14 ms·

Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio

79 points by axihack 6y ago

perfunctory 6y ago
> The report comes months after the world failed to meet a single UN Aichi biodiversity target, created to stem the destruction of the natural world, the second consecutive time governments have failed to meet their 10-year biodiversity goals. This week a coalition of more than 50 countries pledged to protect almost a third of the planet by 2030. Hm. How serious should we take this pledge now?
- ehnto 6y ago
  As another empty promise. That isn't to say nothing will happen, and no good will be done, but it certainly remains to be seen and this "pledge" is empty. I am getting really tired of the regurgitated weasel words of world leaders in the headlines. It's like watching a big company meeting full to tue brim with Synergy, Roadmaps, Directions and Initiatives. Less talk, more action. We are on a tight timeline here!
pmx 6y ago
> “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction The pandemic has taught me that humans will roundly ignore even the most glaring evidence to avoid accepting bad things are happening. I can't see how we're ever going to be able to avert climate disaster when we can't even get everyone to take basic precautions against a global pandemic.
- freebear 6y ago
  Are you saying that the ones who take this pandemic serious also take the "ghastly future of mass extinction" serious? I oppose this 100%, I take the "ghastly future of mass extinction" very serious and my solution would be to introduce a close to zero birthrate of the extremely overpopulated species of Homo Sapiens. I do not however take this pandemic serious at all and it is NOTHING compared to what is and will happen in the "ghastly future". We are living in a planetary wide human farm, they told us this was gonna happen! And it will happen again and again until we have devoured the planet.
  - o-__-o 6y ago
    Similarly one could take “election fraud” seriously but not the pandemic or climate change.
  - ojhughes 6y ago
    Zero population growth would be a terrifying dystopia. Have you read /watched the Handmaid's Tale or Children of Men?
  - jhanschoo 6y ago
    Zero fertility would introduce an aging crisis.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Which is preferable to a resource exhaustion crisis. Can’t kick the can forever. Most of the world is at or below a total fertility rate replacement rate (2.1). The trend simply needs to continue for ~10-15 years to lock in the population decline.
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        We must hope civilization doesn't collapse before then. If it does, population will decline faster, but much less comfortably. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25745549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25745549
      - User23 6y ago
        But Subsaharan Africa will more than pick up the slack[1][2]. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31522-1/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... [2] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/DemographicProfiles/Line/947 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/DemographicProfiles/Lin...
        toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Agree that more work needs to be done for women's rights in that part of the world (empowerment, education, easy access to family planning resources, etc). https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-change-in-the-number-of-children-women-have https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-...
- oakpond 6y ago
  Some nations are handling the pandemic a lot more effectively than others. Evidently it's possible to do something right. Also, these guys are arguing that population growth and high levels of consumption in wealthy nations are the key factors. Not even everybody has to do something.
  - robbyking 6y ago
    I agree; I wouldn’t say “humans” are the problem, but “cultures that value capitalism more than human life.”
- kristopolous 6y ago
  It's a culture thing. Some cultures, as it turns out, are better than others at dealing with stresses like this. Changing culture is a big project. We can try though because we don't actually have any other option.
  - gmuslera 6y ago
    Changing culture runs on money, and the most efficient use for it is to put a feedback loop: you put money, and you get even more money in the short term to put even more on it. And in this you are competing with a few donations without a feedback loop against the oil industry that have plenty of money and that kind of feedback loops, for just one culture that need to be changed. And to make things even more unfair, they can use all the dirty tricks they want (plain lies, exploiting bias, pushing disinformation, bribing politicians, etc), while you can only use the, sometimes hard to get for the uneducated, truth.
  - smitty1e 6y ago
    > Changing culture is a big project For my buy-in, change agents are encouraged to: - begin with absolute truth - develop an unambiguous, existentially complete solution - let that solution sell itself through its inarguable superiority -- Anything less than that risks coming off as so much bullying.
- listenallyall 6y ago
  > the most glaring evidence what evidence? "in 1968, Ehrlich warned of imminent population explosion and hundreds of millions of people starving to death" Wrong, wrong, wrong. Food has never been more abundant, plentiful and inexpensive https://www.wfdd.org/story/food-growing-more-plentiful-so-why-do-people-keep-warning-shortages https://www.wfdd.org/story/food-growing-more-plentiful-so-wh... Pardon me for ignoring what this fear monger and crackpot has to say.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    Things changed in direct response to the warning. That is exactly how it is supposed to go. People who don't know insist too that Y2K was a big nothing, but it was nothing only because of $billions spent to ensure that it would be. People who don't know say the same about whales, acid rain and stratospheric ozone. Same thing: global effort, crisis reduced, although further effort needed. 2038 still looms, but much has been done already.
    - stolenmerch 6y ago
      I'm very skeptical that increases in agricultural productivity and political stability, two leading preventers of famine, were a direct result of a single book. The Population Bomb was controversial and had many detractors at the time. It seems much more likely that he was simply wrong in his predictions (which he insists were simply possible scenarios). Otherwise, you'd have much more evidence of the book being cited in public policy and industrial investment strategies.
      - alexgmcm 6y ago
        It doesn't need to be just because of that book - e.g. companies can see impending food scarcity and invest in agricultural research etc. to avoid it and profit by meeting the growing demand. The thing is although we now we can often figure out solutions when the problems become more apparent, we can't guarantee it - so it makes sense to start working on solutions as soon as possible.
      - ncmncm 6y ago
- michaelbrave 6y ago
  Some places are handling the pandemic ok, I've felt like the larger problems have been: politicizing the problem, those living in denial and propaganda that minimized the threat. Regrettably climate change faces those same issues.
frugalrusk 6y ago
By this point I guess it should not surprise anyone. There is just not enough happening. The current situation could be a great opportunity to change things, but nothing is happening really. Current corona grants could be coupled to ecology protecting endeavors. This would also increase investments, especially the building industry could be transformed a lot by that.
cryptica 6y ago
Over the last 20 years and having traveled back and forth all over the world, I have not noticed any changes in temperature at all. In fact, local temperature records over several decades seems to be flat in pretty much every place I've looked up. On the other hand, I have observed widespread deception within professional environments and scientific communities... I was a climate believer for a long time, but these days it seems more like a religion than a science so I'm now a skeptic. The authorities keep preaching the climate change mantra with increasing urgency and certainty but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I'm more concerned about microplastics and air pollution.
- truckerbill 6y ago
  That’s a bit like saying the section of a skate ramp you’re standing on is flat, so it must be flat at all points.
- BuildTheRobots 6y ago
  > In fact, local temperature records over several decades seems to be flat in pretty much every place I've looked up. The first place I looked up was England - the Met Office graph seems to indicate a rise. [1] Have you got any examples of flat graphs? [1] https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/ https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
  - cryptica 6y ago
    Examples (I just picked two random places and dates for temperature records for the month of December at least 20 years apart): Miami Florida December 2000 (peak day-average is 77.08): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMIA/date/2000-12 https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMI... Miami Florida December 2020 (peak day-average is 76.69): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMIA/date/2020-12 https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMI... --- Honolulu, Hawaii December 1995 (peak day-average is 79.92): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/hi/honolulu/PHNL/date/1995-12 https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/hi/honolulu/... Honolulu, Hawaii December 2020 (peak day-average is 79.54): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/hi/honolulu/PHNL/date/2000-12 https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/hi/honolulu/... --- You can use that site to look up the same month 20+ years apart in any place and it clearly shows that there is no significant change at all. You can browse the surrounding years to get a better feeling because there can be random 2 to 3 degree fluctuations but my point is that these fluctuations can go either way and there is no correlation with time. TBH, I'm surprised that, given that there is an incentive for meteorologists to fake the data (since global warming is their bread and butter) that it's still possible to see proper data which certainly matches my personal observations. IMO it's a matter of time before they start faking historical data. Good we have waybackmachine https://archive.org/web/ https://archive.org/web/
imtringued 6y ago
I don't know how effective scare stories are. At some point people just stop caring. Instead of worrying, you should focus on the things that can be done because there is an endless supply of people who refuse to do things but those who want to do even a little still should know what to do.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
loraa 6y ago
When I was a kid we were all going to die in the 90s from acid rain and holes in the ozone layer.
isoblvck 6y ago
*ghastly present of mass extinction
anewaccount2021 6y ago
I never see HN readers taking personal responsibility in any thread regarding climate change. Every comment just damns other people. If you are a techie in North America, you are in the top 1% of all-time polluters, if not the top 0.1%. Me too. I admit it. Stop wagging your fingers at other people.

79 points by axihack 6y ago

> The report comes months after the world failed to meet a single UN Aichi biodiversity target, created to stem the destruction of the natural world, the second consecutive time governments have failed to meet their 10-year biodiversity goals. This week a coalition of more than 50 countries pledged to protect almost a third of the planet by 2030. Hm. How serious should we take this pledge now?

ehnto 6y ago
As another empty promise. That isn't to say nothing will happen, and no good will be done, but it certainly remains to be seen and this "pledge" is empty. I am getting really tired of the regurgitated weasel words of world leaders in the headlines. It's like watching a big company meeting full to tue brim with Synergy, Roadmaps, Directions and Initiatives. Less talk, more action. We are on a tight timeline here!

pmx 6y ago

> “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction The pandemic has taught me that humans will roundly ignore even the most glaring evidence to avoid accepting bad things are happening. I can't see how we're ever going to be able to avert climate disaster when we can't even get everyone to take basic precautions against a global pandemic.

freebear 6y ago
Are you saying that the ones who take this pandemic serious also take the "ghastly future of mass extinction" serious? I oppose this 100%, I take the "ghastly future of mass extinction" very serious and my solution would be to introduce a close to zero birthrate of the extremely overpopulated species of Homo Sapiens. I do not however take this pandemic serious at all and it is NOTHING compared to what is and will happen in the "ghastly future". We are living in a planetary wide human farm, they told us this was gonna happen! And it will happen again and again until we have devoured the planet.
- o-__-o 6y ago
  Similarly one could take “election fraud” seriously but not the pandemic or climate change.
- ojhughes 6y ago
  Zero population growth would be a terrifying dystopia. Have you read /watched the Handmaid's Tale or Children of Men?
- jhanschoo 6y ago
  Zero fertility would introduce an aging crisis.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Which is preferable to a resource exhaustion crisis. Can’t kick the can forever. Most of the world is at or below a total fertility rate replacement rate (2.1). The trend simply needs to continue for ~10-15 years to lock in the population decline.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      We must hope civilization doesn't collapse before then. If it does, population will decline faster, but much less comfortably. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25745549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25745549
    - User23 6y ago
      But Subsaharan Africa will more than pick up the slack[1][2]. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31522-1/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... [2] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/DemographicProfiles/Line/947 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/DemographicProfiles/Lin...
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Agree that more work needs to be done for women's rights in that part of the world (empowerment, education, easy access to family planning resources, etc). https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-change-in-the-number-of-children-women-have https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-...
oakpond 6y ago
Some nations are handling the pandemic a lot more effectively than others. Evidently it's possible to do something right. Also, these guys are arguing that population growth and high levels of consumption in wealthy nations are the key factors. Not even everybody has to do something.
- robbyking 6y ago
  I agree; I wouldn’t say “humans” are the problem, but “cultures that value capitalism more than human life.”
kristopolous 6y ago
It's a culture thing. Some cultures, as it turns out, are better than others at dealing with stresses like this. Changing culture is a big project. We can try though because we don't actually have any other option.
- gmuslera 6y ago
  Changing culture runs on money, and the most efficient use for it is to put a feedback loop: you put money, and you get even more money in the short term to put even more on it. And in this you are competing with a few donations without a feedback loop against the oil industry that have plenty of money and that kind of feedback loops, for just one culture that need to be changed. And to make things even more unfair, they can use all the dirty tricks they want (plain lies, exploiting bias, pushing disinformation, bribing politicians, etc), while you can only use the, sometimes hard to get for the uneducated, truth.
- smitty1e 6y ago
  > Changing culture is a big project For my buy-in, change agents are encouraged to: - begin with absolute truth - develop an unambiguous, existentially complete solution - let that solution sell itself through its inarguable superiority -- Anything less than that risks coming off as so much bullying.
listenallyall 6y ago
> the most glaring evidence what evidence? "in 1968, Ehrlich warned of imminent population explosion and hundreds of millions of people starving to death" Wrong, wrong, wrong. Food has never been more abundant, plentiful and inexpensive https://www.wfdd.org/story/food-growing-more-plentiful-so-why-do-people-keep-warning-shortages https://www.wfdd.org/story/food-growing-more-plentiful-so-wh... Pardon me for ignoring what this fear monger and crackpot has to say.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Things changed in direct response to the warning. That is exactly how it is supposed to go. People who don't know insist too that Y2K was a big nothing, but it was nothing only because of $billions spent to ensure that it would be. People who don't know say the same about whales, acid rain and stratospheric ozone. Same thing: global effort, crisis reduced, although further effort needed. 2038 still looms, but much has been done already.
  - stolenmerch 6y ago
    I'm very skeptical that increases in agricultural productivity and political stability, two leading preventers of famine, were a direct result of a single book. The Population Bomb was controversial and had many detractors at the time. It seems much more likely that he was simply wrong in his predictions (which he insists were simply possible scenarios). Otherwise, you'd have much more evidence of the book being cited in public policy and industrial investment strategies.
    - alexgmcm 6y ago
      It doesn't need to be just because of that book - e.g. companies can see impending food scarcity and invest in agricultural research etc. to avoid it and profit by meeting the growing demand. The thing is although we now we can often figure out solutions when the problems become more apparent, we can't guarantee it - so it makes sense to start working on solutions as soon as possible.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
michaelbrave 6y ago
Some places are handling the pandemic ok, I've felt like the larger problems have been: politicizing the problem, those living in denial and propaganda that minimized the threat. Regrettably climate change faces those same issues.

frugalrusk 6y ago

By this point I guess it should not surprise anyone. There is just not enough happening. The current situation could be a great opportunity to change things, but nothing is happening really. Current corona grants could be coupled to ecology protecting endeavors. This would also increase investments, especially the building industry could be transformed a lot by that.

cryptica 6y ago

Over the last 20 years and having traveled back and forth all over the world, I have not noticed any changes in temperature at all. In fact, local temperature records over several decades seems to be flat in pretty much every place I've looked up. On the other hand, I have observed widespread deception within professional environments and scientific communities... I was a climate believer for a long time, but these days it seems more like a religion than a science so I'm now a skeptic. The authorities keep preaching the climate change mantra with increasing urgency and certainty but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I'm more concerned about microplastics and air pollution.

truckerbill 6y ago
That’s a bit like saying the section of a skate ramp you’re standing on is flat, so it must be flat at all points.
BuildTheRobots 6y ago
> In fact, local temperature records over several decades seems to be flat in pretty much every place I've looked up. The first place I looked up was England - the Met Office graph seems to indicate a rise. [1] Have you got any examples of flat graphs? [1] https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/ https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
- cryptica 6y ago
  Examples (I just picked two random places and dates for temperature records for the month of December at least 20 years apart): Miami Florida December 2000 (peak day-average is 77.08): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMIA/date/2000-12 https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMI... Miami Florida December 2020 (peak day-average is 76.69): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMIA/date/2020-12 https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMI... --- Honolulu, Hawaii December 1995 (peak day-average is 79.92): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/hi/honolulu/PHNL/date/1995-12 https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/hi/honolulu/... Honolulu, Hawaii December 2020 (peak day-average is 79.54): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/hi/honolulu/PHNL/date/2000-12 https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/hi/honolulu/... --- You can use that site to look up the same month 20+ years apart in any place and it clearly shows that there is no significant change at all. You can browse the surrounding years to get a better feeling because there can be random 2 to 3 degree fluctuations but my point is that these fluctuations can go either way and there is no correlation with time. TBH, I'm surprised that, given that there is an incentive for meteorologists to fake the data (since global warming is their bread and butter) that it's still possible to see proper data which certainly matches my personal observations. IMO it's a matter of time before they start faking historical data. Good we have waybackmachine https://archive.org/web/ https://archive.org/web/

imtringued 6y ago

I don't know how effective scare stories are. At some point people just stop caring. Instead of worrying, you should focus on the things that can be done because there is an endless supply of people who refuse to do things but those who want to do even a little still should know what to do.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

loraa 6y ago

When I was a kid we were all going to die in the 90s from acid rain and holes in the ozone layer.

isoblvck 6y ago

*ghastly present of mass extinction

anewaccount2021 6y ago

I never see HN readers taking personal responsibility in any thread regarding climate change. Every comment just damns other people. If you are a techie in North America, you are in the top 1% of all-time polluters, if not the top 0.1%. Me too. I admit it. Stop wagging your fingers at other people.