It's a well known "dirty" secret that aerosols drive (short lived) cooling effects and that this effect is very significant [0]. In fact, the climate models used in the OP nature paper would not be useful if they didn't account for these aerosols in a meaningful way. Scientists measure aerosols using a mix of different tricks (optical density sensors - AERONET, satellites with hyperspectal sensors, local air pollution sensors, etc).
In my work in industrial air quality we occasionally joke that we are doing a good job if we exacerbate global warming.
0. https://skepticalscience.com/images/Radiative_Forcing_Summar...
Further reading for the curious
https://medium.com/@samyoureyes/the-busy-workers-handbook-to...
I skimmed the piece. Despite the repeated claims, no evidence is given for agricultural failure on any timeline.
The very first sentence says:
> Climate change will cause agricultural failure and subsequent collapse of hyperfragile modern civilization, likely within 10–15 years.
No evidence is provided for this. The closest thing is some very brief discussion of saltwater increasingly interfering with rice cultivation in some areas of Southeast Asia. Everything else is ungrounded speculation.
And regarding those poor rice farmers, apparently a lot of them are switching to more lucrative shrimp farming when salinity is high: https://www.voanews.com/a/rising-salinity-threatens-rice-cro...
This is not to say that climate change is great. Just that this is not a reliable source.
Agriculture will shift .. which is different to fail.
Eg: Long established wine grapes in both France and mainland Australia have seen production falls already as local climates change in response to global parameters.
Brown Brothers (IIRC, an Australian wine label) has opened new vineyards further south (closer to the south pole) in Tasmania.
Another expected change is Cowboy Siberia; rodeo's, rodeo clowns, and vast cattle ranches on former tundra taking up the slack from US ranches as they bake and suffer from probable water issues.
I was not aware of Brown brothers new site, their site in Milwara is the definition of cozy. Next time I am in Tassie will have to check it out.
Due to the climate shifts, 'New Zealand wine' is becoming a swear word within the wine industry here as they significantly out do our quality.
shiraz grapes replacing pinot in Tasmania the past few years as well.
While I appreciate things like this that have a lot of references, and I have been aware of this piece since it was published two years back, it is one of those essays that tends to swing far too pessimistic on its claims. Not saying that there isn't an issue but things like 6-7 billion dead in the next 25 years, that is a bold claim.
It reads similar to the works of Guy McPherson & James Kunstler in that they are continually pushing back the doomsday date as they miss again and again. But I think they do love the attention of publishing these dramatic predictions because it can make people feel like their lives are like that of fiction based drama. Alas normal life it much more humble and slow, at least for the most part.
I do think we will hit a long term equilibrium of about 2 billion people like claimed but over more like 150-300 years as we balance out from overshoot and ecological blow back. But that is a very different real world experienced scenario to what they propose.
The fact is that we just do not know. But what we can actually observe is... Quite grim. And we are not even taking the smallest, tiniest steps we can possibly take to fixing it.
We are basically doing only what is STRICTLY dictated by economy. And we know that it is simply not enough. Whether in 2 decades or 10, billions of human beings are going to die from the direct or indirect effects of climate change. And that is... Incomprehensible.
Billions of people will not die from climate change, if anything they would simply not be born.
That is already happening in almost every western democracy as fertility rates have dropped precipitously. That is not because we have any food shortages: it’s because people are choosing not to have kids because life is so expensive.
Europe now has hundreds of excess deaths from heat and hundreds of excess deaths from flooding due to events exacerbated or caused entirely by climate change most years. Africa likely already experiences tens of thousands of climate change related deaths each year, although attribution is tricky. Assuming that climate change and its effects are an exponentially escalating phenomenon, why would it be unthinkable that over the next 10/20/50/100 years the cumulative death toll of climate change will reach into the billions?
There's a large amount of people and capital employed on deploying low emissions energy technology. We are sort of in a halfway pathway.
North America has large stable energy amount per capita that is cleaning up.
Asia has large population, small energy amount per capita and is increasing that rapidly by all methods, including fossils but also low emissions ones.
So overall Asia has very large emissions but smaller per capita than North America. And almost everybody is deploying low emissions energy sources.
This is finally happening at scale.
Even Poland generated more energy from solar power than coal in June.
> Whether in 2 decades or 10, billions of human beings are going to die from the direct or indirect effects of climate change. And that is... Incomprehensible.
Just for some perspective... at the current global death rate, 2.4 billion die in two decades, and 12 billion die in 10. So it's not that incomprehensible.
We have short lifespans, it seems more likely the human population will shrink to match loss of habitable land mass and ecological damage through simply expiring, rather than suddenly through some kind of dooms day event (granted I'm certain climate change will hurry it along).
I'm going to use this bleak comment to suggest anyone reading make sure they go outside and smell the fresh air, life is short man, really short.
> The fact is that we just do not know.
This always seems to apply to inaction, but never to action or what is really to say, tax plans.
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Anything from somewhere more credible than Medium?
https://www.economist.com/interactive/asia/2025/05/28/if-ind...
TL;DR India should be hotter, but due to sulfur dioxide emissions at ground level the rate of warming is a third less. For reference, the current rate of warming is ~0.25C per decade.
And yet again, in a weird way, India lives up to the adage of being disappointing to both pessimists and optimists.
The article is well cited with external references if you're interested in validating the claims made.
FWiW I've been in geophysical exploration, mapping, and modeling since the 1980s and have no issue with the IPCC's reports on AGW. (I'm also responsible for posting this submission after reading the paper linked).
From your linked medium article:
are all things I don't agree with.How can you validate (ie prove) these claims?
NB: Climate aside, the current "birthrate crisis" that the natalists scream about will see a flattening of population growth by 2050 .. that leaves ~ 8 billion to vanish to reach the 2 billion asserted.
The statement directly following your lifted intro quotes is
> Everything in this article is supporting information for this conclusion.
So,
> How can you validate (ie prove) these claims?
By reading the rest of the article and its references.
As you probably know, not many things in this realm can be proven with 100% certainty.
Which falsifies
trivially.It's not as outlandish as you're attempting to paint it as, considering the author is assuming that capital interests remain in control when making such a claim.
And under that assumption, it's a bit crazy to think anything but depopulation will happen. Everything points to it being in their playbook; the blatant mishandling of COVID (which is far from over) by the uniparty being one of many glaring examples.
I agree depopulation will happen by simple resource limitations but I do not think it is any part of a playbook. Hanlons razer : Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Many wish there was at least malice because then there is a narrative, the reality is probably much more muddled and messy.
Large swaths of India are notably cooler than 30 years ago due to the aerosol effect.
I never heard of this. A quick good shows its warming less faster, not sure about cooling. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/climate-change/indias-cooling...