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We do not have 12 years to stop catastrophic climate change
- mhkl 8y agoClimate change is a matter of looking correctly at the data: look at the past 120 years and you are easily terrified but if you look at the past 10,000 years you understand that it is just nature.
- folli 8y agoWhen in the last 10k years have we ever seen a rise in CO2-concentration and global mean temperature with a similar speed?
- folli 8y agoSee also: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- stronglikedan 8y agoWhat the critics are saying: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/20/josh-takes-on-xkcds-climate-timeline/ https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/20/josh-takes-on-xkcds-c... http://joannenova.com.au/2016/09/how-to-make-climate-graphs-look-scary-a-reply-to-xkcd/ http://joannenova.com.au/2016/09/how-to-make-climate-graphs-... From what I gather, there's a lot of skepticism over the Marcott 2013 study that Randall used. I don't know enough about the subject to comment on that further, but the critiques are as much food for thought as the comic itself.
- folli 8y agoThank you, I did assume that the XKCD graph was oversimplified, but I didn't know about the skepticism.
- TaupeRanger 8y agoIt's that simple huh? I wonder why people who spend their entire lives studying this topic in depth never thought of that.
- ykevinator 8y agoRush limbaugh told me it was a hoax.
- vuln 8y agoAl Gore also invented the internet.
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- patrickg_zill 8y ago"We have ten years to save the world" - a statement made repeatedly during the last 30 years.
- shuntress 8y agoPlease elaborate. Your initial statement seems to be a "follow the leader" style brigade post intended to re-inforce the narrative that global warming is not real.
- war1025 8y agoThe problem with global warming is that people have turned it into a religion. Yes, we are doing a lot of stupid stuff. Yes, we should work to reduce our impact on the planet. No, we do not have conclusive evidence on what is going to happen. We have models that seem to point at something bad happening. They are probably directionally correct. We can't predict the future. If someone in 1900 had predicted what the next 100 years would be like, they would have missed all of the major events in the century. We aren't any different than the people 100 years ago.
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- Oletros 8y ago> The problem with global warming is that people have turned it into a religion Yap, people negating it or the consequences > We can't predict the future. If someone in 1900 had predicted what the next 100 years would be like, they would have missed all of the major events in the century. We aren't any different than the people 100 years ago. Taking into account that models have predicted within the error bars the temperatures, I think you can't be more wrong
- war1025 8y agoAnd every economic model in the world has the footnote: "Past returns are not indicative of future results" The data fits the model until it doesn't.
- ThomPete 8y ago“We” have much more than that. I find it borderline amoral that the IPCC do nothing to stop the catastrophist interpretations of the actual science.
- onion2k 8y ago“We” have much more than that. I find it borderline amoral that the IPCC do nothing to stop the catastrophist interpretations of the actual science. We don't though. Not really. Not because we have to act within 12 years, but because we have to act at some point. If we always say that the given deadline is wrong and we have more time then eventually we'll be wrong. It makes a lot of sense to start now if only because that way we can spread the cost out over a longer period of time.
- hanniabu 8y agoAlso that "more time" means unbearable living conditions. People think that of humans can still live on the Earth that it means we have more time, but the fact is that we'll be living in a planet that can no longer support us comfortably due to crop limitations, mass plant die off, mass species die off on land and sea, wildfires droughts and other natural disasters, etc
- ThomPete 8y agoYes we do. I would challenge you to find the actual science that shows that we have less time. Actually demonstrated not just speculated. Furthermore the idea of stopping climate change is in itself completely up for grasp. What does that actually mean, what consequences are we prepared to pay? Is it better to halt growth, are we ready to invade China to stop them are we ready to stop poor countries from getting access to cheap reliable energy sources just because they are dirty? What are you even doing here if you actually really thought we had 10 years left? Why are you supporting the very system that apparently is going to destroy earth? So start now with what at what cost? I am personally not going to support any attempt at halting growth as growth is the only way we can actually pay for investment in cleaner energies and if the result really is catastrophic why are people so against nuclear which is the greenest, safest, most scalable, plentiful energy form we have? Climate catastrophism helps exactly no one. It paralyzes whole societies and makes them completely irrational making irrational decisions. So thanks but no thanks. I take my chances with a world using growth to establish better and better solutions not forcing superficially insufficient and unrealiable energy sources such as wind and solar. Each to their own of course but it's not getting my support.
- jeletonskelly 8y agoGreenhouse output reduction is an approach that is very obviously failing. It requires too many conflicted parties to align and devote resources. We have to start viewing climate change mitigation as an engineering problem. We need aggressive investment in carbon and methane capture. If it can't be a profitable endeavor then governments need to make the investment for the public good.
- shuntress 8y agoUnfortunately that still requires people to accept some facts that seem to be subject to aggressive misinformation campaigns. People looking for real discussion about these issues online in places like this are met with a constant barrage of "climate change doesn't real"
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> People looking for real discussion about these issues online in places like this are met with a constant barrage of "climate change doesn't real" France shows a different side to the problem. The French accept that climate change is happening [1]. Yet even simple measures are popularly opposed. That implies climate scepticism is a symptom, not a cause, of inaction. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/french-voters-worry-more-about-climate-change-than-eu-neighbors https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/french-vo...
- 3pt14159 8y agoThe problem is we spent all our money on scientists studying global warming. Had we split the spending between studying global warming and studying how to propagandize people into caring about / believing global warming we would have spent half the money and solved the problem by now. Take my country, Canada, for example. If you think about all the money and blood we poured into WW2 and you compare it to what it would cost to move to a carbon neutral economy it just pales in comparison. It's like laughable how fixable this is. WW2 was like 30 global warmings. So why didn't people balk in the 30s and 40s? Because they cared and they believed they could do something about it. I feel like the world has this sludge about it these days. Almost nobody does anything anymore. They kinda float around and raise taxes a point here or there. We more than doubled them to fight the Nazis. I can kinda see why Elon Musk is freaking out and building five different companies trying to save the world.
- projektfu 8y agoThere are some brick walls out there, we're just not sure how or when they'll arrive. Nonlinear, sudden events like ice shelf destruction, clathrate evolution or thermohaline current disruption are unpredictable and potentially catastrophic.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> unpredictable and potentially catastrophic One thing climate scientists have done a poor job around is messaging how, specifically, climate change will cause harm. There was a lot of hyperbole over the past decades which approximated "everyone dies." That's obviously untrue. In an age where we're training to filter out B.S., that might have led to the baby being thrown out with the bathwater.
- cm2187 8y agoAlso global warming advocates mixed genuine scientific considerations with all sorts of anti-capitalism, anti-growth arguments which is the best way to lose trust from the conservative/republican opinion.
- adamzochowski 8y agoAnti Growth is not necessarily a bad argument, just a long term view argument. Growth requires work and that requires energy. There is a limit of energy we can use. At certain point we will use more energy than earth can cool off. An economic growth of 2% every year is unsustainable long term. There is a parable story called "Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist" that tries to go into this further. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...
- ThomPete 8y agoAnti growth is propably the worst argument. It will litterally give you the effects of the most catastrophic interpretation of climate change before it has even happened. You don't want to halt growth, that would surely be suicide. What you want to do is to be better at using things we have already found ways to turn into resources or turn things that aren't currently resources into resources. That requires growth because it requires the capital to invest. It's not like earth gives us resources, we have to find ways to turn them into resources such as oil uranium etc. If you don't grow you will live in a world that might as well be the catastrophe. I am not going to be supporting that.
- jordan801 8y agoI think the whole point of putting a "wall" on it, is to create a sense of urgency. It's more effective psychologically to say, fix it by X date, than it is to say, well, you know, just do what you can.
- dwighttk 8y agoThe danger though is that people will remember that you said “we only have ten years” in ten years and say to themselves “doesn’t seem so bad to me, why should I change anything now?”
- phkahler 8y ago>> The danger though is that people will remember that you said “we only have ten years” in ten years and say to themselves “doesn’t seem so bad to me, why should I change anything now? That has already happened. Circa 2000 we were warned that in (I don't recall the exact number) 15 years time things would go wrong and be beyond the point of reversibility. So to your point, that is a potential problem. But it seems that people don't remember what anyone said 20 years ago so it's maybe not really a problem after all.
- jordan801 8y agoThat is true. I'm not sure if there's really a way to go about it that isn't going to have some short comings. At least this way we're seeing a level of unprecedented awareness. It'll be a shame if twelve years from now, everyone trying to be more environmentally friendly, decides that it was all a lie and quit. Fortunately (Unfortunately?) we'll probably be seeing more of the effects in twelve years, and that'll hopefully keep people on the bandwagon.
- radarsat1 8y ago> in ten years and say to themselves "doesn’t seem so bad to me..." except we don't have to wait 10 years, it is already bad. We are already seeing pretty drastic changes in weather patterns are we not?
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- petermcneeley 8y agoThe facts are irrelevant at this stage this is purely politics. The poor and middle class do not want to be penalized for climate change (French yellow jacket protests are most visible example of this). This is just bluffing between economic groups.
- shuntress 8y agoThe facts are not irrelevant and it is extremely misleading to imply that large scale action intended to counteract climate change is somehow required to negatively impact poor or lower-middle-class groups.
- petermcneeley 8y agoIt may not REQUIRE it but that is certainly how its implemented currently. My favorite example is in Toronto where people that dont own homes and dont have the capital for solar panels are paying inflated electric bills to those who do.
- marcoperaza 8y agoWhen the comforts of life become more expensive due to green policies, it is the lower classes who actually suffer a declining standard of living.
- benmmurphy 8y agoThe alternative claim that large scale action won't negatively impact poor or lower middle class groups is more bizarre. Let's assume that there is a cost to counteracting climate change. it is not some kind of free lunch. Then this is only going to not negatively impact the poor or lower-middle class groups if they can push all the cost onto other groups. However, then you have to ask yourself why haven't the poor or lower middle class groups been able to carve out a larger slice of the pie by increasing transfers from other groups to themselves. So suddenly these other groups are going to act more generously to the poor and lower middle class over climate change but not generally. That seems a bit of a leap.
- arvinsim 8y agoMy opinion about why governments/corporations seem apathetic towards climate change can be summed up with this quote > It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
- shittyadmin 8y agoIt's basically this but multiplied by the number of countries on the planet - including rapidly developing countries which need the energy. Complaining about climate change is a luxury for the rich, if you didn't have refrigeration at home your priorities would probably look much different. Heck, just look at the French Yellow Jacket protests, it's clear the policies arguably needed to combat climate change are harmful to the lower and middle class even in western countries. Especially when those policies are often used to subsidize electric cars or energy efficient windows for those who can afford such things - effectively an inverse transfer payment. I fear the only way we have a shot at solving this is with cheap, clean energy tech that doesn't yet exist.
- hackeraccount 8y agoThat's exactly correct. And yet people talk about reducing growth. That is opposite of what we need. AGW is the worry of people with money.
- jxub 8y agoThis is the second post of this type that I posted that has been removed from the front page (I think, or below the point threshold but unlikely with 32 points and 27 comments at 1 hour). Can someone shed some light on that?
- patrickg_zill 8y agoHN doesn't exist in order to amplify your blog posts...
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- jxub 8y agoWell, I'm not the author and I don't know if any of the guidelines were breached, but good point anyway about not complaining stupidly, sorry for that.
- peterwwillis 8y agoI'm pretty sure that if given the chance, the majority of the human population will continue to delay acting for as long as possible. I think basic psychology backs this up, as we all tend to value immediate gains over long term ones, and one example of procrastination is the delay of action due to fear. Personally I expect the worst. I don't have faith that the body of humanity will seriously act to save itself. I think we should start planning on how to survive a very hot planet.
- man-and-laptop 8y agoThere's an argument that models of the Earth's climate can not be made especially accurate. This is because of chaotic behaviour in the underlying differential equations, and the likely presence of unknown factors that influence the Earth's climate but are not present in these models. But this is actually an argument in favour of reducing carbon emissions. If we're dealing with a system we can't understand, where messing with it could cause immense damage to humankind, then maybe that's enough of a reason to stop messing with it. In general, whenever you're taking a risk with a potentially massive downside, where the outcome is hard to predict (because of chaos, "unknown unknowns"), then you should stop taking that risk. _________________________________________ Regarding what to do about climate change, Taleb has a theory called "minority rule" that could help here. It says that an intransigent minority, maybe around ~1% of people, can force a passive majority to do the things they want. A good example of this is kosher / halal food in the US / Europe, where an intransigent minority of people have forced a large percentage of food to be certified kosher / halal, perhaps unintentionally. As such, the solution to reducing emissions might be to set up an environmental "beth din" which certifies whether a product is "environmentally kosher" or not. If an intransigent minority only consumes products that are certified environmentally kosher, the passive majority will fall in line.
- war1025 8y agoI believe your first point is also in line with what Taleb has said on the subject. We don't know what is going to happen, so it's best not to risk it. I think he called in the Precautionary Principle. The thing that irritates a lot of people (me included) is that these articles imply that we do know what is going to happen. We don't. That's all the more reason to reduce emissions and stop destroying habitats.
- ThomPete 8y agoYou have to dig deeper to make the right analysis here, your view is very 1st world-centric. To the poor people living right now, they are already living with their life at stake to them it's not an actual argument. They need access to cheap reliable energy right now and frankly, don't care about climate change. Talebs minority rule is not a universal rule it's a contextual rule which is important to understand.