alt Hacker News>This is likely the worst issue humanity will be facing over the next 50 years, even more than climate change.
Tangent, I know, but the climate change horizon is very long, much longer than 50 years. For example, a common projection is that the sea level will rise by almost one meter by 2100. This is already an unpleasant forecast. But it will continue to rise: under a 2 C warming scenario, sea levels reach (median prediction) 2.7 meters above the 2000 levels in 2300, which would be catastrophic. 2300 may seem far away, but it will come.
The current estimate is that we need to eliminate emissions this century and we will thereafter still need to do mitigation and removal to undo the damage, or extant coastal settlements will be destroyed. It is a very long process. See e.g.:
Do you know what the timelines are for demographic collapse? Similar and much worse, who will need the coastal cities if our trends continue. AND they have NO way have being undone AT ALL after the previous hundred years of trends set in.