Is it economic? Ecosystem?
Fossil fuels?
My bet is mass displacement. Too many people live on the coasts.
So What's the next major Crisis going to be?
Evan White
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Asher Collins
Probably oil, which will lead to an economic crisis.
Elijah Sanchez
Depletion of natural resources.
Hunter Harris
Are there reliable calculations at how long we got? I could see wars over Antarctica, its basically sitting on a shit ton of natural resources. Oil is a big part of that.
Jaxson Wilson
how long until oil is out that is
Nolan Russell
ALL OF THEM
Leo Wilson
I could see ecosystem collapse due to resource depletion leading to food shortages and causing a ton of people to move around.
I mean its basically inevitable right? In that one could never stop the current system of exploitation, let alone in say a couple decades time. Is it possible to curb our resource use and prevent it? Or can we find easy solutions/alternatives to the problem?
Hudson Peterson
The next crisis will be political in nature. Institutions crumbling under the weight of accumulated grievances and the impossibility of reform. Porkies backstabbing each other while clinging to their rapidly deteriorating piece of the pie. Global capitalism is predicated on infinite growth, which is simply impossible on a finite planet.
Gabriel Parker
Not long.
There is likely still a decent amount of oil in very hard to reach places, but the thing to understand is that, in the last 150 years or so, oil went from being something you could acquire by slamming a pipe 20 meters into the ground and letting it flow to the surface, to something that requires hundreds of millions of dollars just to find a potential spot 400 meters under water and underneath another 200 meters of ocean bedrock, requiring billions of dollars worth of anchored mining rigs, drilling equipment, specialized man hours running those rigs which can potentially explode or drift too far and cause an ecological crisis, etc.
Shale is in a similar position - despite being worth billions of dollars on paper the industry itself doesn't make a profit. This is because the oil that it is extracting is shit quality and there is only a little bit in each shale well, meaning they must be moved periodically, dotting the landscape in poisonous sores. They can't sell the oil at a profit because right now no one would (could) buy it if they tried to up the price to match the cost of acquiring and refining it.
Keep in mind, oil doesn't have to run out for the economy to crash, it just has to get a bit more expensive. This kills industries who rely on CHEAP oil to manufacture/maintain their shit. Those industries collapsing, when coalescing with the global increase in oil price will destroy the global economy eventually.
Oh, and this is coming at a time when the global climate is increasing to the point where billions of people are going to have to migrate or starve or die in the conflicts that arise in places where people are migrating and starving.
And btw, humanity being forced to learn to live with less of everything isn't going to start working together all of a sudden - we're going to double-down on lifeboat ethics, so get ready for the resource conflicts, droughts, water wars, mass migrations, and all of the suffering that goes with those things.
Owen Brooks
Interesting stuff. Sounds like a ton of death and misery await people. I wonder how the coming generations of people will handle the torch. They could either continue the same cycles of today, or break them. Sadly I don't have faith that we can pull it off, what I do see happening is more of a middle road where a ton of bad shit happens (war, resources, etc), some want change and get it, but the system in place at large adapts and is more or less of the same.
Bentley Wright
This is really depressing.
Brayden Hill
This is true. The political crisis will arise from Trump's policies, a bad reaction to a world event, or from the outcome of the Mueller probe.
Specifically with the probe, both major sides have their hearts set on opposite outcomes. If Trump is deposed it will cause a huge political crisis as the election mechanism is replaced by deep state determinations (I think we were set up for this either way with the Trump/Clinton election). If Trump gets rid of Mueller there will be huge protests and if the Republicans circle the wagons they will rapidly become even more authoritarian. If Mueller doesn't come up with anything to finger Trump, liberals will lose their minds.
Not really seeing Porkies share decreasing. It's more that conflict is accelerating as the stakes rise due to the possibility of deploying ever more powerful technology. They're fighting over who gets to (try to) impose the final solution.
This is just not true. Intensive growth is a thing. Plus we're not talking about a finitr planet, at the minimum we're talking about the Sun-Earth-Moon(tides) assemblage, and I'm thinking we will rapidly begin colonizing space soon. So, I agree that it will be a political crisis but not for the same reasons.
Kayden Long
Liam Howard
sea ice is actually not that important, except as a metric
the more important things in the 'OH WHY IS THIS MELTING' category are glaciers and permafrost
Blake Turner
Sea ice and glaciers provide an effect known as albedo, essentially it reflects more sunlight and absorbs less energy than open water does, by a very considerable margin at that.
Sea ice and glaciers melting contribute to what is known as a positive feedback loop. The hotter it gets, the less sea ice you have - the less ice you have, the more energy the ocean absorbs - the more energy the ocean absorbs the hotter it gets, etc.
Lincoln Bennett
Global warming/sea levels aren't a problem for people in first world countries that can afford to engineer around it, either in the form of levees or desalination. However it'll be an apocalypse-tier event for the third world (africa, the middle east, southeast asia) who can't afford it.
But we're amidst a major economic crisis right now. The champion of global capitalism, America, is now turned against it and is deliberately attempting to destroy it by creating a new protectionist bloc of countries (notably NAFTA). China's internal debts will directly instigate an economic collapse there, while America's student loan crisis will destroy an entire generation's wealth.
What you've described is the end of oil, not the end of capitalism or society as we understand it. As oil becomes more and more expensive alternatives naturally become cheaper.
John Ward
Shale production stops when the price point of crude gets really low, but to say that no one has profited from it all is silly.
The shale revolution will resume when the oil glut ends.
Wyatt Smith
If you're from the US or Europe (even if you're not, though doubly so if you are) every aspect of your continued existence depends on oil being both plentiful and cheap. Industrial society is in no way capable of operating in even a hundredth of its current state without dem hydrocarbons, and that scaling back (and the millions who die in the process) is what I would call the end of what we think of as industrial society at scale. I don't necessarily think that this would end capitalism though - shit is pervasive.
Demand for alternatives would definitely grow, but that doesn't make them cheaper. It's rather quite the opposite. (basic supply vs. demand)
Additionally, every one of those alternatives is dependent on oil for mining, processing, transporting, manufacturing, transporting again and installing, which also increases the cost of the potential alternatives. Alternatives that currently have no way of sustaining the logistics of the supply-chain that we depend on for food.
Jose Green
Yes, but H2 cells and corn exist. Petroleum oil is just one form of it.
As production grows costs fall, at least to a point. We're not at that point when it comes to corn and H2 cells.
Lucas Carter
en.wikipedia.org
Solar may yet save us all, the price point of photovalics is halving every 10 years. Also, many of the poorest countries on the planet are ripe for solar power.
space porky is on it
Wyatt Bennett
not if production maxes out, and falls due to a production glut (exactly the situation in China)
Brayden Cox
This isn't r/futurology, I think you might be lost.
Oliver Young
Not the mainland US, at least. The government will always step in and ensure arable lands remain arable, even if they have to blow billions on gulf coast desalination, 500+ mile aqueducts and reversing the Mississippi River. Would it destroy local ecosystems? Probably. But it's a cost Americans are willing to accept in exchange for cheap hamburgers and lawn chairs.
That's my point. The first world won't be affected so much, but the third world will totally collapse because they can't afford mega-engineering projects.
Ethan Hughes
some land will be ruined, but some additional land will also become viable for farming, particularly in the northern hemisphere
Also, atmospheric CO2 increases agricultural output
Jayden Young
We're already in a ecological crisis, so economic resulting in a major war maybe.
Christopher Hall
What is soil erosion?
Here's an interesting video on the subject from Dave Montgomery. It has a pretty interesting historical impact.
youtube.com
Around the end of the video he talks about potential ways of dealing with the problem, though I have doubts that they'd be able to be scaled up to the point of avoiding chaos. Maybe though. It is an interesting video in any case.
That is also contingent on climate as well as the strength of storms staying milder. That may not be the case. Though I can see the governments of the world trying to scale-up desalination. Not the worst idea, though they should really be starting this now (or, you know, like 50 years ago) because trying to accomplish these mega-feats of engineering will only become more difficult as the temperature rises and the storms come harder.
I think you might be attributing undue procedural efficiency to the crumbling US empire, however. They are pretty good at destroying countries, but making them resilient to climate and drought? Not so much.
This is only true up to a point.
scripps.ucsd.edu
I think it also misses the point that increasing the CO2 ppm year after year after year with no end in sight also has some pretty profound impact on other aspects of the environment that are also not so great for, well, lifeforms in general.
You might also be interested to learn that the biomass of phytoplankton has almost been cut in half over the past 70 years.
scientificamerican.com
Not only is phytoplankton the foundation of the marine food-web, it also provides us with about half of our oxygen production in addition to soaking up ass-loads of CO2. Turns out phytoplankton doesn't like living in warmer water, which is bad news for about every living thing, because that's not likely to turn around any time soon.
Adam Gonzalez
The next major crisis will be a civil war or state failure in the global south, instigated by storms or crop failure, which causes another refugee crisis for Europe, the USA or Russia. The most critical impact of climate change will be on crop production and food supplies, meaning mass migration due to drought, famine, or fleeing civil/regional war.
The Syrian War displaced several million people and has very nearly dissolved the center-left in Europe, with right-nationalists marching in almost every state. Another wave from somewhere in the global south could completely break the centrist hold on the status quo, leading to the ascendancy of the far right as militaries are mobilized to keep waves of refugees from crossing borders northward.
Justin Bell
I saw a good summary of this not too long ago, even ignoring ecological issues, the population growth rate in much of the global south outstrips economic growth to the point that destabilization, civil war, and mass migration are set in stone as outcomes
Zachary Morales
obligatory pic
Julian Ramirez
youtube.com
Gwynne Dyer is my go-to source for geopolitically-minded climate predictions. It is very much a north-south issue, and lefties should all pay attention to it since the world's militaries sure are, even if they have to do so in secret.
Jonathan Ramirez
Wars over food sound ripe for revolution, being full of displays of human barbarity and corruption like never before. It’s interesting considering our direct need for food, and how things like water and air control will continue to play out. I do believe unrest could reach critical levels, provided people have platforms of communication and that they maintain their message through the drudgery of political and social propaganda.
Europe really isn’t that big either, I predict the immigration issue really heats up there first once the waves of displaced people come crashing in
Evan Evans