Birbla

Join the discussion

Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.

Sign in
  • Hacker News
  • why is it that for the ozone layer we got together and undid the damage but for climate change we don't?

    is it too politicized, are the required changes too damaging to the economy to start agressively implementing them?

    by coolThingsFirst
  • > why is it that for the ozone layer we got together and undid the damage but for climate change we don't?

    For the ozone layer, it was deemed possible to eliminate (or significantly reduce) certain chemical emissions.

    For generalised climate change, the common enemy of all people is the transnational petroleum industry. This corporate alliance will topple democracies rather than reduce its profits and influence.

    by heresie-dabord
  • > why is it that for the ozone layer we got together and undid the damage but for climate change we don't?

    If you want the honest, brutal take it is because I remember, at least in my country, that for the ozone stuff there was a lot of scientific people taking lead roles in educating the masses. Especially those with credibility who were otherwise not media savvy.

    Climate change on the other hand, whenever I think about the words, I can only get Greta Thunberg and her antics in my mind. Even for someone who believes in climate change I can't help but feel these crazed lunatics have only caused massive damage to what should have otherwise been a wake up call. It is like how COVID got associated with Fauci and Gain-of-function.

    > is it too politicized, are the required changes too damaging to the economy to start agressively implementing them?

    Ofcourse it was politicized. It became a party vs party, an ideology vs ideology thing. Science took a backseat.

    by kshri24
  • Industry groups saw the ozone scenario unfold and said "never again".

    Same thing happened after Nixon - it led directly to the founding of Fox News (https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2011/memo-from-197...).

    by ceejayoz
  • This worked so well because we had suitable replacement gases and the industry had little financial incentives to push against it.

    It's a very different situation with fossil fuels.

    by nom
  • This has actually been studied. The question even has it's own wikipedia article.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion_and_climate_ch...

    by tokai
  • Because with the ozone layer, the causes of the problem were much more narrow, the solutions were orders of magnitude cheaper, and they affected a much smaller industry, much less dramatically.

    It’s not that the changes are “too damaging to the economy,” it’s that they’d need to be much more widespread. For example, everyone should have stopped driving gasoline engine cars at least by 2010, when the scientific evidence had already been undeniable for years, for anyone studying the matter in good faith. No such action was needed to deal with the ozone layer.

    Compounding the problem for climate change mitigation is that it threatens the wealth of people in the oil, gas, and related industries. Changing refrigerant type for ozone hole mitigation was not an existential threat to any industry. The fossil fuel industry has plowed billions of dollars into propaganda and political influence to prevent or slow down changes.

    by antonvs
  • > why is it that for the ozone layer we got together and undid the damage but for climate change we don't?

    Because it also happened to be profitable for a large company (DuPont), which was also the company largely responsible for the whole ozone layer thing. They lobbied against ozone layer protections while they had a patent on Freon, but as soon as it expired, they came up with a new more expensive alternative and started supporting environmental regulations forcing people to switch to the new one.

    by flexagoon
  • Saving the ozone layer required changing practices in a relatively small part of the economy (refrigeration, mostly). In 1994, the total cost of the transition in the US was estimated to less than $100 billion [1], about 1.3% of GDP ($7.3 trillion [2]).

    Reducing global carbon emissions to reach net zero by 2050 has been estimated to cost $9.2 trillion per year [3]. World GDP is currently $126 trillion [4]. That means 7.3% of current world GDP per year, or 1.8x of it over a quarter century.

    [1] https://cei.org/studies/the-high-cost-of-cool-the-economic-i...

    [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni...

    [3] https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-ins...

    [4] https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPD@WEO/OEMDC/ADVE...

    by T-A
  • Our hubris will be the death of us. We will have earned it.
    by Henchman21
  • We're already cooked, the Paris Agreement was aiming for avoiding 1.5°C global increase by 2030 and we're pretty much at that now. We're already seeing global weather shifts as the beginning of what appears to be rapid climate change and we're not yet at the peak of carbon output.
    by micromacrofoot
  • Discussion is pointless . -All- of it. Germany has reduced emissions by what, 20% ? It costs its world industrial leadership . No AI to power by electricity . And Germany has 3% of world CO2 output . Meanwhile , China emissions exploding almost exponentially , as they produce all the good and bad things for you .
    by saddat
  • China's emissions peaked in 2025 and have been declining since. They have rolled out massive amounts of renewables, unlike the US.
    by plugger
  • The globe couldnt afford a couple of massive energy consumers (USA and Europe) let alone three more (China, India and Africa). Even if Renewables or EVs reach a pesky 30% in limited areas, CO2 levels will not care.

    Total climate change is almost 100% sure, there is no return. Or, for the optimists, the time we have is until the next elections.

    by tsoukase
  • It's strange that anyone's still thinking there's "still time until we have to act". Is this really the average view out there?
    by sho_hn
  • Better late than never.
    by tim333
  • a lot of people think that the time to do something is when your house is already flooded
    by micromacrofoot
  • The average view is that "climate change" == "higher/lower temperatures". Nobody really thinks of all the secondary effects.
    by ActorNightly
  • In my family, about 5 out of 100 people believe climate change is even real. So ya, I think the average at this point is "I'm ambivalent, climate change may not even be real. But mostly I don't care"
    by HEmanZ
  • I don't know anyone or ever see any media reflecting such a weird standpoint. It's more "better act now than even later"
    by herbst
  • Because there is still time.

    We might not stop what is already happening or what will happen, but we still have time to make it less severe than it would be if no action would be made.

    We still can save lives, not all of them but some and for this people it will make a difference.

    by sobkas
  • Hopefully not average, but I guarantee there are forces out there actively pushing it. Two versions, eventually:

    1. Don't do anything that might interfere with our profits, time is available/needed to consider what to do.

    2. Don't do anything that might interfere with out profits, it's too late anyway.

    by Terr_
  • Less time than it thinks? We ran out of time a while ago, it's already well in progress.
    by allears
  • The world thinks it has time left, but it doesn’t. Seems accurate to me.
    by stouset
  • Yes, exactly, what time do people think they have? It's here, it's now, it's happening, it's all around us. This headline would have made a little more sense ten years ago.
    by marssaxman
  • I’m not sure: when I was in high school / university it was well understood that places like Florida would be under water and unlivable by now.

    Already then you could find this exact article title in a dozen publications per year, especially in academic publications. Al Gore made a third career out of it.

    It was alarmist and too soon then but it’s not alarmist and too soon now?

    Nobody upvotes an article titled “Things are about 0.5% more concerning than they were two decades ago”

    by unsupp0rted
  • The title has that generic alarmist flavor, but the article is rather sensible: persistent anticyclones may form every summer, such as one over Europe, leading to regular droughts and perhaps an urgent need for desalination plants. The message is to be ready to build infrastructure like that, if this seems to be happening.
    by card_zero
  • > I’m not sure: when I was in high school / university it was well understood that places like Florida would be under water and unlivable by now.

    Nobody was claiming that Florida would be under water by 2026. You just made up an hyperbolic claim and attributed it to academics to discredit them.

    by thrance
  • Take a walk up the alps, compare to pictures from 20 years ago and see for yourself
    by JV00
  • > I’m not sure: when I was in high school / university it was well understood that places like Florida would be under water and unlivable by now.

    I don't doubt that is your recollection, but nobody back then was predicting it would happen in 20 years. The time frames given were much longer. But, the vibe was definitely that we need to wake up and do something right now, because by the time climate change hits real hard it will be too late to avert the calamity.

    by metabagel