9 ms·

Who Will Suffer Most from Climate Change? (Hint: Not You)

79 points by us0r 11y ago

DennisP 11y ago
Although true, I think headlines like this give a lot of people an impression that the First World won't suffer. Climate change over +2C will hit the U.S. hard, and the fact that other places are worse off won't be consolation. At the rate we're going, that's not future generations, it's many of today's working people at retirement age. (For details, an excellent source is Six Degrees by Mark Lynas, who read 3000 peer-reviewed papers on the effects of climate change and summarized them, with extensive references.)
- javert 11y ago
  > Climate change over +2C will hit the U.S. hard, and the fact that other places are worse off won't be consolation. Care to elaborate? I don't see how that would be a problem. Agricultural areas would shift, and maybe we'd have to move some stuff further inland/build dikes/turn cities into Venice. Anything I'm missing? I don't see how that stuff is worse than energy controls (people have no idea how important energy is for the economy), plus even if we change, other countries won't.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - vacri 11y ago
    > plus even if we change, other countries won't. Because the US has no political power, amirite? On completely separate note, as an Australian, I'd like to thank the US for pushing it's list of verboten drugs onto us, for pressuring us to take part in it's wars of convenience, for pushing it's IP laws down our throat via treaty obligations, and for bending us over the desk with our "free trade" agreements.
    - javert 11y ago
      Obviously the other main culprit (for putting carbon into the air) is China, and it's not worth it for the US to try to exercise power over them. As to the list of stuff you're complaining about, you can only blame Australia (i.e., your fellow citizens and your politicians). Australia absolutely could just not do that stuff. The US is not going to invade Australia. The reason Australia goes along with it is because it wants to. And it wants to because it's a whole lot like the US. All the former British colonies have a lot in common. We probably should have all just stayed in one big empire. After all, the US Founders bungled up our system permanently by claiming that rights come from God, which is only a way to supposedly invalidate rights.
      - lentil_soup 11y ago
        What are you on about, China is way behind the US in emissions per per capita: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
        talmand 11y ago
        And yet that same chart shows China has twice as much in total emissions as compared to the US. Pick your preference I guess. Plus I don't remember hearing quite as many reports of extremely polluted cities outside of China as I hear about in China.
        belenos46 11y ago
        And three million kilotons ahead on emissions total, which are what matter. Also, how and where was this data collected? We know that we can't trust companies to report this accurately. Was it collected by the state? Since it's not privacy-related, I sort of trust the US to report accurately, whereas I don't trust the PRC to do so.
        zurn 11y ago
        Also those emissions are relatively easy to fix since it's mostly cheap and nasty coal plants. They're already sick of coal plants due to local pollution, and switching electricity generation tech is much easier than say changing 100 year old car based city structures. And they are well positioned to do renewables & nuclear.
  - stewartbutler 11y ago
    Having not read the source material referenced by OP, the biggest concerns I have (that are not commonly addressed) are as follows: 1: increased ocean acidity due to CO2 dissolving into water. A lot of the smaller lifeforms (coral, others) rely on calcium carbonate for exoskeletons, even small changes in PH can greatly reduce their capability to extract such from the water. There will also be many more unexpected implications, so the total impact on ocean biomes is unknown. 2: global warming means more energy in the weather systems, which means greater fluctuations and more chaotic weather, not necessarily just a small increase in average temperature. Think bigger hurricanes, more severe floods and droughts, higher winds, etc.
    - sanxiyn 11y ago
      From IPCC report "Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis" chapter 2: "In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale." (2.6.2.2) "In summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought since the middle of the 20th century, owing to geographical inconsistencies in the trends." (2.6.2.3) It's not as simple as more energy -> more chaotic weather -> more severe floods and droughts. Unlike other parts of global warming, many changes in extereme events are hypothetical and unsettled. (For floods, we are not sure of sign!)
    - kaybe 11y ago
      Another big concern is shifting precipitation patterns. Our civilisations and current ecosystems are build for current patterns, and floods in deserts during droughts in normally wet areas don't help anyone.
    - saalweachter 11y ago
      3: increase in days over 100F. Being hotter isn't just an inconvenience: photosynthesis stops working efficiently when temperatures are over 100F (fun chemistry fact: chemical reactions are temperature sensitive; this is why your body tries to maintain a very narrow temperature range. Otherwise, the chemical reactions all run at the wrong speed (or not at all), and the delicate balance of chemical pathways is disrupted). So when temperatures get too hot, plants switch from photosynthesizing and storing energy to burning their stored sugars and respiring. Forests begin emitting CO2 instead of consuming it; crops do not have the extra sugars to store as fruits and grains for us to harvest and eat.
  - GabrielF00 11y ago
    >Care to elaborate? I don't see how that would be a problem. Agricultural areas would shift, and maybe we'd have to move some stuff further inland/build dikes/turn cities into Venice. Anything I'm missing? All of those things sound like huge problems.
    - javert 11y ago
      Humans have been adapting to nature and vice versa for all of history. Those things I mentioned are not enough to stangle the economy. I mean, if you are going to impoverish people, what's the point? Isn't preventing global warming supposed to be for the sake of helping people? Again, people don't understand how essential cheap energy is.
      - DennisP 11y ago
        Plenty of economists have compared the economic impact of taking action now vs. dealing with the damage later. Action now is much, much cheaper.
        spacehome 11y ago
        Yea, but action now has a "tragedy of the commons" aspect to it in that not acting lets you freeload off of your neighbors who do. Taking action later to deal with the damage is local expenditure of resources for local benefit.
        ZeroGravitas 11y ago
        A fair amount of the required effort is a good idea in itself, e.g. efficiency improvements in business, converting coal plants to natural gas to reduce air pollution health effects, wind is the cheapest and easist to build power source for new electricity capacity, solar correlates brilliantly with usage, electric cars/busses/taxis are great for big cities and so on. It gets trickier later, but a lot if it just needs a tiny push in the right direction, as can be seen by the many countries around the world, already doing the "impossible" with relatively little fuss. The bigger economic issue is that a very small number of people benefit directly from coal usage, and they can buy off politicians easily without challenge from the millions of people who suffer the ill effects indirectly through healthcare costs etc.
  - spacehome 11y ago
    I feel bad for the state of discussion on HN that you were downvoted for asking an honest, polite request for more information.
    - javert 11y ago
      Since you mention it... I recently lost 11 points in the span of a few minutes (while writing a comment), apparently because someone went and downvoted all my recent comments. I've seen other suspicious behavior for months, but it's more anecdotal, so I won't go into it here. tl;dr I am probably getting vote brigaded. edit: And now I am "submitting too fast" and can't continue the conversations I am in (though I can still make edits). I don't know how the algorithm for that works, but I suspect (from experience) it's partially based partially on how many downvotes you're getting, because I often hit this without submitting quickly or all that much. Also from experience, it takes a really long time before you can start submitting again. So I'm effectively silenced (until next time...). edit2: "If you talk about downvotes, chances are you'll get downvoted" (below---I'm still "rate" limited). Well, someone else raised the issue of culture on HN (not me), and I'm providing data. This is constructive, as opposed to simply bitching about getting downvotes, which I am being accused of. That is wrong and I never do that, as my comment history will prove. This accusation is conflating two entirely different things and is really unjust and unhelpful. Again, having someone systematically downvote your comment history is not the same as complaining about people downvoting a particular comment because they don't like it. Calling me a "bore" because I am reporting abusive behavior is beyond the pale.
      - striking 11y ago
        "A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours." If you talk about downvotes, chances are you'll get downvoted...
        talmand 11y ago
        >> "A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours." Where is that quote from? It's been a while since I've seen such an elitist snarky statement and I'd like to know who to attribute it to.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Look at Louisiana for example of harm. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/losing-ground-southeast-louisiana-is-disappearing-quickly/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/losing-ground-sout... > In just 80 years, some 2,000 square miles of its coastal landscape have turned to open water, wiping places off maps, bringing the Gulf of Mexico to the back door of New Orleans and posing a lethal threat to an energy and shipping corridor vital to the nation’s economy. A football field size area of land is lost every hour. That's going to have massive economic and cultural impact on the rest of the US.
    - Shivetya 11y ago
      and how is that different than what man has gone through all his existence? We still find ruins today underwater that obviously at one time were quite a bit above the surface. I am quite sure that Venice wasn't built with the idea it would have the water problems today. There are even areas of the world previous underwater that are not. In summary, people like to exaggerate the issue by ignoring the past. Climate change became the focus after their previous terms all bit the dust. It became the cause celebrity when big business found a way to exploit it for money and politicians found it gave them more control over people; in turn how to coerce donations from groups not previously bending the knee. It is all so very easy to make it sound dire but the exaggerations border on religious fanaticism and the name calling/branding of anyone who doesn't agree one hundred percent is similar in nature
      - Retra 11y ago
        You say it's an exaggeration -- a believable claim -- but that's something you've got to actually demonstrate, not just speculate assertively.
      - bedhead 11y ago
        Nuance, nor perspective, among many other things, do not lend themselves well to any discussion about climate change, which is awfully sad. You are exactly correct that this is a 21st century religion, regardless of the accuracy of the discussion around it.
  - deleted 11y ago
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  - cryoshon 11y ago
    I'd also expect mosquito and pest populations to spiral out of control in areas where they are already bad, and spread to areas that didn't have them previously. Changes like this could cause collapse/redistribution of ecosystems pretty reliably.
  - rndmind 11y ago
    Two wrongs do not make a right, and thinking that climate warming only poses a minor inconvenience is ignorant. Please do some further research or you could misconstrued as a rude troll.
  - norea-armozel 11y ago
    Water sources for Kansas aren't surface waters but ground waters. Problem is that the recharge rate is far outstripped by current crops we're growing. Western Kansas will slowly turn into a desert due to this reality. The same goes for most of Oklahoma and Nebraska. These are the states which grow the wheat and corn that goes into your food stuffs. You think bread is expensive now wait until a gallon of fresh water costs more than a gallon of gas. Then you'll feel the pinch of Malthus' Curse.
    - kaitai 11y ago
      Major ag and commodities companies are already buying land in Canada and Australia with this expectation.
      - norea-armozel 11y ago
        Yeah, but it's likely to be not sufficient to handle a growing population either. I expect that the long term solution is to take to space and create artificial habitats or cut down on our population (most likely option imo).
    - TheCoelacanth 11y ago
      It's ludicrous to suggest that fresh water will ever be more expensive than gas. The price of gas would have to drop by a factor of about a thousand to get to the realistic maximum price for fresh water (the cost of producing water via desalination). Of course, farmers are so used to cheap water that it would be a huge shock to the agricultural economy for the price of water to rise to even 1/1000th the price of gas.
      - norea-armozel 11y ago
        I may be hyperbolic in my statement regarding the price of water, but the fact remains the more scarce the water the more expensive the crops that need it. Food crops will become prohibitively expensive as fresh water sources become harder to find or transport to areas were water is scarce. This is a reality that we can't avoid anymore. We either bite the bullet and get ready for what will be a multi-generational Grapes of Wrath or just lay down and die. There's no half-measures when Nature dictates the situation.
  - kaitai 11y ago
    There are a couple cities moving now, more or less; mostly cities in Syria trying to move to Germany as far as I can tell. Don't see how that movement is worse than energy controls? Imagine Bangladesh trying to move its cities. There are about 157 million people there. Let's say only the quarter of the population that's on the low-lying coastal areas currently experiencing a lot of flooding need to move. Is the Bangladeshi government going to organize a nice resettlement program? Are they going to rent land in India to move everyone to? Or are we gradually going to see more and more folks individually and collectively saying, F..., I need to get to Europe for the safety and opportunity of my children. Imagine just a quarter of those Bangladeshis in low-lying areas making their way to Europe: 10 million people trying to move to avoid the floods and the threat of death, with few to no cash reserves, moving across the continents paying smugglers and trying to ride trains on top of trains. This year (Jan-Aug 2015) only 350,000 people tried to make it into the EU in this way and it's already affecting political stability in the region. http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/06/19/warming-climate-to-hit-bangladesh-hard-with-sea-level-rise-more-floods-and-cyclones-world-bank-report-says http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/06/19/wa...
nishantmodak 11y ago
The rice farmers I met in Bihar, for instance, are now growing a new variety of flood-tolerant rice—nicknamed “scuba” rice—that can survive two weeks underwater. Found this extremely interesting. Probably because, I was surprised by the thought that, this could be done
- deleted 11y ago
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vixen99 11y ago
Pros and cons? CO2 is of course the primary carbon source for plants. Not the merest hint here of the enormous degree of planet-greening with record crop yields equivalent to millions of dollars that's taken place as a result of the increase in atmospheric CO2. When discussing the results of this increase, typically, articles like this and hundreds more http://www.planetseed.com/relatedarticle/co2-production-international-perspective http://www.planetseed.com/relatedarticle/co2-production-inte... take pains not to mention it. According to CSIRO" “CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa.” This means that arid regions across the world would have not greened if CO2 levels had not increased.". Hardly worth mentioning I guess.
- ohitsdom 11y ago
  Interesting, it almost acts like a natural defense mechanism for the planet. The problem is, it's not enough. It's great if the CO2 increase has led to greater food production, but that increased foliage hasn't stopped or slowed the CO2 increase. So yes, it's probably "hardly worth mentioning".
  - sanxiyn 11y ago
    Eh, if you are talking about impact of climate change on agriculture, of course this is worth mentioning, and most sane sources do. For example, quoting IPCC report "Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability" chapter 7, "Evidence confirms the stimulatory effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) in most cases on crop yields (high confidence)".
- cwal37 11y ago
  I hope you noticed your quote specifically says correlated. Also, you're presenting an argument that has actually been looked at for decades in the literature, which would be evident from a leisurely google scholar search of terms such as: climate change, CO2, respiration, net ecosystem production, terrestrial vegetation, food supply, etc. I've attempted to grab some links to papers that seem to be publicly available. [5] is a review from the Royal Society, and [3] is straight out of Science if you care about credentials. 2001. [1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2486.2001.00383.x/pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2486.2001.... 1994. [2] http://ecoethics.net/cyprus-institute.us/PDF/Rosensweig-Food-Supply.pdf http://ecoethics.net/cyprus-institute.us/PDF/Rosensweig-Food... 2006. [3] http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/26790/PDF http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/26790/PDF 2004. [4] http://www.preventionweb.net/files/1090_foodproduction.pdf http://www.preventionweb.net/files/1090_foodproduction.pdf 2005. [5] http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/360/1463/2125.full.pdf http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/360/14...
dovereconomics 11y ago
>The world’s poorest farmers show up for work each day for the most part empty-handed. That’s why of all the people who will suffer from climate change, they are likely to suffer the most. So, these poor farmers will demand low-cost solutions to manage these problems. Entrepreneurs would sense this(Bill already did) and start building these tools. It's just how capitalism works. Unless, there's a crony global economy where corporations buy up government and hold illegitimate monopolies. As consequence, they are unproductive and unable to keep up with innovation. The world doesn't get what it needs. Bill would also be a good example.
- javert 11y ago
  I wouldn't blame this on governments/corporations. I would blame it on people choosing to have children they can't necessarily support. I think people should have the right to do that, but they should have to face the consequences.
  - jlg23 11y ago
    > I would blame it on people choosing to have children they can't necessarily support. It's not like that they perceive to have a choice: If one lives from day to day (or here harvest to harvest) and has never heard of pensions nor any chance to ever receive one, children are the only security one has for old age.
    - stank345 11y ago
      In all likelihood, they also don't have access to education or birth control.
  - dovereconomics 11y ago
    Actually, they have children to support themselves. Without mechanization, it becomes increasingly harder to support yourself without relatives to take care of you after you retire.
  - radu_floricica 11y ago
graycat 11y ago
Let's see: Event A will cause event B. Event B will will be really bad. So, let's go on and on about how bad event B will be, all the direct effects and all the indirect effects. On and on. So, get people all up on their hind legs based on how bad event B will be. But event A, what about event A? How do we know that event A will happen? When do we get solid information about the chances of event A? Event B: Gigantic flocks of pigs flying over our largest cities and dropping huge piles of pig poop. Let's talk about all the really horrible problems all those flying pigs will cause. Let's get the EPA, USDA, CDC, etc. working really hard on the problem. Let's pass a lot of new laws restricting and taxing pigs. Let's have the NIH doing genetic studies on how to do genetic engineering to throttle the flying pigs. We need a UN effort to constrain all those flying pigs with some treaties with some severe sanctions to protect the world, including the poorest people who will be hurt the worst, from all those flying pigs. In all of this, what is the chance of event A, the chances of the gigantic flocks of flying pigs? So, since event B with those pigs would be so bad, we get to neglect talking about event A that the pigs will fly at all? I smell the faint whiff of propaganda pig poop.
- witty_username 11y ago
  I think you are saying that climate change may not necessarily occur? Why do you think so? (Just curious)
  - graycat 11y ago
    We have a lot of really solid evidence of significant climate change going back at least 110 million years. There is also evidence back 65 million years, 600,000 years, and 500 years. For the last 2000 years there is Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, National Research Council, 'Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years', ISBN 0-309-66264-8, 196 pages, National Academies Press, 2006. still available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html
    - DennisP 11y ago
      The fact that climate has gone through major changes before is the reason people are worried. If it had been stable for a billion years, we could be confident that powerful negative feedbacks keep it that way. Instead, we see minor initial changes kicking off positive feedbacks that take things much further. Hansen's book goes into this in detail.

79 points by us0r 11y ago

Although true, I think headlines like this give a lot of people an impression that the First World won't suffer. Climate change over +2C will hit the U.S. hard, and the fact that other places are worse off won't be consolation. At the rate we're going, that's not future generations, it's many of today's working people at retirement age. (For details, an excellent source is Six Degrees by Mark Lynas, who read 3000 peer-reviewed papers on the effects of climate change and summarized them, with extensive references.)

javert 11y ago
> Climate change over +2C will hit the U.S. hard, and the fact that other places are worse off won't be consolation. Care to elaborate? I don't see how that would be a problem. Agricultural areas would shift, and maybe we'd have to move some stuff further inland/build dikes/turn cities into Venice. Anything I'm missing? I don't see how that stuff is worse than energy controls (people have no idea how important energy is for the economy), plus even if we change, other countries won't.
- deleted 11y ago
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- vacri 11y ago
  > plus even if we change, other countries won't. Because the US has no political power, amirite? On completely separate note, as an Australian, I'd like to thank the US for pushing it's list of verboten drugs onto us, for pressuring us to take part in it's wars of convenience, for pushing it's IP laws down our throat via treaty obligations, and for bending us over the desk with our "free trade" agreements.
  - javert 11y ago
    Obviously the other main culprit (for putting carbon into the air) is China, and it's not worth it for the US to try to exercise power over them. As to the list of stuff you're complaining about, you can only blame Australia (i.e., your fellow citizens and your politicians). Australia absolutely could just not do that stuff. The US is not going to invade Australia. The reason Australia goes along with it is because it wants to. And it wants to because it's a whole lot like the US. All the former British colonies have a lot in common. We probably should have all just stayed in one big empire. After all, the US Founders bungled up our system permanently by claiming that rights come from God, which is only a way to supposedly invalidate rights.
    - lentil_soup 11y ago
      What are you on about, China is way behind the US in emissions per per capita: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
      - talmand 11y ago
        And yet that same chart shows China has twice as much in total emissions as compared to the US. Pick your preference I guess. Plus I don't remember hearing quite as many reports of extremely polluted cities outside of China as I hear about in China.
      - belenos46 11y ago
        And three million kilotons ahead on emissions total, which are what matter. Also, how and where was this data collected? We know that we can't trust companies to report this accurately. Was it collected by the state? Since it's not privacy-related, I sort of trust the US to report accurately, whereas I don't trust the PRC to do so.
      - zurn 11y ago
        Also those emissions are relatively easy to fix since it's mostly cheap and nasty coal plants. They're already sick of coal plants due to local pollution, and switching electricity generation tech is much easier than say changing 100 year old car based city structures. And they are well positioned to do renewables & nuclear.
- stewartbutler 11y ago
  Having not read the source material referenced by OP, the biggest concerns I have (that are not commonly addressed) are as follows: 1: increased ocean acidity due to CO2 dissolving into water. A lot of the smaller lifeforms (coral, others) rely on calcium carbonate for exoskeletons, even small changes in PH can greatly reduce their capability to extract such from the water. There will also be many more unexpected implications, so the total impact on ocean biomes is unknown. 2: global warming means more energy in the weather systems, which means greater fluctuations and more chaotic weather, not necessarily just a small increase in average temperature. Think bigger hurricanes, more severe floods and droughts, higher winds, etc.
  - sanxiyn 11y ago
    From IPCC report "Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis" chapter 2: "In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale." (2.6.2.2) "In summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought since the middle of the 20th century, owing to geographical inconsistencies in the trends." (2.6.2.3) It's not as simple as more energy -> more chaotic weather -> more severe floods and droughts. Unlike other parts of global warming, many changes in extereme events are hypothetical and unsettled. (For floods, we are not sure of sign!)
  - kaybe 11y ago
    Another big concern is shifting precipitation patterns. Our civilisations and current ecosystems are build for current patterns, and floods in deserts during droughts in normally wet areas don't help anyone.
  - saalweachter 11y ago
    3: increase in days over 100F. Being hotter isn't just an inconvenience: photosynthesis stops working efficiently when temperatures are over 100F (fun chemistry fact: chemical reactions are temperature sensitive; this is why your body tries to maintain a very narrow temperature range. Otherwise, the chemical reactions all run at the wrong speed (or not at all), and the delicate balance of chemical pathways is disrupted). So when temperatures get too hot, plants switch from photosynthesizing and storing energy to burning their stored sugars and respiring. Forests begin emitting CO2 instead of consuming it; crops do not have the extra sugars to store as fruits and grains for us to harvest and eat.
- GabrielF00 11y ago
  >Care to elaborate? I don't see how that would be a problem. Agricultural areas would shift, and maybe we'd have to move some stuff further inland/build dikes/turn cities into Venice. Anything I'm missing? All of those things sound like huge problems.
  - javert 11y ago
    Humans have been adapting to nature and vice versa for all of history. Those things I mentioned are not enough to stangle the economy. I mean, if you are going to impoverish people, what's the point? Isn't preventing global warming supposed to be for the sake of helping people? Again, people don't understand how essential cheap energy is.
    - DennisP 11y ago
      Plenty of economists have compared the economic impact of taking action now vs. dealing with the damage later. Action now is much, much cheaper.
      - spacehome 11y ago
        Yea, but action now has a "tragedy of the commons" aspect to it in that not acting lets you freeload off of your neighbors who do. Taking action later to deal with the damage is local expenditure of resources for local benefit.
        ZeroGravitas 11y ago
        A fair amount of the required effort is a good idea in itself, e.g. efficiency improvements in business, converting coal plants to natural gas to reduce air pollution health effects, wind is the cheapest and easist to build power source for new electricity capacity, solar correlates brilliantly with usage, electric cars/busses/taxis are great for big cities and so on. It gets trickier later, but a lot if it just needs a tiny push in the right direction, as can be seen by the many countries around the world, already doing the "impossible" with relatively little fuss. The bigger economic issue is that a very small number of people benefit directly from coal usage, and they can buy off politicians easily without challenge from the millions of people who suffer the ill effects indirectly through healthcare costs etc.
- spacehome 11y ago
  I feel bad for the state of discussion on HN that you were downvoted for asking an honest, polite request for more information.
  - javert 11y ago
    Since you mention it... I recently lost 11 points in the span of a few minutes (while writing a comment), apparently because someone went and downvoted all my recent comments. I've seen other suspicious behavior for months, but it's more anecdotal, so I won't go into it here. tl;dr I am probably getting vote brigaded. edit: And now I am "submitting too fast" and can't continue the conversations I am in (though I can still make edits). I don't know how the algorithm for that works, but I suspect (from experience) it's partially based partially on how many downvotes you're getting, because I often hit this without submitting quickly or all that much. Also from experience, it takes a really long time before you can start submitting again. So I'm effectively silenced (until next time...). edit2: "If you talk about downvotes, chances are you'll get downvoted" (below---I'm still "rate" limited). Well, someone else raised the issue of culture on HN (not me), and I'm providing data. This is constructive, as opposed to simply bitching about getting downvotes, which I am being accused of. That is wrong and I never do that, as my comment history will prove. This accusation is conflating two entirely different things and is really unjust and unhelpful. Again, having someone systematically downvote your comment history is not the same as complaining about people downvoting a particular comment because they don't like it. Calling me a "bore" because I am reporting abusive behavior is beyond the pale.
    - striking 11y ago
      "A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours." If you talk about downvotes, chances are you'll get downvoted...
      - talmand 11y ago
        >> "A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours." Where is that quote from? It's been a while since I've seen such an elitist snarky statement and I'd like to know who to attribute it to.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Look at Louisiana for example of harm. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/losing-ground-southeast-louisiana-is-disappearing-quickly/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/losing-ground-sout... > In just 80 years, some 2,000 square miles of its coastal landscape have turned to open water, wiping places off maps, bringing the Gulf of Mexico to the back door of New Orleans and posing a lethal threat to an energy and shipping corridor vital to the nation’s economy. A football field size area of land is lost every hour. That's going to have massive economic and cultural impact on the rest of the US.
  - Shivetya 11y ago
    and how is that different than what man has gone through all his existence? We still find ruins today underwater that obviously at one time were quite a bit above the surface. I am quite sure that Venice wasn't built with the idea it would have the water problems today. There are even areas of the world previous underwater that are not. In summary, people like to exaggerate the issue by ignoring the past. Climate change became the focus after their previous terms all bit the dust. It became the cause celebrity when big business found a way to exploit it for money and politicians found it gave them more control over people; in turn how to coerce donations from groups not previously bending the knee. It is all so very easy to make it sound dire but the exaggerations border on religious fanaticism and the name calling/branding of anyone who doesn't agree one hundred percent is similar in nature
    - Retra 11y ago
      You say it's an exaggeration -- a believable claim -- but that's something you've got to actually demonstrate, not just speculate assertively.
    - bedhead 11y ago
      Nuance, nor perspective, among many other things, do not lend themselves well to any discussion about climate change, which is awfully sad. You are exactly correct that this is a 21st century religion, regardless of the accuracy of the discussion around it.
- deleted 11y ago
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- cryoshon 11y ago
  I'd also expect mosquito and pest populations to spiral out of control in areas where they are already bad, and spread to areas that didn't have them previously. Changes like this could cause collapse/redistribution of ecosystems pretty reliably.
- rndmind 11y ago
  Two wrongs do not make a right, and thinking that climate warming only poses a minor inconvenience is ignorant. Please do some further research or you could misconstrued as a rude troll.
- norea-armozel 11y ago
  Water sources for Kansas aren't surface waters but ground waters. Problem is that the recharge rate is far outstripped by current crops we're growing. Western Kansas will slowly turn into a desert due to this reality. The same goes for most of Oklahoma and Nebraska. These are the states which grow the wheat and corn that goes into your food stuffs. You think bread is expensive now wait until a gallon of fresh water costs more than a gallon of gas. Then you'll feel the pinch of Malthus' Curse.
  - kaitai 11y ago
    Major ag and commodities companies are already buying land in Canada and Australia with this expectation.
    - norea-armozel 11y ago
      Yeah, but it's likely to be not sufficient to handle a growing population either. I expect that the long term solution is to take to space and create artificial habitats or cut down on our population (most likely option imo).
  - TheCoelacanth 11y ago
    It's ludicrous to suggest that fresh water will ever be more expensive than gas. The price of gas would have to drop by a factor of about a thousand to get to the realistic maximum price for fresh water (the cost of producing water via desalination). Of course, farmers are so used to cheap water that it would be a huge shock to the agricultural economy for the price of water to rise to even 1/1000th the price of gas.
    - norea-armozel 11y ago
      I may be hyperbolic in my statement regarding the price of water, but the fact remains the more scarce the water the more expensive the crops that need it. Food crops will become prohibitively expensive as fresh water sources become harder to find or transport to areas were water is scarce. This is a reality that we can't avoid anymore. We either bite the bullet and get ready for what will be a multi-generational Grapes of Wrath or just lay down and die. There's no half-measures when Nature dictates the situation.
- kaitai 11y ago
  There are a couple cities moving now, more or less; mostly cities in Syria trying to move to Germany as far as I can tell. Don't see how that movement is worse than energy controls? Imagine Bangladesh trying to move its cities. There are about 157 million people there. Let's say only the quarter of the population that's on the low-lying coastal areas currently experiencing a lot of flooding need to move. Is the Bangladeshi government going to organize a nice resettlement program? Are they going to rent land in India to move everyone to? Or are we gradually going to see more and more folks individually and collectively saying, F..., I need to get to Europe for the safety and opportunity of my children. Imagine just a quarter of those Bangladeshis in low-lying areas making their way to Europe: 10 million people trying to move to avoid the floods and the threat of death, with few to no cash reserves, moving across the continents paying smugglers and trying to ride trains on top of trains. This year (Jan-Aug 2015) only 350,000 people tried to make it into the EU in this way and it's already affecting political stability in the region. http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/06/19/warming-climate-to-hit-bangladesh-hard-with-sea-level-rise-more-floods-and-cyclones-world-bank-report-says http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/06/19/wa...

nishantmodak 11y ago

The rice farmers I met in Bihar, for instance, are now growing a new variety of flood-tolerant rice—nicknamed “scuba” rice—that can survive two weeks underwater. Found this extremely interesting. Probably because, I was surprised by the thought that, this could be done

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vixen99 11y ago

Pros and cons? CO2 is of course the primary carbon source for plants. Not the merest hint here of the enormous degree of planet-greening with record crop yields equivalent to millions of dollars that's taken place as a result of the increase in atmospheric CO2. When discussing the results of this increase, typically, articles like this and hundreds more http://www.planetseed.com/relatedarticle/co2-production-international-perspective http://www.planetseed.com/relatedarticle/co2-production-inte... take pains not to mention it. According to CSIRO" “CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa.” This means that arid regions across the world would have not greened if CO2 levels had not increased.". Hardly worth mentioning I guess.

ohitsdom 11y ago
Interesting, it almost acts like a natural defense mechanism for the planet. The problem is, it's not enough. It's great if the CO2 increase has led to greater food production, but that increased foliage hasn't stopped or slowed the CO2 increase. So yes, it's probably "hardly worth mentioning".
- sanxiyn 11y ago
  Eh, if you are talking about impact of climate change on agriculture, of course this is worth mentioning, and most sane sources do. For example, quoting IPCC report "Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability" chapter 7, "Evidence confirms the stimulatory effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) in most cases on crop yields (high confidence)".
cwal37 11y ago
I hope you noticed your quote specifically says correlated. Also, you're presenting an argument that has actually been looked at for decades in the literature, which would be evident from a leisurely google scholar search of terms such as: climate change, CO2, respiration, net ecosystem production, terrestrial vegetation, food supply, etc. I've attempted to grab some links to papers that seem to be publicly available. [5] is a review from the Royal Society, and [3] is straight out of Science if you care about credentials. 2001. [1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2486.2001.00383.x/pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2486.2001.... 1994. [2] http://ecoethics.net/cyprus-institute.us/PDF/Rosensweig-Food-Supply.pdf http://ecoethics.net/cyprus-institute.us/PDF/Rosensweig-Food... 2006. [3] http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/26790/PDF http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/26790/PDF 2004. [4] http://www.preventionweb.net/files/1090_foodproduction.pdf http://www.preventionweb.net/files/1090_foodproduction.pdf 2005. [5] http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/360/1463/2125.full.pdf http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/360/14...

dovereconomics 11y ago

>The world’s poorest farmers show up for work each day for the most part empty-handed. That’s why of all the people who will suffer from climate change, they are likely to suffer the most. So, these poor farmers will demand low-cost solutions to manage these problems. Entrepreneurs would sense this(Bill already did) and start building these tools. It's just how capitalism works. Unless, there's a crony global economy where corporations buy up government and hold illegitimate monopolies. As consequence, they are unproductive and unable to keep up with innovation. The world doesn't get what it needs. Bill would also be a good example.

javert 11y ago
I wouldn't blame this on governments/corporations. I would blame it on people choosing to have children they can't necessarily support. I think people should have the right to do that, but they should have to face the consequences.
- jlg23 11y ago
  > I would blame it on people choosing to have children they can't necessarily support. It's not like that they perceive to have a choice: If one lives from day to day (or here harvest to harvest) and has never heard of pensions nor any chance to ever receive one, children are the only security one has for old age.
  - stank345 11y ago
    In all likelihood, they also don't have access to education or birth control.
- dovereconomics 11y ago
  Actually, they have children to support themselves. Without mechanization, it becomes increasingly harder to support yourself without relatives to take care of you after you retire.
- radu_floricica 11y ago

graycat 11y ago

Let's see: Event A will cause event B. Event B will will be really bad. So, let's go on and on about how bad event B will be, all the direct effects and all the indirect effects. On and on. So, get people all up on their hind legs based on how bad event B will be. But event A, what about event A? How do we know that event A will happen? When do we get solid information about the chances of event A? Event B: Gigantic flocks of pigs flying over our largest cities and dropping huge piles of pig poop. Let's talk about all the really horrible problems all those flying pigs will cause. Let's get the EPA, USDA, CDC, etc. working really hard on the problem. Let's pass a lot of new laws restricting and taxing pigs. Let's have the NIH doing genetic studies on how to do genetic engineering to throttle the flying pigs. We need a UN effort to constrain all those flying pigs with some treaties with some severe sanctions to protect the world, including the poorest people who will be hurt the worst, from all those flying pigs. In all of this, what is the chance of event A, the chances of the gigantic flocks of flying pigs? So, since event B with those pigs would be so bad, we get to neglect talking about event A that the pigs will fly at all? I smell the faint whiff of propaganda pig poop.

witty_username 11y ago
I think you are saying that climate change may not necessarily occur? Why do you think so? (Just curious)
- graycat 11y ago
  We have a lot of really solid evidence of significant climate change going back at least 110 million years. There is also evidence back 65 million years, 600,000 years, and 500 years. For the last 2000 years there is Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, National Research Council, 'Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years', ISBN 0-309-66264-8, 196 pages, National Academies Press, 2006. still available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html
  - DennisP 11y ago
    The fact that climate has gone through major changes before is the reason people are worried. If it had been stable for a billion years, we could be confident that powerful negative feedbacks keep it that way. Instead, we see minor initial changes kicking off positive feedbacks that take things much further. Hansen's book goes into this in detail.