Reply To: Future Timeline?

[Bera]

Awesome predictions AND criticism !
As Safsom said above, which I admire, by the way, I also don't know enough about many of these topics, so it would not be fair to intervene there.
There is one issue that I will address though, because it has not been addressed and the conversation is getting precisely there.
I am currently reading a book - "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" by Yuval Noah Harari.
So, the dreadful reality that is mentioned in this book is that not all countries will be affected in the same way by climate change AND by gas being replaced by solar/electric power.
I am speaking here specifically about countries that have few coastlines or few major cities close to the coastline, cold weather and that are, above all, gas and petrol exporters.
You probably guessed it...
Russia is one of the major gas exporters, so, it has all interests to keep selling gas. It is currently the largest exporter of oil, natural gas and hard coal to the European Union. ("30% of the EU's petroleum oil imports and 39% of total gas imports came from Russia in 2017. For Estonia, Poland, Slovakia and Finland, more than 75% of their imports of petroleum oils originated in Russia." )
Now, if you look at it, there are not as many coastlines that are prone to massive destruction when the sea levels rise and where there are, I doubt there is a lot of population.
This question is being asked seriously in the book - could wheat be cultivated in Siberia if the general temperature went up ? Not tomorrow but in a longer time span?
I am not a specialist, I don't know. But if someone thought about this scenario, Russian politicians have thought about this scenario too. Hence even if it was completely wrong and insane, the belief that it could be right will weigh in the political decisions they will make.
Russia will be impacted, it already is being impacted by climate change, like all other countries, but it has big interests to sell gas and petroleum and the impact it will suffer might cause some temporal damage but on the long (though not very long) run this damage could be less significant for the population compared to some benefits.
Taking all these factors into account, will these measures you propose be taken by Russia? I doubt it. And we are talking here about a huge power, the largest country in the world by area and the 9th most populous country in the world (according to wikipedia, so if anything I say here is wrong, you guys tell me). That also has influence over other smaller countries.
AND I only happened to read these points about Russia - we don't know exactly what interests each country has.
According to the same book, Iran and Saudi Arabia are also big petrol and gas exporters and their economies will suffer from gas being replaced by solar and wind energy. Some other countries might be in the same situation.
So, I think this should be analyzed specifically, as we start from the assumption every country has the same interests, but actually, they have competing interests even in the face of a total disaster that is menacing to destroy us all.
Another issue that is mentioned in this book is that some politicians and some entire political parties don't believe in climate change, not because there is not enough evidence supporting it, but because their ideology simply does not contain any solution for climate change. Especially extremist nationalists...simply can't tie climate change very well into their world view. Because it is a global issue and their ideology is not oriented towards solving global issues at all.
By the way, I want to make it clear I am not criticizing any of these countries or political ideologies.
These are simply some possible major setbacks to climate change measures/policies.
Oh, one more thing - I haven't read much about the meat problem, but Safsom's point looks valid to me :

but assuming that the technology does eventually develop to become cheaper, why should meat companies, some of the largest corporations on earth, give up their primary sources of income for something far less profitable?

I also doubt they will. But I need to read more about this subject. I would personally pay even a double price for meat. I would rather give up my mobile phone than meat. So, we need to also assess how willing consumers will be to replace meat with...I am not sure what you (Auburn) are even talking about here but I can't imagine a viable replacement. This is the most dystopian part of these predictions. :))) I mean, ok, the environment goes to hell and robots will take our jobs, everyone knows that...but NO MORE BACON??? 🙁
I will read more about all these issues and come back if I see any other useful information; this is a fascinating thread.