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The increasing of the global temperature is really dangerous and humanity seems to do nothing. It is like a human body if its temperature changes a few Celsius

The increasing of the global temperature is really dangerous and humanity seems to do nothing. It is like a human body if its temperature changes a few Celsius degree from its normal temperature, it is the fever. If the person has a fever and it increases a few degrees, it might mean the death of the person. We are killing The Planet, it is a Climate Crisis.

PhilWright 7y ago
It is obviously not the case that 'humanity seems to do nothing'. The United Nations have the IPCC working on the issue and their reports influence national policy in many countries. There are the Kyoto and Paris agreements that are based on the details from the IPCC reports. Is the world doing enough? No, I don't think countries are doing enough, but to say humanity seems to do nothing is patently ridiculous.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Emissions are still rising when they should be falling since the Rio summit in 1992. You know, back when we still had a chance of saving the coral reefs and the penguins. Right now it looks like we started triggering the melting of the permafrost, which, once it gets going, will make all efforts we can make totally nil. Whatever humanity is doing, it's got little to do with preventing the climate catastrophe. Remember that the total amount of GHG emissions in the atmosphere is what counts. We're not even getting the second derivative to go in the right direction.
- wrong_variable 7y ago
  The problem is that is too little too late. If I get sick, I cant just solve my problem with some ibuprofen. Solving climate change requires a major overhaul in culture, lifestyle, expectation, technology and politics. We did it before, mostly in War situations, I do not understand why this is different.
  - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
    People on HN hate it when you say we have to change our whole society to deal with this problem. I agree with you though. I don’t think we’re willing to do what is necessary to avoid serious catastrophe. We’ve done a good job demonstrating that for 50+ years so far.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      > People on HN hate it when you say we have to change our whole society to deal with this problem. We obviously don't have to change our whole society to deal with that problem. 1) I've been told that renewable are now grid competitive in cost and the power system is switching over to them naturally. 2) At any point we could go nuclear - even the most pessimistic anti-nuclear activist would have to admit that the risks from nuclear power are localised and that the raw volume of pollution rounds to 0 compared to what we do now. It would take a couple of breakthroughs in battery technology to solve the transport problem and the whole thing might get solved in the background without much more serious effort. Most people wouldn't even notice.
      - BigJono 7y ago
        You'd be surprised how much anti-nuclear activists would disagree with your second point. I'm sure I know a couple that would rather watch the world burn than vote for someone that will build a single reactor. I think once an issue like that becomes a left/right black/white thing all logic just goes straight out the window. You can't even say the word nuclear without hearing a cacophony of statements about the price of nuclear vs renewables, as if those claims don't need any actual numbers to go along with them.
        Ygg2 7y ago
        When you break it down, for California (a relatively sunny place) it would take more than $3.63 trillion dollars to be 100% renewable. [1]https://youtu.be/h5cm7HOAqZY?t=709 https://youtu.be/h5cm7HOAqZY?t=709
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  The Paris agreement was known since the beginning to be insufficient to meet their own targets. And I believe the US has pulled out of that? We’re seriously behind where we need to be. So yes we’re not doing literally nothing, but perhaps we’re doing nothing that would actually stop climate change from causing catastrophic damage to earth.
- ptah 7y ago
  all of those things are pure talk, no action
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  I don't think any nation, not one, will meet Paris commitments. Paris was broadly thought to be far from enough at the time it was signed, and science has moved on markedly since then. IPCC reports are the most optimistic interpretation as necessarily they take a most conservative view on every study. IPCC are all government appointed after all. G20 fossil subsidies just went up, again. Why does fossil need any subsidy, anywhere in the world, given how much profit has come from fossil fuel for a century or two? That seems pretty near to nothing to me. Let's say "nothing substantive" then.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Looks like one nation is on course to meet Paris. Morocco, who emit 0.17% of the world's CO2. https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/morocco/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/morocco/
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  We are doing nothing: https://climateactiontracker.org/ https://climateactiontracker.org/ National responses range from "critically insufficient" all the way to merely "insufficient". You are tragically misinformed if you think some responsible people somewhere are taking action.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Shame that site treats all the EU as one bloc - individual countries within the EU diverge quite a bit.
southern_cross 7y ago
On a millennium scale level an increase in global temperatures has been occurring for about 15,000 years (give or take), since the start of the last interglacial. On a century scale level temperatures have been increasing for about 150 years, since the end of the Little Ice Age. On a decadal level temperatures have been increasing since the great "Global Cooling" scare of the 1970s. So it should be no surprise, then, that right now temps may be a bit on the warm side, comparatively speaking. This situation might be quite inconvenient for us, though.

PhilWright 7y ago

It is obviously not the case that 'humanity seems to do nothing'. The United Nations have the IPCC working on the issue and their reports influence national policy in many countries. There are the Kyoto and Paris agreements that are based on the details from the IPCC reports. Is the world doing enough? No, I don't think countries are doing enough, but to say humanity seems to do nothing is patently ridiculous.

adrianN 7y ago
Emissions are still rising when they should be falling since the Rio summit in 1992. You know, back when we still had a chance of saving the coral reefs and the penguins. Right now it looks like we started triggering the melting of the permafrost, which, once it gets going, will make all efforts we can make totally nil. Whatever humanity is doing, it's got little to do with preventing the climate catastrophe. Remember that the total amount of GHG emissions in the atmosphere is what counts. We're not even getting the second derivative to go in the right direction.
wrong_variable 7y ago
The problem is that is too little too late. If I get sick, I cant just solve my problem with some ibuprofen. Solving climate change requires a major overhaul in culture, lifestyle, expectation, technology and politics. We did it before, mostly in War situations, I do not understand why this is different.
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  People on HN hate it when you say we have to change our whole society to deal with this problem. I agree with you though. I don’t think we’re willing to do what is necessary to avoid serious catastrophe. We’ve done a good job demonstrating that for 50+ years so far.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    > People on HN hate it when you say we have to change our whole society to deal with this problem. We obviously don't have to change our whole society to deal with that problem. 1) I've been told that renewable are now grid competitive in cost and the power system is switching over to them naturally. 2) At any point we could go nuclear - even the most pessimistic anti-nuclear activist would have to admit that the risks from nuclear power are localised and that the raw volume of pollution rounds to 0 compared to what we do now. It would take a couple of breakthroughs in battery technology to solve the transport problem and the whole thing might get solved in the background without much more serious effort. Most people wouldn't even notice.
    - BigJono 7y ago
      You'd be surprised how much anti-nuclear activists would disagree with your second point. I'm sure I know a couple that would rather watch the world burn than vote for someone that will build a single reactor. I think once an issue like that becomes a left/right black/white thing all logic just goes straight out the window. You can't even say the word nuclear without hearing a cacophony of statements about the price of nuclear vs renewables, as if those claims don't need any actual numbers to go along with them.
      - Ygg2 7y ago
        When you break it down, for California (a relatively sunny place) it would take more than $3.63 trillion dollars to be 100% renewable. [1]https://youtu.be/h5cm7HOAqZY?t=709 https://youtu.be/h5cm7HOAqZY?t=709
TaylorAlexander 7y ago
The Paris agreement was known since the beginning to be insufficient to meet their own targets. And I believe the US has pulled out of that? We’re seriously behind where we need to be. So yes we’re not doing literally nothing, but perhaps we’re doing nothing that would actually stop climate change from causing catastrophic damage to earth.
ptah 7y ago
all of those things are pure talk, no action
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
I don't think any nation, not one, will meet Paris commitments. Paris was broadly thought to be far from enough at the time it was signed, and science has moved on markedly since then. IPCC reports are the most optimistic interpretation as necessarily they take a most conservative view on every study. IPCC are all government appointed after all. G20 fossil subsidies just went up, again. Why does fossil need any subsidy, anywhere in the world, given how much profit has come from fossil fuel for a century or two? That seems pretty near to nothing to me. Let's say "nothing substantive" then.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Looks like one nation is on course to meet Paris. Morocco, who emit 0.17% of the world's CO2. https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/morocco/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/morocco/
ForHackernews 7y ago
We are doing nothing: https://climateactiontracker.org/ https://climateactiontracker.org/ National responses range from "critically insufficient" all the way to merely "insufficient". You are tragically misinformed if you think some responsible people somewhere are taking action.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Shame that site treats all the EU as one bloc - individual countries within the EU diverge quite a bit.

southern_cross 7y ago

On a millennium scale level an increase in global temperatures has been occurring for about 15,000 years (give or take), since the start of the last interglacial. On a century scale level temperatures have been increasing for about 150 years, since the end of the Little Ice Age. On a decadal level temperatures have been increasing since the great "Global Cooling" scare of the 1970s. So it should be no surprise, then, that right now temps may be a bit on the warm side, comparatively speaking. This situation might be quite inconvenient for us, though.