Programming in the Apocalypse
I agree that we need to plan for climate adaptation (preparing for predictable problems) and resilience (preparing for unpredictable problems), but I have a few kneejerk responses:<p>- Although it&#x27;s looking increasingly unlikely that we can avert climate disaster, we can never give up. For example, 8 degrees of warming would be much worse than 4 degrees of warming, and could mean the difference between human extinction and the mere collapse of our civilization. The lives of billions hang in the balance, and even if some will inevitably suffer and die, we can&#x27;t just throw up our hands and let everyone die. Climate change mitigation, cutting emissions as quickly and thoroughly as we can, must remain a priority for the rest of our lives, even if we can no longer reach the best&#x2F;safest scenarios. Every little bit of avoided global heating matters.<p>- This post, as dire as its predictions are, may underestimate the difficulty of computing in 2050, given current trends. If you are&#x2F;were living in Ukraine recently, programming is not most people&#x27;s top priority, they have other problems. Famines, extreme weather events, and resource wars will affect programmers who live in comfortable locations today. It&#x27;s not just your users&#x2F;audience who might be computing from a shitty mobile phone in a refugee camp, it could be you. Don&#x27;t forget that we&#x27;re not only dealing with climate change, but with the reaction of other people to climate change: they might want to kill you for your water. And heatwaves are predictable in India&#x2F;Pakistan, but look at the freak heatwaves in Canada recently, nowhere on Earth is safe, the climate crisis is a global problem.<p>- Why are we programming what we&#x27;re programming? Shouldn&#x27;t our activities and their purposes change given the dramatic change in circumstances? Isn&#x27;t there something wrong with the system that produced this result, the impending destruction of the biosphere that supports us? Fighting valiantly to preserve the functionality that is killing the world may not be a wise or ethical use of your time. (And if you&#x27;re programming something for a fossil fuel company, now is a good time to reconsider.)