• jadero@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Tundras aren’t going to be all that liveable just because the temperature is a bit nicer. They’ll still get very dark in the winter. Like 24-hour darkness, in some of it. Some people thrive, some people cope, some people go batshit crazy when daylight hours drop below about 4 hours a day.

    That’s actually the easy part. Most tundra is sitting on top of permafrost. I worked on low latitude tundra for one summer and if my experience there is representative, melting permafrost is going to turn a lot of tundra into swampland for a long time.

    Even if I’m wrong about the tundra turning into swampland, there isn’t really all that much room. Good luck cramming a few billion people above 55 or 60 degrees latitude.

    • jarfil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The tree line is moving pole-wards thanks to global warming; the gain is less than what’s lost by the desert line moving pole-wards, but it’s something.

      Good luck cramming a few billion people above 55 or 60 degrees latitude

      Realistically, you need less than 1m² of terrain per person if you stack them in high enough buildings. Look at how China is doing it.

      • jadero@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I’m glad I’m old enough to not have to consider living at the population density you suggest. I find the population density of Saskatchewan to be quite enough. I lived in a small city (Saskatoon) for 40 years and the last 10 were flat out miserable. The first 30 were tolerable only because we escaped to nature every weekend.