13 ms·

Yeah, this is the most frustrating part of all this. Halting climate change isn't even that hard and would clearly benefit billions of people. It just affects t

Yeah, this is the most frustrating part of all this. Halting climate change isn't even that hard and would clearly benefit billions of people. It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people, so we can't do it, and instead spin our tires with dumb nit-picking articles like this one.

robomartin 7y ago
No, halting climate change is actually impossible. All you need in order to understand this is elementary physics (conservation of energy, etc) and critical thinking. This isn’t my opinion, we have known this —by this I mean, science, not voodoo— for many years, probably a decade or more.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  You're making a claim but you're not substantiating it, could you elaborate what you're referring to exactly?
  - meiraleal 7y ago
    There is no need to substantiate it, it is plain pure logic. The climate will always change. We can influence it a bit, but definitely a lot less than we having giving ourselves credit for. More than that, we don't have enough data to understand how the climate would change by itself, without human influence. The same way there is night and day, winter and summer, planet Earth might be subject to other climate variations that we don't have a clue. One thing I know for sure: if the population is growing, the Earth is becoming better for human-life, not worse. I'll be concerned about climate change when the population starts to shrink but we are way far from that.
    - glial 7y ago
      Obligatory (for you) xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
    - take_a_breath 7y ago
      == We can influence it a bit, but definitely a lot less than we having giving ourselves credit for. More than that, we don't have enough data to understand how the climate would change by itself, without human influence. == This logic seems completely contradictory. At first you argue that we can’t really influence climate, then you concede that we have no idea of our impact on it. Can you further explain?
    - Brometheus 7y ago
      https://grist.org/series/skeptics/ https://grist.org/series/skeptics/
      - greggman2 7y ago
        That's a great page but I didn't see this particular objection covered. Maybe your point was it's "yet another false argument"?
    - Supermancho 7y ago
      > if the population is growing, the Earth is becoming better for human-life That isnt logical, casting doubt on your absolute claims. Population growth in animals is relative to available resources not some mythical quality that can be interpreted as "better environment".
      - meiraleal 7y ago
        > Population growth in animals is relative to available resources You said the same as me, with different words. That's it. When did humans have so much spare time to be discussing imaginary problems online? And getting so offended when someone disagree that these imaginary problems will cause our doom.
      - thedaemon 7y ago
        Population growth in animals is not just available resources, climate, location, and many other factors play their parts. Stating that the person to whom you were replying to was equating "mythical" qualities to their brief description is as much of a stretch as your "available resources". What I mean is, in their brevity they were not 100% detailed on what "Earth becoming better" actually is. Just as your "available resources" falls short. What kind of resources are you meaning? We can all pick nit's but lets try to be civil.
        Supermancho 7y ago
        I disagree. Earth becoming better, would be ludicrously tested by removing all but a small population of humans and comparing survival rates between a given time period and now. The Earth, itself, is not "becoming better" in any human sense. The statement was a fantastic statement, which also meant it was unqualified. > Population growth in animals is not just available resources, climate, location, and many other factors play their parts. Habitable area is a resource, which species compete for. There is a generous interpretation of my statement, but there isn't one of a "Earth is better", that makes sense. The commensurate appeal to logical thought was rightly pointed out as hypocritical. I stand by it.
  - jdjdjjsjs 7y ago
    Well when you take the words climate change literally and ignore what it means in context, yeah, you're absolutely right. But then you're also revealing yourself as a dishonest participant who is probably not worth discussing this issue witb
  - Jamwinner 7y ago
    The climate is not static. The conclusion that manmade factors are accelerating it does not perclude the slow warming phenomenon already in effect. Nonetheless, you are arguing past each other. The answer, is no matter how much is, or is not man-made, we stand to profit as a species if we combat what we can without causing greater harm by proxy.
  - robomartin 7y ago
    I've written about this before. Substantiating my claim is easy. Here you go: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21649195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21649195 BTW, this IS NOT my opinion. We have known this for probably a decade, if not more. The problem is that the masses are being brainwashed with lies on both ends of the spectrum. One end claims there is no such thing as human-caused climate change (which is false) and the other that we can actually fix it (which is also false).
    - Zanni 7y ago
      You're assuming passive measures only (stop producing more atmospheric carbon) and ignoring active measures (carbon scrubbing, carbon recapture). I haven't examined your math in detail, but I'm willing to stipulate that you're right that passive measures are wholly inadequate to address climate change. But then you may still be wildly wrong by not addressing active measures.
      - robomartin 7y ago
        Active measures will not work either. Again, Conservation of Energy. It takes more energy and resources to change something than what went into creating the problem in the first place. Once again, the data shows this clearly; without humanity around it took twice as long for a 100 ppm drop than the same increase. This is common sense, requiring only basic physics principles. Simple analogy: Burn a cubic meter of wood inside a warehouse large enough that the flames will not burn it down. How much energy is required to clean the warehouse from all the particulate matter on every surface, shelf, box, counter, light, crevice, etc? The answer is: Far more than the energy that went into creating the mess in the first place. This is not meant to be a perfect analogy, of course. All it is meant to illustrate is that we cannot “clean” the atmosphere with less energy than what created the problem. In fact, we need more energy, lots more. Given that we are talking about an unimaginably large amount if energy and resources it is easy to conclude this is nowhere near possible. My concern is that we are going to cause more damage than good. BTW, this does not mean we should not clean-up our act across the board. It simply means we need to stop using climate change as a political battering ram to push these things through.
NotSammyHagar 7y ago
Please elaborate on why stopping c.c. isn't hard. I think it's very hard in terms of what we need to do out in the world, and very hard politically.
- imglorp 7y ago
  We are spending more than $5T annually on fossil subsidies. All you have to do is divert that elsewhere. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Glo...
  - jjoonathan 7y ago
    I've seen some very expansive definitions of "subsidy" that include, for example, not taxing carbon emissions. In that case, you couldn't just divert the money, because it never existed in a budget. You could implement a carbon tax, and I'd be all for that, but it wouldn't be in the same policy class as diverting an existing stream of budgetary money.
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      About ~1 Billion of that cited number is from global warming costs. The larger portions is from health costs associated with air pollution which accounts for ~2 Billion. You can find a break down of the sources of that subsidy at the bottom of page 21 of the linked article.
      - wutbrodo 7y ago
        Do you mean trillion here?
        shkkmo 7y ago
        Haha, yup
    - 7y ago
WarDores 7y ago
The hard part is international collaboration. Getting China and India on board has been a non-starter so far, and they're far and away the largest contributors.
- vkou 7y ago
  No, they aren't. India's per capita CO2 output is tiny. China's is middle of the road. Per capita is the only way we can talk about CO2, because otherwise we get true absurdities, like Denmark or Ireland being allowed to pollute as much as the US. (The world will not support 200 countries polluting ad much as the US.) There's also a simple solution to getting trade partners on board. It's called a carbon tariff.
  - DataWorker 7y ago
    Per capita may not be the best metric. China’s population isn’t going to shrink any time soon. If the environment is the concern the total emissions seems like the appropriate figure.
    - yibg 7y ago
      Don’t see how that would make sense. Comparing the emissions of China vs that of Iceland just doesn’t make sense. We can talk about total global emissions, but then bring it down to the total per capita contribution per country. e.g. China has 20% of the worlds population so are “allowed” 20% of the worlds total emissions.
      - xamuel 7y ago
        Careful there. That would incentivize unscrupulous nations to breed vast populations and keep them barely alive in cages, just to be "allowed" more emissions.
        yibg 7y ago
        That's quite the jump.
xwowsersx 7y ago
The reason we haven't done these things is because of a "couple rich people"? We have a consensus and viable solutions that would clearly benefit billions of people, but we aren't because it affects a couple rich people? Seriously? Who are those people?
mistermann 7y ago
> Yeah, this is the most frustrating part of all this. Halting climate change isn't even that hard and would clearly benefit billions of people. It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people, so we can't do it, and instead spin our tires with dumb nit-picking articles like this one. It's frustrating to me to read comments like this. I will try my best to elaborate. > Halting climate change isn't even that hard and would clearly benefit billions of people. This is a simplification of course - I'm in no way implying you're not aware of that, or that this is a flaw in your argument. I think we can agree on this well enough. > It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people, so we can't do it "It affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people...." This seems factual. "It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people...." This seems non-factual, due to that seemingly innocuous additional word: just. A multi-trillion dollar initiative and the corresponding policy changes would ripple through the incredibly complex system we call the economy, affecting everyone, and not in a completely proportional and "fair" manner. From my years of close observation of the behavior of the various actors in democratic political systems, I predict this could affect sentiment and therefore voting patterns, to a consequential degree. Keep in mind though, this is only a prediction, I am unable to see into the future. "...so we can't do it..." This on its own seems factual, but not for the reason you stated. At the very least, it is speculative. "...and instead spin our tires with dumb nit-picking articles like this one." I strongly disagree that this article is "stupid", but rather, I think it is right on the money, and is drawing attention to an incredibly important and incredibly overlooked underlying (potential) cause of our inability to move the ball forward on the climate change initiative. FTA: > Journalists and activists alike have an obligation to describe environmental problems honestly and accurately, even if they fear doing so will reduce their news value or salience with the public. There is good evidence that the catastrophist framing of climate change is self-defeating because it alienates and polarizes many people. ....who then often proceed to vote, illogically, in a "fuck you" manner. [0] I often read sentiments about climate "deniers"[1] being "the children in the room", and people like[2] yourself being "the adults". I can agree that there is some truth to this, but I would argue less than meets the eye. My intuition tells me a more accurate description would be something like: the "deniers" are the children, "people like you" are the teenagers, "people like the author" are "the young adults", and the people that recognize that what we're doing just isn't working, decide to calm down and start looking deeply at details, taking into consideration the infinite complexity of the numerous inter-related systems involved (one of which is the human mind), paying close attention to the nature of conversations and making note of where things may be going off track, come up with some new ideas, and try to get those ideas out into the meme war.....these are the actual adults in the room. To me, tackling climate change with science and facts is similar to bringing a knife to a gunfight. People don't think in facts, because that isn't how we evolved. Purely factual thinking mutations are culled from the herd by evolution, because it doesn't produce results. Historically for sure, but the same argument could be made today, at least within most domains. We can deal with reality as it "should" be, or we can deal with it how it is. That choice is up to each and every one of us, each and every time we interact with these and similar issues. (I speculate that) We all think we're worried "just" about the climate change, because our senses tell us that. But is that all that's going on here? The intense emotions we each feel when reading such discussions, are those emotions purely derived from pure logical thinking about the future state of the climate, or might they be in part a result of reactions to subconscious heuristic interpretations of the words others are writing, resulting in a subconscious classification of the person into an in-group or out-group categorization, which in turn results in signals being sent up to the conscious mind to react in a certain manner, which sets off a chain of events which are hilariously counter-productive to our conscious, logical, intended goals. (An example of this curiously complex behavior would be the brain sending signals to the hand to move one's mousepointer over top of one of two available diamonds beside this comment, and then a signal to depress the left mouse button, as an expression of...something, but exactly what is not discernible to an outside observer. It may not even be accurately discernible to the person operating the mouse, such is the beautiful complexity of the human mind). My proposal is that we cool our jets and realize what is actually going on here, and use the substantial intellectual power that exists within the HN hivemind to start to come up with some better ideas. Battling climate change is a multi-dimensional problem, but we seem to be aware of only a subset of these dimensions. Scientists, politicians, "journalists", and media celebrities are helpful (at times at least), but I believe there are many crucially important disciplines that have been excluded from the conversation - in part because we're thinking about the problem wrong, in part because we often think of those disciplines as "stupid" or trivial. This thinking may be right, or it may be wrong. But at the end of the day, we are going to find out one way or the other. Let's hope we've guessed right, because that's what we're doing here so far: guessing. Educated guesses perhaps, but still guesses. As the saying goes: as we sow, so shall we reap. This statement is true regardless of humanity's current collective agreement on the matter - the universe will unfold as it will. We can let this process occur randomly, or we can intervene and attempt to shape it more to our liking, but being successful in that endeavor requires a proper analysis, and proper action. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMm5HfxNXY4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMm5HfxNXY4 [1] "deniers" are often not actually that, but let's not get hung up on trivialities like facts. [2] I say "like" here as a generalization, but am reserving judgement on whether you are actually such a person - this footnote is to make it explicitly clear that my statement is speculative.
rsync 7y ago
"Yeah, this is the most frustrating part of all this. Halting climate change isn't even that hard and would clearly benefit billions of people. It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people ..." I note, with interest, that France enacted the most modest of modest steps toward this goal and the result was nationwide riots in the streets that continue to this day. I, also, would like to live in the Star Trek future I always dreamed of where we drive electric cars and generate power in new and elegant ways ... I'm not sure how easy it will be.
- polotics 7y ago
  Nope, France's president E.Macron tried to pull a fast one, raising tax on fuel and diverting the income towards financing the state, which was most needed because he also removed the ISF: Impôt sur la Fortune...
  - thu2111 7y ago
    Well, yes, all taxes divert income towards financing the state. That's rather the definition of a tax. That isn't an argument against rsync's point, which is that raising fuel taxes in France triggered months of nationwide rioting by people wearing yellow vests, symbolic because French people have to have them in their cars by law. That is they literally made the symbol of their protests a symbol of car driving. The UK is less prone to riots. However the government abandoned its fuel tax escalator policy ("automatic" fuel tax increases) after a series of protests by truckers who blockaded ports and threatened to bring about a collapse of supply chains. The conclusion I draw from all this is simple but brutal:governments have nothing they can do about climate change. Nor do protestors, nor do most people. The only people who can make any difference at all are a small group of scientists (not climate scientists), and (primarily) engineers. It's only engineers who develop better cars and power generation techniques who shift the needle. The rest of us might as well forget about it.
  - Xixi 7y ago
    The underlying policy predates Macron, as it was decided under Hollande (albeit Macron was his economy minister). The policy is to raise taxes on gas little by little to reduce its usage, and that of diesel even more quickly so that the prices of "normal" gas and diesel would converge by 2022. [1] Macron decided to go faster than initially decided by Hollande. I would not call that a "fast one", especially given that IIRC it was announced during his electoral campaign. Macron electors are mostly urban middle class, so are not affected by taxes on gas that much... [1] Here is a graph (the article is in French): https://www.ledauphine.com/economie-et-finance/2018/10/24/prix-des-carburants-l-autre-fracture-territoriale https://www.ledauphine.com/economie-et-finance/2018/10/24/pr...
karmakaze 7y ago
The change in sentiment toward climate change feels nearly as slow. It is moving in the right direction and picking up, so it's only a matter of time before it becomes the new hot thing like autonomous vehicles or space travel and everyone wants to do it. The faster the general populations perceive it as good, important and exciting, the more those in positions of influence will tie their images to it. I welcome more "who does more to fight climate change" pissing contests like Elon Musk's $1,000,000 tree planting.

robomartin 7y ago

No, halting climate change is actually impossible. All you need in order to understand this is elementary physics (conservation of energy, etc) and critical thinking. This isn’t my opinion, we have known this —by this I mean, science, not voodoo— for many years, probably a decade or more.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago
You're making a claim but you're not substantiating it, could you elaborate what you're referring to exactly?
- meiraleal 7y ago
  There is no need to substantiate it, it is plain pure logic. The climate will always change. We can influence it a bit, but definitely a lot less than we having giving ourselves credit for. More than that, we don't have enough data to understand how the climate would change by itself, without human influence. The same way there is night and day, winter and summer, planet Earth might be subject to other climate variations that we don't have a clue. One thing I know for sure: if the population is growing, the Earth is becoming better for human-life, not worse. I'll be concerned about climate change when the population starts to shrink but we are way far from that.
  - glial 7y ago
    Obligatory (for you) xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
  - take_a_breath 7y ago
    == We can influence it a bit, but definitely a lot less than we having giving ourselves credit for. More than that, we don't have enough data to understand how the climate would change by itself, without human influence. == This logic seems completely contradictory. At first you argue that we can’t really influence climate, then you concede that we have no idea of our impact on it. Can you further explain?
  - Brometheus 7y ago
    https://grist.org/series/skeptics/ https://grist.org/series/skeptics/
    - greggman2 7y ago
      That's a great page but I didn't see this particular objection covered. Maybe your point was it's "yet another false argument"?
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    > if the population is growing, the Earth is becoming better for human-life That isnt logical, casting doubt on your absolute claims. Population growth in animals is relative to available resources not some mythical quality that can be interpreted as "better environment".
    - meiraleal 7y ago
      > Population growth in animals is relative to available resources You said the same as me, with different words. That's it. When did humans have so much spare time to be discussing imaginary problems online? And getting so offended when someone disagree that these imaginary problems will cause our doom.
    - thedaemon 7y ago
      Population growth in animals is not just available resources, climate, location, and many other factors play their parts. Stating that the person to whom you were replying to was equating "mythical" qualities to their brief description is as much of a stretch as your "available resources". What I mean is, in their brevity they were not 100% detailed on what "Earth becoming better" actually is. Just as your "available resources" falls short. What kind of resources are you meaning? We can all pick nit's but lets try to be civil.
      - Supermancho 7y ago
        I disagree. Earth becoming better, would be ludicrously tested by removing all but a small population of humans and comparing survival rates between a given time period and now. The Earth, itself, is not "becoming better" in any human sense. The statement was a fantastic statement, which also meant it was unqualified. > Population growth in animals is not just available resources, climate, location, and many other factors play their parts. Habitable area is a resource, which species compete for. There is a generous interpretation of my statement, but there isn't one of a "Earth is better", that makes sense. The commensurate appeal to logical thought was rightly pointed out as hypocritical. I stand by it.
- jdjdjjsjs 7y ago
  Well when you take the words climate change literally and ignore what it means in context, yeah, you're absolutely right. But then you're also revealing yourself as a dishonest participant who is probably not worth discussing this issue witb
- Jamwinner 7y ago
  The climate is not static. The conclusion that manmade factors are accelerating it does not perclude the slow warming phenomenon already in effect. Nonetheless, you are arguing past each other. The answer, is no matter how much is, or is not man-made, we stand to profit as a species if we combat what we can without causing greater harm by proxy.
- robomartin 7y ago
  I've written about this before. Substantiating my claim is easy. Here you go: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21649195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21649195 BTW, this IS NOT my opinion. We have known this for probably a decade, if not more. The problem is that the masses are being brainwashed with lies on both ends of the spectrum. One end claims there is no such thing as human-caused climate change (which is false) and the other that we can actually fix it (which is also false).
  - Zanni 7y ago
    You're assuming passive measures only (stop producing more atmospheric carbon) and ignoring active measures (carbon scrubbing, carbon recapture). I haven't examined your math in detail, but I'm willing to stipulate that you're right that passive measures are wholly inadequate to address climate change. But then you may still be wildly wrong by not addressing active measures.
    - robomartin 7y ago
      Active measures will not work either. Again, Conservation of Energy. It takes more energy and resources to change something than what went into creating the problem in the first place. Once again, the data shows this clearly; without humanity around it took twice as long for a 100 ppm drop than the same increase. This is common sense, requiring only basic physics principles. Simple analogy: Burn a cubic meter of wood inside a warehouse large enough that the flames will not burn it down. How much energy is required to clean the warehouse from all the particulate matter on every surface, shelf, box, counter, light, crevice, etc? The answer is: Far more than the energy that went into creating the mess in the first place. This is not meant to be a perfect analogy, of course. All it is meant to illustrate is that we cannot “clean” the atmosphere with less energy than what created the problem. In fact, we need more energy, lots more. Given that we are talking about an unimaginably large amount if energy and resources it is easy to conclude this is nowhere near possible. My concern is that we are going to cause more damage than good. BTW, this does not mean we should not clean-up our act across the board. It simply means we need to stop using climate change as a political battering ram to push these things through.

NotSammyHagar 7y ago

Please elaborate on why stopping c.c. isn't hard. I think it's very hard in terms of what we need to do out in the world, and very hard politically.

imglorp 7y ago
We are spending more than $5T annually on fossil subsidies. All you have to do is divert that elsewhere. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Glo...
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  I've seen some very expansive definitions of "subsidy" that include, for example, not taxing carbon emissions. In that case, you couldn't just divert the money, because it never existed in a budget. You could implement a carbon tax, and I'd be all for that, but it wouldn't be in the same policy class as diverting an existing stream of budgetary money.
  - shkkmo 7y ago
    About ~1 Billion of that cited number is from global warming costs. The larger portions is from health costs associated with air pollution which accounts for ~2 Billion. You can find a break down of the sources of that subsidy at the bottom of page 21 of the linked article.
    - wutbrodo 7y ago
      Do you mean trillion here?
      - shkkmo 7y ago
        Haha, yup
  - 7y ago

WarDores 7y ago

The hard part is international collaboration. Getting China and India on board has been a non-starter so far, and they're far and away the largest contributors.

vkou 7y ago
No, they aren't. India's per capita CO2 output is tiny. China's is middle of the road. Per capita is the only way we can talk about CO2, because otherwise we get true absurdities, like Denmark or Ireland being allowed to pollute as much as the US. (The world will not support 200 countries polluting ad much as the US.) There's also a simple solution to getting trade partners on board. It's called a carbon tariff.
- DataWorker 7y ago
  Per capita may not be the best metric. China’s population isn’t going to shrink any time soon. If the environment is the concern the total emissions seems like the appropriate figure.
  - yibg 7y ago
    Don’t see how that would make sense. Comparing the emissions of China vs that of Iceland just doesn’t make sense. We can talk about total global emissions, but then bring it down to the total per capita contribution per country. e.g. China has 20% of the worlds population so are “allowed” 20% of the worlds total emissions.
    - xamuel 7y ago
      Careful there. That would incentivize unscrupulous nations to breed vast populations and keep them barely alive in cages, just to be "allowed" more emissions.
      - yibg 7y ago
        That's quite the jump.

xwowsersx 7y ago

The reason we haven't done these things is because of a "couple rich people"? We have a consensus and viable solutions that would clearly benefit billions of people, but we aren't because it affects a couple rich people? Seriously? Who are those people?

mistermann 7y ago

> Yeah, this is the most frustrating part of all this. Halting climate change isn't even that hard and would clearly benefit billions of people. It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people, so we can't do it, and instead spin our tires with dumb nit-picking articles like this one. It's frustrating to me to read comments like this. I will try my best to elaborate. > Halting climate change isn't even that hard and would clearly benefit billions of people. This is a simplification of course - I'm in no way implying you're not aware of that, or that this is a flaw in your argument. I think we can agree on this well enough. > It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people, so we can't do it "It affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people...." This seems factual. "It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people...." This seems non-factual, due to that seemingly innocuous additional word: just. A multi-trillion dollar initiative and the corresponding policy changes would ripple through the incredibly complex system we call the economy, affecting everyone, and not in a completely proportional and "fair" manner. From my years of close observation of the behavior of the various actors in democratic political systems, I predict this could affect sentiment and therefore voting patterns, to a consequential degree. Keep in mind though, this is only a prediction, I am unable to see into the future. "...so we can't do it..." This on its own seems factual, but not for the reason you stated. At the very least, it is speculative. "...and instead spin our tires with dumb nit-picking articles like this one." I strongly disagree that this article is "stupid", but rather, I think it is right on the money, and is drawing attention to an incredibly important and incredibly overlooked underlying (potential) cause of our inability to move the ball forward on the climate change initiative. FTA: > Journalists and activists alike have an obligation to describe environmental problems honestly and accurately, even if they fear doing so will reduce their news value or salience with the public. There is good evidence that the catastrophist framing of climate change is self-defeating because it alienates and polarizes many people. ....who then often proceed to vote, illogically, in a "fuck you" manner. [0] I often read sentiments about climate "deniers"[1] being "the children in the room", and people like[2] yourself being "the adults". I can agree that there is some truth to this, but I would argue less than meets the eye. My intuition tells me a more accurate description would be something like: the "deniers" are the children, "people like you" are the teenagers, "people like the author" are "the young adults", and the people that recognize that what we're doing just isn't working, decide to calm down and start looking deeply at details, taking into consideration the infinite complexity of the numerous inter-related systems involved (one of which is the human mind), paying close attention to the nature of conversations and making note of where things may be going off track, come up with some new ideas, and try to get those ideas out into the meme war.....these are the actual adults in the room. To me, tackling climate change with science and facts is similar to bringing a knife to a gunfight. People don't think in facts, because that isn't how we evolved. Purely factual thinking mutations are culled from the herd by evolution, because it doesn't produce results. Historically for sure, but the same argument could be made today, at least within most domains. We can deal with reality as it "should" be, or we can deal with it how it is. That choice is up to each and every one of us, each and every time we interact with these and similar issues. (I speculate that) We all think we're worried "just" about the climate change, because our senses tell us that. But is that all that's going on here? The intense emotions we each feel when reading such discussions, are those emotions purely derived from pure logical thinking about the future state of the climate, or might they be in part a result of reactions to subconscious heuristic interpretations of the words others are writing, resulting in a subconscious classification of the person into an in-group or out-group categorization, which in turn results in signals being sent up to the conscious mind to react in a certain manner, which sets off a chain of events which are hilariously counter-productive to our conscious, logical, intended goals. (An example of this curiously complex behavior would be the brain sending signals to the hand to move one's mousepointer over top of one of two available diamonds beside this comment, and then a signal to depress the left mouse button, as an expression of...something, but exactly what is not discernible to an outside observer. It may not even be accurately discernible to the person operating the mouse, such is the beautiful complexity of the human mind). My proposal is that we cool our jets and realize what is actually going on here, and use the substantial intellectual power that exists within the HN hivemind to start to come up with some better ideas. Battling climate change is a multi-dimensional problem, but we seem to be aware of only a subset of these dimensions. Scientists, politicians, "journalists", and media celebrities are helpful (at times at least), but I believe there are many crucially important disciplines that have been excluded from the conversation - in part because we're thinking about the problem wrong, in part because we often think of those disciplines as "stupid" or trivial. This thinking may be right, or it may be wrong. But at the end of the day, we are going to find out one way or the other. Let's hope we've guessed right, because that's what we're doing here so far: guessing. Educated guesses perhaps, but still guesses. As the saying goes: as we sow, so shall we reap. This statement is true regardless of humanity's current collective agreement on the matter - the universe will unfold as it will. We can let this process occur randomly, or we can intervene and attempt to shape it more to our liking, but being successful in that endeavor requires a proper analysis, and proper action. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMm5HfxNXY4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMm5HfxNXY4 [1] "deniers" are often not actually that, but let's not get hung up on trivialities like facts. [2] I say "like" here as a generalization, but am reserving judgement on whether you are actually such a person - this footnote is to make it explicitly clear that my statement is speculative.

rsync 7y ago

"Yeah, this is the most frustrating part of all this. Halting climate change isn't even that hard and would clearly benefit billions of people. It just affects the pocketbooks of a couple of rich people ..." I note, with interest, that France enacted the most modest of modest steps toward this goal and the result was nationwide riots in the streets that continue to this day. I, also, would like to live in the Star Trek future I always dreamed of where we drive electric cars and generate power in new and elegant ways ... I'm not sure how easy it will be.

polotics 7y ago
Nope, France's president E.Macron tried to pull a fast one, raising tax on fuel and diverting the income towards financing the state, which was most needed because he also removed the ISF: Impôt sur la Fortune...
- thu2111 7y ago
  Well, yes, all taxes divert income towards financing the state. That's rather the definition of a tax. That isn't an argument against rsync's point, which is that raising fuel taxes in France triggered months of nationwide rioting by people wearing yellow vests, symbolic because French people have to have them in their cars by law. That is they literally made the symbol of their protests a symbol of car driving. The UK is less prone to riots. However the government abandoned its fuel tax escalator policy ("automatic" fuel tax increases) after a series of protests by truckers who blockaded ports and threatened to bring about a collapse of supply chains. The conclusion I draw from all this is simple but brutal:governments have nothing they can do about climate change. Nor do protestors, nor do most people. The only people who can make any difference at all are a small group of scientists (not climate scientists), and (primarily) engineers. It's only engineers who develop better cars and power generation techniques who shift the needle. The rest of us might as well forget about it.
- Xixi 7y ago
  The underlying policy predates Macron, as it was decided under Hollande (albeit Macron was his economy minister). The policy is to raise taxes on gas little by little to reduce its usage, and that of diesel even more quickly so that the prices of "normal" gas and diesel would converge by 2022. [1] Macron decided to go faster than initially decided by Hollande. I would not call that a "fast one", especially given that IIRC it was announced during his electoral campaign. Macron electors are mostly urban middle class, so are not affected by taxes on gas that much... [1] Here is a graph (the article is in French): https://www.ledauphine.com/economie-et-finance/2018/10/24/prix-des-carburants-l-autre-fracture-territoriale https://www.ledauphine.com/economie-et-finance/2018/10/24/pr...

karmakaze 7y ago

The change in sentiment toward climate change feels nearly as slow. It is moving in the right direction and picking up, so it's only a matter of time before it becomes the new hot thing like autonomous vehicles or space travel and everyone wants to do it. The faster the general populations perceive it as good, important and exciting, the more those in positions of influence will tie their images to it. I welcome more "who does more to fight climate change" pissing contests like Elon Musk's $1,000,000 tree planting.