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Nuclear holocaust would have been caused and was prevented by just a few people. It would have been an action with a direct result. We could and did also just s

by cf498 8y ago

Nuclear holocaust would have been caused and was prevented by just a few people. It would have been an action with a direct result. We could and did also just stop with the nonsense. We dont have that option for climate change. We have a worsening situation and no realistic option to stop or even reverse things. Differently put, nuclear holocaust was a threat, climate change an active process.

yesenadam 8y ago
we faced the very real threat of nuclear annihilation at any moment. It's terrifying how close we came nuclear holocaust was a threat I don't understand why these days people talk and act as if there's no risk of nuclear catastrophe. The effect of that seems to me incomparably worse than global warming. Yet no-one seems to talk about it anymore. I read on HN sometimes people saying they won't have kids because global warming etc, but never similar reference to nuclear war. I just looked up the famous Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists doomsday clock[0], which I hadn't heard about in years. Frighteningly, it is currently at 2 minutes to midnight, as close as it's ever been. Closer than it was at any time in the 60s, 70s, 80s. This is from the 2018 report[1]: In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago—and as dangerous as it has been since World War II. The greatest risks last year arose in the nuclear realm. ... To call the world nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger—and its immediacy. On the climate change front, the danger may seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic temperature increases in the long run requires urgent attention now. ... But there has also been a breakdown in the international order that has been dangerously exacerbated by recent US actions. In 2017, the United States backed away from its long- standing leadership role in the world, reducing its commitment to seek common ground and undermining the overall effort toward solving pressing global governance challenges. Neither allies nor adversaries have been able to reliably predict US actions—or understand when US pronouncements are real, and when they are mere rhetoric. International diplomacy has been reduced to name-calling, giving it a surrealistic sense of unreality that makes the world security situation ever more threatening. Because of the extraordinary danger of the current moment, the Science and Security Board today moves the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to catastrophe. It is now two minutes to midnight—the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War. [0] https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-statements/ https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-statements/ [1] https://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/2018%20Doomsday%20Clock%20Statement.pdf https://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/2018%20Doomsday%...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ryanwaggoner 8y ago
We have a worsening situation and no realistic option to stop or even reverse things. I think this is where we probably disagree. I think things are going to get pretty bad, and many will needlessly suffer and die, but we'll switch to renewables and start doing large-scale geoengineering in the 2030s or 2040s to reverse some of the damaging effects of climate change and eventually stabilize things. Likely not before we've had some devastating wars and lost many species, but I personally think most of the predictions of civilization collapse are way overblown. It's also possible that sometime in the next decade, all the nations of the world join some kind of super Paris agreement, but I'm not hopeful.
- cf498 8y ago
  >It's also possible that sometime in the next decade, all the nations of the world join some kind of super Paris agreement, but I'm not hopeful. It is to late for any meaningful change of heart to revert things. There is no option of everyone realizing it was a mistake and fixing it in ten or twenty years. We are currently at the possibility of mitigating the continuously worsening effects of climate change and we are not even able to not increase the degree of our negative impact every year. Instead we are still showing growth in the area.

by cf498 8y ago

yesenadam 8y ago

we faced the very real threat of nuclear annihilation at any moment. It's terrifying how close we came nuclear holocaust was a threat I don't understand why these days people talk and act as if there's no risk of nuclear catastrophe. The effect of that seems to me incomparably worse than global warming. Yet no-one seems to talk about it anymore. I read on HN sometimes people saying they won't have kids because global warming etc, but never similar reference to nuclear war. I just looked up the famous Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists doomsday clock[0], which I hadn't heard about in years. Frighteningly, it is currently at 2 minutes to midnight, as close as it's ever been. Closer than it was at any time in the 60s, 70s, 80s. This is from the 2018 report[1]: In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago—and as dangerous as it has been since World War II. The greatest risks last year arose in the nuclear realm. ... To call the world nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger—and its immediacy. On the climate change front, the danger may seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic temperature increases in the long run requires urgent attention now. ... But there has also been a breakdown in the international order that has been dangerously exacerbated by recent US actions. In 2017, the United States backed away from its long- standing leadership role in the world, reducing its commitment to seek common ground and undermining the overall effort toward solving pressing global governance challenges. Neither allies nor adversaries have been able to reliably predict US actions—or understand when US pronouncements are real, and when they are mere rhetoric. International diplomacy has been reduced to name-calling, giving it a surrealistic sense of unreality that makes the world security situation ever more threatening. Because of the extraordinary danger of the current moment, the Science and Security Board today moves the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to catastrophe. It is now two minutes to midnight—the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War. [0] https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-statements/ https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-statements/ [1] https://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/2018%20Doomsday%20Clock%20Statement.pdf https://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/2018%20Doomsday%...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

ryanwaggoner 8y ago

We have a worsening situation and no realistic option to stop or even reverse things. I think this is where we probably disagree. I think things are going to get pretty bad, and many will needlessly suffer and die, but we'll switch to renewables and start doing large-scale geoengineering in the 2030s or 2040s to reverse some of the damaging effects of climate change and eventually stabilize things. Likely not before we've had some devastating wars and lost many species, but I personally think most of the predictions of civilization collapse are way overblown. It's also possible that sometime in the next decade, all the nations of the world join some kind of super Paris agreement, but I'm not hopeful.

cf498 8y ago
>It's also possible that sometime in the next decade, all the nations of the world join some kind of super Paris agreement, but I'm not hopeful. It is to late for any meaningful change of heart to revert things. There is no option of everyone realizing it was a mistake and fixing it in ten or twenty years. We are currently at the possibility of mitigating the continuously worsening effects of climate change and we are not even able to not increase the degree of our negative impact every year. Instead we are still showing growth in the area.