If there were 12°C of warming, a majority of land where humans currently live would be too hot for humans to survive at least a few days a year.[17] An increase of 13°C would make working outdoors impossible for most of the year in the tropics, and around half the year in currently temperate regions.
But even with the cloud feedback loop, it would take decades for global temperatures to reach this level, and it seems very likely that we could adapt to avoid extinction (for example, by building better buildings and widespread air conditioning, as well as building more in the cooler areas of the Earth).
I thought (direct) X-Risks includes any risk which leads to humanity being permanently compromised? Wouldn’t this scenario make it potentially extremely difficult for humanity to make any meaningful technological progress due to impacts on agriculture, population growth, etc. etc.
Thanks for the write up Akhil, one aspect of this cause area you may also like to be aware of is fear/feelings of safety in women. Beyond direct victimisation, fear of violence (which doesn’t require someone to be a victim although it is a primary factor influencing the duration and intensity of fear) also adds to the case for this being a cause area.
95% of women and girls in Delhi surveyed by the UN said they felt unsafe in public spaces.
I couldn’t find the study but this number sits around 60%+ in Europe’s larger cities (70%+ in London as I recall).
Correspondingly, there is a widespread impact. Fear will influence someone’s pattern of life which will have various health, economic, and social costs. Interventions which also reduce fear in women could therefore also be worth exploring.
I understand you probably haven’t had much chance to delve into interventions and root causes as you are focusing on building this as a worth-while cause area for investment but I would be interested to understand more on what are the cause/sources of violence (is it street crime, violence by male partners, etc.) .