Something that keeps me up at night: climate change means that larges masses are also moving (ice melts and the water travels elsewhere). All this redistribution of mass is known to have an impact on earthquakes and volcanoes. While it appears that recent science has not directly made the correlation of large earthquakes with climate change, we are still only now starting to see the larger results of our actions. More, and larger climate impacts are already baked in, and we continue to add greenhouse gases.
This is all more relevant for those that live in areas with active volcanoes and plate tectonics such as the Pacific Northwest. Home of Mt Rainier and its diminishing ice…
The connection between earthquakes and climate change is slightly less straightforward, and certainly less influential. Most earthquakes occur when tectonic plates within the Earth’s crust change or move. Many things can lead to this, but where climate change comes into play is once again related to water. Earthquakes can be triggered or prevented by variability in stress on a fault between tectonic plates. Stress on these faults is impacted by surface water from rain or snow. When there is heavier rainfall, this precipitation and any subsequent flooding increases stress and decreases seismicity. When the season dries up and there’s less water, the weight on the Earth’s crust decreases and this can lead to microseismicity.
As of now, the majority of the connection between earthquakes and climate change is with microseismicity, or tiny earthquakes, which have magnitudes of less than zero and are so small that humans can’t feel them. While additional connections can be made, such as impacts from pumping groundwater during droughts, connections between larger earthquakes and climate change have largely not been proven, though the rapid movement of glaciers has also been shown to cause glacial earthquakes.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2926/can-climate-affect-earthquakes-or-are-the-connections-shaky/
Not great.
Many people don’t even realize it’s possible to run out of water.