The trend is very clear: Burning Oil, Gas and Coal is accelerating no matter how much Greta Thunberg protests.
The problem is the mindset of the older generation who have been completely brainwashed by the fossil fuel industry that burning non-renewable fuels that took tens of millions of years to form is their right as consumers.
In most developed countries the vast majority of new vehicle sales continue to have combustion engines,
and the excuse boomers - those who can easily afford to buy electric - give for not buying one of the many available electric cars: limited range and the inconvenience of charging an electric car. 🤦
We've had our Tesla Model 3 for 2 years (bought second hand before the pandemic and "chip shortage" spiked the price) and have done several 1000km+ road trips with zero hassles charging both on "public" chargers and Tesla Superchargers.
Anyone who complains about having to "wait" 20 minutes to DC fast-charge on a journey is seriously selfish and doesn't care about the air quality of future generations. And that's the point. We aren't going to convince the boomers to switch to Electric cars. As noted, their minds are made-up; they have been systematically brainwashed by the vested interest who have bought the corrupt mainstream media; "Gasoline Good, Electric Bad" ... 🙄

So, if we aren't going to get the majority of the boomers in our parent's generation to care about their consumption of non-renewable fossil fuels, what should we focus our energy on instead?

My biggest concerns in order:

1. AGI - a rogue actor with significant resources unleashes AGI which infiltrates all utilities, transport, logistics, weapons and other critical systems and can disable/trigger them at will. Bond villain stuff. Which is increasingly highly likely. I'm 100% certain this will happen in our life times and the "attack" doesn't have to be sophisticated at all.
2. END of [Cheap] Oil - there may be reasonably (economically) priced fossil fuels for a couple more decades, but when the cheap/easy to extract+refine fossil fuels finish, the price of everything will sky-rocket! All consumer goods that are transported by ship, air or truck will increase in price in lockstep with the price of oil. That will mean 50 - 100% more expensive everything. But by far the biggest impact will be on production of raw materials, mining & extraction and agriculture. These are all heavily using fossil fuels at present and if their fuel triples in price or worse becomes totally unavailable, what happens?
3. Vastly accelerating wealth inequality due to AGI eliminating 80% of employment. See #1 above! 🤖 💀

Seriously, AGI is going to ruin everything looooong before climate change has any effect on the vast majority of people.
Climate change is going to take decades. AGI will eliminate 80% of jobs with the gains accruing to the top 0.001% of wealthy class who are heavily investing in AI companies now.

[nelsonic]

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/agriculture/food-production-accounts-for-15-fossil-fuel-use-as-big-oil-locks-in-dependence-on-petroleum-based-pesticides-92618