re: #87 Rightwingconspirator

I meant the other way around-At a population of one billion, at current per capita emission rates and food/water consumption rates-Would the climate suffer? A half billion?

Ohhh… well that is easy to answer.

If we cross a sulfur dioxide tipping point - something we are very much marching towards - the answer is zero vertebrate species could survive on such a planet. If we cross that point, it means the extinction of every higher species including us. And no, there won’t be any domed cities at the poles either. The economy, industry and culture to build such a thing would have collapsed long before then.

If we don’t cross that and just go to a five or six degree world, the oceans will still have been devastated, crops devastated, world wide dust bowls in former breadbasket regions. It is hard to say what can be done with genetically modified crops or last ditch Noah’s ark attempts. But, in the end, less than one billion.

However, long before that point, people will have fought wars over the diminished resources and plagues will have ravaged population centers.