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- Hacker News
- Not sure why these reports always say things like "suggest" instead of "is".by nielsbot
- In this case, even the authors seems to agree that the finding is not "consensus-level" yet.
That being said, consensus would not necessarily settle the thing.
Even when the worldwide scientific community reaches a consensus and accepts using plain language (as in "It _is_ unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land" [1]), you still have a number of politicians begging to differ. [2]
[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/chapter/summary-for-polic....
[2] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/de-pire-en-pire-sur-france-5-... (Sorry, fr-fr)
by phtrivier - Because this is science, not religion.
The thesis: Climate change is strengthening El Niño clearly uses the word "is".
Everything else is evidence, both for and against the thesis subject to interpretation.
Here it's "Something we can see in coral records correlates with what we'd expect given the thesis"
These observed correlations may be directly or indirectly linked to the thesis, or (and this does happen) they may be an unrelated coincidence.The study doesn’t prove climate change is the culprit. But because the intensification coincides with rapid postindustrial warming and exceeds El Niño’s natural variability, the authors argue that human-driven warming is the leading explanation.As the weight of evidence in favour of a thesis builds, so does the confidence in the thesis itself.
by defrost - Decarbonization, reduction of produce (spending less), trash collection and reduction, less plastics… and hoping for the best that mankind wont mess it up more til 2050 - then the following 100 years (after 2050) shouldn’t be so hell as it seems so now…
Unfortunately we as people cannot see our older ones so future planning is not so easy…
Guns and ammo was the conclusion how to prepare for the future - in the book “10 Billion” by Stephen Emmott.
by sixtyj - It's pointless to look for solutions that's against human nature.by imeron
- And the least popular one: reduce animal agriculture and meat consumption.
- I’m pretty sure nonviolence is the way for the future. There is always someone with a bigger gun.by MachineMan
- Each day I'm thinking, global politics and unification would solve this.
And yet, every day, I see us getting removed further and further away from it.
by Turfie - The western world has more or less come together to reduce emissions. If you look at US for instance emissions are down in abs terms. Not relative to gdp or per capital but total emissions. This holds even if you adjust for trade.
The “problem” is there will always be independent upcoming nations like china and India that don’t really care to make sacrifices for collective goals. Their people are finally experiencing materially better lives and that comes w energy consumption.
This will ultimately be solved by markets and technology. People 100y ago were concerned about horse crap flooding the streets and what solved that wasn’t some agreement to limit horses but the invention of the automobile. Same will happen here and it’s already beginning to happen
by bko - Ah yes no way global unification could go wrong. Send in the thunder warriors.by alansaber
- Trump's working on global unification as we speak. ;)by beej71
- nice joke. yes they will solve their private jet fuel and private yacht fuel cost, they will solve allby kingleopold
- Sometimes I feel the same, and then sometimes I wonder if that "moving away feeling" is the last of the old breed who are hanging onto power, maybe the next step after this massive wave of ultra right wing stupidity is something much brighter ?by bamboozled
- I'm thinking of the Ottomans capturing Constantinople. Very much paraphrasing: Since Ottomans had a massive cannon made with new technology. Since Constantinople hadn't hired the cannon inventor. Since Constantinople was poor. Since it was sacked by other christians in the crusades previously. So it was self afflicted by christians.
One can see the climate crisis like that. Only global accords work, otherwise self-limiting CO2 is mostly sacrificing one's economy while others do better. USA will block all international climate accords. Because the president and half of politicians acts like climate change is not real. Because a whole party thinks that. Because voters think that. Because the media tells them that. Because the media treats fossil company propaganda like science. Because it's so cheap for a handful of companies to corrupt media or politics.
What is the epistemology of the majority of voters... scandals, conspiracy theories, UFO:s. What shows on TV or on your feeds. I assume it's child's play for some non-western actor to cause constant infighting in the west, causing billions in economic losses or destruction of alliances. For whole planetary level issues, who's the opponent, working in the shadows? Maybe, after all, the aliens are already here...
by Gravityloss - They would, but it is not going to happen. We need solutions that don't count on that.by Squarex
- I think there's a certain cohort of people who, quite literally, just want to watch the world burn for whatever reason, be it greed or simply misanthropy. Unfortunately they're the ones that seem to grasp for the reins of power the world over. It'd probably help if we didn't allow boomers any power whatsoever, considering they're not the ones that have to live with the consequences of their decisions and they hardly seem wiser than most.by sensanaty
- no shit eh? This seems so wildly obvious that i don't really know how to read it. the Pacific North West hasn't seen significant snow in years, instead of our daily fall rain we've been getting awful downpours that flood everything followed by weeks of dry. snowpacks gone, reservoirs are running dry, fires are more and more devastating every year.
when are we going to acknowledge this catastrophe that we are barreling towards?
i can only hope that things start improving. between this and government im gonna lose it
- This.
I'm appalled that there still seems to be the need to find _evidence_ for this.
by wwwald - > when are we going to acknowledge this catastrophe that we are barreling towards?
Not to be a total downer, but probably never unless all the Republicans in the US suddenly disappear? Like, remember who the "we" is in your question. Remember what policies they stand for and what methods they employ.
- With climate change, it seems like poor people will die faster from 'climate poverty.' Science clearly points to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, but certain groups frame it as just another natural cycle of the Earth.
When I was younger, I learned that science was something pure. But as I've grown older, it seems like science is really about how it's used—and who gets to use it.
by jdw64 - https://philofecon.substack.com/p/notes-towards-a-definition...
https://publish.uwo.ca/~jbell/univ.pdf
Otoh I think Grothendieck's point would be stronger today if his tribe of scientists are expanded or even replaced by "programmers"
Fossil fuelled Data Centers might soon surpass shipping as CO2 producer, given that shipping might even be peaking
Hackerism as the New Universal Church? Then you can hope to go to a (emotionally) warm place on Sunday, everyday
Where the categorical imperative would be: if people want it, build it..
- Greenhouse gas emissions also coincide with the greatest poverty reduction period in human history.
Climate science is pretty close to a "pure" hard science. What's not pure are the sloppy geopolitical and socio-economic predictions built on top of it.
by olalonde - This is quite sad, so I've felt a bit guilty for enjoying the summer we've had in upstate NY. Local farmers seem happy even though spring was a bit wetter than optimal. The corn is looking very good and the apple crop promises to be large.
I will not be surprised if we get a lot of snow this winter.
by pfdietz - With climate change, there will be some winners. Until there is not.
/edit. The meaning is, as the earth gets hotter, there will be winners, until it gets too hot for them too. Eventually it is too hot for all areas. But for a time, northern climates will be nice. Siberia could become a vast farm land, at same time there are no humans left at the equator. But that wont last either.
- Yeah russia is very happy with global climate change for example. It doesn't change the underlying fact that long term it can be a brutal challenge for humanity and higher life on Earth.
Maybe something good will come out of it, even dumbest magas et al realizing this ain't right, but I am no longer having any hope for the dumber part of the spectrum of mankind, they seem to be only reachable and manageable via emotions on which you can't build anything long term stable.
Nothing life overall can't handle, it handled much worse situations (till sun scorches it all to the cinder in a +-billion year). Our current civilization, or mankind in general are much more finicky though.
by kakacik - Your post made me think about something that has circled my mind for a while.
I grew up with an anxious mother and looking back on it what "mattered" to her (admittedly I don't think she can help it at all) is the feeling of anxiety itself. In other words whatever is happening she'll feel anxious about that. The "event" would just be an excuse to feel the way she was anyway going to feel.
You would think that a break for anxiety - a moment of peace and calm - would be welcome - but it's almost a crime. I've noticed this with other anxious people as well that they often don't want to not feel anxious because that feeling is somehow problematic. I think I used to be like that too.
Why am I sharing this? I think your post is such an honest take on something. You feel good about something you should absolutely feel good about (nice weather) but the zeitgeist is that you should feel anxious about it.
This squares away with something I noticed - separately from the science and mitigation, some people are only able to speak about climate in tones of anxiety - worst case predictions will definitely come through, everyone else is criminally stupid and will cause us to die, etc - and they are allergic to any other time of speaking about the issue. So for example any suggestion that there might be a milder path or that the estimates are a range etc is not met with relief but with vitriol.
I apologize again for using your post as a prompt to put this in words - but what I read in your words is the pressure to feel anxious about something that you just aren't anxious about (hi from Vermont btw same great weather here) and I think this "pressure to feel anxious/guilty" is a byproduct of those who have grabbed on to climate as an "event" that justifies their own anxious feelings. Again that's separate from what's actually going on - I am commenting on anxiety not climate.
by xyzelement - I have been door knocking in a swing county in Wisconsin, and the first question we ask is, "what is the top issue you care about?" I've had one person say "the environment", and a couple have said, "what's happening in America right now." Almost everyone else answers "cost of living". So if you're waiting for things to change, you will be waiting a while.
Historically, something like 3.5 percent of the population need to be really engaged to make change happen, and the US isn't there right now, because we're all on our computers. The election coming up is an important one, so if you want to do something, start door knocking, become an election judge, sign up to be an observer at the polls, donate money. Indivisible is doing a lot of great, local, on-the-ground stuff, join your local chapter.
by egonschiele - I’ve come to understand the inequality crisis (which manifests itself as a cost-of-living crisis for most people) as one of the root causes for the poly-crisis we are living through.
For climate change, I can totally understand how a household struggling to feed their kids will reject messaging of the form „oh and btw you also need to stop driving your car and heat your home lest the planet dies“. Of course they will revolt against that.
To me, fundamentally, the west MUST solve the inequality crisis first before we can ever hope of solving any of the other problems. People need slack to care about the environment, their neighbors, peace, etc.
And the other aspect of it is fairness - people rightfully look at the top, say „well the billionaires are jetting all around the globe and no one gives a fuck, why should I cut my holidays?“
We need to fix inequality first, and I project that most other issues we have today will magically resolve themselves.
by haizhung - I did a bunch of door-knocking, for Obama and Clinton, and it didn't feel like I was doing any good. Everybody had long since made up their minds.
It's not like these are hard choices. Either you view the differences as stark and obvious, or you think that it's all the same (and I'm never going to persuade you otherwise). I don't think I garnered even a single vote, and quite a few expressed aggravation.
Is your experience different?
by jfengel - The reason so few people care about climate change is that so few people truly understand it. They can see the grocery and housing bills, but CO2 in the atmosphere is some sort of invisible bogeyman to them, even though it’s a catastrophe waiting to happen.by pennomi