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> an army of lobbyists and media companies to push the hoax/not-our-problem-narrative I've noticed on most of the climate change posts on HN that they 1. fall

> an army of lobbyists and media companies to push the hoax/not-our-problem-narrative I've noticed on most of the climate change posts on HN that they 1. fall off the front page very quickly (due to systemic flagging?) and 2. every single comment that's pro-fighting-climate-change has a "skeptical" reply that hits all the denier FUD talking points. For example, your comment has a reply saying both sides exaggerate, thus muddying the point you're trying to make. Classic whataboutism talking point. What I don't understand is if HN mods see this going on and can tell if the person is a shill or an actual climate denier. Statistically, replies in these threads should skew heavily towards pro-fighting-climate-change, but even in this post, it seems like every other reply is denier talking points. It is really starting to make me think that HN doesn't care about stopping shills.

leereeves 7y ago
Accusing anyone who disagrees with you of being a "shill" is hardly discussing the topic in good faith. And these topics fall off the front page because they get a lot of replies; Hacker News is designed that way. I think it's meant to have a calming effect.
- diafygi 7y ago
  Howdy leereeves, I've seen you posts alongside mine in previous climate change threads, always on opposite sides. Would you mind having a conversation offline? I'm interested in learning more about your point of view outside of these HN threads. Feel free to email me at the email in my profile.
rayiner 7y ago
> What I don't understand is if HN mods see this going on and can tell if the person is a shill or an actual climate denier. Statistically, replies in these threads should skew heavily towards pro-fighting-climate-change, but even in this post, it seems like every other reply is denier talking points. It is really starting to make me think that HN doesn't care about stopping shills. People on HN are rational and thus see through most of the “pro-fighting-climate-change” posts, which address easy non-solutions. To keep the temperature increase to 2C, we have to immediately cut CO2 emissions by 19GT. That takes the world back to 1990. And if you don’t want India and China to be mired in extreme poverty like they were in 1990, you really have to take the developed world to zero. Under other models, we have to go to zero carbon emissions tomorrow world wide. You cannot “fight climate change” while buying vegetables shipped across state lines and coffee shipped from overseas. You can’t go on international vacations and post pictures on Facebook. You can’t live in trendy places like Austin that require year-around heating and cooling. You can’t participate in the mass consumer economy at all—25% of your carbon footprint is non-food stuff you buy. (Just the consumer stuff your average American buys amounts to 5-10x the total carbon output of your average Bangladeshi.) You can’t work in advertising—in a zero carbon output economy the consumerism that feeds advertising companies can’t exist. There is also the major problem of "climate change angles" on things that don't actually help avoid climate change. Take high-speed rail, for example. To offset the carbon realized by building California's HSR, the system would have to have over 10 million riders per year, more than the entire Amtrak northeast corridor: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/11/how-green-high-speed-rail/492 https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/11/how-green-hig.... (It is ludicrous to expect that a rail link between two enormously car-dependent metro areas, that goes through extremely low-density areas in-between, would somehow have the ridership of the densest corridor in the country, connecting some of the cities with the most well-developed intra-city and commuter rail systems.) Then there is stuff like LEED construction: https://www.imt.org/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go-the-embodied-carbon-of-new-and-existing-buildings https://www.imt.org/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go-the-embodie.... Companies are patting themselves on the back, tearing down old buildings and putting up new, LEED-certified buildings. Except that it will take 25-75 years to offset the upfront carbon footprint of new construction versus reusing existing construction, for longer than current climate-change timelines allow. Unless you’re espousing these solutions, and present credible ways of achieving them, you’re not “fighting climate change.”
- diafygi 7y ago
  Howdy rayiner, see my reply to you comment below if you want to get in touch to talk about it. You come across as so mad, it's really worrying me. Also, > Unless you’re espousing these solutions, and present credible ways of achieving them, you’re not “fighting climate change.” I am. I have a company that currently makes money accelerating the energy transition.
  - hackerman12345 7y ago
    So you are admittedly shilling for your own company then, are you not? Do you see how it may be hypocritical for you to want to get the people who don't agree with you silenced?
  - dang 7y ago
    Personal attack, which this dips a toe into, is also not ok here. I get that you feel strongly about this topic, but people have to follow the site guidelines on HN regardless of how strongly they feel. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- golergka 7y ago
  And these aren't decision that people will consciously take on en masse anyway. So, I sincerely believe that the only realistic way to actually fight climate change is to somehow trigger at least a semi-nuclear war, but avoid a full-on MAD of super-powers. Billions of deaths is still better than the alternative.
  - blisterpeanuts 7y ago
    Just out of curiosity, what's worse than billions of deaths?
    - golergka 7y ago
      What we're headed for: not only a complete extinction of human species, but most forms of life on Earth.
temp1831 7y ago
Consider these 2 possible opinions of folks who don't care too much about fighting climate change: 1. Climate change is an unsolvable problem, requiring coordination on a massive scale by billions of actors who have been shown to defect whenever given the chance. Any plan we are likely to implement is unlikely to succeed. Humans overall are adaptive, adrobust to change, and when the changes caused by climate change happen, we may suffer a bit, but it will not be immense suffering. 2. Climate change isn't real. Often when I've tried to argue position 1, which I actually believe, my friends are extremely frustrated and essentially think I'm trying to argue for position 2. Left-leaning folks are too idealistic to understand that position 1 is an entirely internally-consistent position.
- ajross 7y ago
  What does "arguing position 1" amount to, though? Your phrasing here seems to be saying that you're throwing up your hands and giving up. But that's not an "argument". My guess is that you're actually arguing for inaction, that you're opposed to regulation, and that you're taking your stand with all the people with position 2. If so... why are you surprised to be forced to defend their wrongheadedness?
  - semanticjudo 7y ago
    I argue from position 1 that we should be looking for the next breakthrough, CO2-emission-free power source. I'm extremely grateful that some people are. Wind and solar are highly inefficient, expensive and difficult to scale[1] and are very unlikely to be an effective solution long-term. Nuclear power sources have great potential among technologies we have access to today and while there are real, technical drawbacks (setup cost, security, waste) there are ongoing, significant research projects in each area[2]. Beyond nuclear, the seeming holy-grail would be to find a CO2-emission-free power source that is 10-100x more effective at the same or lower cost. And why can't we? Our ability to imagine what is possible in the future has been shown time and again to be very limited, in general. Arguing position 1 amounts to taking an interest in and investing in efforts that will allow the world to progress along its current trajectory without CO2-emitting power sources. "... why are you surprised to be forced to defend their wrongheadedness?" - I'm not... I just avoid having conversations with folks that would jump to this conclusion without hearing my point of view. [1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/08/we-dont-need-solar-and-wind-to-save-the-climate-and-its-a-good-thing-too/#4091a6fae4de https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/08... [2]http://energy.mit.edu/news/mit-releases-interdisciplinary-study-future-nuclear-energy/ http://energy.mit.edu/news/mit-releases-interdisciplinary-st...
dang 7y ago
I replied to you elsewhere about this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19903695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19903695), but this is a big violation of the site guidelines. Overwhelmingly—I mean 99% or more—we've found that people are simply divided on divisive issues. Interpreting opposing views as shillage-by-the-other-side is actually the larger problem here. That's why the site guidelines specifically ask people not to post like this. I've written about this at great length, indeed ad nauseum, if anyone wants more explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturfing https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19897600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19897600 and marked it off-topic.

leereeves 7y ago

Accusing anyone who disagrees with you of being a "shill" is hardly discussing the topic in good faith. And these topics fall off the front page because they get a lot of replies; Hacker News is designed that way. I think it's meant to have a calming effect.

diafygi 7y ago
Howdy leereeves, I've seen you posts alongside mine in previous climate change threads, always on opposite sides. Would you mind having a conversation offline? I'm interested in learning more about your point of view outside of these HN threads. Feel free to email me at the email in my profile.

rayiner 7y ago

> What I don't understand is if HN mods see this going on and can tell if the person is a shill or an actual climate denier. Statistically, replies in these threads should skew heavily towards pro-fighting-climate-change, but even in this post, it seems like every other reply is denier talking points. It is really starting to make me think that HN doesn't care about stopping shills. People on HN are rational and thus see through most of the “pro-fighting-climate-change” posts, which address easy non-solutions. To keep the temperature increase to 2C, we have to immediately cut CO2 emissions by 19GT. That takes the world back to 1990. And if you don’t want India and China to be mired in extreme poverty like they were in 1990, you really have to take the developed world to zero. Under other models, we have to go to zero carbon emissions tomorrow world wide. You cannot “fight climate change” while buying vegetables shipped across state lines and coffee shipped from overseas. You can’t go on international vacations and post pictures on Facebook. You can’t live in trendy places like Austin that require year-around heating and cooling. You can’t participate in the mass consumer economy at all—25% of your carbon footprint is non-food stuff you buy. (Just the consumer stuff your average American buys amounts to 5-10x the total carbon output of your average Bangladeshi.) You can’t work in advertising—in a zero carbon output economy the consumerism that feeds advertising companies can’t exist. There is also the major problem of "climate change angles" on things that don't actually help avoid climate change. Take high-speed rail, for example. To offset the carbon realized by building California's HSR, the system would have to have over 10 million riders per year, more than the entire Amtrak northeast corridor: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/11/how-green-high-speed-rail/492 https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/11/how-green-hig.... (It is ludicrous to expect that a rail link between two enormously car-dependent metro areas, that goes through extremely low-density areas in-between, would somehow have the ridership of the densest corridor in the country, connecting some of the cities with the most well-developed intra-city and commuter rail systems.) Then there is stuff like LEED construction: https://www.imt.org/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go-the-embodied-carbon-of-new-and-existing-buildings https://www.imt.org/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go-the-embodie.... Companies are patting themselves on the back, tearing down old buildings and putting up new, LEED-certified buildings. Except that it will take 25-75 years to offset the upfront carbon footprint of new construction versus reusing existing construction, for longer than current climate-change timelines allow. Unless you’re espousing these solutions, and present credible ways of achieving them, you’re not “fighting climate change.”

diafygi 7y ago
Howdy rayiner, see my reply to you comment below if you want to get in touch to talk about it. You come across as so mad, it's really worrying me. Also, > Unless you’re espousing these solutions, and present credible ways of achieving them, you’re not “fighting climate change.” I am. I have a company that currently makes money accelerating the energy transition.
- hackerman12345 7y ago
  So you are admittedly shilling for your own company then, are you not? Do you see how it may be hypocritical for you to want to get the people who don't agree with you silenced?
- dang 7y ago
  Personal attack, which this dips a toe into, is also not ok here. I get that you feel strongly about this topic, but people have to follow the site guidelines on HN regardless of how strongly they feel. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
golergka 7y ago
And these aren't decision that people will consciously take on en masse anyway. So, I sincerely believe that the only realistic way to actually fight climate change is to somehow trigger at least a semi-nuclear war, but avoid a full-on MAD of super-powers. Billions of deaths is still better than the alternative.
- blisterpeanuts 7y ago
  Just out of curiosity, what's worse than billions of deaths?
  - golergka 7y ago
    What we're headed for: not only a complete extinction of human species, but most forms of life on Earth.

temp1831 7y ago

Consider these 2 possible opinions of folks who don't care too much about fighting climate change: 1. Climate change is an unsolvable problem, requiring coordination on a massive scale by billions of actors who have been shown to defect whenever given the chance. Any plan we are likely to implement is unlikely to succeed. Humans overall are adaptive, adrobust to change, and when the changes caused by climate change happen, we may suffer a bit, but it will not be immense suffering. 2. Climate change isn't real. Often when I've tried to argue position 1, which I actually believe, my friends are extremely frustrated and essentially think I'm trying to argue for position 2. Left-leaning folks are too idealistic to understand that position 1 is an entirely internally-consistent position.

ajross 7y ago
What does "arguing position 1" amount to, though? Your phrasing here seems to be saying that you're throwing up your hands and giving up. But that's not an "argument". My guess is that you're actually arguing for inaction, that you're opposed to regulation, and that you're taking your stand with all the people with position 2. If so... why are you surprised to be forced to defend their wrongheadedness?
- semanticjudo 7y ago
  I argue from position 1 that we should be looking for the next breakthrough, CO2-emission-free power source. I'm extremely grateful that some people are. Wind and solar are highly inefficient, expensive and difficult to scale[1] and are very unlikely to be an effective solution long-term. Nuclear power sources have great potential among technologies we have access to today and while there are real, technical drawbacks (setup cost, security, waste) there are ongoing, significant research projects in each area[2]. Beyond nuclear, the seeming holy-grail would be to find a CO2-emission-free power source that is 10-100x more effective at the same or lower cost. And why can't we? Our ability to imagine what is possible in the future has been shown time and again to be very limited, in general. Arguing position 1 amounts to taking an interest in and investing in efforts that will allow the world to progress along its current trajectory without CO2-emitting power sources. "... why are you surprised to be forced to defend their wrongheadedness?" - I'm not... I just avoid having conversations with folks that would jump to this conclusion without hearing my point of view. [1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/08/we-dont-need-solar-and-wind-to-save-the-climate-and-its-a-good-thing-too/#4091a6fae4de https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/08... [2]http://energy.mit.edu/news/mit-releases-interdisciplinary-study-future-nuclear-energy/ http://energy.mit.edu/news/mit-releases-interdisciplinary-st...

dang 7y ago

I replied to you elsewhere about this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19903695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19903695), but this is a big violation of the site guidelines. Overwhelmingly—I mean 99% or more—we've found that people are simply divided on divisive issues. Interpreting opposing views as shillage-by-the-other-side is actually the larger problem here. That's why the site guidelines specifically ask people not to post like this. I've written about this at great length, indeed ad nauseum, if anyone wants more explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturfing https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19897600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19897600 and marked it off-topic.