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Originally Posted by milo
Even climate change is a zero-sum game afaik.
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Will respond with a longer post later, but in short - what? I must misunderstand you here. If the Earth's climate changes then yes, some areas will become less suitable for human habitation (and food production) and other areas will become more suitable (there will be winners and losers as a UN report put it). But it doesn't stand to reason that this will somehow magically balance out. And even if Russia/Canada/Greenland gained exactly the same amount of land that other parts of the world lost there would be the small issue of how we'd move the billions of people involved without political/economic upheaval. Not to mention a ****ing great ruck.
Obviously there's more to climate change than just land availability but on related issues it's a similar story - we might end up having the same amount of rain globally as we do now, but if rainfall patterns are disrupted and we get all our rain in one five minute window in September then most of our infrastructure for irrigation / water distribution simply won't work.
Also, Diamond doesn't claim that our civilisation will be wiped out - instead he suggests economic decline and reduction in living standards is far more likely in the longer term.