10 ms·

The poisons released by melting Arctic ice

158 points by perfunctory 7y ago

andremteixeira 7y ago
I think our civilization will, if not die, change drastically by 2100.
- popotamonga 7y ago
  Why only 2100? Things are accelerating, why not 2030?
  - bpfrh 7y ago
    These are rookie numbers, with enough effort we can get there by 2025! /s
spodek 7y ago
Readers: reducing your emissions will make a difference, not just your reduction, but you will lead others, who otherwise might feel alone, to join you. And after reducing small things, you'll find it easier to reduce big things. Eventually large number of people will reduce large amounts of emissions. Corporations, governments, and other institutions will follow. You will make a difference. You will also find after reducing driving, flying, meat, etc, that you'll wish you had changed earlier. You replace those things with other things you like more.
- elbasti 7y ago
  There is no more time for individual action. We're about 20/30 years too late for this plan. Positive-feedback has kicked in, so slowing down emissions will achieve very little. Because of positive feedback, even halting emissions might not be enough. The only possible path I can think of to stem the catastrophe is a two-step plan: 1. The immediate enactment of a global carbon tax, priced high enough to materially reduce carbon emissions, and quickly. 2. Massive investment in sequestration technologies to help us scrub the air of CO2 and methane. The challenge is colossal. Even if (1) could be done, (2) basically involves un-doing every emission of the past 20 years. Every mile driven must now be driven backwards, every good manufactured must be un-done...and with far more energy than it took the first time (thanks, thermodynamics!). And that energy must come from clean sources. And it must be done quickly; every day the carbon debt accelerates. Note, not grows — accelerates! A friend once gave me the following metaphor. Imagine you have a glass jar, filled 1/16 with bacteria. The bacteria look up and say "we have plenty of room to grow!". Two weeks later the bacteria are half way up the jar. "Hey, it took us two week to get here, we have time to curb our growth". The bacteria suffocate in about two hours.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Carbon sequestration seems like the (political) winner because it's much easier to convince people to spend money on something than it is to take their money for doing something (in a democratic society at least). Edit: Of course not emitting the carbon is better and more efficient but from a practical "affecting change ASAP" perspective sequestration seems like an easier pill for society to swallow. That should go without saying but I forgot that weekends here are basically Reddit and those kinds of things cannot be considered obvious.
    - elbasti 7y ago
      Unfortunately we need to do both. It's much "cheaper" (in money and thermodynamics) to release carbon than to capture it, so we need to stop pumping it into the atmosphere in order for it to make any sense whatsoever to spend money removing it.
    - hannob 7y ago
      Please learn some basic facts. The idea that carbon sequestation is an alternative to reducing emissions needs to die as quickly as possible. It's rooted in fantasy, not in facts. All climate scenarios from the IPCC that don't end up in a huge catastrophy rely on rapid emission reductions. Most also rely on carbon sequestation for negative emissions in the future (which many think is too optimistic, because it needs yet to be shown that the technology can be scaled up enough). There is no scenario of averting catastrophic heating with carbon sequestation alone.
    - cheerlessbog 7y ago
      > it's much easier to convince people to spend money on something than it is to take their money for doing something If that was the case we could have a strong carbon tax, which would actually be a very good idea, probably the most economically efficient of all. But they don't. People like to keep their money even if that means much less money for them in the long run because we don't have an economy in the sense we are used to.
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    The bacteria are mentioned in Albert Bartlett's famous lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY It's clickbait titled and split into 8 parts, for who knows what reasons, but that quote is the tl;dr version of it. Exponential growth is unintuitive, and chasing endless growth is not going to work out well for us. Even if the bacteria find another entire jar of open space - as much space as has ever been known, as much space as they have used in their entire history - a fully terraformed Mars hanging out in the back yard previously unseen - it only lasts a single doubling-time.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- UglyToad 7y ago
  I do the things listed, I don't drive, I'm vegetarian, I've stopped flying, I very rarely buy new stuff, I live in a single room but I think it's hopeless. Without fundamental political and societal changes it feels like we're doomed. When big business can buy and amplify speech far more than concerned citizens, democracy won't be able to face/take the action needed.
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    You just need to fit another person in that single room, make more use of the resources to build it and need less to heat it. If the only action is shaming you for existing, because existing increases entropy, then the limit is that it goes to shaming you until you commit suicide. It's much more important to ship 20,000 tons of Spiderman toys over the Pacific ocean for Christmas presents, only to bury them in a dump, because that's profitable. After all - you don't even buy stuff or spend money on flights or fuel, why should you even have a say or a right to exist at all? /s
- dpau 7y ago
  on top of what others have said, continuing to put the onus on average individuals to stop climate change is not only insulting but also counter-productive. most of us who are educated about the issues are already doing what little we can to help. while the poor are just trying to survive in a more and more unequal world. and none of that has worked. it's time for the rich and powerful to step up, time for governments and corporations to start looking past their narrow self-interest. but apparently that's not going to happen.
  - pojzon 7y ago
    This is pretty much my stance too.. Im well educated and informed enough to know that anything individuals would do now is pointless.. I also understand that nothing will be done to fix the problem by powers which are able to make a difference ( because its not "profitable"). Humanity as we know it will perish. Thats why I do everything I can to enjoy the ride. Im also preparing my children, by buying properties in safer places (safer in the next 50 years..).
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  I'm sorry to be so blunt, but this is pure 100% Grade A bullshit. Individual action isn't going to detectable move the needle at this point, and claiming otherwise is actively harmful. The only thing that you as an individual can do is lobby your politicians to enact systematic change at the national and global level.
  - perfunctory 7y ago
    > The only thing that you as an individual can do is lobby your politicians Do you have any specific tips on how to lobby the politicians?
    - keith_analog 7y ago
      Here's a link to one lobbying org whose mission I believe in. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/
    - graeme 7y ago
      Call, write, donate to those parties proposing carbon taxes, join advocacy groups for the same, form or join an interest group. Join an opinion polling group and give answers.
      - pojzon 7y ago
        What if none of our politicians want to do that and just promote populism giving everybody voting on them money for having more kids ? Promoting consumtion even more and selling out country treasures (land, forests) to pay for loans ? And if you try to create new party to promote "not fitting" slogans, you disappear or have "an accident".. World is a shithole now. Only way is to run away from all of this but not everyone has such possibility and there is not many places to run to.
  - WaltPurvis 7y ago
    I don't believe lobbying as an individual is effective either. We need to participate in combined lobbying efforts to maybe exert an influence a fraction as strong as the thinly veiled (and occasionally outright) bribery committed by giant corporations and sociopathic billionaires.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  Eventually large number of people will reduce large amounts of emissions. Corporations, governments, and other institutions will follow. I don't believe it. I don't believe cruise ship operators or aluminium smelting companies will change anything based on whether a New York or Sydney person drives less often and nitpicks about plastic food packaging. They need regulating, hard, and that means a worse economy and unhappier people with lower quality of life paying more for goods "for their own good", and that means it won't happen. I feel it unfair that I should lead the charge to hermit-life eating leafy gruel and nitpicking over plastic lids while my brother flies halfway round the world on international holidays - and he does that because he's annoyed that he should have to care about climate emissions from an occasional holiday while business people fly over the pond for a half-day meeting and while cruise ships exist. This is the kind of personal feeling the anti-climate-change movement has to address to get people on board, and chastising people "it'll be a catastrophe" isn't enough. I know it feels like it should be enough, but it isn't enough. not just your reduction, but you will lead others, who otherwise might feel alone, to join you. Only if I tell them, which I won't. The sort of people who self-promote are driving the bad things of the world - envy, aspirational Instagram lifestyles, consumerism. And the people who tell people "I'm vegan" are the butt of jokes and the hated holier-than-thou preachy people. The people who actually will reduce their emissions will just quietly do that, like they just quietly check up on an elderly neighbour without making a fuss about how great they are for doing so. Self-sacrifice for the greater good isn't catching like shopping and showing off is. You will also find after reducing driving, flying, meat, etc, that you'll wish you had changed earlier. You replace those things with other things you like more. That doesn't follow. My alternatives to driving are worse than driving, otherwise I wouldn't drive right now. And I like cake more than meat - but I don't want to replace meat with cake, thanks, that would be a bad trade.
- perfunctory 7y ago
  Very disappointed to see so much negativity in the replies. Just wanted to add two things. Richest 10% are responsible for half of global carbon emissions [0]. I would guess many HN readers belong to top 10%. So what we do matters. Another good news, apparently takes only 3.5% of the population to take an active stance on something to cause a change [1] So, don't despair. If you are already started reducing your consumption - it matters. If you haven't - it's never late to start, especially if you are rich (relatively). And of course individual action is not mutually exclusive with lobbying politicians. [0] https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/mb-ex... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=YJSehRlU34w https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=YJSehRlU34w
  - elbasti 7y ago
    > it's never late to start, especially if you are rich (relatively). It is. It's too late to start. In the immortal words of Magnus Carlsen, Too weak, too slow.
  - ageofwant 7y ago
    The only reason you don't despair is because you do not truly believe what the future holds. At a fundamental level you believe this is all bullshit. And with you, I of course mean us, us generally. We have various religious groups committing terrorist acts on those they believe to be their enemies. I see no evidence that the same level of 'faith' being present in any significant segment of the population. I cannot express it more eloquently than this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcw-9UBFNWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcw-9UBFNWE
    - icebraining 7y ago
      Did you really mean to link to "Milkweed Pollination for the Lewd & Crude"? I can't say I understand the connection.
  - jellicle 7y ago
    > If you are already started reducing your consumption - it matters. It sure doesn't. One person's consumption, no matter how extravagant, doesn't matter even the tiniest tiniest bit. The only solution is massive, concerted, governmental action.
- WaltPurvis 7y ago
  >Readers: reducing your emissions will make a difference, not just your reduction, but you will lead others, who otherwise might feel alone, to join you. I'm fairly confident that every individual I personally know would react with a bemused "how quaint" if I started riding a bicycle or eating vegan or whatever as a way of fighting climate change. I'm sorry, but I just don't foresee a massive number of people changing their lifestyles voluntarily.
  - foobiekr 7y ago
    One real problem with the whole "go vegan" thing is that it will just be used to support additional population. Fundamentally, without managing population, all conservation really accomplishes is allowing the population to get even further out past carrying capacity.
- bad-joke 7y ago
  Our society is not geared towards sustainability. It rewards overproduction and overconsumption and harshly punishes those who fail to outcompete their neighbors on these terms. Given these constraints, what provides a greater return on your investment of time and energy? Carving out your own sustainable lifestyle within a system geared towards suppressing your efforts, or getting involved in political organizing to change the system?
unicornporn 7y ago
Believing that we'll be able to reach the 1.5°C goal[1] (much less th 2°C goal) is starting to look unscientific to me. David Roberts put it this way: > Basically, stopping warming at 1.5C would involve an immediate, coordinated crash program of re-industrialization, involving every major country in the world. It would be like the US mobilizing for WWII, only across the globe, sustained for the rest of the century.[2] This is not happening and will not be happening because the the way our economic system is structured. Any country that wants to go first with the regulations needed will meet severe economic consequences. And well, time is too short for truly substantial coordination. Deep adaptation[3] is our only hope. That and doing everything we can, considering the limitations imposed by geopolitics and our economic order, to slow things down. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Global_Warming_of_1.5_%C2%B0C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Global_Warmi... [2] https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1049114118270197760 https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1049114118270197760 [3] https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf
- Retric 7y ago
  The time it takes to hit 2C makes a huge difference. Pushing things back even 1 year means lots of infrastructure that needs to be replaced anyway can be rebuilt in a better location.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  I believe that 2 degrees is possible. Extremely difficult, but possible. There is a solution to the global coordination / first mover problem. Google for Nordhaus' climate club proposal.
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  I am pretty convinced nothing serious will be done. We may get lucky and technology will improve to reduce CO2 output but most likely we’ll just deal with the consequences of climate change. The world has been always been at flux so we may see refugees, wars and realignment of political power. As it has always been.
  - 7y ago
pastullo 7y ago
I'm getting extremely pessimistic about our chances at stopping this. It looks like even though we drastically reduce our emissions (which looks very much unrealistic) we haven't yet factored in all these variety of negative feedbacks that exacerbate the problem even more. It looks more and more like the chain of negative effects like the lost albedo effect, the methane released by the melting permafrost and tons of others will create a unstoppable runaway reaction. :(
- blue1 7y ago
  Nitpick: in system dynamics, a self-reinforcing loop is called "positive feedback", whether it is desirable or not. A "negative feedback" is a stabilizing mechanism.
- gdubs 7y ago
  Yea, I’m generally an optimist but the last few weeks of headlines all seem to be of the “worst than expected, “sooner than expected” variety. It’s infuriating how cheaply and seamlessly this problem could have been solved if we started gradually, 30 years ago.
  - pojzon 7y ago
    People that knew about it and decided to do nothing should be prosecuted and put to jail. They wont have to live with those decisions long enough to see how disastrous they were but OUR children will..
shortandsweet 7y ago
Whenever these articles come up the focus is on behavior changes and policy. What about good old fashion ingenuity? We know volcanos and nuclear winter can cool the planet so why not start there and work backwards? Controlled volcano eruption, generate the effects of nuclear winter without the radiation and contamination. Or even do something in space with asteroids to block the path to the sun occasionally or something else. I'm sure there are a ton of options but I rarely see any mentioned.
- imglorp 7y ago
  If you get too extreme with your smoke in the atmosphere, you'll impact the flora. It always grows back after the smoke clears and the ice age ends, of course, but this time it would wipe out most of the fauna that depend on it, including that pesky primate infestation that caused all this. Maybe that's what we need anyway, a hard reboot.
  - antepodius 7y ago
    Yes, if you overdo the fix, it'll go too far in the other direction. So? That doesn't mean the fix wouldn't work if done right.
    - mr_overalls 7y ago
      Climate is most assuredly not a linear system where these kinds of simplistic mental models work.
- badosu 7y ago
  > Controlled volcano eruption, generate the effects of nuclear winter without the radiation and contamination. There you have it: a blockbuster holywood catastrophe plot.
- NickNameNick 7y ago
  I once asked a climate scientist for their opinion on 'climate engineering'. They weren't in favor of the general concept, never mind the individual schemes. Mostly, there's no way to do controlled experiments.
foolzcrow 7y ago
The 1% claim we need to give them our money and our freedom or the planet will die. GTFO
ohiovr 7y ago
Removing material from the atmosphere is a constant process that requires vast amounts of energy. Would there be any benefit from altering the albedo of the land instead of the upper atmosphere? By laying down white reflective material solar radiation can reflected away but this constant reflection of sunlight requires no energy besides making sure the surfaces stay clear of dirt or debris deposited by the wind. Wouldn't this be an ideal solution in places like Australia that have vast deserts and suffer from extremely high temperatures?
- ourmandave 7y ago
  ...besides making sure the surfaces stay clear of dirt or debris deposited by the wind. Here's a 60 sec video of how they clean off the large panels at a vast solar plant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ErcsBEomnI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ErcsBEomnI
  - heywire 7y ago
    That's a neat video, but wow those transition effects make me nauseous.
  - oAlbe 7y ago
    Do they need to operate the cleaners manually? It seems like with just a couple of adjustments those cleaners could be automated and not requite a two people operating them. They could be scheduled to run once a day, every day, half an hour before the sun comes up. One sweep back and forth and the job is done. You just need to build a few more, give them a timer and two motors, and maybe make those solar panels rows longer so you need less cleaning robots. And that's it. They could even be themselves solar powered, charging during the day when they are not working. And those people who operate them could instead go around after the "robots shift" to check for problems and fix them. Am I vastly underestimating something here?
superpermutat0r 7y ago
Methane that will be released from Siberia is equal to hundreds of years of modern industrial activity, and can be released in a span of years. Warming is unstoppable, second order effects are already happening. Thinking that we can do anything about it is naive.
- coldtea 7y ago
  And at the same time people imagine "colonizing" Mars and interstellar travel and other such nonsense (which requires not only similar levels of effort and global cooperation as solving the climate crisis to achieve, but also has tons of unsurmountable problems and solutions expect to be discovered and mature just because we want them - and all of that at the same time the climate is collapsing, which will force less, not more, cooperation, and less, not more turn to "every state for itself"). Mad Max is much more realistic.
- elbasti 7y ago
  > Warming is unstoppable, second order effects are already happening. Thinking that we can do anything about it is naive. This is probably true. However, it is possible—if highly unlikely—that something could be done. This would involve effectively halting CO2 emissions in the next 10 years and massive investment in carbon sequestration research. Is this likely to succeed? No, not really. But why on earth would we be spending our time trying anything else? (Well, I guess we could be spending that time preparing for the coming changes. Which we should also do.)
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >Is this likely to succeed? No, not really. But why on earth would we be spending our time trying anything else? It's not even likely to start to happen. Nobody is really moving that way, or has secured the political will and funds to do so.
  - cstejerean 7y ago
    Anything that involves halting CO2 emissions is not something that “could be done” anytime soon except in theory. Coordinating at that scale across the globe will simply never happen, and the sooner we admit it the sooner we can move on to figure out how to deal with it not happening. CO2 emissions will reduce to the extent that alternatives become cheaper, better and more convenient. And while that’s moving forward it won’t happen fast enough to prevent the problem from getting worse in the mean time. So let’s stop kidding ourselves and prepare for what’s coming, both in terms of dealing with the consequences and finding ways to counteract the effects of ongoing fossil fuel usage.
graeme 7y ago
The article estimated that thawing permafrost will release the equivalent of US emissions, every year. Is there any such equivalency for methane’s effect? Hiw much will that warm things?
martincollignon 7y ago
Great to see more and more climate related posts on HN. Posted this a couple of times already, but I'd encourage everyone to check this paper[0] that recently came out ("Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning"). Among one of the initiatives mentioned is a startup called Tomorrow [1] that integrates with services (Uber, Instacart, etc) to calculate your personal CO2 emissions. They need help to get more of these integrations and more CO2 models. Consider giving a hand to them or other projects like this one [2]. [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.05433 https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.05433 [1] https://www.tmrow.com/ https://www.tmrow.com/ [2] https://openclimatefix.github.io/ https://openclimatefix.github.io/
ddebernardy 7y ago
> Melting permafrost effectively introduces a new country at number two on the highest emitters list, and one that isn’t accounted for in current IPCC models. Is this correct, or is it just hyperbole? Asking because it's not like melting permafrost wasn't a known potential problem 20 years ago, so I find it dubious that IPCC models might not have factored it in already. Might it be that the IPCC models don't account for the scale of the phenomenon turning out to be worse than expected?
- perfunctory 7y ago
  IPCC models don't include feedback loops in general. IPCC models are extremely conservative indeed.
  - bklaasen 7y ago
    My head is reeling. Do you have a source for that?
    - perfunctory 7y ago
      I think this is a good read on IPCC conservatism http://climateextremes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/What-Lies-Beneath-V3-LR-Blank5b15d.pdf http://climateextremes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Wha... The sea level chart on page 31 is particularly telling.
mehrdadn 7y ago
> The Northern Hemisphere winter of 2018/2019 was dominated by headlines of the “polar vortex”, as temperatures plummeted unusually far south into North America. [...] What such stories masked, however, was that the opposite was happening in the far North, beyond the Arctic circle. [...] In November, when temperatures should have been -25C, a temperature of 1.2C above freezing was recorded at the North Pole. [1] In November... 2018? Why do they link to an article from November 2016? [1] https://weather.com/news/climate/news/north-pole-above-freezing-siberia-cold-nov2016 https://weather.com/news/climate/news/north-pole-above-freez...
emptybits 7y ago
Another BBC story linked in the article has these amazing claims:[1] * 2005 "NASA scientists successfully revived bacteria that had been encased in a frozen pond in Alaska for 32,000 years. ... Once the ice melted, they began swimming around, seemingly unaffected." * 2007 "scientists managed to revive an 8-million-year-old bacterium that had been lying dormant in ice, beneath the surface of a glacier in the Beacon and Mullins valleys of Antarctica" * 2007 "bacteria were also revived from ice that was over 100,000 years old." [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases...
OBLIQUE_PILLAR 7y ago
Perhaps Jeff Bezos or his ex wife could devote most of their fortune to help alleviate the coming catastrophe.
aitchnyu 7y ago
Tangential, but will increasing temperatures make lands habitable for a um... billion climate refugees? Has there been any research on that? Maldives started saving up for a new homeland in 2008, exploring India, Sri Lanka and Australia.

158 points by perfunctory 7y ago

andremteixeira 7y ago

I think our civilization will, if not die, change drastically by 2100.

popotamonga 7y ago
Why only 2100? Things are accelerating, why not 2030?
- bpfrh 7y ago
  These are rookie numbers, with enough effort we can get there by 2025! /s

spodek 7y ago

Readers: reducing your emissions will make a difference, not just your reduction, but you will lead others, who otherwise might feel alone, to join you. And after reducing small things, you'll find it easier to reduce big things. Eventually large number of people will reduce large amounts of emissions. Corporations, governments, and other institutions will follow. You will make a difference. You will also find after reducing driving, flying, meat, etc, that you'll wish you had changed earlier. You replace those things with other things you like more.

elbasti 7y ago
There is no more time for individual action. We're about 20/30 years too late for this plan. Positive-feedback has kicked in, so slowing down emissions will achieve very little. Because of positive feedback, even halting emissions might not be enough. The only possible path I can think of to stem the catastrophe is a two-step plan: 1. The immediate enactment of a global carbon tax, priced high enough to materially reduce carbon emissions, and quickly. 2. Massive investment in sequestration technologies to help us scrub the air of CO2 and methane. The challenge is colossal. Even if (1) could be done, (2) basically involves un-doing every emission of the past 20 years. Every mile driven must now be driven backwards, every good manufactured must be un-done...and with far more energy than it took the first time (thanks, thermodynamics!). And that energy must come from clean sources. And it must be done quickly; every day the carbon debt accelerates. Note, not grows — accelerates! A friend once gave me the following metaphor. Imagine you have a glass jar, filled 1/16 with bacteria. The bacteria look up and say "we have plenty of room to grow!". Two weeks later the bacteria are half way up the jar. "Hey, it took us two week to get here, we have time to curb our growth". The bacteria suffocate in about two hours.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Carbon sequestration seems like the (political) winner because it's much easier to convince people to spend money on something than it is to take their money for doing something (in a democratic society at least). Edit: Of course not emitting the carbon is better and more efficient but from a practical "affecting change ASAP" perspective sequestration seems like an easier pill for society to swallow. That should go without saying but I forgot that weekends here are basically Reddit and those kinds of things cannot be considered obvious.
  - elbasti 7y ago
    Unfortunately we need to do both. It's much "cheaper" (in money and thermodynamics) to release carbon than to capture it, so we need to stop pumping it into the atmosphere in order for it to make any sense whatsoever to spend money removing it.
  - hannob 7y ago
    Please learn some basic facts. The idea that carbon sequestation is an alternative to reducing emissions needs to die as quickly as possible. It's rooted in fantasy, not in facts. All climate scenarios from the IPCC that don't end up in a huge catastrophy rely on rapid emission reductions. Most also rely on carbon sequestation for negative emissions in the future (which many think is too optimistic, because it needs yet to be shown that the technology can be scaled up enough). There is no scenario of averting catastrophic heating with carbon sequestation alone.
  - cheerlessbog 7y ago
    > it's much easier to convince people to spend money on something than it is to take their money for doing something If that was the case we could have a strong carbon tax, which would actually be a very good idea, probably the most economically efficient of all. But they don't. People like to keep their money even if that means much less money for them in the long run because we don't have an economy in the sense we are used to.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  The bacteria are mentioned in Albert Bartlett's famous lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY It's clickbait titled and split into 8 parts, for who knows what reasons, but that quote is the tl;dr version of it. Exponential growth is unintuitive, and chasing endless growth is not going to work out well for us. Even if the bacteria find another entire jar of open space - as much space as has ever been known, as much space as they have used in their entire history - a fully terraformed Mars hanging out in the back yard previously unseen - it only lasts a single doubling-time.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
UglyToad 7y ago
I do the things listed, I don't drive, I'm vegetarian, I've stopped flying, I very rarely buy new stuff, I live in a single room but I think it's hopeless. Without fundamental political and societal changes it feels like we're doomed. When big business can buy and amplify speech far more than concerned citizens, democracy won't be able to face/take the action needed.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  You just need to fit another person in that single room, make more use of the resources to build it and need less to heat it. If the only action is shaming you for existing, because existing increases entropy, then the limit is that it goes to shaming you until you commit suicide. It's much more important to ship 20,000 tons of Spiderman toys over the Pacific ocean for Christmas presents, only to bury them in a dump, because that's profitable. After all - you don't even buy stuff or spend money on flights or fuel, why should you even have a say or a right to exist at all? /s
dpau 7y ago
on top of what others have said, continuing to put the onus on average individuals to stop climate change is not only insulting but also counter-productive. most of us who are educated about the issues are already doing what little we can to help. while the poor are just trying to survive in a more and more unequal world. and none of that has worked. it's time for the rich and powerful to step up, time for governments and corporations to start looking past their narrow self-interest. but apparently that's not going to happen.
- pojzon 7y ago
  This is pretty much my stance too.. Im well educated and informed enough to know that anything individuals would do now is pointless.. I also understand that nothing will be done to fix the problem by powers which are able to make a difference ( because its not "profitable"). Humanity as we know it will perish. Thats why I do everything I can to enjoy the ride. Im also preparing my children, by buying properties in safer places (safer in the next 50 years..).
0xffff2 7y ago
I'm sorry to be so blunt, but this is pure 100% Grade A bullshit. Individual action isn't going to detectable move the needle at this point, and claiming otherwise is actively harmful. The only thing that you as an individual can do is lobby your politicians to enact systematic change at the national and global level.
- perfunctory 7y ago
  > The only thing that you as an individual can do is lobby your politicians Do you have any specific tips on how to lobby the politicians?
  - keith_analog 7y ago
    Here's a link to one lobbying org whose mission I believe in. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/
  - graeme 7y ago
    Call, write, donate to those parties proposing carbon taxes, join advocacy groups for the same, form or join an interest group. Join an opinion polling group and give answers.
    - pojzon 7y ago
      What if none of our politicians want to do that and just promote populism giving everybody voting on them money for having more kids ? Promoting consumtion even more and selling out country treasures (land, forests) to pay for loans ? And if you try to create new party to promote "not fitting" slogans, you disappear or have "an accident".. World is a shithole now. Only way is to run away from all of this but not everyone has such possibility and there is not many places to run to.
- WaltPurvis 7y ago
  I don't believe lobbying as an individual is effective either. We need to participate in combined lobbying efforts to maybe exert an influence a fraction as strong as the thinly veiled (and occasionally outright) bribery committed by giant corporations and sociopathic billionaires.
jodrellblank 7y ago
Eventually large number of people will reduce large amounts of emissions. Corporations, governments, and other institutions will follow. I don't believe it. I don't believe cruise ship operators or aluminium smelting companies will change anything based on whether a New York or Sydney person drives less often and nitpicks about plastic food packaging. They need regulating, hard, and that means a worse economy and unhappier people with lower quality of life paying more for goods "for their own good", and that means it won't happen. I feel it unfair that I should lead the charge to hermit-life eating leafy gruel and nitpicking over plastic lids while my brother flies halfway round the world on international holidays - and he does that because he's annoyed that he should have to care about climate emissions from an occasional holiday while business people fly over the pond for a half-day meeting and while cruise ships exist. This is the kind of personal feeling the anti-climate-change movement has to address to get people on board, and chastising people "it'll be a catastrophe" isn't enough. I know it feels like it should be enough, but it isn't enough. not just your reduction, but you will lead others, who otherwise might feel alone, to join you. Only if I tell them, which I won't. The sort of people who self-promote are driving the bad things of the world - envy, aspirational Instagram lifestyles, consumerism. And the people who tell people "I'm vegan" are the butt of jokes and the hated holier-than-thou preachy people. The people who actually will reduce their emissions will just quietly do that, like they just quietly check up on an elderly neighbour without making a fuss about how great they are for doing so. Self-sacrifice for the greater good isn't catching like shopping and showing off is. You will also find after reducing driving, flying, meat, etc, that you'll wish you had changed earlier. You replace those things with other things you like more. That doesn't follow. My alternatives to driving are worse than driving, otherwise I wouldn't drive right now. And I like cake more than meat - but I don't want to replace meat with cake, thanks, that would be a bad trade.
perfunctory 7y ago
Very disappointed to see so much negativity in the replies. Just wanted to add two things. Richest 10% are responsible for half of global carbon emissions [0]. I would guess many HN readers belong to top 10%. So what we do matters. Another good news, apparently takes only 3.5% of the population to take an active stance on something to cause a change [1] So, don't despair. If you are already started reducing your consumption - it matters. If you haven't - it's never late to start, especially if you are rich (relatively). And of course individual action is not mutually exclusive with lobbying politicians. [0] https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/mb-ex... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=YJSehRlU34w https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=YJSehRlU34w
- elbasti 7y ago
  > it's never late to start, especially if you are rich (relatively). It is. It's too late to start. In the immortal words of Magnus Carlsen, Too weak, too slow.
- ageofwant 7y ago
  The only reason you don't despair is because you do not truly believe what the future holds. At a fundamental level you believe this is all bullshit. And with you, I of course mean us, us generally. We have various religious groups committing terrorist acts on those they believe to be their enemies. I see no evidence that the same level of 'faith' being present in any significant segment of the population. I cannot express it more eloquently than this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcw-9UBFNWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcw-9UBFNWE
  - icebraining 7y ago
    Did you really mean to link to "Milkweed Pollination for the Lewd & Crude"? I can't say I understand the connection.
- jellicle 7y ago
  > If you are already started reducing your consumption - it matters. It sure doesn't. One person's consumption, no matter how extravagant, doesn't matter even the tiniest tiniest bit. The only solution is massive, concerted, governmental action.
WaltPurvis 7y ago
>Readers: reducing your emissions will make a difference, not just your reduction, but you will lead others, who otherwise might feel alone, to join you. I'm fairly confident that every individual I personally know would react with a bemused "how quaint" if I started riding a bicycle or eating vegan or whatever as a way of fighting climate change. I'm sorry, but I just don't foresee a massive number of people changing their lifestyles voluntarily.
- foobiekr 7y ago
  One real problem with the whole "go vegan" thing is that it will just be used to support additional population. Fundamentally, without managing population, all conservation really accomplishes is allowing the population to get even further out past carrying capacity.
bad-joke 7y ago
Our society is not geared towards sustainability. It rewards overproduction and overconsumption and harshly punishes those who fail to outcompete their neighbors on these terms. Given these constraints, what provides a greater return on your investment of time and energy? Carving out your own sustainable lifestyle within a system geared towards suppressing your efforts, or getting involved in political organizing to change the system?

unicornporn 7y ago

Believing that we'll be able to reach the 1.5°C goal[1] (much less th 2°C goal) is starting to look unscientific to me. David Roberts put it this way: > Basically, stopping warming at 1.5C would involve an immediate, coordinated crash program of re-industrialization, involving every major country in the world. It would be like the US mobilizing for WWII, only across the globe, sustained for the rest of the century.[2] This is not happening and will not be happening because the the way our economic system is structured. Any country that wants to go first with the regulations needed will meet severe economic consequences. And well, time is too short for truly substantial coordination. Deep adaptation[3] is our only hope. That and doing everything we can, considering the limitations imposed by geopolitics and our economic order, to slow things down. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Global_Warming_of_1.5_%C2%B0C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Global_Warmi... [2] https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1049114118270197760 https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1049114118270197760 [3] https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf

Retric 7y ago
The time it takes to hit 2C makes a huge difference. Pushing things back even 1 year means lots of infrastructure that needs to be replaced anyway can be rebuilt in a better location.
bryanlarsen 7y ago
I believe that 2 degrees is possible. Extremely difficult, but possible. There is a solution to the global coordination / first mover problem. Google for Nordhaus' climate club proposal.
maxxxxx 7y ago
I am pretty convinced nothing serious will be done. We may get lucky and technology will improve to reduce CO2 output but most likely we’ll just deal with the consequences of climate change. The world has been always been at flux so we may see refugees, wars and realignment of political power. As it has always been.
- 7y ago

pastullo 7y ago

I'm getting extremely pessimistic about our chances at stopping this. It looks like even though we drastically reduce our emissions (which looks very much unrealistic) we haven't yet factored in all these variety of negative feedbacks that exacerbate the problem even more. It looks more and more like the chain of negative effects like the lost albedo effect, the methane released by the melting permafrost and tons of others will create a unstoppable runaway reaction. :(

blue1 7y ago
Nitpick: in system dynamics, a self-reinforcing loop is called "positive feedback", whether it is desirable or not. A "negative feedback" is a stabilizing mechanism.
gdubs 7y ago
Yea, I’m generally an optimist but the last few weeks of headlines all seem to be of the “worst than expected, “sooner than expected” variety. It’s infuriating how cheaply and seamlessly this problem could have been solved if we started gradually, 30 years ago.
- pojzon 7y ago
  People that knew about it and decided to do nothing should be prosecuted and put to jail. They wont have to live with those decisions long enough to see how disastrous they were but OUR children will..

shortandsweet 7y ago

Whenever these articles come up the focus is on behavior changes and policy. What about good old fashion ingenuity? We know volcanos and nuclear winter can cool the planet so why not start there and work backwards? Controlled volcano eruption, generate the effects of nuclear winter without the radiation and contamination. Or even do something in space with asteroids to block the path to the sun occasionally or something else. I'm sure there are a ton of options but I rarely see any mentioned.

imglorp 7y ago
If you get too extreme with your smoke in the atmosphere, you'll impact the flora. It always grows back after the smoke clears and the ice age ends, of course, but this time it would wipe out most of the fauna that depend on it, including that pesky primate infestation that caused all this. Maybe that's what we need anyway, a hard reboot.
- antepodius 7y ago
  Yes, if you overdo the fix, it'll go too far in the other direction. So? That doesn't mean the fix wouldn't work if done right.
  - mr_overalls 7y ago
    Climate is most assuredly not a linear system where these kinds of simplistic mental models work.
badosu 7y ago
> Controlled volcano eruption, generate the effects of nuclear winter without the radiation and contamination. There you have it: a blockbuster holywood catastrophe plot.
NickNameNick 7y ago
I once asked a climate scientist for their opinion on 'climate engineering'. They weren't in favor of the general concept, never mind the individual schemes. Mostly, there's no way to do controlled experiments.

foolzcrow 7y ago

The 1% claim we need to give them our money and our freedom or the planet will die. GTFO

ohiovr 7y ago

Removing material from the atmosphere is a constant process that requires vast amounts of energy. Would there be any benefit from altering the albedo of the land instead of the upper atmosphere? By laying down white reflective material solar radiation can reflected away but this constant reflection of sunlight requires no energy besides making sure the surfaces stay clear of dirt or debris deposited by the wind. Wouldn't this be an ideal solution in places like Australia that have vast deserts and suffer from extremely high temperatures?

ourmandave 7y ago
...besides making sure the surfaces stay clear of dirt or debris deposited by the wind. Here's a 60 sec video of how they clean off the large panels at a vast solar plant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ErcsBEomnI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ErcsBEomnI
- heywire 7y ago
  That's a neat video, but wow those transition effects make me nauseous.
- oAlbe 7y ago
  Do they need to operate the cleaners manually? It seems like with just a couple of adjustments those cleaners could be automated and not requite a two people operating them. They could be scheduled to run once a day, every day, half an hour before the sun comes up. One sweep back and forth and the job is done. You just need to build a few more, give them a timer and two motors, and maybe make those solar panels rows longer so you need less cleaning robots. And that's it. They could even be themselves solar powered, charging during the day when they are not working. And those people who operate them could instead go around after the "robots shift" to check for problems and fix them. Am I vastly underestimating something here?

superpermutat0r 7y ago

Methane that will be released from Siberia is equal to hundreds of years of modern industrial activity, and can be released in a span of years. Warming is unstoppable, second order effects are already happening. Thinking that we can do anything about it is naive.

coldtea 7y ago
And at the same time people imagine "colonizing" Mars and interstellar travel and other such nonsense (which requires not only similar levels of effort and global cooperation as solving the climate crisis to achieve, but also has tons of unsurmountable problems and solutions expect to be discovered and mature just because we want them - and all of that at the same time the climate is collapsing, which will force less, not more, cooperation, and less, not more turn to "every state for itself"). Mad Max is much more realistic.
elbasti 7y ago
> Warming is unstoppable, second order effects are already happening. Thinking that we can do anything about it is naive. This is probably true. However, it is possible—if highly unlikely—that something could be done. This would involve effectively halting CO2 emissions in the next 10 years and massive investment in carbon sequestration research. Is this likely to succeed? No, not really. But why on earth would we be spending our time trying anything else? (Well, I guess we could be spending that time preparing for the coming changes. Which we should also do.)
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Is this likely to succeed? No, not really. But why on earth would we be spending our time trying anything else? It's not even likely to start to happen. Nobody is really moving that way, or has secured the political will and funds to do so.
- cstejerean 7y ago
  Anything that involves halting CO2 emissions is not something that “could be done” anytime soon except in theory. Coordinating at that scale across the globe will simply never happen, and the sooner we admit it the sooner we can move on to figure out how to deal with it not happening. CO2 emissions will reduce to the extent that alternatives become cheaper, better and more convenient. And while that’s moving forward it won’t happen fast enough to prevent the problem from getting worse in the mean time. So let’s stop kidding ourselves and prepare for what’s coming, both in terms of dealing with the consequences and finding ways to counteract the effects of ongoing fossil fuel usage.

graeme 7y ago

The article estimated that thawing permafrost will release the equivalent of US emissions, every year. Is there any such equivalency for methane’s effect? Hiw much will that warm things?

martincollignon 7y ago

Great to see more and more climate related posts on HN. Posted this a couple of times already, but I'd encourage everyone to check this paper[0] that recently came out ("Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning"). Among one of the initiatives mentioned is a startup called Tomorrow [1] that integrates with services (Uber, Instacart, etc) to calculate your personal CO2 emissions. They need help to get more of these integrations and more CO2 models. Consider giving a hand to them or other projects like this one [2]. [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.05433 https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.05433 [1] https://www.tmrow.com/ https://www.tmrow.com/ [2] https://openclimatefix.github.io/ https://openclimatefix.github.io/

ddebernardy 7y ago

> Melting permafrost effectively introduces a new country at number two on the highest emitters list, and one that isn’t accounted for in current IPCC models. Is this correct, or is it just hyperbole? Asking because it's not like melting permafrost wasn't a known potential problem 20 years ago, so I find it dubious that IPCC models might not have factored it in already. Might it be that the IPCC models don't account for the scale of the phenomenon turning out to be worse than expected?

perfunctory 7y ago
IPCC models don't include feedback loops in general. IPCC models are extremely conservative indeed.
- bklaasen 7y ago
  My head is reeling. Do you have a source for that?
  - perfunctory 7y ago
    I think this is a good read on IPCC conservatism http://climateextremes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/What-Lies-Beneath-V3-LR-Blank5b15d.pdf http://climateextremes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Wha... The sea level chart on page 31 is particularly telling.

mehrdadn 7y ago

> The Northern Hemisphere winter of 2018/2019 was dominated by headlines of the “polar vortex”, as temperatures plummeted unusually far south into North America. [...] What such stories masked, however, was that the opposite was happening in the far North, beyond the Arctic circle. [...] In November, when temperatures should have been -25C, a temperature of 1.2C above freezing was recorded at the North Pole. [1] In November... 2018? Why do they link to an article from November 2016? [1] https://weather.com/news/climate/news/north-pole-above-freezing-siberia-cold-nov2016 https://weather.com/news/climate/news/north-pole-above-freez...

emptybits 7y ago

Another BBC story linked in the article has these amazing claims:[1] * 2005 "NASA scientists successfully revived bacteria that had been encased in a frozen pond in Alaska for 32,000 years. ... Once the ice melted, they began swimming around, seemingly unaffected." * 2007 "scientists managed to revive an 8-million-year-old bacterium that had been lying dormant in ice, beneath the surface of a glacier in the Beacon and Mullins valleys of Antarctica" * 2007 "bacteria were also revived from ice that was over 100,000 years old." [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases...

OBLIQUE_PILLAR 7y ago

Perhaps Jeff Bezos or his ex wife could devote most of their fortune to help alleviate the coming catastrophe.

aitchnyu 7y ago

Tangential, but will increasing temperatures make lands habitable for a um... billion climate refugees? Has there been any research on that? Maldives started saving up for a new homeland in 2008, exploring India, Sri Lanka and Australia.