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- Hacker News
- This was incorrectly flagged and there is no disputing this.
I'm disappointed in the climate change deniers on HN.
Unflag this.
- Climate change deniers?
I don't deny climate change. I do doubt that people can stop what amounts to civilization with possibly may be massive geo engineering on an unprecedented scale.
by newsomix9xl - Who's more fucked the earth or us in particular? And who is doing the fucking then? I'd like some answers to these serious questions.by zingababba
- the microbes at the bottom of the ocean chillin on the vents will probably be okay.
everything is gonna have a bad time. other critters first, then people.
- 1. Us 2. Usby eulgro
- The Earth has lived through periods of being a massive fireball to being a ball of ice and anything in between. The Earth is fine.
Life as we know it, on the other hand, is a little more delicate.
by sph - This is hysteria. Anyone believe this crap is retarded. The juiceboxes who run the world aren't going to destroy the housing for their human atm machine/slaves.
- The discussions going forward need to include how we identify tipping points that can create extream weather and where our globaly interconected industrial transprtatiin systems vulnerabilitys are, and what we can do to monitor those failure modes. I feel that industry's worship of profit has destroyed our ability build durable infrastuctur that has been designed and engineered to survive more challenging scenarios, and if there is one thing that the profiteers understand (grudgingly), is that without "consumer confidence" everything falls apart quickly. What we have in the west is industrial theater, saftey theater, security theater, work theater, on and on, but essential nothing that is bieng built as public infrastructure that will survive anything other than a direct meteor strike, which is in our power and for a reasonable sociatal cost if the theater hidding the waste and "profit" is removed. my point is that we are fucking ourselves through non sustainable waste and missmanagement not counting climate change. ie: we are so fuckedby metalman
- Whoever wants to go to work on combatting El Niño this year, I'm getting the gang together here on Wednesday: https://luma.com/tu0uvbx1
The timing is still being finalized but we should have climate scientist Zeke Hausfather there to give his take, and then we can talk about actions to avoid the worst impacts of El Niño this cycle, what innovators can build etc. I heard one idea of building modular battery powered Starlink systems that activate when the cell system gets knocked out.
But yeah, if nothing changes El Niño this year will likely be fucked.
by tito - I don't quite know why, and I don't think it's particularly your fault - but I find this a very depressing response to the information laid out in this article.
- Why is there no vouch? Why do naysayers get full ability to deny what they will? I thought the algorithm here was supposed to allow some counter to those who flag.
- Given that, throughout history, a handful of volcanic eruptions have triggered periods of global cooling, will global warming become a non-issue if a particularly large volcano happens to erupt in the next few years?by alehlopeh
- they (volcanos) also released so much carbon dioxide that we got a "Great Die Off", and walked the line between livable atmosphere and utterly-toxic-to-everything
volcanos ain't the answer, mate
- The sub text is generally "people are to blame" and "people must buy into a solution" with symbolic action.
Pointing out that were in an iceage and the planet used to be warmer or the role of volcanos isn't playing ball with the narrative.
by newsomix9xl - A volcanic eruption by itself can trigger some cooling by reflecting a bunch of sunlight off the dust/gas that's in the volcano emissions. Those cooling periods last a couple years.
In terms of having a longer cooling period with volcanoes, what happened historically was you had several volcanic eruptions in a row that caused something else to happen entirely -- sea ice restoration which caused a feedback loop. Generally, more sea ice begets more sea ice (Effectively, you're trading black ocean surface that absorbs light/heat for white ice that reflects light/heat. And so you get this feedback loop, more ice, cooler temps, even more ice) Anyway, The More You Know Star about some climate history stuff. (One issue with global warming is we're nearing the opposite end of that feedback loop, where less sea ice begets less sea ice and everything melts super fast. For shorthand, you can say that the temperature of Earth is likely rising as slowly as it will during the rest of our lifetimes. The ice is melting as slowly as it will for the rest of our lifetime. The sea level is rising as slowly as it will for the rest of our lifetime. etc)
The other thing to point out here is that volcanic emissions just mask warming caused by greenhouse gasses (ignoring the ability to start feedback loops). At the extreme end, for example, human IQ starts to suffer around 1,000 parts per million of carbon dioxide, so no matter what the temperature is in that scenario it's likely a decent idea to deal with carbon dioxide.
by tito - Not meaningfully.
Volcanic winters only last a few years. The largest ones are estimated to only have a few degrees effect on global temperatures, so we could temporarily be in 1980s climate before returning after 3-5 years to an even hotter one than ever.
The climb would probably accelerated by the inevitable policy reversals by climate change deniers who would take hold of the temporary rapid reversal of global warming to burn as much fossil fuels while they have the chance
by curtisf - I think it could solve all of our problems so that we are never inconvenienced by having to do anything. To promote the success of sitting around waiting for a volcano to save us while our portfolios appreciate, I've started a Wiccan druid circle for attuning our spirits to the volcano god Pele.by OgsyedIE
- I don’t disagree with the sentiment or any of the data.
But what actionable steps can an individual take that will actually affect the “it’ll be worse tomorrow” outcome?
I feel like there’s more resources put towards marketing that there’s a problem rather than coming up with practical steps people can do. And not picking on vegans but “turning vegan” isn’t really an acceptable answer for a industrial society.
Installing solar panels is something that I view as actionable by almost anyone. Battery is a bit out of reach. There’s questions to be asked about how sustainable that all is but in terms of getting people onboard, lower outgoings is a mighty big pull compared to endless impending doom articles.
by grebc - Vote in a new set of people's favorite politicians? Oh great.
Haven't we been doing that since the original UN IPCC report in 1990?
by spwa4 - Just following your doctor's advice on diet (less red meat) might have 10-20% of the impact of switching to an EV for an average American.
The are diminishing returns to going full vegan from a greenhouse gas standpoint, beef and cheese are the big ones.
In general individual choices don't matter but helping kick of a cultural trend does. It's the same wierd logic as voting, no individual vote counts but voting matters.
Techies should really be leading the way on installing solar, heat pumps, induction hobs and EVs and in fact often are.
by ZeroGravitas - Here's a new book called "The Carbon Wave": https://electricnotes.news/p/how-big-can-you-make-your-carbo...
It ditches the concept of "Carbon footprint" (originally created by oil companies) and gives direction on how to join together and make local, state, and national policy change.
I pre-ordered the book today!
You can also come to our El Niño action session next week: https://luma.com/tu0uvbx1
by tito - I'm not vegan, but what's wrong with turning vegan as a suggestion for an industrial society?by mping
- I'm curious about this too. This upcoming El Niño, the cost impact is expected to be 4x the worst El Nino humanity has ever seen...
I'm putting together an event next Wednesday, We should have climate scientist Zeke Hausfather there to weigh in: https://luma.com/tu0uvbx1
by tito - In the US, the midterm elections are absolutely, 100% your chance to show what you care about.
Write and call your local leadership. You cannot do much as an individual. But if you convince your local leadership (city, county, state, etc.) to consider nuclear, geothermal, solar, and wind where possible, you can be part of an enormous tidal wave of good.
edit: If you're hoping for a "what can I do TODAY" type of thing, write or call. They hardly ever get anything but emails and internet comments. Hell, go downtown for a visit. This is one of the best ways for a politician to know what their constituents care about. If people start showing up to your door with the same complaint, you'll fix it knowing it'll make happy all of those highly enthusiastic people (probably enthusiastic enough to vote in my reelection campaign!), things move much faster.
by kulahan - If someone knows how to unflag this, I'd appreciate it. I think this is a fair climate discussion and I'm happy to weigh in. Also, Eliot Jacobson is an active figure in climate science, so it's not just some rando's blog post.by tito
- There is no unflag button I'm aware of.
As for the merits of the article and author I'm not so sure, but I like to disagree widely.
by newsomix9xl - I agree, it was very clear in what it was saying.
I have said this thousands of times. Now in a different way. Collectively, people born in rich countries between 1930 and 1980 could have done something.
When the oil crisis hit in the early 70s, governments could have decided it was time to get out of fossil fuels. I was there on the cusp of adulthood. There was lots of talk, but the extreme rich and the oil barons started a huge propaganda campaign. People in gov. at the time were not stupid, they saw through it. But instead wanted to keep their jobs and the status quo. So here we are.
What could we have done ? Instead of crying about gas prices in the 70s, waiting hours in gas lines*, people could have started using other forms of transportation and kept at it. Back then public transportation worked fine in many places and bicycling was booming. Also many people lived relatively close to their work place. Instead we cried and cried about gas prices and continued to drive 2 or 3 or 5 miles to our work place daily. Same goes for shopping. Most shops were also rather close to were people lived.
So here we are, handing our grandchildren a life probably worse than what people experienced in the late 1800s to early 1900s. This way we avoided a bit of inconvenience in our life style.
Hope we are all happy as we age out.
* in many cases people waited hours with their cars running, some even ran out of gas waiting in lines. Others drove around for hours looking for a gas station with the lowest price. How stupid was that!
by jmclnx - As a father of two small children I feel heartbroken. Will we die together in a heatwave in a few years? Do I flee north now? How should we (can we?) prepare (them) for what is coming. Can the next generation have something close to a "normal" live?by Z0rp
- Statistically, about 8 times more people die from cold environment. You'll be ok.
Multiple studies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48524696
by t0bia_s - How exactly do you think you are going to die in a heatwave? Please explain the logistics of this.by greygoo222