8 ms·

I'm willing to remain optimistic on this front, because even if nothing meaningful is accomplished with this specific accord, it does not rule out more in the f

I'm willing to remain optimistic on this front, because even if nothing meaningful is accomplished with this specific accord, it does not rule out more in the future. Getting all of these nations on board to do something about climate change (even if that simply means acknowledging its presence and their contributions to it) is a step in the right direction toward solving the problem meaningfully. The wheels of international politics turn slowly without economic or military consequences to fuel them, and sometimes (unfortunately) as the lowly ones we have to take what we can get.

avar 11y ago
I'm getting more optimistic too, but I remain worried that there seems to be a fundamental disconnect between scientists and the bureaucrats. Science will find out that within some small error bar we need to do exactly X, but bureaucrats see everything as a negotiation and will negotiate some number smaller than X. Now we're still slowly getting boiled to death (bad) albeit at a slower rate (good).
- adrtessier 11y ago
  Sadly, the "bureaucrats", or politicians are the ones in the right, and the scientists are not. In little scientific echo chambers like Hacker News, we generally put science and rationality above human emotion. Unfortunately the world at large is not a technocracy, a good majority of people see science as an equivalent worldview to religious dogma, most are not particularly educated, and they primarily live to create their own families and provide them with sufficient resources for evolutionary success. With things like climate change, you are attempting to change a mass behavior of people that often do not see the change as being in their best interest. This requires both negotiation on a regulatory level, as well as a lot of new level-setting within those communities. It is extremely possible that the best we will ever get is to be slowly boiled to death until it's too late to fix it.
  - avar 11y ago
    Yes I realize what it takes, but as Feynman quipped "nature cannot be fooled". At some point the piecemeal dilution of what we actually need to do will come back and bite us badly. No amount of negotiation between the hypothetical scientist and the bureaucrats about not cutting down the last tree on Easter Island that doesn't 100% go in favor of the scientist will come out well. The trees will still be extinct.
- andreasklinger 11y ago
  > a good majority of people see science as an equivalent worldview to religious dogma Is this also common outside of the US?
  - yongjik 11y ago
    It's more ridiculous. I've seen people claim that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the West to stunt economies of developing countries. Now only if they could talk to global warming "skeptics" in "the West" and engage in some kind of verbal death match...
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      The two parties agree to a large extent, although they would emphasize different points. Those who expect dire events should attempt to empathize with "the other" enough to imagine a convincing argument to e.g. forego the diesel generator that would allow children to do homework at night, rather than write off such concerns as "ridiculous". The other option, of course, is brutal occupation, which is why one sees the bloody fingerprints of the military-industrial complex all over much of the recent warming hullabaloo.
  - adrtessier 11y ago
    I can only speak to this anecdotally, but in my observations, yes, especially so when you're in areas of far less socioeconomic success than that of Western Europe, financially-driven city-states like Singapore (or Hong Kong, if you can call it one still), or Japan. Whether it is organized religion or superstition, there is a lot of folk knowledge that people still hold as equivalent and valuable, probably due to confirmation bias or the pain of cognitive dissonance in recognizing that an old adage is incorrect. Look at a good chunk of the Mideast as it exists today geopolitically; even wealthy areas like the UAE exist under pretty much strict Sharia interpretations. I have also observed this appears to be the case for a large chunk of the Muslim world, a decent part of Africa, Central America, and the Philippines, from my interactions with people natively from those areas outside of a scientific or professional atmosphere. I have a strong tendency to talk to anyone and everyone I can about their cultures, whether I am in their native land or they are in mine.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  There should really be something to change the old organisation scientists -> politicians -> population. Education should double down on creative ways to make kids click on subtle abstractions in order for them to see issues and proactively discuss, seek and enjoy working toward solutions.
- leereeves 11y ago
  > Now we're still slowly getting boiled to death That's exaggerating. Science doesn't predict such a dire outcome. http://climate.nasa.gov/effects/ http://climate.nasa.gov/effects/
  - ericd 11y ago
    Yeah, but the truth doesn't appear to be that much better. It doesn't seem likely that it will be 100% fatal, but with runaway climate problems, you're potentially looking at mass flooding, natural disasters, crop failures and starvation, and potentially the collapse of many societies in the ensuing unrest. It seems likely that it will result in large changes in the makeup of vegetation and wildlife, potentially to the point of mass extinction, if the food chains in the oceans and on land break down. Our social systems are not set up to deal with this kind of event, at all. The planet's ecology will rebound as it always does, but that happens on timescales not very compatible with human lives. Then again, maybe it will happen slowly enough for us and the ecosystem to adapt. I hope that's the case.
    - leereeves 11y ago
      How much of that scenario are actual scientific predictions? Sources?
      - shoo 11y ago
        >> It doesn't seem likely that it will be 100% fatal, but with runaway climate problems, you're potentially looking at mass flooding, natural disasters, crop failures and starvation, and potentially the collapse of many societies in the ensuing unrest. It seems likely that it will result in large changes in the makeup of vegetation and wildlife, potentially to the point of mass extinction, if the food chains in the oceans and on land break down. Our social systems are not set up to deal with this kind of event, at all. > How much of that doomsday scenario are actual scientific predictions? Sources? I believe there are a large number of studies looking at individual impacts. E.g. "flooding" / "crop yields in sub saharan Africa" / etc. For studies that look at the grim end of the spectrum (i.e. +4 degrees C global warming or higher), there was a conference in 2007 that considered the consequences of a +4 degrees C world - not a bad place to start reading: http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/events/4degrees/ http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/events/4degrees/ Similarly, there are studies regarding mass extinction. Current estimates of species extinction rates are way above what the estimates of "normal" rates are-- this won't all be due to climate change - as a species we are changing a lot more than just the climate (e.g. destroying ecosystems to make way for agriculture, etc). Do a google scholar search for words like "current mass extinction event" and you'll no doubt find many things to read. I am not sure if we are capable of making "actual scientific predictions" regarding the cumulative impact of all these different threads - e.g. "collapse of many societies" / "ensuing unrest". Personally I reckon such things would be fairly plausible and unsurprising consequences of +4 degrees global warming. Pragmatically, we just have to make the best decisions we can now with what information we have available. Certainty is a luxury and is not necessary to make decisions or take action, particularly when we're time constrained, and it takes a while for the consequences of our actions to manifest. Here's an analogy from one of the decks of slides from the 4degrees conference. > We are walking in Florida. > You find you have just been bitten on the hand by a snake. > We did not see the snake. > If it was the deadly carbonblack snake, the bite will kill you in a painful way, unless you cut off your hand within 15 secs. > I have a hatchet. > You have 5 seconds left. > Did you cut off your hand? > > How would a society learn to make such decisions? > > Luckily with climate change we have more than 15 seconds. Without knowing exactly how much more... http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/events/4degrees/ppt/8-1smith.pdf http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/events/4degrees/ppt/8-1smith.pdf

avar 11y ago

I'm getting more optimistic too, but I remain worried that there seems to be a fundamental disconnect between scientists and the bureaucrats. Science will find out that within some small error bar we need to do exactly X, but bureaucrats see everything as a negotiation and will negotiate some number smaller than X. Now we're still slowly getting boiled to death (bad) albeit at a slower rate (good).

adrtessier 11y ago
Sadly, the "bureaucrats", or politicians are the ones in the right, and the scientists are not. In little scientific echo chambers like Hacker News, we generally put science and rationality above human emotion. Unfortunately the world at large is not a technocracy, a good majority of people see science as an equivalent worldview to religious dogma, most are not particularly educated, and they primarily live to create their own families and provide them with sufficient resources for evolutionary success. With things like climate change, you are attempting to change a mass behavior of people that often do not see the change as being in their best interest. This requires both negotiation on a regulatory level, as well as a lot of new level-setting within those communities. It is extremely possible that the best we will ever get is to be slowly boiled to death until it's too late to fix it.
- avar 11y ago
  Yes I realize what it takes, but as Feynman quipped "nature cannot be fooled". At some point the piecemeal dilution of what we actually need to do will come back and bite us badly. No amount of negotiation between the hypothetical scientist and the bureaucrats about not cutting down the last tree on Easter Island that doesn't 100% go in favor of the scientist will come out well. The trees will still be extinct.
andreasklinger 11y ago
> a good majority of people see science as an equivalent worldview to religious dogma Is this also common outside of the US?
- yongjik 11y ago
  It's more ridiculous. I've seen people claim that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the West to stunt economies of developing countries. Now only if they could talk to global warming "skeptics" in "the West" and engage in some kind of verbal death match...
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    The two parties agree to a large extent, although they would emphasize different points. Those who expect dire events should attempt to empathize with "the other" enough to imagine a convincing argument to e.g. forego the diesel generator that would allow children to do homework at night, rather than write off such concerns as "ridiculous". The other option, of course, is brutal occupation, which is why one sees the bloody fingerprints of the military-industrial complex all over much of the recent warming hullabaloo.
- adrtessier 11y ago
  I can only speak to this anecdotally, but in my observations, yes, especially so when you're in areas of far less socioeconomic success than that of Western Europe, financially-driven city-states like Singapore (or Hong Kong, if you can call it one still), or Japan. Whether it is organized religion or superstition, there is a lot of folk knowledge that people still hold as equivalent and valuable, probably due to confirmation bias or the pain of cognitive dissonance in recognizing that an old adage is incorrect. Look at a good chunk of the Mideast as it exists today geopolitically; even wealthy areas like the UAE exist under pretty much strict Sharia interpretations. I have also observed this appears to be the case for a large chunk of the Muslim world, a decent part of Africa, Central America, and the Philippines, from my interactions with people natively from those areas outside of a scientific or professional atmosphere. I have a strong tendency to talk to anyone and everyone I can about their cultures, whether I am in their native land or they are in mine.
agumonkey 11y ago
There should really be something to change the old organisation scientists -> politicians -> population. Education should double down on creative ways to make kids click on subtle abstractions in order for them to see issues and proactively discuss, seek and enjoy working toward solutions.
leereeves 11y ago
> Now we're still slowly getting boiled to death That's exaggerating. Science doesn't predict such a dire outcome. http://climate.nasa.gov/effects/ http://climate.nasa.gov/effects/
- ericd 11y ago
  Yeah, but the truth doesn't appear to be that much better. It doesn't seem likely that it will be 100% fatal, but with runaway climate problems, you're potentially looking at mass flooding, natural disasters, crop failures and starvation, and potentially the collapse of many societies in the ensuing unrest. It seems likely that it will result in large changes in the makeup of vegetation and wildlife, potentially to the point of mass extinction, if the food chains in the oceans and on land break down. Our social systems are not set up to deal with this kind of event, at all. The planet's ecology will rebound as it always does, but that happens on timescales not very compatible with human lives. Then again, maybe it will happen slowly enough for us and the ecosystem to adapt. I hope that's the case.
  - leereeves 11y ago
    How much of that scenario are actual scientific predictions? Sources?
    - shoo 11y ago
      >> It doesn't seem likely that it will be 100% fatal, but with runaway climate problems, you're potentially looking at mass flooding, natural disasters, crop failures and starvation, and potentially the collapse of many societies in the ensuing unrest. It seems likely that it will result in large changes in the makeup of vegetation and wildlife, potentially to the point of mass extinction, if the food chains in the oceans and on land break down. Our social systems are not set up to deal with this kind of event, at all. > How much of that doomsday scenario are actual scientific predictions? Sources? I believe there are a large number of studies looking at individual impacts. E.g. "flooding" / "crop yields in sub saharan Africa" / etc. For studies that look at the grim end of the spectrum (i.e. +4 degrees C global warming or higher), there was a conference in 2007 that considered the consequences of a +4 degrees C world - not a bad place to start reading: http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/events/4degrees/ http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/events/4degrees/ Similarly, there are studies regarding mass extinction. Current estimates of species extinction rates are way above what the estimates of "normal" rates are-- this won't all be due to climate change - as a species we are changing a lot more than just the climate (e.g. destroying ecosystems to make way for agriculture, etc). Do a google scholar search for words like "current mass extinction event" and you'll no doubt find many things to read. I am not sure if we are capable of making "actual scientific predictions" regarding the cumulative impact of all these different threads - e.g. "collapse of many societies" / "ensuing unrest". Personally I reckon such things would be fairly plausible and unsurprising consequences of +4 degrees global warming. Pragmatically, we just have to make the best decisions we can now with what information we have available. Certainty is a luxury and is not necessary to make decisions or take action, particularly when we're time constrained, and it takes a while for the consequences of our actions to manifest. Here's an analogy from one of the decks of slides from the 4degrees conference. > We are walking in Florida. > You find you have just been bitten on the hand by a snake. > We did not see the snake. > If it was the deadly carbonblack snake, the bite will kill you in a painful way, unless you cut off your hand within 15 secs. > I have a hatchet. > You have 5 seconds left. > Did you cut off your hand? > > How would a society learn to make such decisions? > > Luckily with climate change we have more than 15 seconds. Without knowing exactly how much more... http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/events/4degrees/ppt/8-1smith.pdf http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/events/4degrees/ppt/8-1smith.pdf