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‘Collapse of Civilisation Is the Most Likely Outcome’: Top Climate Scientists

57 points by makerofspoons 6y ago

qubex 6y ago
My God what a bleak read. It summarises everything that I fear: that our “height of civilisation” is an uncharacteristic blip (coincidentally solving the Fermi Paradox, but I digress), that various thresholds have already been crossed, that the nonlinear dynamics of the system will push inevitably towards a new attractor (“Hothouse Earth”, in this lexicon), and that we’ve societally collectively blundered into this outcome and that we lacked the collective willpower to inflict upon all of ourselves an absolutely unfathomable setback.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  Blunder implies not seeing. We chose not to see.
- hyperpallium 6y ago
  For covid19, some countries didn't take it seriously until they saw what happened in Italy. This could happen for global climate change, if we have dozens of Earths.
logicslave 6y ago
Been hearing this for 40 years now. Will we be reading this in another 40 years? Call me a skeptic, get angry at me, but I'll believe it when I see it.
- vekker 6y ago
  How can you not have noticed any changes in 40 years time? I take you don't live in an area with extreme summers/winters? Or don't you go skiing and notice the rapidly melting permafrost? Also, regardless of your opinion and what you "see", what happened to trusting the scientific method & looking at the actual numbers? As Gates said "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten."
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Udik 6y ago
    > How can you not have noticed any changes in 40 years time? I take you don't live in an area with extreme summers/winters? Or don't you go skiing and notice the rapidly melting permafrost? I think that any personal observation about climate on such a timescale is almost always unreliable. By the way, a common cliche' phrase at least a century old in Italian is "there are no mid-seasons any more", and another one is "there are no more winters like there used to be". In "Dictionnaire des idées reçues", a satirical dictionary of cliches compiled in the 1870s, Flaubert lists for both summer and winter the same cliche: "always exceptional".
    - tartoran 6y ago
      Actually these cliches seem only to confirm these personal observations, why else would people hold on to them? And the figure you mention and the industrial revolution seem to coincide. I too remember playing in a few feet of snow only to barely reach below freezing point a few times a winter. The last couple of winters were actually barren of any snow where I live
      - Udik 6y ago
        The cliches about summer and winter being "always exceptional" are from the 1870s. The effects of climate change surely weren't visible then (though I believe the climate was still warming from the "little ice age"). What these cliches suggest to me is that there is a human tendency to either mis-remember the climate of our youth or to misjudge the exceptionality of the current weather (similar somehow to how old people tend to grumble about the "new generations" and how they'll ruin everything- and it's been like that for millennia). Or alternatively, that weather patterns always change, slowly enough to be assumed as stable, but still quickly enough to be noticeable on a long human timescale. In either case, the fact that remarks on the exceptionality of the weather and its difference from the past existed before any CO2 - induced climate change was happening, says that we cannot rely on that type of impression to confirm the scientific measurements about the climate. It's strange we think otherwise, because one of the fundamental tenets of science is that subjective observation is biased and unreliable, and rigorous measures need to be taken to remove that subjective bias from observation.
- maccard 6y ago
  What changes do you want to see to believe it?
  - ethanbond 6y ago
    Catastrophe* * More violent hurricane seasons, more lively wildfire seasons, longer droughts and shorter winters do not count because reasons.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  "I don't know if this plausible catastrophe will happen, but I'd best wait and see". Not angry, just tired of people like you.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- tobltobs 6y ago
  "but I'll believe it when I see it." And what will do you do then?
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    Lie down and die. Not much choice there really.
- freen 6y ago
  The coronavirus was the trial run for climate change. If you thought in February that it wasn’t a big deal, if you listened to folks who said “the cases will go to zero soon”, well, perhaps you should check your epistemology and listen to folks who know what they are talking about.
  - Cerium 6y ago
    What is bothering me now, is that the coronavirus response provides damning evidence against our ability to act on climate change, but it is also stealing our time to act.
    - gremlinsinc 6y ago
      I think it's maybe slowing it down. The more we lockdown, the less emissions we're using. It's kind of a win/win...except for the economic fallout.
      - loopz 6y ago
        Reducing air pollution actually accellerates external input leading to global warming. Also, pollution is back higher than before in China "after" Corona. Latest development is rising infection rates in countries opening up. There's a balancing act how much we "open up", vs what measures have most impact. The last part should be solvable.
    - dqpb 6y ago
      Well, It may be that the only solution to the climate problem is for all the people to die.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      The coronoavirus economic impact is multiples of the projected economic impact of "business as usual" scenarios with respect to climate change. I found the whole process quite heartening actually.
  - pfkurtz 6y ago
    What's happening now in American politics (and lots of places) must be the trial run for attempting to address this problem.
- baq 6y ago
  we're already seeing it, you just choose to ignore the signs.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Been reading about nuclear weapons for 60 years. Will believe it when I see a warhead in my living room.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I mean, the analogy holds. Doomsayers were quite sure from 1950 to 1990 that there would inevitably be a civilization-ending war between the US and USSR, but the unavoidable disaster ended up being avoidable after all.
    - fifticon 6y ago
      I seriously doubt we have seen the last of nuclear bombs. We just haven't re-triggered the case where someone somewhere concludes they'll solve their local problem.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      The point is about refusal to take the threat seriously untill its too late. The doomsayers were very nearly right, twice, once during kuban crisis, and once in 1983. There is no afterall, we still have 100x more nukes than there are cities in the world. We are a buttonpress away from extinction.
      - spacemark 6y ago
        Again, just a bit of hyperbole. 2000+ nukes have already been detonated on earth. The idea that humans would become extinct after a few hundred are dropped on cities is unfounded.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  40 years? 20 years ago in Poland I used to go and play in snow with my brother. Building snow forts etc. And that was well before Christmas. Nowdays its a miracle if there is 'a snowfall' once before Xmas. We might as well drop term 'White Christmas' in mainland Europe. You are not a skeptic, just ignorant (I am well pass getting angry at people like you, since its pointless).
  - tartoran 6y ago
    You’re not hallucinating, I remember the same thing and not necessarily in a good light a la nostalgia. We were having some really cold and unbearable winters and the fact that they’re warmer make it momentarily nicer. I am not making the claim that this is due to global climate change but simply that a noticeable change took place. Denying it makes one look untrustworthy
    - me_me_me 6y ago
      > I am not making the claim that this is due to global climate change That's by definition change in a pattern. One could argue if that's humans fault or not. But saying its natural so we should do nothing, is like doing nothing because a totally natural meteorite is going to hit the earth.
- tengbretson 6y ago
  Gosh, if only the last thing people were freaking out about, peak oil, had actually happened. Then there'd be nothing to make all this CO2!
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  So you also don't believe in electromagnetic energy waves below 380 nanometers in length, or above 740 nanometers in length either, because you can't see them, even though a majority of professional scientists insist they exist?
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Thanks for having the guts to share an opinion that's going to definitely be really unpopular here. Every decade, there is some new 'impending doom' prediction. I've lived through pollution, smog, acid rain, ozone holes, Y2K, probably more. They may be right about Climate Change, but at this point people are suffering doom-fatigue and I can totally understand the skepticism. Additionally, I believe it is pointless to constantly worry about something you don't have the power to change. Even if you are a believer, the only thing you're going to get out of reading these articles will be stress and anxiety. There's no clear call to action for the average joe. The sun will explode one day too, but it's needless to have articles about it every week warning us of the dire consequences, because we can't do anything about it. Exactly like my inability to stop climate change, I offer my single drop of upvote into the torrent of downs that you're going to get.
  - DonHopkins 6y ago
    I deny that you're getting any downvotes, no matter how light your text is faded.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      Note that I never even claimed to deny climate change (I don't). The mere act of trying to understand where the skeptics are coming from is enough to bury one's comment. Major groupthink red flag IMO.
rgrieselhuber 6y ago
And it's all your fault, middle class America!
- danharaj 6y ago
  What are you talking about?
  - polytely 6y ago
    I think they are talking about the idea that individual recycling, less consumption will somehow fix this problem, as all the big polluting industries would like you to think? I think the only ways to actually tackle this is to put a price on pollution/unsustainable resource extraction, but that requires an enormous amount of global coordination.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > but that requires an enormous amount of global coordination. I think this is the biggest lie in favor of the fossil fuel industry. Here's this from the thread yesterday: https://www.electricitymap.org/map https://www.electricitymap.org/map California is doing better than most because they use solar and nuclear (but also quite a bit of gas). France is even greener, because they use almost entirely nuclear and hydro. Likewise Ontario. Meanwhile there are places like Australia that are still burning coal. Even switching to gas would be a marked improvement, but there is absolutely no reason they couldn't be using as much solar as California right now. California pays less for electricity than Australia. Until recently France had been paying less than California -- and then Germany shut down their nuclear plants and caused a regional supply crunch; now they're about the same. They're still lower in Ontario. So what's stopping everybody from doing the same, without anybody forcing them to? Squat. But if you convince everybody not to do it until everybody else is doing it then the fossil fuel industry just needs to control a couple of major holdouts to bust up any kind of international agreement and then nobody does anything. Meanwhile if you do it yourself without anybody forcing you to, that gives the alternatives economies of scale. Solar is where it is today in large part because of places like California. Batteries are where they are in large part because of companies like Tesla. Nuclear is in the sorry state that it is in large part because people haven't been building it. Doing it is how you get others to do it. You don't have to wait for anybody else. And you were never, ever going to get e.g. Russia to sign a treaty that gets them to stop burning fossil fuels. But once you have 75% of everybody, then you can get an agreement to have everybody slap the last holdouts with major tariffs.
polytely 6y ago
I feel so helpless about this, I try to limit my own impact on the environment (not flying, not owning a car) but I know that it's basically useless to solve this bottom up. The problem is that the people who are most able to actually tackle this problem earn their money by causing it, and will be the least affected personally. The fact that Bezos would rather spend all his money on rockets instead of mitigating the climate catastrophe is super depressing.
- troughway 6y ago
  Every time a doom thread like this comes up, and I read a comment from someone who has taken the initiative to limit their own damage, I think back to Idiocracy and the beginning montage of that film with the educated, professional couple. I can't help but feel sorry for the couple because in the end, they are the ones who tried the hardest to "make things right" and have suffered the most. Now I'm reading this comment and I'm wondering - what is the lesson here, really?
  - polytely 6y ago
    I don't know man, just kinda depression posting from my tiny room. I want to do something about it, because I haven't lost all hope yet, but I don't see a clear way how I personally could have any real impact. I wish I had enough cash to quit my job for a while and figure where I could make a difference, but I'm kinda barely hanging on as it is. It just bums me out that so much time and effort in the tech-sphere is spent on improving the efficiency of our destruction of the planet, and that the people who got rich of this destruction seem very content sitting on their pile of cash.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    "Dumm fickt gut, und hat immer die größte Brut!" Dumb fucks good, always largest breed.
  - hckr_news 6y ago
    My issue with that opening scene is that it seems to illustrate wealthier, higher class people as the ones who can solve all the problems in society because they have boatloads of money and are educated to the nth degree. In comparison to the hick family with 10 kids they also featured. What difference does it make if poor people are having more kids and the rich stave off having kids because of lack of time? I might be missing the point of the satire the movie is trying to portray but wouldn’t it make sense to put those poor 10 kids through public schools and universities in hopes they can get jobs in industry or research to eventually help humanity and solve problems. It’s an issue of equal opportunity access to me. And I’m not too sure if the movie is poking fun at the idea of expecting wealthy people and their offspring to solve the world’s problem, or if that is one of the movie’s actual message.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I really wish this article included the argument behind the claim that "+4°C world would support < 1 billion people". I can understand why it'd be a very different world, and why there might be a lot of struggles on the way, but the idea that it'll be literally impossible to grow enough food doesn't make much sense to me. Why couldn't we support the same number as today by planting slightly more heat-tolerant crops?
- baq 6y ago
  there won't be enough rain in places where things can grow. basically at +4C average the atmosphere is a completely different beast, it's not entirely clear if this amount of CO2 actually allows for clouds to form.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Do you have a pointer to scientific analyses where I can read about this? It was my understanding that moderate increases in temperature tend to increase rainfall, and I've certainly never heard anything about clouds being unable to form.
    - baq 6y ago
      this is recent: https://www.sciencealert.com/high-levels-of-co2-could-stop-these-cooling-clouds-from-forming-warn-scientists https://www.sciencealert.com/high-levels-of-co2-could-stop-t... though the question is not new. i'm pretty sure i've seen it in the original 1982 exxon research, but can't locate it at the moment.
      - gus_massa 6y ago
        The problem is not that the increase of concentration of CO2 cause a direct problem in the clouds, in that model the problem is caused by the increase of the temperature. Also, it's a problem that they get with a +8°C increase that is a lot, the double of the +4°C disused here.
antorsae 6y ago
I saw this https://voiceofaction.org/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-most-likely-outcome-top-climate-scientists/ https://voiceofaction.org/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-mo... in HN a few days ago but cannot seem to find it anymore; looks dupe and the other link in HN already had a discussion.
bovermyer 6y ago
I just accept that there's no fix, we're killing the planet, and we have maybe a few generations left before we go extinct. The universe doesn't care.
- gus_massa 6y ago
  Extinction is outside the prediction of most (all?) serious models. A big reduction of population and perhaps nasty living conditions are possible, anyway.
  - bovermyer 6y ago
    For climate change, perhaps. But as with COVID-19, the most serious threats to our species will come with little to no warning. It's kind of miraculous that we've survived this long.
whatshisface 6y ago
Coronavirus has taught us two clear lessons: nothing will be done until the effects are clearly visible, and the measures will be removed as soon as the effects subside. If civilization was driving a car it wouldn't hit the breaks until it heard its front bumper getting crushed.
rayiner 6y ago
Note that this is not the consensus view among climate scientists. The IPCC has never embraced the notion of civilization-ending runaway effects. And even the pessimistic among climate economists (who rely on IPCC projections about the effects of climate change) have predicated impacts somewhere along the lines of 10-15% of global GDP: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-06/are-economists-understating-or-overstating-climate-change-cost/11929098 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-06/are-economists-unders....
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  I've followed the IPCC and knew some scientists. From what I gathered the IPCC seemed to be toning down their scenarios to make them politically palatable. Just an impression. > the pessimistic among climate economists have predicated impacts somewhere along the lines of 10-15% of global GDP Economists decided to disregard externalities. I've zero faith in official economics. And newspapers try not to scare people, that's where they make their money from. Added: the climate scientists I knew were borderline panicking 15 years ago at least.
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    Economists people who believe in infinite growth in finite world. They made up Nobel in Economics to pretend to be scientists. They might start wearing mystical robes and give themselves funny titles. Since they are as useful at guessing how economy works and how to steer as other 'officials' who wear mystical robes and have funny titles. Both are also always 100% they are right about everything. Sorry about ranting, reading about climate change always puts me in depressing mood.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      The economics of climate change aren’t about prognostication. The climate scientists produce projections about impacts on, e.g. agriculture. Economists simply estimate what the economic impacts would be if those impacts in those economic sectors happened.
gremlinsinc 6y ago
Couldn't we, basically build a mega structure to block out the sun, and put us in a near ice-age to build up ice stores? We maybe have 5 years of horrible winters and ice, but then after we have enough ice we can leave the shade down for a bit.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  we destroyed whole ecosystems by introducing foreign wildlife. Both accidentally and intentionally. I am not too optimistic with 'solving' the climate change via one simple solution. I'd rather see UN drop one giant ice-cube onec in a while into the ocean.
- padseeker 6y ago
  we don't even spend money to maintain our infrastructure, and we're running a massive deficit, and the current leadership in the US has been removing regulation connected to environmental protection. How the hell are we going to get the largest governments of the world or this country to build a mega structure to block out the sun?
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    To make a .1mm (1/32") aluminium foil that shadows all the Earth, the cost is approximately 84 trillion dollars https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pi+*+%28%28earth+radius%29%5E2%29+*+0.1mm+*+%28density+aluminium%29+*+%28price+aluminium%29+in+dollars https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pi+*+%28%28earth+radiu... and that does not include the material to provide some structural support for the thin surface. And it doesn't include shipping and handling that is at least 10000 more if you put it at a geostationary orbit [1]. (And later remember to consider some maintenance cost, fuel for orbit adjustment...) If you want to cover only a 1% of the surface, just divide that by 100, that is about 8400 trillions dollars. [1] It's a big structure, so the calculation is more complicated than the calculation with a small satellite. Ask a rocket scientific before launching.
pentae 6y ago
So if we could develop a global carbon tax which 100% of the funds goes into atmospheric carbon capture and over a 10 year timeframe bring our Co2 levels back to 1900 levels what then? Still too late?
- padseeker 6y ago
  We can't even get people to believe that global warming is happening. We've had multiple tax cuts in the USA since 2000. We have an elected president that doesn't believe it global warming, we have an electorate that is more concerned about stupid meaningless crap rather than real policy and change. Policy ideas are not the problem. There is insufficient political will on the part of voters. WE are the problem. It's not just the USA, but we are the second largest polluter, and the largest economy in the world, and the worst polluters per capita. If people who vote don't demand this, or hold massive protests to bring the economy to a screeching halt then no policy change will happen.
vixen99 6y ago
According to Mauna Loa, CO2 was 417 ppm in May, 2.4ppm higher than peak of 2019. The rise has occurred irrespective of the global economy shutdown. Air travel grounded. Factories closed and huge numbers of cars off the road. Keeling at the Scripps Institute has said “People may be surprised to hear that the response to the coronavirus outbreak hasn’t done more to influence CO2 levels,”. Seems that any reduction in CO2 levels is pretty much impossible to distinguish from natural variability. So what's next? A permanent shutdown?
at_a_remove 6y ago
My views on this are unlikely to make anyone happy. They do not make me happy. I am in the very grim Club of Rome, "the 29th Day," group. Very pessimistic. I think the ship probably sailed by about 1950. We staved off Malthus here and there, but to do it indefinitely requires geometric advancements not just in agriculture but in literally every field in the supply chain, such as energy and mining, even physical space. It's all about tradeoffs. The largest tradeoff is "population as a function of lifestyle." You can support a lot more miserable people in lousy conditions receiving poor medical care than you can one person living well. It's about resources expended per person. Even after you get hyper-efficient, it's still about resources expended per person. There's no escaping that reckoning ... you can delay it with marginal improvements to efficiency here and there, but once you've squeezed those out, it's "how well do you want this person to live?" While you can briefly support a large populace, you might not be able to sustainably, over generations, carry that population. This is the "carrying capacity." Put bluntly, you can have a lot of goats on an island munching away faster than the vegetation regrows, but their populace will not collapse until the vegetation is gone. And I believe that our carrying capacity for "living like Americans" is far under a billion. In 1950, our populace was about 2.5 billion, but "living like an American" was a lower bar. Now we're approaching eight billion, quickly, and the USA (as well as much of the first world) has been quite busy exporting lifestyle aspirations via Hollywood or their respective film industries. Even if we could snap our fingers and cause a zero population growth rate, more and more of that populace will have growing aspirations. My guess is that around 1950, civilization could have adopted some kind of one world government with some very drastic control over reproduction and allocation over resources. By 1990, that control would have been that much more draconian. By 2030, the kind of control required to drop the world to that carrying capacity would be unconscionable by almost any ethical standard other that "have a functioning civilization still in 2150." It's a kind of grim Orwellian dystopia with no chocolate rations to lie about, and no spare capacity for war, one in which a human's viability would be solely decided by their ability to produce calories and resources in excess of what they have already consumed, wherein people would have only cots, sleeping in shifts, rather than a bed of their own. Submarine living. If your only talent is UX design, you had best hope that you can bend it to overhauling the control interface for some kind of harvester, wherein the panel will be staffed by someone who does not know how to read in a now-common hurricane downpour. If you are selected to reproduce, it will be only on the basis of genetic fitness to produce small individuals who probably don't need a lot of calories, in addition to being very healthy -- that almost goes without saying. And there will be no "inner party" having a grand time -- we simply wouldn't be able to sustain it. In short, we had a pretty good time, but we did it for so long that now we're on lifeboat ethics that are completely at odds with the kind of liberties that we're used to and revolted over in the past. China's one child per couple will look like a pipe dream. Think "the Mona Lisa burned to heat this evening's soup" levels of subsistence after vast swaths of the populace were quietly euthanized. That might be our "soft landing." In the 1950s, we might have avoided gigadeaths. The hard landing looks like your basic Road Warrior cosplay, with some desperate nukes thrown around, a few biological agents escaping, and so forth on top of freshwater scarcity and so on. At this point, I can only consider myself fortunate to be too old to have to witness it. I haven't reproduced and I have been ringing this particular bell since the day I apprehended our situation, but like most bad news, nobody wants to hear it, and especially if it goes against our basic instincts and philosophies. If we do not control our populace, Nature will do it for us, and we are aware of Nature's methods. We have been for centuries. We willfully elected not to look at the difficult problem and have done so for generations. Let the good times roll, until we hit the brick wall. Then the Horsemen will ride.
haltingproblem 6y ago
The upside is now I can finally buy that hummer I have been eyeing. Gas prices at historic lows, it wil be even more of a bargain! Incredible word-salad here: "“Given the momentum in both the Earth and human systems, and the growing difference between the ‘reaction time’ needed to steer humanity towards a more sustainable future, and the ‘intervention time’ left to avert a range of catastrophes in both the physical climate system (e.g., melting of Arctic sea ice) and the biosphere (e.g., loss of the Great Barrier Reef), we are already deep into the trajectory towards collapse,” said Steffen." Momentum in human systems? Reaction time? Trajectory of collapse? This is what gives science a bad name. Scientists were against masks because of "lack of evidence". Result: 10s of thousands are dead who could have survived. No consequences for said scientists who simply forgot that absence of evidence is not evidence of absences. Now other scientists want to flip lack of evidence on its head and spin up grotesque scenarios that require wholesale planetary changes, sacrifices, death and economic destruction not to mention inter-governmental coordination. Scientism at its finest. Climate change when it happens and devastates us will owe more to this activist catastrophic doom-mongering and condescension than human apathy or inaction. If climate scientists really care about the environment, they need to come down from their high horse and talk to people respectfully as scientists instead of as activists [1]. Do science not activism and don't exceed your brief. [1] https://mindmatters.ai/2020/06/twenty-years-on-aliens-still-cause-global-warming/ https://mindmatters.ai/2020/06/twenty-years-on-aliens-still-...
lvass 6y ago
Searching terms like "neoliberal" is a great way to vet articles like these. I don't care about your "scientific" opinion if you're more interested in generating this type of political discussion.
justinmchase 6y ago
Climate science models are as inaccurate as corona virus models and for the same reasons.

57 points by makerofspoons 6y ago

My God what a bleak read. It summarises everything that I fear: that our “height of civilisation” is an uncharacteristic blip (coincidentally solving the Fermi Paradox, but I digress), that various thresholds have already been crossed, that the nonlinear dynamics of the system will push inevitably towards a new attractor (“Hothouse Earth”, in this lexicon), and that we’ve societally collectively blundered into this outcome and that we lacked the collective willpower to inflict upon all of ourselves an absolutely unfathomable setback.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
Blunder implies not seeing. We chose not to see.
hyperpallium 6y ago
For covid19, some countries didn't take it seriously until they saw what happened in Italy. This could happen for global climate change, if we have dozens of Earths.

logicslave 6y ago

Been hearing this for 40 years now. Will we be reading this in another 40 years? Call me a skeptic, get angry at me, but I'll believe it when I see it.

vekker 6y ago
How can you not have noticed any changes in 40 years time? I take you don't live in an area with extreme summers/winters? Or don't you go skiing and notice the rapidly melting permafrost? Also, regardless of your opinion and what you "see", what happened to trusting the scientific method & looking at the actual numbers? As Gates said "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten."
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Udik 6y ago
  > How can you not have noticed any changes in 40 years time? I take you don't live in an area with extreme summers/winters? Or don't you go skiing and notice the rapidly melting permafrost? I think that any personal observation about climate on such a timescale is almost always unreliable. By the way, a common cliche' phrase at least a century old in Italian is "there are no mid-seasons any more", and another one is "there are no more winters like there used to be". In "Dictionnaire des idées reçues", a satirical dictionary of cliches compiled in the 1870s, Flaubert lists for both summer and winter the same cliche: "always exceptional".
  - tartoran 6y ago
    Actually these cliches seem only to confirm these personal observations, why else would people hold on to them? And the figure you mention and the industrial revolution seem to coincide. I too remember playing in a few feet of snow only to barely reach below freezing point a few times a winter. The last couple of winters were actually barren of any snow where I live
    - Udik 6y ago
      The cliches about summer and winter being "always exceptional" are from the 1870s. The effects of climate change surely weren't visible then (though I believe the climate was still warming from the "little ice age"). What these cliches suggest to me is that there is a human tendency to either mis-remember the climate of our youth or to misjudge the exceptionality of the current weather (similar somehow to how old people tend to grumble about the "new generations" and how they'll ruin everything- and it's been like that for millennia). Or alternatively, that weather patterns always change, slowly enough to be assumed as stable, but still quickly enough to be noticeable on a long human timescale. In either case, the fact that remarks on the exceptionality of the weather and its difference from the past existed before any CO2 - induced climate change was happening, says that we cannot rely on that type of impression to confirm the scientific measurements about the climate. It's strange we think otherwise, because one of the fundamental tenets of science is that subjective observation is biased and unreliable, and rigorous measures need to be taken to remove that subjective bias from observation.
maccard 6y ago
What changes do you want to see to believe it?
- ethanbond 6y ago
  Catastrophe* * More violent hurricane seasons, more lively wildfire seasons, longer droughts and shorter winters do not count because reasons.
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
"I don't know if this plausible catastrophe will happen, but I'd best wait and see". Not angry, just tired of people like you.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tobltobs 6y ago
"but I'll believe it when I see it." And what will do you do then?
- me_me_me 6y ago
  Lie down and die. Not much choice there really.
freen 6y ago
The coronavirus was the trial run for climate change. If you thought in February that it wasn’t a big deal, if you listened to folks who said “the cases will go to zero soon”, well, perhaps you should check your epistemology and listen to folks who know what they are talking about.
- Cerium 6y ago
  What is bothering me now, is that the coronavirus response provides damning evidence against our ability to act on climate change, but it is also stealing our time to act.
  - gremlinsinc 6y ago
    I think it's maybe slowing it down. The more we lockdown, the less emissions we're using. It's kind of a win/win...except for the economic fallout.
    - loopz 6y ago
      Reducing air pollution actually accellerates external input leading to global warming. Also, pollution is back higher than before in China "after" Corona. Latest development is rising infection rates in countries opening up. There's a balancing act how much we "open up", vs what measures have most impact. The last part should be solvable.
  - dqpb 6y ago
    Well, It may be that the only solution to the climate problem is for all the people to die.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    The coronoavirus economic impact is multiples of the projected economic impact of "business as usual" scenarios with respect to climate change. I found the whole process quite heartening actually.
- pfkurtz 6y ago
  What's happening now in American politics (and lots of places) must be the trial run for attempting to address this problem.
baq 6y ago
we're already seeing it, you just choose to ignore the signs.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Been reading about nuclear weapons for 60 years. Will believe it when I see a warhead in my living room.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I mean, the analogy holds. Doomsayers were quite sure from 1950 to 1990 that there would inevitably be a civilization-ending war between the US and USSR, but the unavoidable disaster ended up being avoidable after all.
  - fifticon 6y ago
    I seriously doubt we have seen the last of nuclear bombs. We just haven't re-triggered the case where someone somewhere concludes they'll solve their local problem.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    The point is about refusal to take the threat seriously untill its too late. The doomsayers were very nearly right, twice, once during kuban crisis, and once in 1983. There is no afterall, we still have 100x more nukes than there are cities in the world. We are a buttonpress away from extinction.
    - spacemark 6y ago
      Again, just a bit of hyperbole. 2000+ nukes have already been detonated on earth. The idea that humans would become extinct after a few hundred are dropped on cities is unfounded.
me_me_me 6y ago
40 years? 20 years ago in Poland I used to go and play in snow with my brother. Building snow forts etc. And that was well before Christmas. Nowdays its a miracle if there is 'a snowfall' once before Xmas. We might as well drop term 'White Christmas' in mainland Europe. You are not a skeptic, just ignorant (I am well pass getting angry at people like you, since its pointless).
- tartoran 6y ago
  You’re not hallucinating, I remember the same thing and not necessarily in a good light a la nostalgia. We were having some really cold and unbearable winters and the fact that they’re warmer make it momentarily nicer. I am not making the claim that this is due to global climate change but simply that a noticeable change took place. Denying it makes one look untrustworthy
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    > I am not making the claim that this is due to global climate change That's by definition change in a pattern. One could argue if that's humans fault or not. But saying its natural so we should do nothing, is like doing nothing because a totally natural meteorite is going to hit the earth.
tengbretson 6y ago
Gosh, if only the last thing people were freaking out about, peak oil, had actually happened. Then there'd be nothing to make all this CO2!
DonHopkins 6y ago
So you also don't believe in electromagnetic energy waves below 380 nanometers in length, or above 740 nanometers in length either, because you can't see them, even though a majority of professional scientists insist they exist?
ryandrake 6y ago
Thanks for having the guts to share an opinion that's going to definitely be really unpopular here. Every decade, there is some new 'impending doom' prediction. I've lived through pollution, smog, acid rain, ozone holes, Y2K, probably more. They may be right about Climate Change, but at this point people are suffering doom-fatigue and I can totally understand the skepticism. Additionally, I believe it is pointless to constantly worry about something you don't have the power to change. Even if you are a believer, the only thing you're going to get out of reading these articles will be stress and anxiety. There's no clear call to action for the average joe. The sun will explode one day too, but it's needless to have articles about it every week warning us of the dire consequences, because we can't do anything about it. Exactly like my inability to stop climate change, I offer my single drop of upvote into the torrent of downs that you're going to get.
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  I deny that you're getting any downvotes, no matter how light your text is faded.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    Note that I never even claimed to deny climate change (I don't). The mere act of trying to understand where the skeptics are coming from is enough to bury one's comment. Major groupthink red flag IMO.

rgrieselhuber 6y ago

And it's all your fault, middle class America!

danharaj 6y ago
What are you talking about?
- polytely 6y ago
  I think they are talking about the idea that individual recycling, less consumption will somehow fix this problem, as all the big polluting industries would like you to think? I think the only ways to actually tackle this is to put a price on pollution/unsustainable resource extraction, but that requires an enormous amount of global coordination.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > but that requires an enormous amount of global coordination. I think this is the biggest lie in favor of the fossil fuel industry. Here's this from the thread yesterday: https://www.electricitymap.org/map https://www.electricitymap.org/map California is doing better than most because they use solar and nuclear (but also quite a bit of gas). France is even greener, because they use almost entirely nuclear and hydro. Likewise Ontario. Meanwhile there are places like Australia that are still burning coal. Even switching to gas would be a marked improvement, but there is absolutely no reason they couldn't be using as much solar as California right now. California pays less for electricity than Australia. Until recently France had been paying less than California -- and then Germany shut down their nuclear plants and caused a regional supply crunch; now they're about the same. They're still lower in Ontario. So what's stopping everybody from doing the same, without anybody forcing them to? Squat. But if you convince everybody not to do it until everybody else is doing it then the fossil fuel industry just needs to control a couple of major holdouts to bust up any kind of international agreement and then nobody does anything. Meanwhile if you do it yourself without anybody forcing you to, that gives the alternatives economies of scale. Solar is where it is today in large part because of places like California. Batteries are where they are in large part because of companies like Tesla. Nuclear is in the sorry state that it is in large part because people haven't been building it. Doing it is how you get others to do it. You don't have to wait for anybody else. And you were never, ever going to get e.g. Russia to sign a treaty that gets them to stop burning fossil fuels. But once you have 75% of everybody, then you can get an agreement to have everybody slap the last holdouts with major tariffs.

polytely 6y ago

I feel so helpless about this, I try to limit my own impact on the environment (not flying, not owning a car) but I know that it's basically useless to solve this bottom up. The problem is that the people who are most able to actually tackle this problem earn their money by causing it, and will be the least affected personally. The fact that Bezos would rather spend all his money on rockets instead of mitigating the climate catastrophe is super depressing.

troughway 6y ago
Every time a doom thread like this comes up, and I read a comment from someone who has taken the initiative to limit their own damage, I think back to Idiocracy and the beginning montage of that film with the educated, professional couple. I can't help but feel sorry for the couple because in the end, they are the ones who tried the hardest to "make things right" and have suffered the most. Now I'm reading this comment and I'm wondering - what is the lesson here, really?
- polytely 6y ago
  I don't know man, just kinda depression posting from my tiny room. I want to do something about it, because I haven't lost all hope yet, but I don't see a clear way how I personally could have any real impact. I wish I had enough cash to quit my job for a while and figure where I could make a difference, but I'm kinda barely hanging on as it is. It just bums me out that so much time and effort in the tech-sphere is spent on improving the efficiency of our destruction of the planet, and that the people who got rich of this destruction seem very content sitting on their pile of cash.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  "Dumm fickt gut, und hat immer die größte Brut!" Dumb fucks good, always largest breed.
- hckr_news 6y ago
  My issue with that opening scene is that it seems to illustrate wealthier, higher class people as the ones who can solve all the problems in society because they have boatloads of money and are educated to the nth degree. In comparison to the hick family with 10 kids they also featured. What difference does it make if poor people are having more kids and the rich stave off having kids because of lack of time? I might be missing the point of the satire the movie is trying to portray but wouldn’t it make sense to put those poor 10 kids through public schools and universities in hopes they can get jobs in industry or research to eventually help humanity and solve problems. It’s an issue of equal opportunity access to me. And I’m not too sure if the movie is poking fun at the idea of expecting wealthy people and their offspring to solve the world’s problem, or if that is one of the movie’s actual message.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

I really wish this article included the argument behind the claim that "+4°C world would support < 1 billion people". I can understand why it'd be a very different world, and why there might be a lot of struggles on the way, but the idea that it'll be literally impossible to grow enough food doesn't make much sense to me. Why couldn't we support the same number as today by planting slightly more heat-tolerant crops?

baq 6y ago
there won't be enough rain in places where things can grow. basically at +4C average the atmosphere is a completely different beast, it's not entirely clear if this amount of CO2 actually allows for clouds to form.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Do you have a pointer to scientific analyses where I can read about this? It was my understanding that moderate increases in temperature tend to increase rainfall, and I've certainly never heard anything about clouds being unable to form.
  - baq 6y ago
    this is recent: https://www.sciencealert.com/high-levels-of-co2-could-stop-these-cooling-clouds-from-forming-warn-scientists https://www.sciencealert.com/high-levels-of-co2-could-stop-t... though the question is not new. i'm pretty sure i've seen it in the original 1982 exxon research, but can't locate it at the moment.
    - gus_massa 6y ago
      The problem is not that the increase of concentration of CO2 cause a direct problem in the clouds, in that model the problem is caused by the increase of the temperature. Also, it's a problem that they get with a +8°C increase that is a lot, the double of the +4°C disused here.

antorsae 6y ago

I saw this https://voiceofaction.org/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-most-likely-outcome-top-climate-scientists/ https://voiceofaction.org/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-mo... in HN a few days ago but cannot seem to find it anymore; looks dupe and the other link in HN already had a discussion.

bovermyer 6y ago

I just accept that there's no fix, we're killing the planet, and we have maybe a few generations left before we go extinct. The universe doesn't care.

gus_massa 6y ago
Extinction is outside the prediction of most (all?) serious models. A big reduction of population and perhaps nasty living conditions are possible, anyway.
- bovermyer 6y ago
  For climate change, perhaps. But as with COVID-19, the most serious threats to our species will come with little to no warning. It's kind of miraculous that we've survived this long.

whatshisface 6y ago

Coronavirus has taught us two clear lessons: nothing will be done until the effects are clearly visible, and the measures will be removed as soon as the effects subside. If civilization was driving a car it wouldn't hit the breaks until it heard its front bumper getting crushed.

rayiner 6y ago

Note that this is not the consensus view among climate scientists. The IPCC has never embraced the notion of civilization-ending runaway effects. And even the pessimistic among climate economists (who rely on IPCC projections about the effects of climate change) have predicated impacts somewhere along the lines of 10-15% of global GDP: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-06/are-economists-understating-or-overstating-climate-change-cost/11929098 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-06/are-economists-unders....

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
I've followed the IPCC and knew some scientists. From what I gathered the IPCC seemed to be toning down their scenarios to make them politically palatable. Just an impression. > the pessimistic among climate economists have predicated impacts somewhere along the lines of 10-15% of global GDP Economists decided to disregard externalities. I've zero faith in official economics. And newspapers try not to scare people, that's where they make their money from. Added: the climate scientists I knew were borderline panicking 15 years ago at least.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  Economists people who believe in infinite growth in finite world. They made up Nobel in Economics to pretend to be scientists. They might start wearing mystical robes and give themselves funny titles. Since they are as useful at guessing how economy works and how to steer as other 'officials' who wear mystical robes and have funny titles. Both are also always 100% they are right about everything. Sorry about ranting, reading about climate change always puts me in depressing mood.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    The economics of climate change aren’t about prognostication. The climate scientists produce projections about impacts on, e.g. agriculture. Economists simply estimate what the economic impacts would be if those impacts in those economic sectors happened.

gremlinsinc 6y ago

Couldn't we, basically build a mega structure to block out the sun, and put us in a near ice-age to build up ice stores? We maybe have 5 years of horrible winters and ice, but then after we have enough ice we can leave the shade down for a bit.

me_me_me 6y ago
we destroyed whole ecosystems by introducing foreign wildlife. Both accidentally and intentionally. I am not too optimistic with 'solving' the climate change via one simple solution. I'd rather see UN drop one giant ice-cube onec in a while into the ocean.
padseeker 6y ago
we don't even spend money to maintain our infrastructure, and we're running a massive deficit, and the current leadership in the US has been removing regulation connected to environmental protection. How the hell are we going to get the largest governments of the world or this country to build a mega structure to block out the sun?
- gus_massa 6y ago
  To make a .1mm (1/32") aluminium foil that shadows all the Earth, the cost is approximately 84 trillion dollars https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pi+*+%28%28earth+radius%29%5E2%29+*+0.1mm+*+%28density+aluminium%29+*+%28price+aluminium%29+in+dollars https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pi+*+%28%28earth+radiu... and that does not include the material to provide some structural support for the thin surface. And it doesn't include shipping and handling that is at least 10000 more if you put it at a geostationary orbit [1]. (And later remember to consider some maintenance cost, fuel for orbit adjustment...) If you want to cover only a 1% of the surface, just divide that by 100, that is about 8400 trillions dollars. [1] It's a big structure, so the calculation is more complicated than the calculation with a small satellite. Ask a rocket scientific before launching.

pentae 6y ago

So if we could develop a global carbon tax which 100% of the funds goes into atmospheric carbon capture and over a 10 year timeframe bring our Co2 levels back to 1900 levels what then? Still too late?

padseeker 6y ago
We can't even get people to believe that global warming is happening. We've had multiple tax cuts in the USA since 2000. We have an elected president that doesn't believe it global warming, we have an electorate that is more concerned about stupid meaningless crap rather than real policy and change. Policy ideas are not the problem. There is insufficient political will on the part of voters. WE are the problem. It's not just the USA, but we are the second largest polluter, and the largest economy in the world, and the worst polluters per capita. If people who vote don't demand this, or hold massive protests to bring the economy to a screeching halt then no policy change will happen.

vixen99 6y ago

According to Mauna Loa, CO2 was 417 ppm in May, 2.4ppm higher than peak of 2019. The rise has occurred irrespective of the global economy shutdown. Air travel grounded. Factories closed and huge numbers of cars off the road. Keeling at the Scripps Institute has said “People may be surprised to hear that the response to the coronavirus outbreak hasn’t done more to influence CO2 levels,”. Seems that any reduction in CO2 levels is pretty much impossible to distinguish from natural variability. So what's next? A permanent shutdown?

at_a_remove 6y ago

My views on this are unlikely to make anyone happy. They do not make me happy. I am in the very grim Club of Rome, "the 29th Day," group. Very pessimistic. I think the ship probably sailed by about 1950. We staved off Malthus here and there, but to do it indefinitely requires geometric advancements not just in agriculture but in literally every field in the supply chain, such as energy and mining, even physical space. It's all about tradeoffs. The largest tradeoff is "population as a function of lifestyle." You can support a lot more miserable people in lousy conditions receiving poor medical care than you can one person living well. It's about resources expended per person. Even after you get hyper-efficient, it's still about resources expended per person. There's no escaping that reckoning ... you can delay it with marginal improvements to efficiency here and there, but once you've squeezed those out, it's "how well do you want this person to live?" While you can briefly support a large populace, you might not be able to sustainably, over generations, carry that population. This is the "carrying capacity." Put bluntly, you can have a lot of goats on an island munching away faster than the vegetation regrows, but their populace will not collapse until the vegetation is gone. And I believe that our carrying capacity for "living like Americans" is far under a billion. In 1950, our populace was about 2.5 billion, but "living like an American" was a lower bar. Now we're approaching eight billion, quickly, and the USA (as well as much of the first world) has been quite busy exporting lifestyle aspirations via Hollywood or their respective film industries. Even if we could snap our fingers and cause a zero population growth rate, more and more of that populace will have growing aspirations. My guess is that around 1950, civilization could have adopted some kind of one world government with some very drastic control over reproduction and allocation over resources. By 1990, that control would have been that much more draconian. By 2030, the kind of control required to drop the world to that carrying capacity would be unconscionable by almost any ethical standard other that "have a functioning civilization still in 2150." It's a kind of grim Orwellian dystopia with no chocolate rations to lie about, and no spare capacity for war, one in which a human's viability would be solely decided by their ability to produce calories and resources in excess of what they have already consumed, wherein people would have only cots, sleeping in shifts, rather than a bed of their own. Submarine living. If your only talent is UX design, you had best hope that you can bend it to overhauling the control interface for some kind of harvester, wherein the panel will be staffed by someone who does not know how to read in a now-common hurricane downpour. If you are selected to reproduce, it will be only on the basis of genetic fitness to produce small individuals who probably don't need a lot of calories, in addition to being very healthy -- that almost goes without saying. And there will be no "inner party" having a grand time -- we simply wouldn't be able to sustain it. In short, we had a pretty good time, but we did it for so long that now we're on lifeboat ethics that are completely at odds with the kind of liberties that we're used to and revolted over in the past. China's one child per couple will look like a pipe dream. Think "the Mona Lisa burned to heat this evening's soup" levels of subsistence after vast swaths of the populace were quietly euthanized. That might be our "soft landing." In the 1950s, we might have avoided gigadeaths. The hard landing looks like your basic Road Warrior cosplay, with some desperate nukes thrown around, a few biological agents escaping, and so forth on top of freshwater scarcity and so on. At this point, I can only consider myself fortunate to be too old to have to witness it. I haven't reproduced and I have been ringing this particular bell since the day I apprehended our situation, but like most bad news, nobody wants to hear it, and especially if it goes against our basic instincts and philosophies. If we do not control our populace, Nature will do it for us, and we are aware of Nature's methods. We have been for centuries. We willfully elected not to look at the difficult problem and have done so for generations. Let the good times roll, until we hit the brick wall. Then the Horsemen will ride.

haltingproblem 6y ago

The upside is now I can finally buy that hummer I have been eyeing. Gas prices at historic lows, it wil be even more of a bargain! Incredible word-salad here: "“Given the momentum in both the Earth and human systems, and the growing difference between the ‘reaction time’ needed to steer humanity towards a more sustainable future, and the ‘intervention time’ left to avert a range of catastrophes in both the physical climate system (e.g., melting of Arctic sea ice) and the biosphere (e.g., loss of the Great Barrier Reef), we are already deep into the trajectory towards collapse,” said Steffen." Momentum in human systems? Reaction time? Trajectory of collapse? This is what gives science a bad name. Scientists were against masks because of "lack of evidence". Result: 10s of thousands are dead who could have survived. No consequences for said scientists who simply forgot that absence of evidence is not evidence of absences. Now other scientists want to flip lack of evidence on its head and spin up grotesque scenarios that require wholesale planetary changes, sacrifices, death and economic destruction not to mention inter-governmental coordination. Scientism at its finest. Climate change when it happens and devastates us will owe more to this activist catastrophic doom-mongering and condescension than human apathy or inaction. If climate scientists really care about the environment, they need to come down from their high horse and talk to people respectfully as scientists instead of as activists [1]. Do science not activism and don't exceed your brief. [1] https://mindmatters.ai/2020/06/twenty-years-on-aliens-still-cause-global-warming/ https://mindmatters.ai/2020/06/twenty-years-on-aliens-still-...

lvass 6y ago

Searching terms like "neoliberal" is a great way to vet articles like these. I don't care about your "scientific" opinion if you're more interested in generating this type of political discussion.

justinmchase 6y ago

Climate science models are as inaccurate as corona virus models and for the same reasons.