Agree with some of the article but on climate change I think it’s underestimating the advances being made with renewable energy sources (electricity, geothermal, wind, hydropower etc). Of course we are currently on a worrying trajectory but the next few decades I believe will see very fast and permanent advances and we will have very limited reliance on current sources such as fossil fuels. The rich will probably be the biggest net contributors but it certainly won’t be the general population. I also feel what we will see is depopulation over time which will protect some of the natural land. The younger demos are having less children than previously, places like China have their caps on pro-creation. The digitisation of the world/advancement in AI post COVID will also have a lasting effect on consumption.
We may have veered too far to get things back to a decent equilibrium in our lifetimes but I wouldn’t write off things just yet. It will be a bumpy road however and i will say I think the next decade is gonna be pretty ugly for a lot of people if they aren’t prepared for what’s coming with the damage from COVID economically
One of the biggest issues is going to be forced population migration caused by climate change.
As climate change causes changes to established weather patterns, we will see new/more areas become susceptible to prolonged drought and others to flooding. If those areas - drought especially - coincide with major population centres, or a so great in area that they impact whole countries/regions, then there is going to be mass-migration.
Remember, large-scale urbanisation in the western world is only a couple hundred years old; in other parts of the world it's generally been within the last century. Those population centres have largely been created in areas with optimal conditions (there are some exceptions, obviously - int that right, Las Vegas?) at that time. Yet weather pattern shifts can place them into areas that are at high risk of drought or flood.
Mass migrations inevitably lead to conflict. This has been true throughout history - and back a thousand, two thousand years ago, population density across the world was massively lower. There was often a lot of space to accommodate influxes of people - yet there was still conflict. Nowadays, with population density being as high as it is, the ingredients for displacement and conflict would be hugely increased (both within countries and across borders)
Being an island in a [currently at least...] temperate zone places the UK in a hugely fortunate position.