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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 po

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
        phaemon 7y ago
        No it wouldn't. The assumptions made in that video are ridiculous. You don't need to have storage for all your solar; you turn other sources off when you have excess supply. Or you can switch them off simply by covering them. Batteries are not the only form of storage. Hydro exists and is in use already. You are allowed to import electricity. There are other renewables besides solar and wind. etc etc etc...
- lubonay 7y ago
  Greed seems to be the primary engine driving humanity as a whole. IMO the most viable path forward is to find some overlap between our desire to obtain and consume more, and the pressing need to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Maybe if we find a way to make carbon capture super lucrative or something?
  - wallace_f 7y ago
    It's really easy to implement a carbon tax. And it solves the problem. But what politicians want is more power grabs, not solutions. All of our wars on poverty, drugs, terror etc are intended this way. They are wars on people. This is the same. These people dont give a fuck about you. That's rarely ever been the case.
    - chappi42 7y ago
      No politician who would implement _real_ (very intrusive) carbon tax would be elected. Not easy at all.
    - lubonay 7y ago
      Implementing an unpopular measure (more tax) is almost equivalent to political suicide, and people in power tend to want to stay in power. So yeah, technically it may be easy, but politically (which is what really matters here) this is almost impossible.
      - wallace_f 7y ago
        Every president has been essentially increasing taxes in the sense that they are raising spending, and spending increases are tax increases. People just dont want their gas prices to go up. Their fine with ignoring a financial catostrophe for the next generation which is the national debt. They are also very happy to soap box and advertise that they care about the next generation by talking nonsense about global warming.
      - empath75 7y ago
        You don’t need more taxes (on net) at all. You just do a carbon tax and distribute all the money equally. Rational people would reduce their spending on items that put a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Ideally nobody pays the tax at all. That’s the whole point of it.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  I try to limit my carbon footprint, but I always am struck by how many people soapbox about alarmism cotastrophe. A couple generations ago many normal people of varyinf countries were each convinced to go out and start killing each other. Most people are just tools or bootlickers who do what their authorities or groups tell them to.
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.

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
      - phaemon 7y ago
        No it wouldn't. The assumptions made in that video are ridiculous. You don't need to have storage for all your solar; you turn other sources off when you have excess supply. Or you can switch them off simply by covering them. Batteries are not the only form of storage. Hydro exists and is in use already. You are allowed to import electricity. There are other renewables besides solar and wind. etc etc etc...
lubonay 7y ago
Greed seems to be the primary engine driving humanity as a whole. IMO the most viable path forward is to find some overlap between our desire to obtain and consume more, and the pressing need to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Maybe if we find a way to make carbon capture super lucrative or something?
- wallace_f 7y ago
  It's really easy to implement a carbon tax. And it solves the problem. But what politicians want is more power grabs, not solutions. All of our wars on poverty, drugs, terror etc are intended this way. They are wars on people. This is the same. These people dont give a fuck about you. That's rarely ever been the case.
  - chappi42 7y ago
    No politician who would implement _real_ (very intrusive) carbon tax would be elected. Not easy at all.
  - lubonay 7y ago
    Implementing an unpopular measure (more tax) is almost equivalent to political suicide, and people in power tend to want to stay in power. So yeah, technically it may be easy, but politically (which is what really matters here) this is almost impossible.
    - wallace_f 7y ago
      Every president has been essentially increasing taxes in the sense that they are raising spending, and spending increases are tax increases. People just dont want their gas prices to go up. Their fine with ignoring a financial catostrophe for the next generation which is the national debt. They are also very happy to soap box and advertise that they care about the next generation by talking nonsense about global warming.
    - empath75 7y ago
      You don’t need more taxes (on net) at all. You just do a carbon tax and distribute all the money equally. Rational people would reduce their spending on items that put a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Ideally nobody pays the tax at all. That’s the whole point of it.
wallace_f 7y ago
I try to limit my carbon footprint, but I always am struck by how many people soapbox about alarmism cotastrophe. A couple generations ago many normal people of varyinf countries were each convinced to go out and start killing each other. Most people are just tools or bootlickers who do what their authorities or groups tell them to.

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.