I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9sDyooxf4

by onnnon • 2 years ago

359 758 2 years ago

youtube.com

djaouen• 2 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCo3XwTRg9o

nindalf2• 2 years ago

Was wondering why that link was grey for me. Yeah, these guys never miss.

sambazi2• 2 years ago

dafuq did i just watch?

phtrivier2• 2 years ago

It's called "comedy".

It has a track record of getting things right that dates back to Aristophanes.

Sadly their publications are frowned upon in academic circles because they use less charts than farts.

renewiltord3• 2 years ago

There’s nothing much to do. An environmentalist told me that it’s a few big companies that are causing it all but that I was greenwashing it by buying Terrapass so now I’ve stopped. I grew up in the city, too, but apparently that was the problem because you’re surrounded by a concrete jungle so now I’m buying a home in the hills. It’s pretty cool, honestly. I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t just live in the hills since it’s better for the environment.

nindalf2• 2 years ago

Wouldn't per capita emissions in a city be lower? Simply because of transport - we're far more likely to use public transport than folks living in rural areas.

renewiltord3• 2 years ago

Yeah but per-capita emissions were revealed to me to be a trick that corporations have played on us to make us take responsibility for their sins.

It was easier to ebike in the city, for sure. But a GMC Sierra makes the hills all right too. And it’s much better here for the environment because I’m not endorsing the capitalist view that everything should be grey concrete.

randomdata6• 2 years ago

But use transport daily. Ironically, at least in the typical North American city, you can’t do anything without a machine to take you over long distances.

In the rural area, you maybe travel once a week to stock up but otherwise don’t need transportation at all.

nyokodo• 2 years ago

I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t just live in the hills since it’s better for the environment.

Because billions of people can’t just live in the hills.

renewiltord3• 2 years ago

It’s terrible that they would rather create smog in cities than live among nature in a 5 br / 5 ba. But human greed and capitalism are just too powerful.

jMyles• 2 years ago

...pretty sure that was the joke.

HenryBemis2• 2 years ago

Oh I want to write: so we can all cycle downhill towards the centee to our work without any effort!!!

(sshhhh... don't mention the ride back home)

readthenotes1• 2 years ago

You forgot to use the sarcasm font.

kevinventullo• 2 years ago

Your sarcasm might be a bit too subtle

bdcravens2• 2 years ago

Not an unreasonable argument, though I can't help but remember the empirical evidence we saw when everyone stopped driving for a period in 2020.

That said, I've tried to open my eyes to greenwashing. For example, most plastic recycling is a lie sold by oil companies (#1 and #2 are really the only ones that have a hope of being recycled), so I've worked hard to avoid plastic packaging.

cynicalsecurity3• 2 years ago

Okay, but what now?

jdietrich4• 2 years ago

Stop burning stuff. Tell other people to stop burning stuff. Tell your representatives to work on alternatives to burning stuff. Don't invest in companies that burn a lot of stuff. Avoid waterfront property.

Levitating3• 2 years ago

What's wrong with waterfront properties?

12736114• 2 years ago

Encourage other people (especially if you're in a developing country) not to have too many children. The absolutely unsustainable population levels worldwide are behind the climate and pollution crises. We are an incredibly destructive species to the planet. All countries, developing and developed are part of the problem.

Not only that the overcrowding and fighting over limited resources causes psychosocial stress, which might explain the mental illness epidemic nowadays?

PeterisP12• 2 years ago

That's not going to be sufficient to prevent climate change (well, nothing we'll realistically do now will be sufficient to do that - it's too late, just as scientists were warning us decades ago), so probably the question is less about reducing climate change but rather how to mitigate the consequences of climate change to you personally and your community - "avoid waterfront property" is one step there, but probably we can do much more.

Levitating3• 2 years ago

Vote I guess

mikewarot• 2 years ago

Push as hard as you can for regenerative agriculture, which sequesters Carbon as it improves the fertility and moisture retention of the soil, reduces the need for industrial farming inputs, and produces livestock along the way. If adopted world-wide it could pull about 20% of the CO2 back out of the atmosphere.

Push for right to repair. We've strip mined the resources for your phone and computers, appliances, etc. from the planet, they should be able to stay in service for at least a decade, if not more. Designed obsolescence needs to go.

Sea level went up 200 feet before, there's 100 feet to go. Hopefully it won't happen in the space of a few years, like last time. (The source of the flood myths in every culture)

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

theyinwhy• 2 years ago

Project Drawdown [1] provides great answers to this question.

1: https://drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions

jokoon3• 2 years ago

Annoy people about:

* eating less beef

* not flying

* using a bicycle/train. not possible everywhere for americans, anyway, but possible for most europeans. minimum is car sharing and using a light car.

* less house heating, more insulation

If they disagree, don't worry, but make sure they know. It's expected some people are going to use violence to reduce CO2 emissions, especially for the ones that can be avoided easily.

Anyways, western rich countries will not be the ones who are hit the hardest.

horns4lyfe2• 2 years ago

The only people that will use violence to reduce emissions will be western trust fund activist kids desperately searching for meaning.

willis9362• 2 years ago

Prepare for mid-size nations near the equator to launch stratosphere aerosol injection programs against the will of the rest of the world and be party to the largest experiment humans will ever conduct.

defrost10• 2 years ago

Or Silicon Valley start ups that have already declared intent to do so and begun small scale injections already:

https://makesunsets.com/

kobalsky2• 2 years ago

I’ll say one that is taboo. Don’t have kids.

ZunarJ52• 2 years ago

Act local, think global: https://effectiveactivist.com/

vaylian• 2 years ago

Also: BBC podcast series "How they made us doubt everything": https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000l7q1 (10 episodes plus intro)

The fossil fuel industry is still heavily invested in preventing real climate action. It is a very hard opponent to overcome.

ZunarJ52• 2 years ago

Thank you. Good link. I posted something similar below and, here's more food for thought:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/04/more-tha...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01461-y

InSteady• 2 years ago

You can typically see their handiwork in every single internet discussion of related topics, including HN threads that get enough traction.

declan_roberts• 2 years ago

Weird. I used to worry about climate change and now I don’t. I guess the world has a way of finding its equilibrium.

I do however worry about the accidental introduction of invasive species and diseases, which seems to be accelerating (see: citrus greening disease).

Whoppertime2• 2 years ago

It's a lot easier to worry about sulfur dioxide and NOx producing rain compared to worrying about global carbon emissions. Climate Change seems best dealt with at a local level, with the cause of the problem being pollution.

graemep• 2 years ago

Except that CO2 emissions also causes acidification of bodies of water. Which cover two thirds of the planet.

tomtomistaken2• 2 years ago

This is why it is important to know your local super-emitter: https://climatetrace.org/explore

johnea• 2 years ago

Weird. I used to worry about climate change and now I don’t.

That's funny! I was going to start my post with the exact same sentence!

But for a totally different reason: I'm now convinced that there is no stopping the massive destruction of the natural environemnt. A much MUCH bigger problem than that of the climate alone.

I'm not a "doomer", I'm a "realist". It's clear at this point that the world's ownership class is NOT going to allow any significant mitigation of petroleum use.

The situation will continue unabated until all of the worst predictions, and many more not foreseen, come to bear.

So, I've learned to take this in stride, like with gun ownership: most gun deaths in the US are suicide. As more and more gun owners shoot themselves, this is the only mitigation to this crisis.

This will be the same for industrial distruction of our environment, including the climate. The only way it's going to mitigate is when the natural consequences come to bear and destroy a good part of the world population.

Of course, there's always "citrus greening disease" to worry about 8-)

The excuses people are willing to tell themselves will prevent any meaningful responce to the crisis... Thus, the natural consequences will occur...

tempestn• 2 years ago

I agree with a fair bit of this, except that I'm not convinced the consequences to humans will be as dire as the loss of a good part of the global population. If we're counting animal species though, then maybe.

globalnode2• 2 years ago

I agree with this sentiment. Theres no stopping it now, its just going to have to run its course and we'll see if theres much of a world worth living in at the end. I do laugh at billionaire bunkers tho, like how long are they going to survive when money means nothing and the plebs that are still alive are outside blocking the exits and airways with dirt and rocks.

edit: its funny to see the only people making sense getting downvoted because reasons.

jes51994• 2 years ago

the impending collapse of cattle farming will cause the majority of agricultural land to return to the wild. This is a larger amount of land than all other human activities combined

Joeri• 2 years ago

It's clear at this point that the world's ownership class is NOT going to allow any significant mitigation of petroleum use.

The problem is not use, the problem is extraction. If it comes out of the ground, it gets used, and mostly ends up in the atmosphere. The volume of extracted fossil fuels is carefully managed so that prices remain low enough to prevent green alternatives from winning in the market, and high enough to maximize long term revenue. If extraction would decline, fossil fuel prices would rise, and the market would automatically rebalance into a green transition.

Really the only thing politicians need to do is put in place a global and declining cap on fossil fuel extraction. Wells need to be capped even when they’re not empty. There should be zero new drilling. You can tell the honest intentions of a politician on climate change by their policies on fossil fuel extraction.

And this means ultimately it is a political problem, not an individual problem, and can be fixed through the voting booth. But that requires people to consider this the most important problem, and they don’t. So ultimately, the reason things don’t change is not some cabal, but just plain people not prioritizing it in the voting booth.

Charlie_26• 2 years ago

So, I've learned to take this in stride, like with gun ownership: most gun deaths in the US are suicide. As more and more gun owners shoot themselves, this is the only mitigation to this crisis.

I’m sure you’re being facetious, but don’t the suicidal people buy guns? It’s not that gun owners are suicidal

maigret3• 2 years ago

Some capitalists want you to believe that there is no solution. There will be lots of money to be made from this change by new entrepreneurs. We can also all do our part by reducing our own fossil fuel use, investing wisely, declining working for companies who consume or produce lots of fossil fuels, and make renewable energies get forward. Unfortunately the fossil fuel lobby (which comprises big & rich states) has put lots of energy convincing a lot of citizens otherwise. But this is not lost. Solar is progressing very fast and we have lots of potential in simple solutions like better house insulation and middle size batteries (especially the ones we'll soon be able to get cheap from used TVs).

RandomLensman• 2 years ago

The "world's ownership class" has on average already set its sights on the wealth to be had in the energy transition. If you believe they are in charge, things will work out fine.

automatic6131• 2 years ago

the world's ownership class is NOT going to allow any significant mitigation of petroleum use.

"We" - the Western voting public broadly, but also much of East Asia too - are the owning class. If you actually removed everything in our lives that depend on petroleum products, it would be a riot before the end of the month. I don't think people quite realize how much of our lives are propped up by the downstream products of oil. It's not just moving people in cars and most of electricity generation and wrapping our food in plastics; it's most of our food production (from fertilizer to mechanization), most of our biochem stuff (so much starts as natural gas), most of our infrastructure.

Without oil, the West is shivering in the cold, the shelves are empty, there's nothing to do, nowhere to go (or really, way to get there anyway) and practically no healthcare.

You square that circle, you let the rest of us know. But we won't (and should not) accept any future like that.

throw__away7391• 2 years ago

the world's ownership class is NOT going to allow any significant mitigation of petroleum use

Do you include everyone who owns a car in this "ownership class"? I guess I share your disposition to some degree, resignation mixed with a feeling that things are going to be bad but not as bad as some have claimed, and that eventually the situation will improve, but this practice of blanket blaming "the rich" for the problem is a/the major reason we got here in the first place.

I worked in the energy sector for over a decade. It was a very conservative industry, yet everyone who worked there had their home insulation well above code and installed the most efficient appliances they could find, many had solar panels on their roofs (long before these were as available as they are today) and were first in line for plug-in electric hybrids when they first became available. Our parking lot was kind of a dangerous place to walk because there were so many electric cars you couldn't hear them coming, our director had a hydrogen powered car.

We'd get protestors all the time showing up in front of our building. Looking down from the office windows I could see them arrive and depart. They always drove there in ICE vehicles. We sold fossil fuel, but kept our operations as efficient as possible, going to great lengths to squeeze out every joule of energy we could manage and were constantly re-evaluating our processes looking for improvements, meeting with vendors to find new technology, and spent probably more time and money than was prudent experimenting with low-carbon alternatives to majors components of the company's infrastructure.

The average person in the US who is "concerned about climate change" does none of these things, is doing absolutely nothing to change the situation, but sits on their phone complaining on Reddit while consuming as much energy as is convenient for them. The amount of energy Americans use for trivial everyday tasks is staggering. The standard suburban model of living that makes up 99% of US cities and towns is a climate disaster. Although all these things are provided by large companies, this is not the result of a conspiracy, this is what people want, what people demand. When energy prices go up a few precent, people scream bloody murder and call their elected officials demanding something be done about it. When fuel efficiency standards are proposed people complain. Given a choice between a larger home and a smaller but more efficient one, people consistently choose large houses with insulation that meets only the minimum standards. At most any choice towards efficiency is motivated entirely by either financial considerations or social signaling. (note the enormous popularity of the Toyota Prius, which is distinctly a hybrid, over better cars which looked nearly identical to their ICE counterparts)

Voters and consumers over and over again have decided to keep the system they have in place decade after decade, while blaming the people who supply them what they demand for the situation.

collyw2• 2 years ago

Look up the Cambrian period.It was a lot warmer and life flourished. The idea that it getting warmer is somehow a catastrophe seems quite absurd.

globular-toast3• 2 years ago

You won't worry about citrus greening disease soon either.

You'll worry about something else, then you'll stop worrying about that too.

pvaldes7• 2 years ago

We can live without oranges or lemons for sure. Is just a worse life. No acting has consequences.

brigadier132• 2 years ago

The government of Florida cut down my family's orange tree, will never forgive them.

ChatGTP5• 2 years ago

I guess the world has a way of finding its equilibrium.

Which might mean the end of complex life forms like humans.

The world does not equal civilisation.

goatlover6• 2 years ago

What warming scenario on Earth would lead to the end of complex life forms? You realize that humans colonized most of the planet thousands of years ago with stone-aged technology, survived ice ages, lived in all sorts of climates? That the dinosaurs evolved on a world far warmer than we're likely to see? Complex life forms didn't all go extinct back then.

gmuslera• 2 years ago

What you don’t know that you don’t know can harm you badly. From time to time you learn something new and realize that, but it always has been there.

12736114• 2 years ago

It's taboo to say this, but people worldwide have had far too many children, and I believe that overpopulation is the root of the sustainability crisis, including climate change and pollution.

And that taboo is probably rooted in evolutionary psychology, people have a genetically driven tendency to criticize those who advocate having less children? So could there be an instinctual drive behind it?

https://www.flashpack.com/solo/relationships/dont-want-kids-...

https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/childfree-by-choice

BugsJustFindMe2• 2 years ago

There's no such thing as "overpopulation" on its own. There's only population relative to resource abuse. A small fraction of the population using resources at the rate that your common local billionaire or environmentally abusive megacorp uses resources will be just as "over". A much larger population appropriately pricing externalities instead of ignoring them will not be "over".

The number of people in India is not why companies like Vedanta Limited, an alumnium, iron, and gold ore mining company pollute so much.

StanislavPetrov• 2 years ago

There's no such thing as "overpopulation" on its own. There's only population relative to resource abuse.

This is an unfortunate delusion that is widespread, and exploited by governments and industries that seek to ravage what is left of our environment for profit.

If you believe and understand that the earth is a finite place, with finite resources (as all intelligent, rational people do), then you believe and understand that this finite place, with finite resources, can only support a finite population. Of course we can debate about what exactly the "sustainable" population is and we can agree that the "sustainable" population depends on how resources are managed, used and maintained, but there can be no disagreement that this number exists, and that if there are too many people our finite resources cannot sustainably support them no manner how efficiently they are distributed.

Unfortunately far too many people don't believe this, and don't understand that the earth is a finite place with finite resources. They insist that the earth can support an infinite number of people if only we manage our finite resources properly and impose a strict enough dietary and behavioral regiment on the teeming billions stuffed onto the planet.

swiftcoder3• 2 years ago

It's not really taboo, it's just straight-up a racist right-wing talking point.

Treat it as a software optimisation problem - should you go after a large number of very minro problems, or take an axe to the single large problem that dominates your metrics?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/richest-...

12736114• 2 years ago

I am confused as to how discouraging procreation is racist?

sgt1013• 2 years ago

From my observations the current rightwing meme is that women in rich countries haven't had sufficient numbers of children and measures to drive increased population should be put in place.

This is congruent with removing women's bodily autonomy, banning abortion and banning or restricting birth control of all types.

RankingMember4• 2 years ago

That's an interesting question re: genetically-driven tendency to criticize those who advocate having less children. I've had the same experience when voicing my opinion as it seems you have, and I'm still not quite sure where its rooted. From the outside, it just seems like a kind of species-selfishness, like "we can be invasive but no one else can or we'll exterminate them!" like we do with deer.

I've found there's a whole philosophy that seems to line up with my (and maybe your) perspective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology

LudwigNagasena2• 2 years ago

It’s not taboo. It’s regularly discussed and supported in mainstream media.

angra_mainyu3• 2 years ago

Exactly. I'm not sure if they just stepped out from under a rock... I've been hearing the overpopulation rhetoric for decades already.

In fact, nowadays I'm beginning to hear the opposite: "please have more kids". I'm in Europe atm (I'm south-american) and I'm shocked to see that natives, by and large, just do NOT have kids, or at most 1. All cultural incentives that promoted having kids seem to have been vilified. I find it kind of sad honestly...

dagss3• 2 years ago

I think there's 2 topics that need to be held apart here:

1) Limiting number of children in rich countries. This is what your links talk about I think. Yes, perhaps there is a taboo in place here.

Is that relevant to sustainability crisis though? Population is already declining in rich countries, quite naturally.

2) Limiting number of children in poorer countries. Well, as in the article pointed to in a sibling comment, "Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%"...

So by saying that overpopulation is the root of the crisis -- are you not saying that it may be better that 10 poor people are not born, than for rich people to do minor changes to their lifestyle?

mytailorisrich4• 2 years ago

The issue is the global population. Obviously, that's the metric that matters for global issues like the climate and environment.

The global population is still increasing. Furthermore, as poor countries develop this is compounded by increased consumption (both resources and energy) per capita. In that respect, "richest 1% account for more emissions than poorest 66%" should be interpreted as very worrying when the poorest are getting richer.

Ultimately we don't anyone to be poor. At current population levels this would probably mean a total collapse of the environment.

Overall, the global population is indeed the root cause of our problems.

junaru2• 2 years ago

are you not saying that it may be better that 10 poor people are not born, than for rich people to do minor changes to their lifestyle?

I definitely would say that and would argue it needs to be way more than 10.

If you want to solve manmade climate change you need to solve the demand for goods that cause it. You lower demand by increasing the the supply (can't do that because that increases the emissions you try bringing down) or you increase its price making only the very rich able to afford it and delaying the problem for a decade till population catches up. We already see it with migrant crisis all over the west - both Europe and US.

You do this decade after decade, again and again each time creating more and more privileged cast that can afford it (current policy) and in essence pushing the rest of the civilisation further and further into poverty as they will never catch up and if they do - new legislation will bring them down again to mask the issue once more.

An example of that would be farmers in Europe protesting removal of diesel subsidies or just in general people being able to afford smaller and smaller cars due to taxation in Europe every year.

The problem with these "minor changes to their lifestyle" is that they need to accommodate exponentially growing population that already is a magnitude or more higher than persons who need to adjust.

We are talking about 90%+ reduction in what you call "minor changes" to achieve emission equilibrium to begin with and add that with exponentially growing population and its simply not feasible not due to lack of compassion from top percentile but because changes like these would completely anihilate the modern human civilisation and bringing it back hundreds of years.

As an example theres a very informative video on what happens to country and infrastructure when 4 million people join the power grid in a decade [1] Imagine that scaled to 4 billion and the extreme worldwide devastation.

Population control is the only way to solve climate change and it needs to be reduced everywhere but especially in the undeveloped nations as they have the most potential of bringing everything down.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iiny1GrfhYM

Erratic65764• 2 years ago

Overpopulation isn’t the source of the problem, IMHO. A wild human being in their natural environment pollutes thousands of times less than an industrialised consumer.

Each American or European, whose food is grown thousands of km away, is plenty more only to make their salad. Can they be blamed for their Carbon Footprint^TM? I think we should blame the fossil fuel corporations which have turned us into fuel junkies

lancebeet• 2 years ago

Is that actually true? Nature has a very low capacity per area for "wild humans". I don't think the planet would support anywhere near 8 billion "wild" (hunter-gatherer) humans.

Synaesthesia2• 2 years ago

The big problem is the way that people want US-style lifestyles with big houses and cars. This consumes way more energy than European or Asian style living in apartments with public transport.

Overpopulation will solve itself as countries develop. We’ve seen that over and over.

blkhawk• 2 years ago

nobody specifically wants shitty us style suburban planning with shitty us style houses. Plus it would hard to replicate that because its an artifact of historical cultural and political developments. In short it would be harder to replicate that instead of doing better.

But yes they want a better life for themselves.

throwaway2990• 2 years ago

Asian style living in apartments with public transport.

^ clearly never visited Asia. LOL

lozenge2• 2 years ago

Well, the bulk of them want more meat, washing machines and air conditioning.

The main increase of energy usage has been due to this, not people in urban areas eskewing apartments and public transport to drive cars and live in suburban houses.

https://youtu.be/6sqnptxlCcw?si=FfqAqooG9qg4kejC

Another fun fact: 80% of the world's population has never flown, and only 2-4% fly abroad in a year.

ChatGTP5• 2 years ago

Th USA and other industrialised countries operated with huge emissions because oil and gas were cheap and because no one factored in the externalities. Which includes energy security.

Now that we are seeing a reversal to the status quo, you see the move to more efficient systems moving into full swing. The uptake of renewables is exponential now.

I just renovated and fully insulated my house with cellulose fiber that was actually really cheap, double glazed inner windows and installed floor heating with a hydraulic heat pump. My energy bill is almost nothing of what it used to be and I’ve not installed my solar yet, but I’ll be starting in March.

I did this because the price of gas, kerosene (water boiler) and oil have increased dramatically and the technology to do so exists and is cheap enough to make this investment a no brainer from an economic standpoint. It’s hard to imagine how cheap solar panels are now.

I’m not the only person doing this.

The USA and all other developing countries will adopt all these efficient gains at the same rate. No one is going to pay more for less.

thaumasiotes• 2 years ago

It's taboo to say this, but people worldwide have had far too many children

Taboo? It's stupid. But it's not taboo, it's an incredibly conventional thing to say, and has been for many, many decades.

yungporko6• 2 years ago

i don't think overpopulation is the problem, but maybe it's a symptom. the problem is we've forced our way up to an unrealistically high standard of living which is completely unsustainable, and now we're trapped in an inescapable death spiral because nobody wants to go back.

people aren't willing to stop paying for conveniences because they're cheaply available, corporations aren't willing to stop selling them because there's a demand for it and money to be made, and governments aren't willing to force anybody's hand because the people and corporations will both force them out of power if they try.

there is absolutely no chance of breaking out of it other than giving up on democracy, but that will only happen when modern society collapses entirely, which will be far too late to prevent unimaginable suffering on a massive scale.

okr2• 2 years ago

Yea, yea, people making their life better is now the reason. We must all live in poverty, because that is the natural state, where we obey the needs of nature. Nature is healing!! And for that we need to abandon demoncracy.

And the leader should be who? Of course you, because only you know the solution! Cheeky ;)

mytailorisrich4• 2 years ago

Whether standards of living are sustainable depend on how many people live that way.

Obviously they are not unsustainable in absolute terms but only when too many people live that way compared to the planetary capacity.

So population is inescapably key because we want everyone to have high standards of living.

lacrimacida3• 2 years ago

Even if it all grinds to a halt tomorrow, at this point it won’t make a difference anymore. It’s the end of an era, possibly of civilization too, at least this particular flavor of it.

jdthedisciple7• 2 years ago

"Standards of living" are not some kind of homogeneous global state.

The true hard pill to swallow is that YOUR (and a few others') standard of living is unsustainable.

haizhung• 2 years ago

It’s not really taboo, it is being mentioned in, like, the comments on every 2nd post on climate change.

The problem with this line of thinking (and similar ones like „what about China?“) is that it basically absolves you from any responsibility in the matter. After all, there are simply too many people on the planet, what could you possibly do about it?

As other commenters pointed out - the west uses way too many resources compared to their population, and that is a problem.

And it is absolutely possible to have a society that doesn’t drain the planet dry, but not with capitalism :-)

12736114• 2 years ago

I'm super super low carbon footprint, personally. All ARM-based computers here, just Raspberry PIs and tablets, that can run from a portable solar panel if I want. Very few possessions too. I love coding and freedom so much more that having stuff. And even more so when doing so in the forest, amongst nature.

bagels2• 2 years ago

As a westerner, the most impactful thing you can do is to not create more westerners.

Aerroon3• 2 years ago

We also hitched a large portion of government spending and the economy to the population pyramid. If we don't have growth then we're in trouble.

12736114• 2 years ago

And in the really long term that's completely unsustainable. So it's like a pyramid scheme scam, it requires a constant influx of new entrants. Whilst destroying the planet.

I guess people even have their pension funds tied up into the system, so nearly everyone is forced to participate in it, against their wishes even.

Update: Something to back that up: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/04/05/the-worl...

MrPatan• 2 years ago

It's not taboo in the slightest, it's everywhere.

It's just that it wouldn't work because any group defecting and having more children would inherit the earth and you'd be back to square one, only now not even in control.

It's the same mistake as every other decel "solution".

It's so obvious, and so unbelievable that proponents don't think of it that one has to wonder, who pushes this? Qui bono?

sanroot99• 2 years ago

I think not having egalitarian destribution of resources is real problem rather then overpopulation. Becoz as we see very few have most carbon footprint.

ChatGTP5• 2 years ago

Everybody is gaining access to lower carbon tech, renewables, heat pumps, electric cars etc at the same rate. It doesn’t matter about rich people.

guyomes• 2 years ago

I believe that overpopulation is the root of the sustainability crisis

This has been studied long time ago by scientists such as Alfred Sauvy [1], who concluded that overpopulation is not the cause of sustainability crisis, and that greenhouse gas is the major cause. In particular, limiting the growth of population has few impact on the production of greenhouse gas, whereas changing the means of energy production and consumption is much more impactful.

Moreover the world population is expected to be less than 12 billions in 2100 [2], which is plainly sustainable. This is mostly due to the demographic transition, a pattern observed in most countries, where the fertility rates decrease over time. More specifically I recommend the excellent book of Emmanuel Todd and Youssef Courbage on this subject [3]. The authors argue that in most countries throughout history, when both the majority of men and the majority of women know how to read and write, then the fertility rate decreases, and a revolution becomes imminent.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Sauvy

[2] https://www.un.org/en/desa/world-population-projected-reach-...

[3] https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-convergence-of-civilizations...

lozenge2• 2 years ago

Sustainable means different things to different people.

In a simulator, could you have 12 billion people with their needs met, living fulfilled lives and continuing into the far future? Yes.

Is there a political and practical way to reach that state? No. "One study estimates it would take just over 5 Earths to support the human population if everyone’s consumption patterns were similar to the average American." Any US government that tried to bring America's environmental footprint down to a sustainable or fair level would be voted out. It doesn't matter whether it would be gas taxes, meat taxes, per mile taxes, flight taxes, carbon tax and dividend, building renewable energy in less developed countries, or any other scheme. It doesn't matter if it was targeted at the ultra rich or the middle class. The sheer scale of it would cause Americans to vote out the government. And the same is true for any democracy and plenty of the non-democracies too.

magicalhippo• 2 years ago

which is plainly sustainable

Plainly sustainable without fossil fuels? From what I can gather, the majority of farming, construction and transportation (including of farmed goods) relies heavily on fossil fuels.

12736114• 2 years ago

It's not sustainable because the more people they are, the worse their living conditions will be. Look at how densely populated Asia is. Does everyone want to live like this? Overcrowding is also not good for our mental health.

matheusmoreira3• 2 years ago

And that taboo is probably rooted in evolutionary psychology

No. It's because it inevitably puts you in the position of deciding who gets to have children while the rest are denied such privileges for the good of the species.

In other words, eugenics.

RankingMember4• 2 years ago

When I think of reducing the population I think simply of making birth control universally free and public information campaigns about the environmental cost of more humans. Nothing more than that, and that'd honestly be a huge step in a country where large swaths support abstinence-only sex education.

ChatGTP5• 2 years ago

thought experiment, if the whole world migrated to nuclear energy and electric cars in the seventies would you still be touting the same rot ?

efitz• 2 years ago

TL;DR

Climate models are showing that a parameter (ECS aka “climate sensitivity”) has been increasing since 2019. This parameter determines how much temperature increase can be expected if atmospheric CO2 doubles.

jansan2• 2 years ago

I find it very confusing that this is supposed to be new knowledge. Shouldn't the correlation bewtween CO2 concentration and greenhouse effect been researched and simulated to death by now?

oezi6• 2 years ago

TFA explains this. As models got better and CO2 rose more and more it was realized that the old models lacked important aspects of cloud reflectivity.

peterashford• 2 years ago

did you watch the video?

paulmd• 2 years ago

it’s a complex system and you can’t experimentally test the effect of changing specific values, so everything is tremendously confounded.

and it turns out that by building in a strong preference towards the null hypothesis, science has tended to dramatically understate both the amount of emission, the amount they matter, and the feedback loops that can amplify this further.

like yea it has been simulated to death but everyone wanted to whistle past the graveyard and so those simulations had drastically optimistic assumptions built into them such that we are likely to crash through what was only a decade or two ago considered the “worst case scenario” by a decent sized multiple.

And frankly the root cause is really the people who go “I find this very confusing, don’t you have this all figured out by now? wasn’t it supposed to be global cooling in the 70s???”, the process was built around appeasing you so you didn’t dismiss the whole thing as alarmist and it turns out the process was built in a way that produced (unsurprisingly) over-optimistic results. The models missed low largely because royal-you wanted to play skeptic 30 years ago.

(And no, “global cooling” was never a thing and the idea that it was is more fossil-fuel propaganda and marketing. Even noaa is uncharacteristically blunt about this.) https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf

317070• 2 years ago

Not quite. We don't know the correct value for the ECS, and estimates for that value have been increasing in the last 5 years. Higher sensitivity means a higher temperature per extra carbon in the air.

kkfx2• 2 years ago

My personal take, witch I call a rational one:

- I choose for MANY reasons, climate is one of them, not the topmost but still one of them, to leave a big city toward the mountains, choosing a place locally hydrogeologically stable (meaning no landslide can reach my home, no flood as well, nothing tall enough to fall onto it and so on);

- I still IGNORE both the climate change and the climate "deniers" narrative because I consider both PROPAGANDA. I mean I do not care if actual climate change, I see well (meaning it exists no extra proof needed for me), is due to anthropic activities or natural cycles or both in various percentage simply because even if the cause is 100% anthropic and we can cease now all relevant activities this would not produce significant results in less than SOME centuries, simply no matter the causes we need to ADAPT;

Now the biggest issue: both parties the "climate scared" and the "climate deniers" spit emotions but reject rationality. Most climate scared gossip about adding rooftop solar (typically while they live, in apartments), need to ditch cars for walking or cycling nearby in 15' cities (typically refusing the argument that anyone eat, in cities and in countryside, but in cities live many so there is a big need of food and no production, meaning that for allowing people to live in 15' cities a big and typically not green logistic much bigger than the countryside is needed) while most climate deniers state we can go on classic diesel for 500+ years rejecting tha claim that banally we experience raw materials issues since some years with less and less new big discovery an year after another an even if we have still much oil changing away from it take decades.

Long story short people do not want any real change, so one act as classic reactionaries, other as classic futurists who dream a future, but refuse to really think and design it to make it real.

My take is simple: we need to relocate an enormous mass of humans from some now inhabited areas to some others, not tomorrow morning but also not for the next century, and such big change means typically wars, disasters, famine and so on, planning and moving calmly a cohort at a time means SOME chances to get it done without enormous amount of spilled blood. Very little is done in that sense. The probable result is that nothing change until the immediate emergency level where things get done in a rush, some profit very much, many starve and die. The best I can is try to be as much as I can aside. I do not have a personal space station, fully autonomous and capable of rebuild itself when needed to watch from the orbit so...

There is no point wasting nerve energy for a fact I can't deal with more than that. There is no point in trying convincing a mass of Lebonian crowd (cfr. Gustave Le Bon writing on the crowds) who is actually already polarized in two opposite groups, already fighting each others.

thinkingtoilet• 2 years ago

I still IGNORE both the climate change and the climate "deniers" narrative because I consider both PROPAGANDA.

I choose to ignore the majority of experts in the field as well as the people on facebook equally! I'm so enlightened!

kkfx2• 2 years ago

In what field? Because what is on the headlines is in the field of PRs, witch are the same kind of those who nourish certain cohort of "believers" like those of the flat earth. If you analyze their readers you'll find they are the very same ascientific kind.

Beside that, beside the classic Francis Galton experiment, beside Gustave Le Bon observation about the crowds, also the experts crowds, beside the history of Eduard Bernays campaigns, like those for the tobacco industry who makes many doctors believe smoking is good for health, try to LOGICALLY reason with your own knowledge. When the "modern climate change" start to happen for you? Perhaps DECADES ago? That how much "anthropic emissions" was made since them? How much can they change in the near future? Beside that ALL TIMES you here "we need to be quick" what does it means in practice? Maybe doing something before having the time to reason about up front?

If for you the "climate believers" narrative is The Truth and that they are "all the experts" while the others are just foolish unacculturated people from some social network well, you are a believer of some kind of religion, not differently than the believers of the flat earth.

Not counting that, your recipe than is what? Remain sit watching the TV about how important is switching to a heat pump, perhaps without doing it in person, just hearing and reverberating to others? For me there is no enlightenment of wokeism but mere logic: I choose to move from a big city to a mountain area, I built a new home so with the current design and tech, not because "it's my contribution to a cause" but because summing MANY aspects I've decide that's the most opportune/wise choice I have. Meanwhile I've also put a modern wood stove (meaning airtight, sucking air from the outside to ventilate the flame chamber) in the new home, because while I have p.v. and a small LFP storage I prefer having a more reliable backup WHEN, not if, I'll need it. I'm an engineer and I call it logic. Nothing more, nothing less while observing in modern gear how much "not at all experts" are those who have designed most of such gears simply because they do not have them in person at home, so they ignore countless real world cases not easy evidently to grasp at a project level. They dumb thing like a p.v. "integrated" EV charger that actually hyper-flawed because those who have designed it have never try to use it to actually really trying charging from p.v.

Modified3019• 2 years ago

Please consider whether this type of post raises or detracts from the quality of the culture here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

horns4lyfe2• 2 years ago

So realistically is most of the climate talk you hear directly from scientists, or from reporters looking for clicks giving you their interpretation of the data?

SebFender2• 2 years ago

I never worried about it, but do worry about science lacking the knowledge of millions of years of climate change being put into a few hundred.

anonymouskimmer• 2 years ago

I don't quite get your point? Assuming I'm interpreting it correctly:

https://www.bas.ac.uk/data/our-data/publication/ice-cores-an...

: The oldest continuous ice core records to date extend 123,000 years in Greenland and 800,000 years in Antarctica. Ice cores contain information about past temperature, and about many other aspects of the environment. Crucially, the ice encloses small bubbles of air that contain a sample of the atmosphere – from these it is possible to measure directly the past concentration of atmospheric gases, including the major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

And fossil records go back further with respect to more general climate conditions capable of sustaining various species.

But regardless, changing the climate status quo in a short time will have various impacts, only some of which we can accurately predict and model.

SebFender2• 2 years ago

That's exactly my point. Having studied it - what you're telling us represents about 0.025%.

Never would I take a stance at such a low percentage - it isn't representative.

Even after millions of years, it isn't a significant portion of what climate is and was.

julienreszka4• 2 years ago

I never worry because fear and anxiety shrinks the brain and makes you stupid. If you rely on intelligence for your work why would you ever allow something to make you anxious.

speedgoose• 2 years ago

    - "I’m anxious"
    - "Don’t be anxious"
    - …

julienreszka4• 2 years ago

What is stoicism

imtringued2• 2 years ago

Why would anyone trust their survival instincts?

They must be really dumb.

julienreszka4• 2 years ago

It's not a secret that propagandists hijack survival instincts for psychological manipulation:

  - emotional appeal
  - us/them
  - simplifications of complex issues
  - repetition and consistency
  - perceived threads

Don't let your primitive instincts take over

jwilk• 2 years ago

Direct link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9sDyooxf4

dang5• 2 years ago

We eventually changed the URL to that above. Thanks!

alexvoda4• 2 years ago

@dang Is it just my impression that HN is drifting rigtwards on this topic? I remember HN being more in favour of proactive action against anthropic climate change. This thread feels dominated by attitudes reflecting inaction.

tonyedgecombe2• 2 years ago

It feels orchestrated, just like every recent post on EV's.

johnchristopher5• 2 years ago

Hmm. I think a lot of people who were silent about their positions on this topic are much more inclined to say them out loud now, even on websites like HN. Not that they are right though.

As for the reasons why I have (like anyone else) two or three ideas.

And whatever it is, it ain't making me feel optimist about what's to come.

kleiba2• 2 years ago

The whole Western world has shifted rightwards in recent years as can be witnessed in election results.

vladms• 2 years ago

Politics works in cycles and maybe we are seeing the backlash of a lot of people starting believing in climate issues. Now that actions start being taken, people not caring about climate start pushing back because they need to change their lifestyle, and some parties (right wing/populists) promise them nothing has to change.

I think though that is getting harder and harder to ignore actual climate issues (storms, floods, heat), wonder what will be these parties next claim to convince voters "is the left wing/immigrants that generated the floods?"...

chii2• 2 years ago

it's because the left has been attempting to make progress too fast, without regard to the people who lean towards the right as tho their point of view is universally regarded as being wrong. Reactionary politics is real, and the left ought to be more aware.

Leaning towards left (aka progressive) is good, but if you're not paying a cost for it, someobody else is - and it's likely someone leaning right that's being forced to do so. They're not gonna like it regardless if whether it's generally a good thing.

treflop• 2 years ago

This is an unsupported shower thought but I suspect societies become more right when times are not as good.

You support immigration if you have a stable job and own a house but you don’t if you are getting laid off and aren’t sure what you next job will be.

And it seems most of Earth has lately been in a rougher place.

donum3• 2 years ago

The whole Western world? It seems mostly men, not women: https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1ac0...

konschubert• 2 years ago

Im not dang but I would like to share a hypothesis why this maybe isn’t so terrible.

The thing that always stood between the world and climate action was the fact that fossil fuels were the best energy source.

Since a few years, the tables have turned and solar seems to be marching towards absolute dominance.

So there isn’t much to do in terms of political climate action, since the incentives are now mostly economical.

I agree though, the extend to how people are happy to just roll over and accept that the world will go down with them is surprising.

andbberger2• 2 years ago

The thing that always stood between the world and climate action was the fact that fossil fuels were the best energy source.

this has not been true since 1951

skitout2• 2 years ago

1) there are still trillions of "subsidies" (that includes some negative externalities)to fossil fuel each year according to IMF (IMF, not Greenpeace!).

2) Agents in the current system have incentives to prioritize short term benefits over longer term benefits. And a lot of climate related things are short term cost/investment for "profitable" long term benefits ; the current system sucks big time in this configuration.

3) The people having the least negative impact from climate change are the countries emitting the most greenhouse gas. The countries the more negatively impacted by climate change are countries contributing the least to climate change. There is a big misalignment of interest there making a purely "free market" "economical" solution difficult.

4) There are a lot of case in the real world were there is a strong economical incentive to switch to something different and were the different agents just don't... Because people don't want to change, because there can be some particular interest in the system, because of political motive... Human is not a rational animal, and his rationality is not only dictated by money

5) We need to do more than just switching from fossil to "green electricity"

resoluteteeth• 2 years ago

Im not dang but I would like to share a hypothesis why this maybe isn’t so terrible.
The thing that always stood between the world and climate action was the fact that fossil fuels were the best energy source.
Since a few years, the tables have turned and solar seems to be marching towards absolute dominance.
So there isn’t much to do in terms of political climate action, since the incentives are now mostly economical.

If we could put climate change on hold for 50 years we would probably be in pretty good shape, because in 50 years we will probably have enough renewable energy that we can just decide to stop burning (most) oil.

But in the real world, in 2024 we haven't actually reduced emissions at all yet, and the possibility of cutting down emissions in 50 years isn't enough.

It's true that in that sense we aren't that far from a scenario that "isn't so terrible" but that seems more like an ironic fact than something that should be comforting.

Because of the way climate change works, the future possibility of reducing emissions simply isn't enough if we aren't actually currently reducing emissions when we would really need to be at approximately zero right now to fix the problem.

badpun5• 2 years ago

Is that wrong? Is only one narrative allowed in a discussion (it's not a discussion then is it?).

subtra3t2• 2 years ago

You being downvoted only furthur proves your point.

donum3• 2 years ago

Left wing politics wants freedom and equality for all while right wing only want it for some. Makes no sense to discuss, lefties are correct and right wing people are either benefiting directly from the abuse ($$$) or are just stupid and believe all bullshit without using their brain.

CalRobert9• 2 years ago

I notice a surprising unwillingness to consider that the situation may be, in fact, terrible, and the arguments are usually "well changing lifestyles is impractical" at though the current status quo is sustainable.

jesterson3• 2 years ago

May be, in fact terrible, ot may be, in fact, absolutely normal.

Those are emotional definitions having absolutely nothing in common with the situation

hnthroaway992• 2 years ago

How did the lyrics to that song go? And when you ask them, "How much should we give?" Hoo, they only answer, "More, more more more!"

I gave up any hope of having meaningful relationships with other people in the name of building a good career in my life because that's what my parents wanted from me. I got into pistol shooting because it was primarily a solo activity.

Then the government passed laws decreeing that handguns have no place in civilized society. So I wanted to get into motorcycles. But that's just wrong because CO2 emissions. Now I'm being told that having space for myself, for a work from home office is wrong too because we need to increase density for the sake of efficiency.

Meanwhile price my groceries has went from $60 what I paid for in 2019 to $110 for that same bag of food. A small bag of flour went from $2.50 to $5 this year. Rice has gone from $14 to $22 for a large bag. And rent has became mad in many ways; last year average rent in this city was $1450 a month. This year, it's $1700 a month.

Then you've got one side that's yelling that we need to transition cars to electric but the nearest one to what you have is $20,000 more. And you're being told that we need to be looking at a way to get rid of the terrible CO2 emitting gas furnace for something more efficient like a heat pump. But the heat pump that can handle our climate is $15,000 to install.

Then they ban single use plastics like bags because of the issue of microplastics. And it annoys you but at this point it doesn't overly matter because you can't afford to eat out as much anymore anyways. But you're lucky enough to be able to afford rent and food, because you know people that are asking food banks for anything and being told the wait times are now at least 1 to 2 weeks because of the number of people in front of them waiting for food too.

All that verbal diarrhea to say... I'm tired. I'm tired of being told that it's my fault the world is screwed up. I'm tired of seeing seeing the roads I took to whatever little stability I have now being closed behind me. Tired of it seeming like that at some point in my future, the only thing I'll have left to enjoy will be the jab of a syringe full of heroin.

Overly dramatic yeah. It doesn't make any sense but it's how I feel. Dunno if it's anyone else that feels like this way, be a little surprised if it's really just me.

CatWChainsaw3• 2 years ago

It's not surprising. The average demographic of this site is a laptop-class worker whose work and passion is only made possible by a nearly incomprehensible foundation of thousands of years of infrastructure to build off of, who lives very comfortably, fancying themselves humanity's pioneers and dreaming of a singularity within their lifetimes. They've been told it's inexorable, so they think they're entitled to it. Snatching not only that dream away but their entire set of assumptions about how this civilization can't possibly collapse (even though many have in the past) because we're more enlightened or something? Literally can't compute, won't compute.

hgomersall• 2 years ago

I think it's the time. I've noticed the comments change tone at the weekend.

matheusmoreira3• 2 years ago

I'm not interested in "fighting" climate change while the entire western world is busy burning gasoline and trading with China.

globular-toast3• 2 years ago

Aging userbase? People get to a certain age, realise they'll probably outlive problems then just start campaigning for whatever will give them the best rest of their life. Seems to kick in quite early now too, like 35.

abenga3• 2 years ago

It feels far more rapid, e.g. try to find all highly upvoted posts about EVs over the last couple of months. It feels (anecdotally) that they have been increasingly more negative recently.

realusername• 2 years ago

@dang Is it just my impression that HN is drifting rigtwards on this topic?

Of course it does, telling people that they have to reduce fossil fuel use directly means that they are part of the problem, people really don't like that.

jdthedisciple7• 2 years ago

And what if??

Why are you @-ing dang as if his job is to maintain some kind of particular consensus in order to ... idk, support some kind of political narrative? Hah!

alexvoda4• 2 years ago

Because he moderates this place and therefore is orders of magnitudes more knowledgeable about trends on HN. Next in line are people scraping and researching HN.

JackMorgan• 2 years ago

Perhaps it's time for a tweak on an old classic: "It is difficult to get a person to understand the severity of climate change, when their comfort depends upon them not believing it."

I similarly am quite surprised to scroll past ten top voted comments all just saying slight variations of "I used to care, but now I don't" followed by some "whataboutism".

Almost like this whole post has been astroturfed. I'm not even sure though it is.

I think the US in particular is experiencing mental whiplash to how bad it really is and how much comfort the whole planet has to give up to prevent it.

Can we bring the planet back into equilibrium, absolutely. But I think many people over 20 have absolutely no interest in it. They want a solution that won't change their standard of living, which won't happen.

I expect the governments of the world to be toppled or redirected by the next two generations as they can clearly see how drastically everything is changing.

corethree• 2 years ago

Anecdotally I think the zoomers are more this way. It's not HN. HN is just reflecting the change happening on the outside.

dang5• 2 years ago

I really don't know. It's possible. If there is such a trend, I wouldn't necessarily call it 'rightwards' because there is always a range of different factors and left vs. right is only one.

All I can tell you for sure is that perceptions of trends on HN are usually unreliable. You definitely can't judge it by one thread. The Launch HN posts of startups working in climate tech generally get favorable receptions, for example.

alexvoda4• 2 years ago

Thank you for the answer.

I do realize HN trends are unreliable. As a few others who replied, it felt peculiarly acute in this thread, but my impression was not based merely on this thread, but on several such 'huh' moments in the past two years. While HN always felt somewhat heterogeneous and still does, compared to 7-10 years ago, to me it feels that there is relatively more science contrarianism or even denialism with regards to climate, vaccination, etc., more subthreads derailing into religion because someone justified some strongly held position upthread using religion and more socially/culturally conservative attitudes. These are things which for lack of a better term I labeled a rightward trend in the USA sense of the word. In my unreliable memory, I remember HN being mainly economically right leaning and culturally left leaning which mirrors the corporate environment which found it much easier and cheaper to gain good will points that way. In retrospect, the pandemic feels kinda like an inflexion point (both HN wide and society wide).

I also have a limited POV into HN, for example I never really looked at the Launch HN threads (for the simple reason that most focus on the USA, at least in early stages, while I am in eastern EU) so I never really got those data points. With no real data and just remembered personal anecdotes is is hard for me to tell if this was merely an illusion or things haven't changed but I have become more aware of these aspects or whether the trend is real. Others in this subthread have proposed explanations for the trend and I think several theories can be found both society wide and HN wide. But while we do have some evidence the trend is real society wide, I thought it worth checking if the it is true HN wide before hypothesising explanations. Also, (compared to FB for example which we know captured a certain cohort and is aging along with it) with HN allowing easy account creation and throwaway accounts I think it is hard to accurately measure how well the HN sample reflects the population of society at large (we do at least know there is a heavy US-centric bias for obvious reasons).

I wish there was a reliable political alignment text classifier I could use to science this.

I am disappointed to see some have interpreted this inquiry on my part as me trying to police the thread.

pk-protect-ai15• 2 years ago

I no longer worry. I'm extremely pessimistic about the impending climate change. I believe Sabine isn't pessimistic enough about what to anticipate. Consider the tundra methane emissions and the explosive release of methane-hydrates from the oceans, along with water vapor, a potent greenhouse gas. The disaster looming over all ecosystems (a mass extinction event) that will happen in decades and the doom-phase could last for 200,000 years. The chances of humanity surviving are incredibly slim, IMO. We can't colonize Greenland or Antarctica due to the lack of fertile soil, and it would take thousands of years to develop it. Without saying so, we don't have this amount of time.

vasco3• 2 years ago

I think extreme doomers like this create a shitty world to live in where you're surrounded by people that adopted an extreme "nothing matters the world is doomed soon" perspective that is depressing.

CalRobert9• 2 years ago

Ok, but are they wrong?

paulcole2• 2 years ago

It’s funny how tech bros pretend to be ultra-rational about anything they like to think about and “oh just look on the bright side” on the things that makes them a little sad.

PheonixPharts2• 2 years ago

"nothing matters the world is doomed soon"

What you're describing is people experiencing grief. I'm what you would call an "extreme doomer", and did feel this way about a decade ago when I first realized the dire situation we are in.

But your first reaction is not the end. Waking up and accepting our state, and the despair that came with it, was the first stage in a long process of learning to live, and be comfortable in the world the way it is.

What you are suggesting is that we just ignore grief and pretend nothing is happening. I suppose this is just the denial stage of grieving, but it's worth recognizing that the people you know feeling this way are working through a process.

Pretending that someone isn't dead isn't a long term solution to accepting loss, even if it means in the short term you are in a dark place emotionally. It's unfortunately it upsets you to see people experiencing this, but those people, given enough time, might be in a better place to help you when you finally have to let go of denial.

12736114• 2 years ago

This might just be the same thing as apocalyptic religious predictions, I think? But environmentalism this time?

mitthrowaway2• 2 years ago

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/25/is-everything-a-religi...

But that said, religious apocalypse scenarios usually aren't quite as specific as "methane hydrate runaway feedbacks".

fulafel2• 2 years ago

Depends a lot on your relationship with religion. For some religious people, yes.

In fact religious belief in apocalypse might contribute to the apathy about climate policy from the voters, people can either conflate the two or think the religious apocalypse is nearer so no need to address the climate catastrophe: https://www.newsweek.com/shocking-number-americans-believe-l...

adrianN4• 2 years ago

Religious predictions never come with data to support them. That’s an important difference.

bsdpufferfish2• 2 years ago

Exactly people are even using phrases like “when shit hits the fan”.

jhoechtl• 2 years ago

I am glad that I survived oil outage, sour rain, the Ozone hole, mass famine because of overpopulation. All in a lifetime. I must have had sheer luck.

quickthrower24• 2 years ago

A bear is chasing you. “Glad I survived crossing a dangerous road, smoking a cigarette and unprotected sex”

adrianN4• 2 years ago

There was massive concerted effort to stop acid rain and ozone depletion. Maybe we should try that for the climate crisis if we want similar success at preventing catastrophe.

slaw3• 2 years ago

Recently I survived covid exponential deaths apocalypse and Al Gore's sea levels rising in 2016.

getlawgdon• 2 years ago

Your list is a 1.75. What's occurring and coming fast is a 9.9. Thanks for sharing the kind of naivete that helped get us here.

paulcole2• 2 years ago

Also you’re in what, likely the top 10-20% of the wealthiest people on Earth?

baq2• 2 years ago

Yeah, but are you building a bunker in Hawaii? Because Mark Zuckerberg is building a bunker in Hawaii.

flir6• 2 years ago

We can't colonize Greenland or Antarctica due to the lack of fertile soil

Just on this example, you can physically pick soil up and move it. Enough for 9bn people? No. Enough for 100k? Yes.

pvaldes7• 2 years ago

Or just keep your intestine working actively

If the sea is fertile the soil can be hacked to be fertile. Any seabird could tell us how

But this is not the problem. The sea level will raise

pk-protect-ai15• 2 years ago

I've thought about this as well. It's feasible to move soil only to certain regions. Greenland and Antarctica aren't among them (remember the ice shields; they will continue to scrape all the soil as they melt). Some islands in Antarctic Ocean could potentially sustain a population of 20-40k. However, you need to start moving the soil now, but you will also need to develop methods of preserving this soil until it is needed, because right now it will be useless and it will be eroded by wind and hydro factors. What might happen is a gradual migration towards the poles on the Americas and Eurasia, moving the soil as migration progresses. This will be bloody and ruthless. But none of these solutions take into account the "exponent", and there is no way to forecast if a Venus atmosphere scenario will occur or not due to the water vapor.

Edit: good point in the next comment, expect sea levels rising for at least 10m.

adrianN4• 2 years ago

Humanity is quite resilient. I’m confident that we’ll survive. However I’m much more pessimistic about technological civilization surviving.

wkjagt2• 2 years ago

There’s more than just humans and their tech here to worry about though. I get so depressed when I hear people describe the gravity of climate change only in terms of the chance of survival of us humans.

throw_pm233• 2 years ago

That's the only silver lining. Finally people stop staring at their phones, and restaurants get rid of this QR-code nonsense.

krimskrams• 2 years ago

I get what you're saying. Although I find that referring to humanity as a collective, or using "we" as in "we are in this together" in discussions like these runs the risk of homogenising human societies into one, even though a large part of humanity's historical impacts on the environment has been heterogeneous (i.e., industrial revolution beginning in Western societies). You can find the same criticism surrounding the term "Anthropocene" in academic and general settings.

Countries such as Pakistan and Pacific island countries that have contributed the least to climate change are among the most impacted, which is why two questions (among many others) have loomed climate politics over the past 30 years: "Where does the liability fall?" (Ex: loss and damage fund) and "How can I, as a country, be in a better position within a global crisis?" (Ex: disagreement over the global warming potential of non-CO2 emissions due to different chosen time horizons between countries; GWP100 vs. GWP*; this greatly affects carbon accounting in agricultural countries that rely on cattle for instance)

hnmullany2• 2 years ago

Climate change is a catastrophe, but it's not going to be the apocalypse and if we keep working on mititgation, there is a good chance it will merely be a "normal" scale disaster.

For example - it's possible that tundra methane emissions in many areas could be mitigated relatively quickly by the regrowth of birch and pine scrubland whose increased evapotranspiration will reduce water tables and eliminate methane emissions. And aboveground carbon sequestration in woody tree mass could outweigh losses from belowground oxidation. This already occurs in fenlands in Southern Finland (paper I read)

We don't know enough about methane hydrates to assess their stability.

Many ecosystems will be reasonably resilient to climate change - maybe up to 2/3 of them, although some specific species groups like tropical amphibians are going to have a really bad time.

pk-protect-ai15• 2 years ago

What was that story about a frog which was slowly boiled in a pot and didn't know it about it until it was too late?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7069279/

evandijk70• 2 years ago

Not a biologist, but won't the tropical amphibians migrate away from the equator? It seems to me that polar bears and penguins have bigger problems

badpun5• 2 years ago

We can't colonize Greenland or Antarctica due to the lack of fertile soil, and it would take thousands of years to develop it.

I wonder if it would be possible to rip soil off places that are no longer habitable and transport it to Antarctica.

pk-protect-ai15• 2 years ago

It's all about timing. You need the ice shields to be gone before you deploy the new soil; otherwise, it will be scraped or eroded. You also need to consider rising sea levels. You may need to think about bringing the soil first and storing it there until it's usable. Otherwise, you could lose it.

rad_gruchalski• 2 years ago

We can't colonize Greenland

But we can dig it up fast enough ro build all those batteries we need.

refurb4• 2 years ago

Humanity not surviving? That seems completely unlinked to any sort of scientific consensus.

pk-protect-ai15• 2 years ago

Oh... How many mass extinction events have humanity survived as a species so far? I would also like to see this data... pretty please?

slibhb2• 2 years ago

The IPCC 6 says "It is very unlikely that gas clathrates (mostly methane) in deeper terrestrial permafrost and subsea clathrates will lead to a detectable departure from the emissions trajectory during this century".

Your pessimism may be trendy but it isn't supported by the bear available evidence.

pk-protect-ai15• 2 years ago

Don't misunderstand me here. I'd rather be wrong regarding my "doomism," and I no longer worry about climate change; it doesn't make sense to worry about something that can't be changed. However, I observe that people aren't scared enough to take action. They continue to dance around the issue in political euphoria. The changes to our lifestyle are happening too slowly to be effective. The gas and oil industry is doing a lot of carbon emission washing, like CSS. Many optimists argue, "We can't predict it, therefore we shouldn't be worried."

specialist• 2 years ago

Now refute ocean acidification and burning forests.

Geee3• 2 years ago

There won't be an extinction event. We already know that warm periods in Earth's history are the most friendly for all kinds of life. And we know that cold periods kill species and reduce biodiversity. In the most catastrophic case Earth will end up as a tropical paradise, resembling the Eocene period [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene#Flora

naasking2• 2 years ago

This is naive. It's not the absolute temperature that's the problem, it's the rate of change. Temperature is going to change faster than most species can adapt, and that's why the food chain could collapse in the worst case.

PheonixPharts2• 2 years ago

The paleontologist Peter Ward has made a fairly compelling argument (in both academic research and the popular science book Under a Green Sky), that virtually all major extinction events are related to sudden rises in atmospheric CO2. A lot more happens when CO2 rises quickly other than it getting warmer. A major issue is it's impact on the oceans, which can become anoxic [0], causing them to emit hydrogen sulfide instead of oxygen. Such an event would be devastating to our current ecosystem.

There won't be an extinction event.

This also ignores the fact that we are currently in the 6th largest extinction event in the history of life on this planet [1]. Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction is a great book on this (and the history of our understanding of species extinction as well).

So aside for being naive about the science, your comment reads a bit like claiming you don't think it will rain today while in the midst of being soaked in a massive rain storm.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

attachedhead• 2 years ago

Two things can be true at the same time:

1. significantly increased amount of 'life' on earth (as in: total kg of biomass, number of living specimens, total area with some amount of green stuff on it) due to warmer climate.

2. significantly reduced number of extant species on earth due to (geologically) fast changes in climate.

Edit: formating.

VerminOctopus1• 2 years ago

We are already in the midst of a massive extinction event. It’s called the holocene extinction, you can research it. There is an ongoing collapse of biodiversity at a rapid rate.

jgilias• 2 years ago

Yes, and the inhabitants of this new tropical Earth will do recreational dives to see the ruins of the places where the vast majority of people live now.

throwuwu• 2 years ago

You don’t need soil, you need fertilizer and water. We farm outside now because it’s cheap. If you move to a temporarily inhospitable place then farming outside is no longer cheap so it is better to do it inside or in outdoor hydroponic or aeroponic systems if the weather is nice enough.

aik• 2 years ago

2 questions:

1. How does this perspective affect you today? Is it debilitating? Depressing? Affect your wellbeing and productivity?

2. What do you believe is the probability of what you say here? Estimate with a percentage.

Does the unknown associated to the percentage in #2 make the perspective rational and helpful?

Version4673• 2 years ago

There’s a new book from Hannah Ritchie called „Not the end of the world“, that argues for optimism, without denying the reality of the situation. It’s a fantastic book and I highly recommend it.

whoknowsidont2• 2 years ago

The whole premise of the book is a multi-layered hail mary, or a hail mary that continually plays out like a jackpot based on vibes and misconstruing the forces that are causing climate change.

Not sure why you'd call this "fantastic" other than it's a feel-good book without any evidence to support it.

Carbon emissions per capita are actually down [1]

It takes maybe 2 minutes, maybe upwards of 10, to realize why this is completely silly. I would expect most highschoolers in stats to rip this apart. Does anyone need to devote time to debunk this? Why? You can ask ChatGPT.

Average figures can mask significant inequalities within countries. In many countries, a small percentage of the population may be responsible for a large portion of emissions, while the majority have very low carbon footprints.

If you don't understand why this negates your comment out right should I start quoting 2Pac?

ChatGTP5• 2 years ago

Unfortunately you’ve done very little to refute the claims yourself.

mycologos2• 2 years ago

As you've observed, averages can be misleading because they're not robust to outliers. However, this seems most relevant to something like income, where we're interested in "most people" and don't care so much about the one ultra-rich person in the sample.

This appears to be less true for something like emissions, where the overall total is most relevant -- unless you're arguing that it's masking an "unfair" situation where improvements are coming from one group and should be coming from the other?

Version4673• 2 years ago

You're free to dislike the book, but I can't really follow your criticism. The book is clearly not "based on vibes". It's chock full of data to support the authors claims.

Now you might argue that the data either doesn't support the claims made, or you might doubt its legitimacy, but instead of providing a reason you just told me that it should be obvious why the book is nonsense. That doesn't really give me a lot to engage with and I'm not going to try to make your arguments for you.

For me the Book had its intended effect. It argues that the climate movement, as it gained mainstream popularity, also lost its ability to convey nuance in favor of projecting a strong "we are heading towards certain doom" message. This helped grow the movement, but is also responsible for a lot of young people feeling completely hopeless. That's certainly something I could heavily relate with before reading the book. The book then goes on to highlight areas where the world has made much bigger progress than I would have thought. For me this turned a feeling of intense hopelessness into one of motivation.

So was the Book meant to make me feel good? Sure. In that sense I guess you can call it a feel-good book. Were the claims unsubstantiated and "without any evidence to support" them? Certainly not.

sumek832• 2 years ago

ChatGPT burns quite a lot of energy. We need less of LLMs, not more

cubefox3• 2 years ago

It almost certainly doesn't take the new evidence into account Hossenfelder is talking about.

Version4673• 2 years ago

You're right, it doesn't. But most of the books claims don't depend on a specific climate sensitivity. Climate Change is just one of the chapters. It also covers air pollution, deforestation, agriculture, biodiversity loss, ocean plastics and overfishing.

It combats the notion that we aren't achieving anything regarding long term sustainability because we're unable to coordinate on a global scale, by showcasing that we are not only moving in the right direction in many areas, we're also accelerating.

If Hansen is right and we live in a world with very high climate sensitivity then it's not looking good, but I'd still prefer to live in a world were we make noticeable progress and fall short, than in one were we watch the world turn into an uninhabitable ball of death while doing nothing.

pvaldes7• 2 years ago

Until the war is over, we can't know if exploding things non stop for two years is having a part in making the last years warmer.

The models could be incomplete, or obsolete

lacrimacida3• 2 years ago

Which war? Or wars?

crucialfelix2• 2 years ago

The amount of energy accumulating in the oceans is equivalent to detonating five Hiroshima atomic bombs per second, every second over the past 25 years.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-020-9283-7

pvaldes7• 2 years ago

This does not change what I said.

We had past long time ago the question if is happening or not. What I'm discussing is the "how fast" part.

The sub-question is if the war or wars if you prefer (You all know what I'm talking about) are causing the current wave of claims "I'm worried now but I was not worried yesterday"

I assume that the war is making it faster, but the effect of this particular factor could be temporal. Artifacts happen in science all the time. We don't know if war is a modifier (and in that case if would be a temporary or permanent modifier). I personally suspect that it has an impact. I could be wrong.

PeterisP12• 2 years ago

We could measure the effect of historical wars which exploded a much, much larger quantity of explosives than any current conflict, and assume that the current impact isn't any larger than that.

Like, the intensity of current wars isn't even comparable to that of WW1 or WW2 battles.

pvaldes7• 2 years ago

Or we can be smarter and understand that ecology does not work in absolute terms, most of the time all is relative and buffers are very important

The climate change can be expressed a the result of A+(B+C+D...) factors

Lets assume that A is some allegedly --hypothetical-- effect of the wars exploding bombs and releasing heat in the low atmosphere. If we claim that in World War II the value A was higher and nothing happened (So nothing will happen now), we are forgetting that the "everything else" part was much lower in WWII. Just the number of vehicles circulating was abysmally lower. This invalidates our guarantee, because all in ecology is relative to the current updated situation.

Ecosystems create buffers, the expect results are: not changes/very minor changes seen (buffer worked) or catastrophic change happens (buffer fell). Small amounts of energy released in one ecosystem could trigger noticeable effects in how the energy moves around the planet. As "how the energy moves around the planet" is too long, we created a shorter name for this: "Weather"

Vecr2• 2 years ago

What country is going to take the hit and start the high altitude sulfur spraying? If we even could get the forcing back to what it already was in the recent past that would be a great help.

_y5hn5• 2 years ago

How long would that temporary measure help?

What would that do to acidic rain, global dimming, ecology and agriculture.

Masking the problem will only make it come back harder when measures don't scale up anymore. Then there'll be no time to do much more.

deepsummer• 2 years ago

How long would that temporary measure help?

As long as you do it.

What would that do to acidic rain, global dimming, ecology and agriculture.

Well, it's a trade-off. Is sulfur worse than global warming?

Masking the problem will only make it come back harder

Geo-engineering is not an opportunity to stop phasing out fossils, but a way to get more time for better technology to spread.

goatlover6• 2 years ago

As long as is needed to transition away from burning fossil fuels. You can always put more in high altitude. If half the comments here are right and climate change is truly an apocalyptic threat, then acid rain and global dimming would be worthwhile tradeoffs.

If climate change isn't extremely bad, then maybe it's not worth it. But at some point, if it becomes existential, then all options are on the table.

Vecr2• 2 years ago

Masking the problem will only make it come back harder when measures don't scale up anymore.

If (e.g.) China stops the US can start, or if a small country can't scale up enough more countries can join in. The whole "termination shock" thing is highly overrated, it's solvable with next to no communication at all. Decision rule: if not enough is being sprayed according to your models, make up the difference yourself.

abenga3• 2 years ago

So, replace the slow-crash problem with a more immediately visible acid rain one?

fsdfasdfsf• 2 years ago

Among all religions, worship of the weather god is the worst. It's a literal death worship; and death for the sake of death at that.

cies2• 2 years ago

I used to worry about climate (80s), now I dont (20s).

Why?

1. Too many lies. In the 80s the water level was rising, but it didn't. Then acid rains would kill all, but did not. Then ...

2. I cannot change it. Using fossils (or other tech with big "environmental" impact) is a great way to scale business. The "economy God" is to important to actually go an fix the problem. That why we see no real solutions being implemented and climate agreements being ignored/ not signed.

3. The focus on CO2 is stupid. There are worse problems: fine dust, pollution, disruption of ecosystems. But we now totally focus on CO2 (or CO2-equevalents).

I do have a solution. Remove (gradually) all taxation, in favor tax on pollution and usage of particular scarce resources (e.g. land, water, fossils, radio frequencies, etc.) This way the market will solve the problem. Housing and labour (two examples of wholesome things that are currently heavily taxed) will become a lot cheaper, and polluting will become expensive.

floodle• 2 years ago

This way the market will solve the problem

Capitalism has shown itself to have a complete inability to correctly price in the value of ecosystem services and the costs of environmental externalities. The profit cycle also operates on too small a timeframe for these climate issues.

Thinking the market will save us is just a convienient pipe dream.

cies2• 2 years ago

capitalism is not the same as having markets.

https://www.minorcompositions.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/1...

good book on the topic ^^^

Thinking the market will save us is just a convienient pipe dream.

I think you should dig a little deeper into my comment before calling me out on my supposed pipe dreams.

I say taxation (which is NOT a market force, but a govt intervention in a market) can be used to then let the market fix the problem. Especially given that I also say that tax on "wholesome" things such as labour and housing should be abolished. To break it down for you: a massage these days costs, say, 50 USD for 30mins, because labour and the parlours location are expensive. For 50 USD I can order bin bags full of plastic rubbish (toys) from China (plastic, transport, im/ex, are all suuuuuuper cheap). I suggest to use taxation to the other way: make labour/housing cheap and transport/plastic expensive.

jokoon3• 2 years ago

I live in the south of france, and I really need to move to a cooler region in france. Summer are very long, nights are hot, makes it hard to sleep well.

I don't have enough money to install AC. Mobile AC is too noisy.

I have been postponing for 4 years now.

I am reading The Ministry Of The Future, it's a great book. India will be the first to suffer from this.

Qem3• 2 years ago

Summer are very long, nights are hot, makes it hard to sleep well. I don't have enough money to install AC. Mobile AC is too noisy.

Did you try sleeping in hammocks already? It's a solution that works reasonably well for me.

sgt• 2 years ago

Hammocks - the poor man's AC?

badpun5• 2 years ago

AC could be cheaper than the cost of a move, not to mention you wouldn't have to uproot your life?

pvaldes7• 2 years ago

If you live in a rural area without too much noise, soak a sheet, hang it in front of the open window before to go to bed. Put a bucket or something below to save the water drops from ending in the soil. Enjoy the cooling effect of the evaporation

pk-protect-ai15• 2 years ago

Madagascar and lot of countries in Africa already suffering.

https://reliefweb.int/disaster/dr-2018-000141-mdg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp_UaZMeyCs&t=3s

tticvs2• 2 years ago

KSR is a good prose writer but I found The Ministry of the Future to be full of extremely unconvincing scenarios and I don't think you should let it inform your worldview. It's just a story written by someone who does not really know what they're talking about.

gonzo41• 2 years ago

The Ministry of the Future. Chapter 1. is super accurate. That will happen in our lifetime. Learn about wetbulb temperatures.

jokoon3• 2 years ago

actually KSR writes hard scifi, so he does do his research before writing

NotYourLawyer• 2 years ago

Just finished that book myself and couldn’t disagree more. Ministry for the Future is an authoritarian’s wet dream mixed with a bunch of extremely implausible stuff, told in a style that’s as unengaging as possible.

polar8• 2 years ago

Which part? I'm moving to Nice soon and wondering how it will be. Many of my friends still don't have AC.

tim3336• 2 years ago

Nice isn't as bad as some inland places as the hot air rises and pulls in cooler air from the sea.

sumek832• 2 years ago

We need passive building cooling like:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03062...

AC won't scale

kobalsky2• 2 years ago

how much does installing an AC cost there?

tim3336• 2 years ago

Actual aircon units are quite cheap these days eg this 480 euro https://www.amazon.fr/KLARSTEIN-Windwaker-Smart-Split-Climat... Not sure about the installation. Maybe you could DIY? I was thinking of it in London and imagine the installation will be more than the units.

One thing I can't work out is if something like that - a heat/cool aircon unit counts as a heat pump from the point of view of getting a government grant?

marbartolome• 2 years ago

I live in the south of spain, and AC is already a necessity in the summer. Days with 40° and nights with 30° are becoming increasingly common.

Also the water comes out of the tap at like 35-38°, unheated. I've had plants die when watering them with this. At this rate I'm going to have to install some sort of water cooler too.

lynx233• 2 years ago

I was always pro-environment and pro-more-industry-regulations, since I can think. Then came Greta and the doomsayers. Realising there is really nothing more I can do--I am already walking to work and don't even own a car--I stopped supporting apocalypse-loving-movements and went back to living my life as I used to do.

I was developed an aversion for the climate apocalypse movement since. I wonder, if they managed to alienate people without a car and very low CO2 footprint, what demographic is actually left to cater to?

BTW, this phenomenon is very old. Thausands of years ago, religious nuts already announced the end of the world. Soem religious movements like the 7th day adventists even were born out of a failed waiting for the end. That was, IIRC, in the 19th century, at a time when people didn't even know what polution will be.

We have a built-in tendency to predict our own downfall. A sort of built-in mental illness that needs to be worked against.

graphe9• 2 years ago

I'm the same. I'm a quiet greenish person. I don't own a car I walk and I hate these death cults whose sole nihilism is that you shouldn't exist, you were born into Original Sin™ for being the wrong sex/gender/race/country, and when you aren't busy killing off things you enjoy, you yourself can only be green when you die. The logistical thing to these cults is suicide to prevent global warming, so they mentally circle the drain constantly.

latentcall• 2 years ago

you were born into Original Sin™ for being the wrong sex/gender/race/country

Which world do you live in? It can’t be Earth. Go outside and talk to people and please realize spending all your time online is bad for your health. What you’ve described here doesn’t exist.

lynx233• 2 years ago

Well said, and more eloquent then I could be.

johnchristopher5• 2 years ago

Quoting myself (again) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36619271 :

- There's no climate change

- Climate change is okay and has no impact

- Climate change exists but it's due to natural causes

- Climate change exists but it's due to natural causes and its impacts are small

- Climate change exists but its impacts are good for us

- Climate change exists but we will adapt

- Climate change exists and its the activists' fault we didn't act because they scared us with their doomsday predictions <- you are here

- Climate change exists and we shouldn't talk about it because it's scary and scared people are not productive members of society

guil177• 2 years ago

To me he is more like: Climate change exists but we will adapt.

hkon2• 2 years ago

Your list of deniers seems to have a majority of non-deniers. What is your point?

sschueller• 2 years ago

Some stupid hacker just deleted over 2 Peta Bytes of Russian climate research data dating back decades. Data that was collected from satellites around the world for decades for processing. This affects us all if we don't have data.

We are rapidly going back to the stone age...

t_tsonev• 2 years ago

Here’s some new data for you: Russia is flaring over 4 mil cubic meters of natural gas per day.

netsharc• 2 years ago

By this logic, assuming you're American, one is free to do anything to your property, justifying it with calling out some bad thing the US government is doing, e.g. supplying bombs that are being dropped indiscriminately on Gaza.

MLH6ft1• 2 years ago

Hmmm....this post has stayed on top on hackernews (while I didn't visit the link shared in this post) AND the video shared in this post also shows up on top on youtube.

Same has also happened with this hackernews post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39162856 (I didn't visit the link shared in this post either) and looks like this post didn't get 'as much' traction on HN as compared to the above one. However, the video shared in this post also came up on top on youtube.

Looks like HN is a good place to boost your content on YT, if it gets pushed to the top!

bananaflag2• 2 years ago

I no longer worry about climate because of AI. I think AI will either save us all or doom us all before the climate doom really starts.

skitout2• 2 years ago

We have a lot of existing stuff ("political stuff" like cabron pricing, or "technological" stuff like double glazing or heat pump) that already make sense economically that we don't use fully. How AI deeply impact it ?

bananaflag2• 2 years ago

By removing agency from humans.

Alifatisk• 2 years ago

Is the link correct? It leads me to a channel named RDCWorld? But it doesn’t match the title?

sumanthvepa• 2 years ago

Something is wrong. The video link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9sDyooxf4

pk-protect-ai15• 2 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9sDyooxf4

jjackson53242• 2 years ago

Lmfao I think this is the actual video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9sDyooxf4

Somehow OP must've linked to the RDCWorld video by mistake and somehow this still got to the top of HN?

I guess HN just upvotes without clicking the link?

pk-protect-ai15• 2 years ago

The video link was correct at the start. I believe that OP has decided to change it due to rate of doomism and rising depression levels.

hiAndrewQuinn9• 2 years ago

I never worried particularly much about climate change, but just to hedge my bets for my kids I moved to northern Europe. For the most part it's just equated to milder (= bearable) Winters and nicer summers up here.

I guess we also spend a fair bit on moving to renewables up here - Finland achieved energy self sufficiency last year thanks to a good combination of nuclear + solar + hydro. If I were an ideologue in either direction I'd probably say "that's the real reason I moved" or "can't believe they're waiting my tax money on this", but I'm not, I'm just a guy who likes hedging his bets. The nuclear is especially nice because cheap electricity is the true backbone of society, and we've seen the market prices go straight up _negative_ a few times due to overproduction.

Self recommending! Come to Finland and help us build a stronger democracy, whatever that means to you.

johnchristopher5• 2 years ago

Is Finland self sufficient for food ?

LightBug1• 2 years ago

"Self recommending! Come to Finland and help us build a stronger democracy, whatever that means to you. "

How are you finding life as an enviromental migrant?

hiAndrewQuinn9• 2 years ago

Great! Much nicer than Boston.

BodyCulture• 2 years ago

This is an illusion. There is no safe place, you can’t escape the reality of global warming by moving to another place.

trenchgun• 2 years ago

There is no safe place in general, with or without climate change.

But you can for sure mitigate most of the climate change risks by moving to anothe place.

PeterisP12• 2 years ago

While you may be technically true, it is obviously clear that some places are far safer than others, and moving to another place will have a very high impact on how global warming affects you, as some regions will be affected much more harshly than others. At the extreme, some places may be underwater or otherwise uninhabitable, but if you can afford to, moving away from them in a timely manner, you can escape being forced to do so at a time when doing so may be much harder.

Grafikenjo2• 2 years ago

I want to move back to a farm/out of the city.

For sure for a lot of reasons like having space for a garden etc. but also i think its a lot more easier to survive there longer.

Alone the space in my flat limits me of having provisions etc.

textbookrental2• 2 years ago

The earth has had some of the fastest warming ever in the last 15 thousand. During this time crop yields have increased dramatically. The trend is unmistakable, the warmer the planet, the more food we produce.

kylebenzle3• 2 years ago

Why do you say that? Most of the Midwest USA seems like it will do fine for the inevitable future.

More co2 means corn and soy will be growing better and better, warming temps increase our growing season. We have more than enough water. What am I missing?

dieortin• 2 years ago

Electricity prices did not go negative because of nuclear.

mensetmanusman2• 2 years ago

In a way, yes they did.

If your energy infrastructure has a significant amount of nuclear, and your solar power is over-producing during the day, it is cheaper to have negative energy prices than to shut down the nuclear plant.

weatherlite5• 2 years ago

If shit hits the fan everywhere else but North Europe remains safe - will it be business as usual there? Won't hundreds of millions of people (or more) from India, China and Africa flee to to wherever is safe?

CalRobert9• 2 years ago

The plan appears to be massive gun turrets at every southern border at this rate.

ben_w6• 2 years ago

If shit hits the fan everywhere else but North Europe remains safe - will it be business as usual there?

No, it will still suck, but it'll be the kind of suck you can survive without fleeing.

Unless the thermohaline circulation changes significantly, in which case the northern Mediterranean coast starts to look like Toronto, Paris starts to look like Vancouver, and Scandinavia starts to look like Anchorage.

Won't hundreds of millions of people (or more) from India, China and Africa flee to to wherever is safe?

Yes, although in the case of China they'll probably flee to elsewhere in China, because it's huge.

Unfrozen06887• 2 years ago

We will close the border, and kill them. :)

chasd007• 2 years ago

Slowly. I don’t think it happens all at once but over generations.

CalRobert9• 2 years ago

Similar, though leaving the US had a lot to do with hedging our bets against a crumbling democracy as well.

How is Finland? It was on our list but we wanted to have good train connections to the continent so ended up in the Netherlands (but above sea level). Oulu has impressive winter cycling though.

hiAndrewQuinn9• 2 years ago

I lived in Oulu for a time, and yes it does indeed live up to its winter cycling reputation. Actually most of my wife's family lives around that region, so we'll probably return up there in a few years.

Finland is terrific! Learning the language is tough, and recommended, but ultimately optional for white collar migrants. The lower salaries here are unfortunate - I make a third of what I could make as a software lead in the US (~50k vs ~150k). Doubly so as there really is a lot of top notch engineering talent here, probably because it's so hard to hire people that FTEs end up having to learn a lot about everything lol. I haven't yet carved a path to make US level money while living in Finland - but you'd better believe it's on my list of things to beeline towards once I hit my thirties.

weatherlite5• 2 years ago

Whatever bothered you about US politics is also happening in Europe. There's no Trump, he's one of a kind, but there's polarization, distrust in institutions and populism just fine. It's the same disease really.

Also - I can't imagine North Europe will remain prosperous if America somehow fails, the West is very much dependent on the U.S (now also for energy). But I do hope you enjoy your time, I lived in Leiden for almost 4 years and it was like living in a postcard. Shit weather though.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK• 2 years ago

Finland has a nasty neighbor.

throw_pm233• 2 years ago

Please don't talk like that about Sweden. They are bad, but don't quite deserve this.

epgui• 2 years ago

I am puzzled by the usage of the word “ideologue” in a context of self preservation.

Jedd2• 2 years ago

Finland achieved energy self sufficiency last year thanks to a good combination of nuclear

Is this a fission plant that uses fuel mined in Canada, Kazakhstan, and Australia?

cassepipe2• 2 years ago

I think you are implying that this self sufficiency is illusory

To which I would respond that France could hold two years with its uranium reserves if the world stopped selling it Uranium.

Gasoline reserves in comparison would last three months.

ProjectArcturis• 2 years ago

Uh... Finland could be one of the bigger victims of global warming. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4118630-atlant...

syslog• 2 years ago

Just here[0] they say that that’s a myth. I don‘t know what to believe anymore.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39156692

hiAndrewQuinn9• 2 years ago

Yeah, the AMOC collapse predictions are interesting.

I'd love to see a much colder Finland, personally, since I want to know what a developed country that has 6 months of winter feels and looks like from the inside. But I do agree that for most people here it would be unfortunate.

perlgeek3• 2 years ago

You never worried particularly, but enough to move to a different country? That sounds contradictory to me.

hiAndrewQuinn9• 2 years ago

That's because it's more just a nice secondary factor. ;)

Mostly I moved because it amused me. I have a long history of going to places I can't actually locate on a map, eg I thought Northwestern University would be in Portland, not Chicago - imagine my shock when I stepped off the plane. Similarly with Finland. I knew so little about the place that when the opportunity to move arose I couldn't not take it, it would be like turning down getting teleported into the inside of a black hole.

Unfrozen06887• 2 years ago

Sweden here, welcome! We need more of your kind of immigrant for sure! Working is number 1, willing to take part, and learning the culture.

anonym29• 2 years ago

Aren't all immigrants like this?

hiAndrewQuinn9• 2 years ago

Glad to be here! I'll likely be visiting Sweden for work next month, you guys are doing great over there.

Aachen4• 2 years ago

Finland achieved energy self sufficiency last year thanks to a good combination of nuclear + solar + hydro.

Energy means, well, energy. Finland still drives combustion vehicles (a lot of them, last I was there they drove some of the oldest cars in the EU on average due to high taxes for buying new ones) and probably mostly heat with energy not originating from the trio you mentioned.

I think you meant electricity, which is a great milestone on the way but not yet the destination.

Electricity used to be about 10% of a rich country's energy consumption, of late I think it's closer to 20% as some early adopters and new buildings have made the switch, but that still leaves 80% of your energy generated from oil and natural gas

LudwigNagasena2• 2 years ago

Let’s also not forget another human activity, also a kind of energy consumption, but in a more direct way, aka eating. Livestock produces around 15% of global greenhouse emissions according to my quick Google search. And I am sure some Finns like to eat meat.

hrududuu6• 2 years ago

And yet I never saw people tracking the daily electricity spot price until I moved to Finland :). Miten menee sun suomi, on kiva oppia sitä.

hiAndrewQuinn9• 2 years ago

Minulla lemppari urheilulaji :D se kehittyy hitaasti mutta varmasti.

I actually maintain several online Finnish learning resources now, including a flashcard deck of the most common 10,000 words from the YLE study way back [1], a command line lemmatizer [2], and a website whose permissions I need to refresh ASAP which archives Selkouutiset with YYYY/MM/DD URLs [3].

Indeed building these tools were what got me back into software development as a profession, after a long absence.

[1] https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1149950470

[2] https://github.com/hiAndrewQuinn/finstem

[3] https://hiandrewquinn.github.io/selkouutiset-archive/

VoodooJuJu• 2 years ago

Come to Finland and help us build a stronger democracy, whatever that means to you.

What? You recommended it. What does it mean to you? What are you recommending?

noobermin2• 2 years ago

Viable as long as you're white I suppose.

ZephyrBlu• 2 years ago

An RDCworld video on HN, never thought I'd see the day.

Nevermark• 2 years ago

Not to add more pessimism icing to the anxiety cake, but ... I have not seen any discussion on a particular Venn diagram of worries.

1. Climate change as a biological and human ecosystem catastrophe.

2. A potential ecosystem threat to humans from GAI. We might anticipate AI (and initially its wealthiest owners) would be less biosystem dependent, and more of a "Let's extract ALL the rare elements from the bottom of the ocean and not clean up the mess later", "Non-degradable plastic? Its still the future!", and "Fossil fuel reserves are a horrible thing to waste" kind of constituency.

It might be prudent to think about how different impending risks might have unfortunate "alignment".

mgaunard5• 2 years ago

Why would anyone worry about things they have no control on?

People that overestimate the value of their opinions, maybe.

toastercat• 2 years ago

Because they can vote.

and0• 2 years ago

There's a narcissism that lends to every generation thinking theirs is the end of history, but I don't think it entirely explains anxiety over climate change.

perlgeek3• 2 years ago

But you have partial control.

You can vote for candidates that take climate change seriously.

You can decide to buy or lease an EV instead of an ICE one.

You can raise the bar for when you book a flight.

And so on...

anonuser1234562• 2 years ago

The crux of the problem is this;

The people that believe in climate change don’t understand how to solve the problem. And the people that know how to solve the problem don’t really consider it a problem worth solving at this point.

JackSlateur• 2 years ago

Well, the only meaning full to do is kill yourself, so you are right : everybody is in control, somehow

mgaunard5• 2 years ago

It's not up to individuals to fix it. Your impact is nothing.

Cars matter very little in the big picture as well -- it's a distraction to blame the little people.

The vast majority of pollution is caused by industrial processes. The fix here is simple: regulate and enforce the regulation.

The main polluting countries are:

the USA: too afraid to do anything in case it affects their economy, political caste too corrupt to do what's needed.

Russia: doesn't give a shit, mostly see global warming as a way to get more influence, more usable land, and have such a little population density anyway they can afford to fuck some of it.

India: polluting as a result of too many people and trying to catch up economically, but might get their shit together like China did.

Saudi Arabia: has built their whole state on an unsustainable dependency on burning more than half of the oil they extract just for AC and water, and is completely fucked regardless.

bkfh• 2 years ago

The two most powerful things you can do:

1. Vote for the party that protects the environment 2. Work on smt that has positive climate impact

mgaunard5• 2 years ago

I cannot vote for any of the top contributers to pollution.

In my country people aren't stupid and do embrace reasonable and managed use of natural resources, regardless of party.

baryphonic• 2 years ago

The only existential risk that worries me is nuclear weapons proliferation. It's the only one I have nightmares about.

huppeldepup• 2 years ago

Why was the link changed? 3 hours ago it linked to this: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2024/01/i-used-to-not-worr...

Now it links to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCo3XwTRg9o

Corrado• 2 years ago

Dang, the new video is NOT the original Sabine video and is some weird, stupid thing. Please change it back to Sabine's video.

kristofferR• 2 years ago

Is Dang trolling us?

iandanforth2• 2 years ago

The new video is however a spot on commentary on people who didn't worry about climate change but now do. Very sharp swap, IMO.

dkalola• 2 years ago

The new video is pretty funny!

harha_• 2 years ago

I don't understand why someone would change it. I was very confused when I opened the link.

GaryNumanVevo2• 2 years ago

It's because it's just a link to an embedded youtube video. The HN mods unwrapped it (accidentally to the wrong link) and added a "[video]" tag to the title. They'll reword titles that people editorialize or shorten titles for length

Unfrozen06887• 2 years ago

Thank you for posting the original link.

The new one the admin switched to is some people yelling. A "comedy" sketch.

chasely• 2 years ago

Was it an admin or the OP? Can OPs even change post links?

Aachen4• 2 years ago

That blog post is a thin wrapper around another video btw. Direct link to the content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9sDyooxf4 (For those who prefer to read: it has subtitles/transcript available for various languages — proper ones, not auto-generated!)

alurm• 2 years ago

This is very funny.

GaryNumanVevo2• 2 years ago

Most likely an accident, I'm guessing dang or another moderator was changing the link directly to Sabine's video and copied the wrong link from youtube

dang5• 2 years ago

Yikes, not sure what happened there!

It would be standard mod practice to replace https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2024/01/i-used-to-not-worr... with a link to the video, since the blog post is just a thin wrapper around it. As the HN guidelines say, "If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Why the wrong video made it in, I don't know, but most likely it was a simple copy-paste error. Sorry, all!

Edit: oh it might have been that one of us saw https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39157418 and mistook that for a comment of this sort: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39163616.

bilsbie2• 2 years ago

I used to worry

but living through 30 years of catastrophic predictions not happening has made me question the messenger instead.

Some examples(1):

1989: Rising seas to ‘obliterate’ nations by 2000

2008: Al Gore warns of ice-free Arctic by 2013

(1) https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-poca...

Don’t get me wrong. I still think it’s an area of concern. I’m actually a raging environmentalist but I just think we should spend our limited political capital on air pollution, heavy metals, microplastics, and expanding national park access.

peterpost2• 2 years ago

but living through 30 years of catastrophic predictions not happening has made me question the messenger instead.

Have you seen what's been happening the last couple of years? There are catastrophic predictions actually happening, sure some of them were wrong but the planet is in a pretty fucked up state right now.

bilsbie2• 2 years ago

Do you have an example or two that’s not open to interpretation?

I’ve seen a lot of things blamed on climate that are debatable. Wild fires, hurricanes, freak high tides, etc.

If it’s a true crisis we shouldn’t be grasping at normal climate events and trying to argue they’re slightly worse.

timmg• 2 years ago

There are catastrophic predictions actually happening, sure some of them were wrong but the planet is in a pretty fucked up state right now.

Can you be more specific?

gttrew• 2 years ago

Press X to Doubt

It couldn't be an attempt to make white people accept poverty by the big corps who sponsor politicians and control research grant monies ?

lonjil• 2 years ago

You mean 30 years of listening to non-experts instead of experts. 30 years of listening to scientifically illiterate journalists who exaggerate and make stuff up to sell more papers or get more clicks, while refusing to listen to what scientists actually say.

Pretty much everything in that link is just random headlines, with zero connection to what the scientific consensus was in the listed years.

xnx2• 2 years ago

"I used to not worry about climate change, but now I really want the clicks."

thevania• 2 years ago

reminds me of sacking of rome by barbarians

but this time we must defend better not to have another "dark age"

sure sad for the millions of displaced people, but for civilisation to prevail there is no way to save them, quite a no-brainer

sufimalang• 2 years ago

she said lives of hundred of millions, i guess she is only counting western white lives. the very same ones who caused this in the first place :)

blackbear_• 2 years ago

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity.

Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

j4yav2• 2 years ago

What happened to this link, it’s now a video of some people yelling?

tim3336• 2 years ago

Still works for me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9sDyooxf4 "I wasn't worried about climate change. Now I am."

j4yav2• 2 years ago

For a while it was linking to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCo3XwTRg9o

vegetablepotpie• 2 years ago

You can do something about this.

I got involved in climate advocacy in 2021. Since then I’ve successfully lobbied my local government to start an energy resources study, which will look at ways for my community to quickly transition to renewables. A small thing. But if we all do small things, it will add up!

Still though. My state, Arizona has really terrible people writing awful laws. This legislative session they’re proposing a 12.5% tax on purchasing solar if you’re not a utility, and a bunch of other regressive, anti-free market, pro-fossil fuel legislation [1]. We’re going to vote these people out of office this November and remove barriers to using our states abundant solar resources.

And since HN is a startup and technology forum, we need cheap utility scale energy storage as soon as we can get it. It exists, but solar+storage is just a bit too expensive for most regions of the country. If it does become cheaper than methane, that makes the move away from fossil fuels much easier. If you want to work on this, do it.

But also, citizens engagement is crucial. If you live in a regressive state like mine. It’s super important to get involved. If you live in a place that is going in the right direction, engage on the implementation details, there are so many ways good climate policy can get derailed in bureaucracies. There are a ton of groups that you can work with on this [2] [3] [4].

[1] https://legiscan.com/AZ/bill/HB2281/2024

[2] https://citizensclimatelobby.org/

[3] https://www.sierraclub.org/

[4] https://www.environmentalvoter.org/

kylebenzle3• 2 years ago

I disagree, strongly.

I think the next phase will be people like me, not climate change deniers but climate change doomers.

The US could go carbon neutral tomorrow and it wouldnt make a dent because of China, India and Russia. 3 Billion people pumping pollution into the the air like their is no tomorrow vs. a couple hundred million reducing their footprint isn't going to make a lick of difference. I think people have always had a hard time understanding things at scale, especially a global scale.

The ONLY answer, live your life like there's no tomorrow because chances are is there isn't going to be.

ianai6• 2 years ago

That's assuming the situation follows your specified path.

In reality, an economy transitioned to tech beyond fossil fuels probably enjoys much greater production dynamics. For instance, the US could build out nuclear power to satisfy base board power and then grow that base by which ever rate it decided per year. At some point, mass desalination of sea water becomes affordable because electricity drives down the price. There, too, sea water is a huge resource for literally every mineral we could need (lithium, gold, uranium, you name it). Further, any co2 removed from the ocean will then be scrubbed from the atmosphere-provided the removed water eventually finds its way back, and it would. With more water and more electricity, more of the land is usable for things like habitation, commercial/industrial, and agriculture purposes. (The US and globe has a ton of unproductive land which can be productive with some combination of water+fertilizer.) There's a relationship between the growth of power produced by an economy and its yearly growth of gdp.

The above will also take place with solar. Eventually we will have the tech to power things off whatever sun they get through the paint/coating on their surface.

At some point, the other national players will see those benefits going to other nations and change accordingly. Or they will be left in the past.

tim3336• 2 years ago

China India and Russia are an issue but will probably cut back if there start to be noticeable problems. China is already cracking ahead on the solar and nuclear.

hodgesrm• 2 years ago

The ONLY answer, live your life like there's no tomorrow because chances are is there isn't going to be.

The problem with this attitude is that it prevents you from solving problems that might actually affect the odds of humans making it to tomorrow or any other near-term date. Right now it looks as if we're in the run-up to World War III. [0] Perhaps we should spend a little energy preventing that. Or perhaps aquifer exhaustion, a long-standing issue exacerbated by climate change. [1] Or solving the political polarization that prevents us from addressing other problems. [2] Humans have faced all of these problems in the past and generally solved them.

Climate change is obviously a serious and challenging problem. But it seems doubtful civilization will be directly overturned any time soon by climate change alone. Europeans and others made it through crises like the Black Plague, which killed a third or more of the population without extinguishing the arc of civilization. [3] It's the knock-on effects we need to worry about, as well as the things that prevent us from fixing them.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/27/opinion/china-taiwan-war....

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/climate/global-groundwate...

[2] https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/how-to-fix-politi...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

nojvek4• 2 years ago

The scale at which China is deploying Solar is more than rest of world combined. It’s frankly quite amazing.

If any major economy achieved zero emissions for productions of electricity, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was either China using Solar and Nuclear, or France betting on Nuclear.

We call China our enemy, but the biggest enemy of US is US. We can either adapt or live in the past.

Electricity prices haven’t changed much in last 50 years in real currency.

Economies that heavily invest in cheap energy, and high autonomy will win out.

allan_s• 2 years ago

The issue is that Chinese people think the same.

Be as good as you can, regardless of others, so that they will have no whataboutism to hide behind.

Don't underestimate the power of peer pressure, even at the nation-level.

blharr• 2 years ago

Per person, China India and Russia are still lower in emissions than the US. The people who individually have the most impact and likely ability to reduce their carbon footprint is therefore those in the US.

CalRobert9• 2 years ago

Arizona is also the unlikely home of culdesac.com, one of the first purpose-built car-free neighborhoods in the US.

bicx• 2 years ago

There’s a lot of dead space in Arizona. I’m sitting in the middle of the Arizona desert right now.

spaceheater• 2 years ago

Didn't like the whole world stop during covid? It should be equivalent to 50-100 years of climate activism, and what? didn't even make a dent?

gjadi• 2 years ago

From what I've read (can't find the source, sorry), it did have an effect, but it needs to repeat every year on top of the previous one to have the effect to stay below the 2.0 celsius avg.

brlewis4• 2 years ago

A significant fraction of commuting by information workers stopped during COVID. Nothing like the whole world stopping, but yes, it would make a difference if the reduction in commuting could continue.

garfieldnate• 2 years ago

Quick google search of the AZ law says it will tax solar energy exported to other states and divide the proceeds among the local residents, which sounds a bit more nuanced than your summary. Not saying it's positive, but it's not clear to me that it's negative without more details; some form of this could incentivize more of the land to be used for solar, for example. I actually thought that this sort of law would be disallowed by the fed, since they reserve the right to govern interstate commerce.

brlewis4• 2 years ago

I actually thought that this sort of law would be disallowed by the fed, since they reserve the right to govern interstate commerce

Yes, the US Constitution gives regulation of interstate commerce to the federal government, but this has been worked around. Lots of states have "use tax" which is an obvious[1] tax on interstate commerce, but they skirt the Constitution by saying they're taxing "use" of the goods purchased within their own state, not the interstate commerce involved. It's possible the AZ law could be written in a way that claims to tax something that happens within the state, while still being for all intents and purposes a tax on interstate commerce. And probably nobody would do anything about it.

[1] The tax is computed 100% based on the money exchanged in interstate commerce, and 0% based on usage.

maxdo• 2 years ago

Lots of people yelling with very poor audio quality :(

hkon2• 2 years ago

I don't worry

Why is this on the frontpage?

Weird

noobermin2• 2 years ago

My guess is the video is too long because absolutely none of them are about the content of the video

cubefox3• 2 years ago

None of the comments.

dsign• 2 years ago

We need a phase transition in our thinking about climate change, because our current way of thinking is taking us nowhere.

- All human activities, in different degrees, contribute to climate change. Don't believe me? Say that you bike to the office everyday. You enjoy your commute, you never develop a heart condition, and in the course of your long prosperous life you have three kids and nine grandchildren, own several dogs and get a bigger house. In other words, your climate footprint all of the sudden is greater than if you had used a polluting car and died of a heart attack when you turned forty.

By definition, humanity thriving means humanity growing, and with that its footprint on the entire planet.

- But in the aggregate, humanity is what we are. There is a price to pay for climbing that hill, but there is an even greater price for not climbing it. Critters in the Serengeti don't compose poetry, nor make Youtube videos; they are too busy surviving. So are people in places where material scarcity reigns supreme. My father, who never wanted to leave his homeland, is dying at home, and my mother won't hire a nurse not for lack of money, but because she doesn't trust that young people will work for just the money and won't rob them blind.

We have the knowledge, the technology and the means to live in domes in the vast deserts of this planet, to go to the moon or to live in space habitats anywhere in the solar system.

cloogshicer• 2 years ago

We have the knowledge, the technology and the means to live in domes in the vast deserts of this planet, to go to the moon or to live in space habitats anywhere in the solar system.

This is incorrect. Please stop saying we have the technology to live anywhere else other than on Earth, it's false: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9YdnzOf4NQ

wolverine8763• 2 years ago

our current way of thinking is taking us nowhere.

What some people are doing is obstructing us from going anywhere. We need to stop acting helpless, stand up for what we believe, fight (peacefully), stop the post-truth nonsense that supports these people, and vote them out of office.

All human activities, in different degrees, contribute to climate change.

It's kinda true, because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (and ignoring activities that actively reduce climate change, like installing insulation or voting certain people out of office), but meaningless. Riding a bike and riding a private jet both contribute to climate change, but that's a pointless statement.

Say that you bike to the office everyday. You enjoy your commute, you never develop a heart condition, and in the course of your long prosperous life you have three kids and nine grandchildren, own several dogs and get a bigger house. In other words, your climate footprint all of the sudden is greater than if you had used a polluting car and died of a heart attack when you turned forty.

That's restating the Second Law, in a sense. But we can do all those things, and still prevent climate change by using different technologies.

We have the knowledge, the technology and the means to live in domes in the vast deserts of this planet, to go to the moon or to live in space habitats anywhere in the solar system.

What do you conclude from that?

zug_zug• 2 years ago

Just a contextual note -- one thing Sabine says is: AI won't help because we know the exact solution, we just aren't willing to do it.

Presumably she's referring to her first proposal -- a carbon tax. It's my understanding that there's nearly consensus among economists that a carbon tax is the most efficient solution to global warming, but political consensus that it would never happen when framed as a tax.

If you don't know what a carbon tax is, or why it's orders of magnitude more efficient a solution than "eat less meat" I'd encourage you to look into it a bit. Essentially if you create a system where what is best for the planet is also the cheapest course of action (for individuals and businesses), you no longer have to rely on convincing every single individual to change their morality/beliefs.

AndrewKemendo3• 2 years ago

A global tax requires global enforcement

No sovereign is going to agree to subordinate itself without all others doing the same

Classic prisoners dilemma

neilk• 2 years ago

That’s too pessimistic. Dozens of countries have some kind of carbon tax right now. Important and influential jurisdictions like California, also have them. Even oil-producing regions have them.

They are universally rather timid in their scope, and politically fragile. So maybe they aren’t going to get us there, at least not in their current form.

But it’s going too far to say they just don’t exist or can’t exist.

We have plenty of treaties that inhibit states. Nuclear weapons, slavery, pollutants. Enlightentment and enlightened self-interest isn’t out of the question.

fulafel2• 2 years ago

A lot of places already have carbon pricing in place (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_emission_trading#Exampl...).

The international political system has a long track record of cajoling nations into joining treaties that theoretically are like this.

It's not prisoner's dilemma, because the main property of the PD problem is that parties are prevented from communicating and cooperating with each other. When there's negotiations, transparencency/monitoring, etc, parties can cooperate. If you think international treaty development is like PD, you are due for a for a big optimism update!

nradov2• 2 years ago

In order to be politically acceptable, a carbon tax should be phased in gradually and coupled with a reduction in income tax so as to make it revenue neutral. That way it can't be framed as just another government tax grab.

dublinben2• 2 years ago

Offsetting income tax would be a massive handout to the rich, who have been and continue to be the greatest contributors to carbon emissions.

Instead, it should be paired with a dividend which makes it revenue neutral for the median household. Lower income families, who are more impacted by but less responsible for climate change, would be paid a benefit.

nayuki• 2 years ago

This is already the case in Canada's carbon tax. The amount of tax you pay is proportional to the amount of fossil fuels you consume. But the amount of refund you receive is equal to the total tax collected divided by the population; you receive the same refund regardless of how much you consume. It is a revenue-neutral scheme.

pintxo• 2 years ago

The plan for Germany was to give out climate money to everyone. E.g. all additional funds acquired through increased carbon taxes where supposed to be equally returned to the population on a per head basis. Turns out even Germany does not have a Government process for that. And parts of the current coalition, which happen to be tasked with creating that process, are more interested in stalling implementation as long as possible.

ianai6• 2 years ago

It's finding a way to input the external costs of consumption of emissive products into their final price(s). In reality, a gallon of gas causes significantly more damage than the price paid at the pump - it was like $16/gallon when I saw a figure for it around 2010. Imagine how much differently a world with $20/gallon gas would look. There'd probably be massive pressures from all corners to move away from oil.

trimethylpurine9• 2 years ago

Gas was just under $4 a liter every time I've been to Europe. That's about $16/gallon. People were driving to work, and sitting in traffic, just like they do in the US.

nojvek4• 2 years ago

I am personally pretty opposed to taxing co2 emissions and playing games with carbon credit.

We should not be making energy expensive for the lay person.

Provide subsidies to build new solar, wind and nuclear farms - sure.

The world will quickly adapt renewable energy if it is much cheaper and convenient to use it.

In similar vein, for god sake don’t tax solar panels above usual tax rate. I’m looking at Arizona.

The biggest mistake any democratic government can make is life more expensive and miserable for their population.

That seldom goes well.

Shocka13• 2 years ago

If gas was magically $16 a gallon tomorrow, it would amplify inflation. Markets and their workers would demand wage increases, which would of course trickle to everything else.

And yes, imagine what this would look like at $20 a gallon :/

zapnuk• 2 years ago

It's not just on a global level.

In germany we can't agree on building new north-south power lines to transport the energy we generate through wind power.

..and in the USA (and many other 1st world countries) you still have one of the two political parties who doesn't even agree that climate change is either real or poses a serious problem.

jcfrei• 2 years ago

A carbon tax will not be politically viable for two simple reasons: 1) Some people who would need to pay can't really afford it: It's people living in old houses or who have to drive very far to work or rely on cheap energy for heating and electricity - It's not gonna affect the software engineer who drives his Tesla to work.

2) Another big chunk of the working population would lose their jobs because their industry gets shaken up: Those working in polluting industries (coal and gas) or the huge part of the economy that's surrounding petro-chemicals (gas stations clerks, heating engineers, fuel truck drivers), etc.

You would need to redistribute the CO2 tax income as welfare checks but again: That's not a politically viable solution because the fear of job losses pretty much outweighs anything else.

brlewis4• 2 years ago

How about redistributing the CO2 tax as cuts in payroll and income taxes? That would benefit the working population and create a lot of replacement jobs.

barbazoo• 2 years ago

Have a look at https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/carbon-pricing-in-canada-wha... about the Canadian carbon tax and how rebates can work.

whydoineedthis• 2 years ago

A carbon tax will make the problem worse. To make up for the profit losses from the tax, business will produce and sell more goods - actually increasi g the pollution put in the air.

jjjjj555552• 2 years ago

I've been hearing for over a decade that carbon taxes are the solution. I've also been hearing that Republicans are standing in the way of this solution.

What I've never heard is an explanation of why some sensible, well-run scandinavian country hasn't already implemented this and brought their emissions down to zero.

If there are simple solutions to this problem then why hasn't some country already implemented them?

K0nserv• 2 years ago

Sweden has had a carbon tax since 1991 and has almost halved co2 emissions since.

Sources:

https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/sweden

https://government.se/government-policy/swedens-carbon-tax/s...

_Tev• 2 years ago

It is not simple. Carbon tax is useless without carbon tariffs, which have high political costs. Not to mention without any kind of carbon dividends the whole scheme would be extremely unpopular.

So everyone is just pushing half solutions and talking a lot. Politicians will never go for hard solutions, especially when everyone is satisfied by talking about magic pills like "green deal", "more renewables" or (from current top comment) "climate advocacy" and "citizen engagement".

People just love talking. And feeling good about it.

andrewclunn• 2 years ago

She is typically a very "anti-establishment" accessible science educator. When she talks about climate change she puts the onus on herself to actually make the arguments rather than just "pushing the consensus." This is very important. As somebody who is anti-academia myself, I am so annoyed at being told I am anti-science as well for being as such. Hearing the evidence laid out by somebody also willing to call out academia, but who does believe in climate change is WAY more effective than one more bludgeoning tool from a boot licking sycophant.

Want to have your discussion regarding "What to do?" regarding climate change? You need to stop treating people who want to know your arguments and see your data with respect first. Sabine is a great ACTUAL science educator and not merely a grifter, and (I suspect) just a modest honest person. She legit deserves clicking that subscribe button.

eximius2• 2 years ago

It's extremely frustrating to watch our world deteriorating because politicians aren't willing to actually do their jobs and govern.

I'd go even stronger and, for the US, pass regulations that all emissions of all kinds must be captured or the company will be fined double the cost of environmental remediation as executed by contractors employed by the government (scaling from 1% of the fine to 100% of the fine over X years).

croes• 2 years ago

If they do, people vote parties who don't.

apitman• 2 years ago

You say that as though politicians appear out of thin air. The root problem is that the average person isn't motivated to do anything, including voting in politicians who will do something.

That and misinformation isn't helping.

eximius2• 2 years ago

Average American, perhaps, with our "rugged individualism" and apparent lack of empathy.

PeterisP12• 2 years ago

Arguably the job of democratically elected politicians is to represent the interests of their constituents - so when there's internationally a "prisoner's dillema"/"tragedy of commons" scenario where there is a lack of global coordination and taking on unilateral commitments would hurt their people but not really solve the issue, it can make all sense for an effective, honest politician doing their job to "defect" and put the interests of their people above the interests of the rest of the world.

tsss• 2 years ago

They are governing according to the will of the people (to some degree). Fact is that outside the western intelligentsia nobody really gives a shit about climate change and why would they? For people without children, certainly it is not their problem. The world's resources are plenty enough for this generation and even the next. Everyone else would be stupid to sacrifice their own wealth for an absolutely minuscule chance of improvement without an enforcible promise that their neighbours will do the same. They will just end up doing it all for nothing. It's a typical tragedy-of-the-commons dilemma.

Tarq0n• 2 years ago

Resouces, maybe. But they'll experience a refugee crisis in their lifetimes unlike any seen before, as well as potential food insecurity.

Timber-6539• 2 years ago

So when exactly is "my part of the earth" going to start melting away? I need a time frame in order to care about it.

hackernoteng• 2 years ago

Stop being afraid. Stay away from climate change cults.

EnigmaFlare• 2 years ago

I think the reason everyone just has a "worry" or an opinion and there's so much disagreement is because nobody knows, even in the slightest what effect climate change will have on people's quality of life. We have predictions of some effects like temperature extremes, sea level rise, storm severity (or so I've heard, I can only find hand-waving in IPCC reports), mass migration, etc. but no credible and terrible predictions of numbers of deaths, financial cost or other more direct impacts on people. Maybe the climate will be radically different but we'll adapt just fine? Who knows? Nobody! So people invent their own beliefs and we end up with doomsdayers imagining the worse possible outcome and neverminders imagining the best possible outcome and they all want to control each other's behavior according to their own imagination. Now it becomes political and people hate each other because they see them working against each other's believed fantasy.

Even in this video, I couldn't find any quantified predictions of actual effects on people, so it just continues to support everyone's own fantasy, whichever way that goes.

collyw2• 2 years ago

I used to now I don't. After over 3 decades of hearing about it, none of the catastrophic predictions have come true. The sea level hasn't risen by any perceptible amount (I live on the coast). And I see no reason why it's considered a bad thing if it gets slightly warmer.

I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

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