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It wasn't that long ago that most climate scientists were saying that we wouldn't see a Blue Ocean Event (BOE) until 2040-2050, but I suspect we'll see, like ma

It wasn't that long ago that most climate scientists were saying that we wouldn't see a Blue Ocean Event (BOE) until 2040-2050, but I suspect we'll see, like many climate estimates, that number ends up being a bit too conservative. When the BOE does happen we'll start to see some pretty dramatic changes to our world fairly rapidly (and as a reminder, we are already seeing dramatic changes to our world). We're all in some form of climate denial right now. Even if you are able to acknowledge that climate change is happening, you likely aren't being realistic about how unavoidable its impacts are, or the full magnitude of those impacts. I still see people talking about life in 150 years as if it will be a simple continuation of the "progress" we've seen in the last 150, completely oblivious to the way that progress was achieved and the inevitably and unavoidable consequences of it.

chowned 6y ago
Denial is the only way to cope with how impossible it feels to make any meaningful progress. I mean, the alternative is to sit white-knuckled until I die in a food riot. I am well aware of the changes that are coming, and it's one of many reasons why I'm not having kids: I don't believe progress will continue like it has (which was always unsustainable, even without deleterious effects on the climate), and I think the future earth will be much harder for humans in the short term. Sure, humanity will probably adapt, but millions of people might die in the process.
- erikerikson 6y ago
  > Denial is the only way to cope I disagree. We can accept that we have a feeling of impossibility and still continue engaging in behaviors we predict to have a more positive outcome than any others. After all, have you ever been wrong? I have. Occasionally the bulk of our actions create emergent shifts. It seems we will have to make adjustments and there may well be horrid consequences but the severity of those remains under our adjustment. I'm surprised to read this on Hacker News, one of the homes of "impossible" successes.
- core-questions 6y ago
  > Denial is the only way to cope > I'm not having kids You are a defeatist, aren't you? This entire thing has literally scared you into not fulfilling the genetic imperative, ending your own genetic line because you think that perhaps you may have an easier, simpler life and death this way. No need to expose yourself to the suffering of others you love, no need to invest yourself in tomorrow - just watch it all go, knowing that when you inevitably shuffle off the coil nobody is going to mind a bit. Sad. Sorry to hear it. It's always a shame when an intelligent person chooses to ignore the sacrifice every one of their ancestors made to bring them to this point, just so that they don't have to risk the potential of having any hardship themselves. I do sincerely hope that you accomplish something great in your life that makes it otherwise worthwhile for them; to know that generations of people eked by just for you to play video games all day would be a truly disappointing conclusion.
  - CalRobert 6y ago
    If you knew their life would be misery and toil, would you have kids? I'm terrified for mine.
    - bambataa 6y ago
      This is something I think about a lot. The most important is to keep things going. Our descendants might have terrible lives for a thousand generations and it would be worth it if it means humanity can get to better times on the other side. The only reason we’ve had all this wealth and ease to squander is because of those who went before us.
      - petercooper 6y ago
        I am hugely optimistic about humanity and technology and believe we will get through this just fine. I say this to qualify my question here: Our descendants might have terrible lives for a thousand generations and it would be worth it if it means humanity can get to better times on the other side. Would it be worth it? There is likely no net loss for the universe if we or even the entire Earth disappeared overnight and that might be better than thousands of generations suffering painfully over thousands of years.
- scythe 6y ago
  >I mean, the alternative is to sit white-knuckled until I die in a food riot. You could try participating in politics! It's not exactly fun, but it's a lot better than dying.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    No mainstream politician has a realistic plan for addressing climate change.
    - NateEag 6y ago
      I would make a stronger claim (and no, I haven't done the research to back it up, just a hunch): > Nobody has a realistic plan for addressing climate change.
      - kazagistar 6y ago
        There are plenty. They are only unrealistic when people belive them to be unrealistic.
        NateEag 6y ago
        The best ones I've seen so far involve massive engineering projects in orbit to let us control the amount of sunlight hitting the earth. Those are technologically feasible, theoretically workable, and at least somewhat reversible. However, they don't really take human nature into account. Megasatellites for solar gain control would be an intensely scarce, valuable resource, and a de facto superweapon - "agree to our terms or you'll never have good crop growing sunlight again." Nobody would be willing to cede or share control of such a system to someone else. Wars would break out quickly, and no deployed system would go undestroyed for long. The other plans I've seen seem problematic to me either morally ("first world gets to keep its tech but you guys who are bootstrapping with carbon can go DIAF"), technologically ("We think there will turn out to be some way to capture carbon super-efficiently that we haven't found yet"), or reversibility ("whoops, we put too much dust in the atmosphere - guess we're starving three billion people for the next year or four, folks"). I'm not saying there is no possible solution - just that I haven't seen a realistic one myself.
- hluska 6y ago
  You know friend, I understand how you feel. When I look out at the world, I see so much garbage that I can’t even believe it. Then I hang out with my four year old. She doesn’t understand racism, politics or climate. But she knows that she really likes everyone, respects others pronouns and likes sharing what she has. There’s hope. As cynical as I am, there is hope. And the fact that you feel so strongly fills me with as much hope as watching my little one learn about the fucked up planet she’s inheriting.
  - bamboozled 6y ago
    What happens to grow up to suck so hard? Why can't we just look at each other and imagine the child that person once was, then maybe we'd care more about others like your 4 year old does.
    - hluska 6y ago
      This is beautiful writing and it deserves a reply, but for now I’m just going to read your words and wonder along with you. I’ll edit this comment at some point but for now, thank you friend. This is beautiful and poignant. :) Edit - I notice you edited your reply but I’m happy I got to read the original. You’re a beautiful writer.
    - redvenom 6y ago
      We are taught in Western and most other societies of today to numb pain. The problem is that we have knowledge of the problems of this world. I think if we allow ourselves to feel the pain of our knowledge and understand our existence through it, we can return to a childlike state and realize the pain is not something wrong with us, but our natural inclination and love for the world telling us that we are doing something wrong. We may not be able to solve the problems created by our species, but if we learn to live with respect for the planet then we can at least know we are doing as much as we can with our own existence.
    - fsloth 6y ago
      Thank you, this is beautiful and deep. I think I will try to imagine people as children and imagine them growing up more. Much easier to project loving-kindness that way.
- kanox 6y ago
  > sit white-knuckled until I die in a food riot. This is nonsense, food production on a per-capita basis is increasing and population is leveling off.
  - ahelwer 6y ago
    And this year's Thanksgiving turkey is reporting it continues to be fed more and more each day! The future is bright!
    - i_love_music 6y ago
      This gave me a chuckle. Thanks for that
  - NortySpock 6y ago
    How does food production deal with crop destruction by droughts, freak storms, or flooding rains driven by climate change? How do the world's poorest deal with rising food prices caused by crop failure? That's what we're worried about, not "the current steady state trend is currently going up, it's all fine!"
    - kanox 6y ago
      > crop destruction by droughts, freak storms, or flooding rains Aggregate data is much more relevant than anecdotes.
      - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
        It's at least worth keeping in mind that this discussion thread is happening on a link to an article describing an occurrence -- the Laptev Sea not freezing by late October -- that aggregate data up through a couple of decades ago would not have predicted. Global warming itself is arguably a radical break from what aggregate data tells us about climate trends, and the (originally good faith) argument against it for decades was, essentially, that the "alarmists" were mistaking statistically insignificant temperature drifts for new statistically significant trends. The theory that global warming is going to lead to food shortages in the relatively near future is not an out-of-the-blue flight of fancy on the part of random HN commenters; a UN panel in 2019 warned of this possibility, as did a 2020 IPCC report (pre-pandemic, no less), as did a 2016 study in the Lancet; this is just from a cursory examination of the Google results for "food shortage predictions global warming".
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago
  Well, "everyone is in denial" is too strongly worded. A lot of us are aware that there are all sorts of self-reinforcing feedback loops that we have not found yet, and those will definitely influence the events. But models cannot account for hypotheticals.
xwdv 6y ago
Oh many people know it’s coming, and have simply accepted there is nothing that can be done. Solutions that require the cooperation of the entire human race will never work, yet that is what keeps being pushed upon us. The only real thing that can save us is for a small group to come up with some kind of technology that can make sweeping changes on a massive geological scale and ultimately reverse global warming without humanity having to do anything. People aren’t going to change their lifestyles to save the world. Many people don’t even change their lifestyles to save themselves when it becomes medically necessary. Personally, I’ve come to accept this is the end. If I must die to global warming, at least it will be an interesting death, I could have been shot and killed by a mugger or killed in a car crash instead.
- jdmichal 6y ago
  > I could have been shot and killed by a mugger... Don't get excited yet. Roving bands of raiders is still a potential outcome of climate change.
- 0xdde 6y ago
  > The only real thing that can save us is for a small group to come up with some kind of technology that can make sweeping changes on a massive geological scale and ultimately reverse global warming without humanity having to do anything. Or, you know, fixing the US political process so that a handful of ideologues aren't in a position to ignore popular sentiment and derail even the mildest form of action.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mym1990 6y ago
    I would argue that the former is easier than the latter.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    > fixing the US political process Do you have a suggestion for how to do this?
yters 6y ago
why is global warming so catastrophic? the globe has been much warmer in the past and we are all here today
- kolinko 6y ago
  we weren't here the last time globe has been much warmer
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  I actually think this is a fair question, because I feel like there are 2 issues that get conflated: 1. First, you are correct, the Earth was much hotter in the past, and I haven't seen anything convincing that global warming will lead to a fundamental "runaway greenhouse" effect a la Venus that makes life as we know it on Earth unsustainable. 2. That said, a huge climate change in a relatively short amount of time could easily lead the the deaths of billions of people, with a B. One third of the human population lives within 60 miles of the coast. Rising temperatures will lead to huge portions of the planet that are currently densely populated that will no longer support humans. The resulting migrations, "resource wars", and overall increase in extreme weather events (more hurricanes, more droughts, more floods) will lead to death and misery to a huge portion of humanity.
  - yters 6y ago
    but if this change happens on the order of 100 years, that seems enough time to respond
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      Yes, and we should start responding.
      - core-questions 6y ago
        Sea level has to actually start rising enough that the rich folks who live waterfront are affected and then we will see some geoengineering efforts or at the very least some solid seawalls. I'm waiting for someone to figure out how to use solar + hotter temperatures + seawater to give us desalinated water
standardUser 6y ago
"We're all in some form of climate denial right now" It should also be acknowledged - perhaps first and foremost - that we are also all in a very real form of climate ignorance. Being "realistic" about the impact of climate change requires believing our best science as it stands today, but also understanding that the science is incomplete and certainly wrong in various large and small ways.
- raziel2701 6y ago
  By far the biggest problem is that we do not agree with a common reality. If the conversation stops at "I don't believe this thing is real" then naive ignorance is the lesser problem. Climate denial is a bigger threat, it relies on moving the goal posts of what constitutes proof it's real, and in the decades it takes to "convince" these people it's real it will be too late to do much about it. Simply put, if climate denial leads to inaction, then that's the bigger problem. Also, climate change is an existential threat, the degree and vigor we use to respond to it should definitely be strong. Debating over which models are more accurate or not is mostly a waste of time. "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?" https://www.gocomics.com/joelpett/2009/12/13 https://www.gocomics.com/joelpett/2009/12/13
  - lopmotr 6y ago
    Climate change is not an existential threat.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - raziel2701 6y ago
      You live in a different reality, just as I said.
- matthewdgreen 6y ago
  This is generally trotted out as an argument that we should continue with the status quo and do nothing until we have certainty. In practice, we've already begun an experiment in mass-scale terraforming of our environment by emitting vast amounts of CO2. Since we don't know exactly what this will do, but every indication is that the outcome will be catastrophic, we should be working as hard as possible to halt our emissions now. Once we've done that, we can wait for certainty.
CivBase 6y ago
> but I suspect we'll see, like many climate estimates, that number ends up being a bit too conservative. Good. When scientists and politicians publicize scary, doomsday numbers that aren't ever realized, the public's natural response is to be more critical of the things those people say in the future. That sort of thing results in climate deniers, anti-vaxers, anti-maskers, and a whole slew of conspiracy theories. If you want people to take climate change seriously, you need to publish conservative numbers and ring the bell when things end up worse than you predicted. Include a word of caution that things could be worse when you publish the conservative numbers, but don't start out with the worst-case scenario if you want to be taken seriously in the future. Of course you can be too conservative with your predictions, but I don't see a lot of that except as a knee-jerk reaction to the overly-alarmist predictions.
- yongjik 6y ago
  I agree with you that climate scientists are being too conservative, but I fail to see why that's good. Imagine an aviation engineer being "too conservative" with potential dangers (i.e., accept too much risk) because if you raise an alarm and it turns out to be not as bad as predicted, you will have cost the company $$$ and hurt your career. Would you call that a good thing?
  - CivBase 6y ago
    Funny enough, I actually am a software engineer for avionics. Those are not reasonable comparisons. Climate change predictions amount to milestones on our slow journey to oblivion. Ideally we want to be spot-on with all our predictions, but being on the "too conservative" side doesn't immediately put human lives at risk.
  - jjoonathan 6y ago
    My high school science teacher told us all the world economy would collapse in 10 years because the oil would run out. It didn't. My classmates remembered -- and updated their priors accordingly. At this point, it's pretty clear that despite his good intentions he hurt the cause. Fundamental attribution error tempts you into believing that it's OK to lie for a good reason. Others see it differently.
CalRobert 6y ago
Some of us are, but moving north, learning permaculture, investing in your community, and not worrying about a retirement fund are still "fringe" apparently.
Zenst 6y ago
Not sure what proof will work with some people, after all in places which have face-mask rules, the number breaking that etc highlights a not so small percentage of the populous, even with facts will air on the side that suits them.
- neuronic 6y ago
  Until their city sinks to the ocean or is consumed by wildfire but even then there will be deniers. In general, catastrophe has to happen and impact many people first before they acknowledge the danger (and then move to Facebook to complain about politics not warning them).
anonuser123456 6y ago
A friend of mine that works in climate science says that the IPCC reports are typically very conservative due to the process. His expectation is to view the upper end of the current report as likely.
- catawbasam 6y ago
  RCP 8.5? No. The assumptions about coal alone blow that scenario out of the water.
strogonoff 6y ago
I suspect calling what’s happening “global warming” is part of what’s causing the denial. People living in mild latitudes hear about the warming but experience unusually cold summers and winters due to phenomena like polar vortex disruption[0]; the claim may be hard to take at face value. Warming in longer term if left unchecked, sure, but “climate destabilization” could be a more fitting term for the time being. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline#Polar_vortex_disruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline#Polar_v...
- umvi 6y ago
  > I believe calling what’s happening “global warming” is part of what’s causing the denial. Also just attributing climate change as the root of every problem. Extra hot summer? Climate Change. Extra cold winter? Climate Change. Unusually moderate summer? Climate Change. Unusually moderate winter? Climate Change. More than usual wildfires/tornadoes/hurricanes/blizzards? Climate Change. Insect apocalypse? Climate Change. Sharks washing up on the beach stabbed by sword fish? Climate Change. It puts you in denial when literally every issue is attributed to climate change.
  - count 6y ago
    It's almost like the climate impacts everything, and a changing climate upsets a ton of things!
    - umvi 6y ago
      But it's also a lazy cop-out. Why investigate alternative theories when climate change is an obvious, easy one? It's like this board I worked on that only had 128 MB RAM. We were very tight on memory. Anytime an unexplained issue came up, low RAM was blamed by default even if it turned out later not to be the root cause.
      - jagger27 6y ago
        What alternative theories would you like to see investigated?
callamdelaney 6y ago
Well it was only in 2016 we saw the biggest freeze we've ever recorded..
- peterashford 6y ago
  which is in no way incompatible with global warming
ipqk 6y ago
I've gotten a vasectomy and refuse to have kids because I think it's unethical to have children right now facing an unprecedented climate disaster. It's going to be real bad. REAL bad. All the evidence points towards that. Most people are in denial about how bad it's going to be.
- jakeva 6y ago
  I've done the same thing. Idiocracy be damned, it seems like we're already pretty close to there. At least I will be able to enjoy my life knowing I'm not going to have to be responsible for a life or lives in an increasingly destabilizing climate.
  - neuronic 6y ago
    I would suspect that your kids would have at least a chance of contributing to solving this crisis. Many people will have kids because that's all they can do with their lives and the kids won't get the (easy) chance to become a great scientist, leader or similar. It's sad, many children will be subject to completely idiotic parents and so much potential will be lost.
- lifeformed 6y ago
  Why would it be unethical to have kids? Because they use resources? Well, it takes resources to fix things as well. Having kids would only be bad if they used more than they contributed. Make them a net gain for society. Raise them to be resourceful and educated and a force for good. Doing that has a far greater benefit to our civilization and environment than not having any kids at all. We need the next generation (and this one) to fight for the necessary changes. If everyone who was worried about climate change made their contribution by not having kids, then the next generation is just going to be all kids raised by climate deniers. If anyone should be having kids, it should be the ones who are worried about the future!
  - jonp888 6y ago
    Because you bring them into the world in the knowledge that their lives will be somewhere between slighty worse and a lot worse than yours. I don't plan to have children anyway, but I've concluded for instance but there's no point in making sacrifices today in the service of enjoying a comfortable retirement, because by that point western society will no longer be any fit state to provide for a conventional "life of leisure" retirement.
gcanyon 6y ago
150 years ago we didn’t have cars or telephones. The bulk of the world’s population lived on farms. Sure, many people are underestimating the impact of climate change, just like most people underestimate technological advances and the mobility of people over the course of centuries. To be clear: I am not saying it’s not happening, or that we should do nothing or be unconcerned. Just that I have confidence in human creativity, ingenuity, and technological advances.
- neuronic 6y ago
  Good luck. This is on a different scale. Likely, some folks will survive in safe zones but technology won't save us this time. Ocean acidification is really scary (and fast) on its own but it's just one out of many apocalyptic problems we face.

chowned 6y ago

Denial is the only way to cope with how impossible it feels to make any meaningful progress. I mean, the alternative is to sit white-knuckled until I die in a food riot. I am well aware of the changes that are coming, and it's one of many reasons why I'm not having kids: I don't believe progress will continue like it has (which was always unsustainable, even without deleterious effects on the climate), and I think the future earth will be much harder for humans in the short term. Sure, humanity will probably adapt, but millions of people might die in the process.

erikerikson 6y ago
> Denial is the only way to cope I disagree. We can accept that we have a feeling of impossibility and still continue engaging in behaviors we predict to have a more positive outcome than any others. After all, have you ever been wrong? I have. Occasionally the bulk of our actions create emergent shifts. It seems we will have to make adjustments and there may well be horrid consequences but the severity of those remains under our adjustment. I'm surprised to read this on Hacker News, one of the homes of "impossible" successes.
core-questions 6y ago
> Denial is the only way to cope > I'm not having kids You are a defeatist, aren't you? This entire thing has literally scared you into not fulfilling the genetic imperative, ending your own genetic line because you think that perhaps you may have an easier, simpler life and death this way. No need to expose yourself to the suffering of others you love, no need to invest yourself in tomorrow - just watch it all go, knowing that when you inevitably shuffle off the coil nobody is going to mind a bit. Sad. Sorry to hear it. It's always a shame when an intelligent person chooses to ignore the sacrifice every one of their ancestors made to bring them to this point, just so that they don't have to risk the potential of having any hardship themselves. I do sincerely hope that you accomplish something great in your life that makes it otherwise worthwhile for them; to know that generations of people eked by just for you to play video games all day would be a truly disappointing conclusion.
- CalRobert 6y ago
  If you knew their life would be misery and toil, would you have kids? I'm terrified for mine.
  - bambataa 6y ago
    This is something I think about a lot. The most important is to keep things going. Our descendants might have terrible lives for a thousand generations and it would be worth it if it means humanity can get to better times on the other side. The only reason we’ve had all this wealth and ease to squander is because of those who went before us.
    - petercooper 6y ago
      I am hugely optimistic about humanity and technology and believe we will get through this just fine. I say this to qualify my question here: Our descendants might have terrible lives for a thousand generations and it would be worth it if it means humanity can get to better times on the other side. Would it be worth it? There is likely no net loss for the universe if we or even the entire Earth disappeared overnight and that might be better than thousands of generations suffering painfully over thousands of years.
scythe 6y ago
>I mean, the alternative is to sit white-knuckled until I die in a food riot. You could try participating in politics! It's not exactly fun, but it's a lot better than dying.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  No mainstream politician has a realistic plan for addressing climate change.
  - NateEag 6y ago
    I would make a stronger claim (and no, I haven't done the research to back it up, just a hunch): > Nobody has a realistic plan for addressing climate change.
    - kazagistar 6y ago
      There are plenty. They are only unrealistic when people belive them to be unrealistic.
      - NateEag 6y ago
        The best ones I've seen so far involve massive engineering projects in orbit to let us control the amount of sunlight hitting the earth. Those are technologically feasible, theoretically workable, and at least somewhat reversible. However, they don't really take human nature into account. Megasatellites for solar gain control would be an intensely scarce, valuable resource, and a de facto superweapon - "agree to our terms or you'll never have good crop growing sunlight again." Nobody would be willing to cede or share control of such a system to someone else. Wars would break out quickly, and no deployed system would go undestroyed for long. The other plans I've seen seem problematic to me either morally ("first world gets to keep its tech but you guys who are bootstrapping with carbon can go DIAF"), technologically ("We think there will turn out to be some way to capture carbon super-efficiently that we haven't found yet"), or reversibility ("whoops, we put too much dust in the atmosphere - guess we're starving three billion people for the next year or four, folks"). I'm not saying there is no possible solution - just that I haven't seen a realistic one myself.
hluska 6y ago
You know friend, I understand how you feel. When I look out at the world, I see so much garbage that I can’t even believe it. Then I hang out with my four year old. She doesn’t understand racism, politics or climate. But she knows that she really likes everyone, respects others pronouns and likes sharing what she has. There’s hope. As cynical as I am, there is hope. And the fact that you feel so strongly fills me with as much hope as watching my little one learn about the fucked up planet she’s inheriting.
- bamboozled 6y ago
  What happens to grow up to suck so hard? Why can't we just look at each other and imagine the child that person once was, then maybe we'd care more about others like your 4 year old does.
  - hluska 6y ago
    This is beautiful writing and it deserves a reply, but for now I’m just going to read your words and wonder along with you. I’ll edit this comment at some point but for now, thank you friend. This is beautiful and poignant. :) Edit - I notice you edited your reply but I’m happy I got to read the original. You’re a beautiful writer.
  - redvenom 6y ago
    We are taught in Western and most other societies of today to numb pain. The problem is that we have knowledge of the problems of this world. I think if we allow ourselves to feel the pain of our knowledge and understand our existence through it, we can return to a childlike state and realize the pain is not something wrong with us, but our natural inclination and love for the world telling us that we are doing something wrong. We may not be able to solve the problems created by our species, but if we learn to live with respect for the planet then we can at least know we are doing as much as we can with our own existence.
  - fsloth 6y ago
    Thank you, this is beautiful and deep. I think I will try to imagine people as children and imagine them growing up more. Much easier to project loving-kindness that way.
kanox 6y ago
> sit white-knuckled until I die in a food riot. This is nonsense, food production on a per-capita basis is increasing and population is leveling off.
- ahelwer 6y ago
  And this year's Thanksgiving turkey is reporting it continues to be fed more and more each day! The future is bright!
  - i_love_music 6y ago
    This gave me a chuckle. Thanks for that
- NortySpock 6y ago
  How does food production deal with crop destruction by droughts, freak storms, or flooding rains driven by climate change? How do the world's poorest deal with rising food prices caused by crop failure? That's what we're worried about, not "the current steady state trend is currently going up, it's all fine!"
  - kanox 6y ago
    > crop destruction by droughts, freak storms, or flooding rains Aggregate data is much more relevant than anecdotes.
    - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
      It's at least worth keeping in mind that this discussion thread is happening on a link to an article describing an occurrence -- the Laptev Sea not freezing by late October -- that aggregate data up through a couple of decades ago would not have predicted. Global warming itself is arguably a radical break from what aggregate data tells us about climate trends, and the (originally good faith) argument against it for decades was, essentially, that the "alarmists" were mistaking statistically insignificant temperature drifts for new statistically significant trends. The theory that global warming is going to lead to food shortages in the relatively near future is not an out-of-the-blue flight of fancy on the part of random HN commenters; a UN panel in 2019 warned of this possibility, as did a 2020 IPCC report (pre-pandemic, no less), as did a 2016 study in the Lancet; this is just from a cursory examination of the Google results for "food shortage predictions global warming".
Florin_Andrei 6y ago
Well, "everyone is in denial" is too strongly worded. A lot of us are aware that there are all sorts of self-reinforcing feedback loops that we have not found yet, and those will definitely influence the events. But models cannot account for hypotheticals.

xwdv 6y ago

Oh many people know it’s coming, and have simply accepted there is nothing that can be done. Solutions that require the cooperation of the entire human race will never work, yet that is what keeps being pushed upon us. The only real thing that can save us is for a small group to come up with some kind of technology that can make sweeping changes on a massive geological scale and ultimately reverse global warming without humanity having to do anything. People aren’t going to change their lifestyles to save the world. Many people don’t even change their lifestyles to save themselves when it becomes medically necessary. Personally, I’ve come to accept this is the end. If I must die to global warming, at least it will be an interesting death, I could have been shot and killed by a mugger or killed in a car crash instead.

jdmichal 6y ago
> I could have been shot and killed by a mugger... Don't get excited yet. Roving bands of raiders is still a potential outcome of climate change.
0xdde 6y ago
> The only real thing that can save us is for a small group to come up with some kind of technology that can make sweeping changes on a massive geological scale and ultimately reverse global warming without humanity having to do anything. Or, you know, fixing the US political process so that a handful of ideologues aren't in a position to ignore popular sentiment and derail even the mildest form of action.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mym1990 6y ago
  I would argue that the former is easier than the latter.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  > fixing the US political process Do you have a suggestion for how to do this?

yters 6y ago

why is global warming so catastrophic? the globe has been much warmer in the past and we are all here today

kolinko 6y ago
we weren't here the last time globe has been much warmer
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I actually think this is a fair question, because I feel like there are 2 issues that get conflated: 1. First, you are correct, the Earth was much hotter in the past, and I haven't seen anything convincing that global warming will lead to a fundamental "runaway greenhouse" effect a la Venus that makes life as we know it on Earth unsustainable. 2. That said, a huge climate change in a relatively short amount of time could easily lead the the deaths of billions of people, with a B. One third of the human population lives within 60 miles of the coast. Rising temperatures will lead to huge portions of the planet that are currently densely populated that will no longer support humans. The resulting migrations, "resource wars", and overall increase in extreme weather events (more hurricanes, more droughts, more floods) will lead to death and misery to a huge portion of humanity.
- yters 6y ago
  but if this change happens on the order of 100 years, that seems enough time to respond
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    Yes, and we should start responding.
    - core-questions 6y ago
      Sea level has to actually start rising enough that the rich folks who live waterfront are affected and then we will see some geoengineering efforts or at the very least some solid seawalls. I'm waiting for someone to figure out how to use solar + hotter temperatures + seawater to give us desalinated water

standardUser 6y ago

"We're all in some form of climate denial right now" It should also be acknowledged - perhaps first and foremost - that we are also all in a very real form of climate ignorance. Being "realistic" about the impact of climate change requires believing our best science as it stands today, but also understanding that the science is incomplete and certainly wrong in various large and small ways.

raziel2701 6y ago
By far the biggest problem is that we do not agree with a common reality. If the conversation stops at "I don't believe this thing is real" then naive ignorance is the lesser problem. Climate denial is a bigger threat, it relies on moving the goal posts of what constitutes proof it's real, and in the decades it takes to "convince" these people it's real it will be too late to do much about it. Simply put, if climate denial leads to inaction, then that's the bigger problem. Also, climate change is an existential threat, the degree and vigor we use to respond to it should definitely be strong. Debating over which models are more accurate or not is mostly a waste of time. "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?" https://www.gocomics.com/joelpett/2009/12/13 https://www.gocomics.com/joelpett/2009/12/13
- lopmotr 6y ago
  Climate change is not an existential threat.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - raziel2701 6y ago
    You live in a different reality, just as I said.
matthewdgreen 6y ago
This is generally trotted out as an argument that we should continue with the status quo and do nothing until we have certainty. In practice, we've already begun an experiment in mass-scale terraforming of our environment by emitting vast amounts of CO2. Since we don't know exactly what this will do, but every indication is that the outcome will be catastrophic, we should be working as hard as possible to halt our emissions now. Once we've done that, we can wait for certainty.

CivBase 6y ago

> but I suspect we'll see, like many climate estimates, that number ends up being a bit too conservative. Good. When scientists and politicians publicize scary, doomsday numbers that aren't ever realized, the public's natural response is to be more critical of the things those people say in the future. That sort of thing results in climate deniers, anti-vaxers, anti-maskers, and a whole slew of conspiracy theories. If you want people to take climate change seriously, you need to publish conservative numbers and ring the bell when things end up worse than you predicted. Include a word of caution that things could be worse when you publish the conservative numbers, but don't start out with the worst-case scenario if you want to be taken seriously in the future. Of course you can be too conservative with your predictions, but I don't see a lot of that except as a knee-jerk reaction to the overly-alarmist predictions.

yongjik 6y ago
I agree with you that climate scientists are being too conservative, but I fail to see why that's good. Imagine an aviation engineer being "too conservative" with potential dangers (i.e., accept too much risk) because if you raise an alarm and it turns out to be not as bad as predicted, you will have cost the company $$$ and hurt your career. Would you call that a good thing?
- CivBase 6y ago
  Funny enough, I actually am a software engineer for avionics. Those are not reasonable comparisons. Climate change predictions amount to milestones on our slow journey to oblivion. Ideally we want to be spot-on with all our predictions, but being on the "too conservative" side doesn't immediately put human lives at risk.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  My high school science teacher told us all the world economy would collapse in 10 years because the oil would run out. It didn't. My classmates remembered -- and updated their priors accordingly. At this point, it's pretty clear that despite his good intentions he hurt the cause. Fundamental attribution error tempts you into believing that it's OK to lie for a good reason. Others see it differently.

CalRobert 6y ago

Some of us are, but moving north, learning permaculture, investing in your community, and not worrying about a retirement fund are still "fringe" apparently.

Zenst 6y ago

Not sure what proof will work with some people, after all in places which have face-mask rules, the number breaking that etc highlights a not so small percentage of the populous, even with facts will air on the side that suits them.

neuronic 6y ago
Until their city sinks to the ocean or is consumed by wildfire but even then there will be deniers. In general, catastrophe has to happen and impact many people first before they acknowledge the danger (and then move to Facebook to complain about politics not warning them).

anonuser123456 6y ago

A friend of mine that works in climate science says that the IPCC reports are typically very conservative due to the process. His expectation is to view the upper end of the current report as likely.

catawbasam 6y ago
RCP 8.5? No. The assumptions about coal alone blow that scenario out of the water.

strogonoff 6y ago

I suspect calling what’s happening “global warming” is part of what’s causing the denial. People living in mild latitudes hear about the warming but experience unusually cold summers and winters due to phenomena like polar vortex disruption[0]; the claim may be hard to take at face value. Warming in longer term if left unchecked, sure, but “climate destabilization” could be a more fitting term for the time being. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline#Polar_vortex_disruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline#Polar_v...

umvi 6y ago
> I believe calling what’s happening “global warming” is part of what’s causing the denial. Also just attributing climate change as the root of every problem. Extra hot summer? Climate Change. Extra cold winter? Climate Change. Unusually moderate summer? Climate Change. Unusually moderate winter? Climate Change. More than usual wildfires/tornadoes/hurricanes/blizzards? Climate Change. Insect apocalypse? Climate Change. Sharks washing up on the beach stabbed by sword fish? Climate Change. It puts you in denial when literally every issue is attributed to climate change.
- count 6y ago
  It's almost like the climate impacts everything, and a changing climate upsets a ton of things!
  - umvi 6y ago
    But it's also a lazy cop-out. Why investigate alternative theories when climate change is an obvious, easy one? It's like this board I worked on that only had 128 MB RAM. We were very tight on memory. Anytime an unexplained issue came up, low RAM was blamed by default even if it turned out later not to be the root cause.
    - jagger27 6y ago
      What alternative theories would you like to see investigated?

callamdelaney 6y ago

Well it was only in 2016 we saw the biggest freeze we've ever recorded..

peterashford 6y ago
which is in no way incompatible with global warming

ipqk 6y ago

I've gotten a vasectomy and refuse to have kids because I think it's unethical to have children right now facing an unprecedented climate disaster. It's going to be real bad. REAL bad. All the evidence points towards that. Most people are in denial about how bad it's going to be.

jakeva 6y ago
I've done the same thing. Idiocracy be damned, it seems like we're already pretty close to there. At least I will be able to enjoy my life knowing I'm not going to have to be responsible for a life or lives in an increasingly destabilizing climate.
- neuronic 6y ago
  I would suspect that your kids would have at least a chance of contributing to solving this crisis. Many people will have kids because that's all they can do with their lives and the kids won't get the (easy) chance to become a great scientist, leader or similar. It's sad, many children will be subject to completely idiotic parents and so much potential will be lost.
lifeformed 6y ago
Why would it be unethical to have kids? Because they use resources? Well, it takes resources to fix things as well. Having kids would only be bad if they used more than they contributed. Make them a net gain for society. Raise them to be resourceful and educated and a force for good. Doing that has a far greater benefit to our civilization and environment than not having any kids at all. We need the next generation (and this one) to fight for the necessary changes. If everyone who was worried about climate change made their contribution by not having kids, then the next generation is just going to be all kids raised by climate deniers. If anyone should be having kids, it should be the ones who are worried about the future!
- jonp888 6y ago
  Because you bring them into the world in the knowledge that their lives will be somewhere between slighty worse and a lot worse than yours. I don't plan to have children anyway, but I've concluded for instance but there's no point in making sacrifices today in the service of enjoying a comfortable retirement, because by that point western society will no longer be any fit state to provide for a conventional "life of leisure" retirement.

gcanyon 6y ago

150 years ago we didn’t have cars or telephones. The bulk of the world’s population lived on farms. Sure, many people are underestimating the impact of climate change, just like most people underestimate technological advances and the mobility of people over the course of centuries. To be clear: I am not saying it’s not happening, or that we should do nothing or be unconcerned. Just that I have confidence in human creativity, ingenuity, and technological advances.

neuronic 6y ago
Good luck. This is on a different scale. Likely, some folks will survive in safe zones but technology won't save us this time. Ocean acidification is really scary (and fast) on its own but it's just one out of many apocalyptic problems we face.