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We Are Living in a Climate Emergency, and We’re Going to Say So
- arcticbull 6y agoGreat place to start is shutting down Bitcoin and reclaiming one full country of electricity consumption currently doing literally absolutely nothing. Low-hanging fruit so to speak.
- BrianOnHN 6y agoOr 10X investment in nuclear...
- arcticbull 6y agoWe need both, to be completely honest. Nuclear is a zero-carbon (well, low-carbon), sustainable solution to powering the world. And the safest form of energy in the world when measured in terms of deaths per TWh of generated power. Not a popular opinion, I'll grant you.
- sslayer 6y ago>We need both Agreed, Lets wipe out a country with nuclear.
- arcticbull 6y agoAgain, the safest form of electricity. [1] Certainly if you add the deaths from rooftop solar to that solar chart, and also the deaths from the Bangqiao Dam to hydro (200,000 people in one go). [1] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
- munk-a 6y agoIt would honestly just be nice to see some MSR[1]s or other "modern" reactors brought on to start disabusing people of their "Nuclear means big explosions" misconceptions. Nuclear is quite safe - it's downside is that it's expensive due to a large initial capital investment. But, once that's secured, it ends up being quite profitable - it's just hard to attract investors into an investment with a ten year RoI. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
- MauranKilom 6y ago> And the safest form of energy in the world when measured in terms of deaths per TWh of generated power. My mind on this is is not settled, but how does this factor in the unknown future of radioactive waste? We're not even through 0.1% of the time it will remain a threat. Every single nuclear TWh comes with a debt that must be repaid over thousands of years. Ensuring the death toll from that remains at zero is basically impossible to guarantee right now.
- arcticbull 6y agoRadioactive waste is super dense, easy to contain (throw it in Yucca mountain and seal 'er up) and easy to detect with a Geiger counter. Further, you can dramatically reduce the physical quantity of waste using fast neutron reactors or breeder reactors.
- ekianjo 6y agoMore like 100X is needed, globally.
- babelfish 6y agoBill Gates does a good job of outlining the main area where we need change (and how much of it) in his new book.
- SkyMarshal 6y ago/second that recommendation. I listened to the audiobook version recently and it's a good distillation of the problem [1] and outline of what it will take to definitively solve it. A good starting point for anyone who wants to understand it more clearly, or jumping off point for further deep dives. [1]: We need to go from 51 billion tons of greenhouse gasses per year to 0 by 2050.
- swader999 6y agoBill Gates, the same guy that was all over Epstein's flight logs?
- pmastela 6y agoAnd 10X investment in fusion… Declaring a war on bitcoin would be as futile as War on Drugs and the Prohibition. Might as well embrace it, try to tax and regulate it, and move the revenue from it to worthwhile initiatives that can buy humanity more time. Having said that, in an ideal world, I’d agree with you and say we should shutdown bitcoin and all other activity that’s superfluous to humanity’s struggle against climate change. Industrialized meat production is out. International air travel is out. Raising all other product prices according to the climate externalities they cause. Doubly or triply replanting the forests in the Amazon and elsewhere. It’s gonna take sacrifices now to prevent suffering later, if we’re going to make it past this potential Great Filter.
- imgabe 6y agoHow much carbon is released by manufacturing, storing, and transporting physical currency? Why not shut that down instead?
- arcticbull 6y agoBecause we can prove by induction. If a Visa transaction consumed as much power as a single Bitcoin payment, Visa alone would consume 3X as much power as the entire world generates and be responsible for 100% of the world's e-waste production. A single Bitcoin transaction now consumes 30 days of power for the average household, as much as it takes a Tesla to drive from SF to well past New York, at this point closer to SF-NY-Miami. And generates half an iPhone of e-waste (100g). It also consumes 5X as much energy as mining gold, which is the second worst option. [1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
- imgabe 6y agoVisa is not physical currency, that’s not what I asked. Electricity can be generated from zero carbon means, nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, etc. There’s an order of magnitude more solar energy hitting the Earth every day than humans ever use. Instead of stopping progress and living in the past, we can find a better way to make use of it.
- arcticbull 6y agoDoesn't solve the e-waste generation, the arms race to increase hash rate creates 100g of e-waste per transaction. Devastating for the planet of course and utterly insufficient for anything bigger than a Costco. Just how much power do you think physical currency consumes? Data, citations, estimates please. Because I know handing a $10 bill to my buddy consumes 0kWh, and doing the same with Bitcoin costs $20 and consumes 30 days of power. If you want progress you'll have to do something that moves the world forward not warms it up.
- imgabe 6y ago
- simias 6y agoI think the only way to kill bitcoin is either to break SHA-256 (and that would probably be short-term) or aggressively shutdown the exchanges. As long as BTCs are worth tens of thousands of dollars people are going to mine them. It's pretty hard for me to imagine that either of these things are going to happen. I don't think that cryptocurrencies are ever going to be really useful because they're so inefficient, but I also think that they're here to stay as a speculative/gambling tool. PaaS, pyramid schemes as a service.
- arcticbull 6y agoJust have to cut off fiat gateways. Nobody's gonna gamble if LocalBitcoins is the only way to play. Plenty of other ways to gamble from home, like Robinhood. Bitcoin just has to be the second easiest way to gamble from home to be utterly worthless.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- SilverRed 6y agoYou can't really shut down bitcoin. Whack a mole laws like this are too hard to enforce. The only bad thing about bitcoin is its electricity consumption. The easiest way to solve this is to add a carbon tax. That way you don't have to shut down bitcoin. Bitcoin either has to move entirely to renewables or they will have to lower their electricity usage or they will shut down themselves with raised costs.
- echelon 6y agoPoint the NSA and all of the minds in quantum computing at it. It will fall.
- mavhc 6y agoJust tax pollution the amount it costs to clean up pollution, and then use that money to clean up pollution. Problem solved.
- arcticbull 6y agoWho exactly are you going to tax? The Chinese mining cartels in the PRC bribing officials to look the other way as they steal power? That's a bold proposal.
- corty 6y agoEasy, as with any other thing that is imported: import duties collected by the banks and exchanges. And if you convert it into currency or goods overseas, there is also going to be a duty on that (if there isn't already).
- arcticbull 6y agoWhere would you say a DEX is located - and to whom do they report?
- mavhc 6y ago
- lupire 6y agoLower hanging fruit: ban factory farms for meat.
- eggsmediumrare 6y agoI went from eating a pound of ground beef pretty much every day to almost 100% vegetarian, pretty much on a dime. Healthier than ever, don't miss it. If you're reading this and unsure about cutting down on meat... You can do it.
- szhu 6y agoI can't find the link, but I read an interesting argument that the USD is more wasteful of natural resources than Bitcoin because its value is indirectly backed by the US military.
- anyfoo 6y agoThat argument hinges entirely on the assumption that the militaries ceased to exist if the US Dollar and other currencies were all replaced by Bitcoin, i.e. that our monetary system is the only reason for the states, or even the concept of sovereignty itself, to exist.
- herendin2 6y agoThat's a great start, but don't stop there, because there are many more non-essential, energy wasting activities that we can also curtail: video games, leisure travel, fashion, and so on
- anyfoo 6y agoAgain, those don't have being inefficient by design built into their core. It's to everyone's best interest to make video games, leisure travel, and fashion, as efficient as possible. Cryptocurrencies' proof-of-work concept relies on being inefficient. If you get more efficient, difficulty goes up, to keep the process inefficient. None of the unimaginable amounts computations wasted on proof-of-concept have any inherent value at all, until someone hits that final "lucky" one, that allows the transactions to take place.
- herendin2 6y agoHave you ever considered why banks have walls, guards, and vaults?
- anyfoo 6y agoI'm not sure what that has to do with my argument. Besides, banks have less and less walls, guards, and vaults, because they keep less and less cash on premise. This is a prime example of the monetary system having been made more efficient over time.
- herendin2 6y ago>Besides, banks have less and less walls, guards, and vaults, because they keep less and less cash on premise. What then guarantees the security of the financial system and of our money?
- arcticbull 6y agoI don't know how to break this to you but, like SSL and logins.
- vimy 6y agoWhich boils down to an entity in charge of deciding what is useful energy use and what is not. Do you want to live in a world like that? I don’t. Why is the green solution to everything more prohibition and rules? What happened to believing in the future, in innovation and technology...
- anyfoo 6y ago> Which boils down to an entity in charge of deciding what is useful energy use and what is not. Do you want to live in a world like that? I don’t. Of course I want to live in a world like that, just like I like living in a world where my neighbor is not allowed to just break into my house without consequences. Just like I like living in a world where people are not allowed to dump unbounded amounts of toxic waste into lakes and oceans. We have regulation for what's allowed in food. Are you okay with that? Or do you prefer becoming an expert at food sciences so that you can test yourself that a food brand isn't trying to sell you something poisonous as a cost cutting measure? > Why is the green solution to everything more prohibition and rules? Because otherwise greedy people with no concept or care of long or even mid term effects mess things up for everyone else, and even themselves. > What happened to believing in the future, in innovation and technology... That has never been the case without regulation. We made cars and airplanes, we added tomes of regulation to make sure cars and airplanes work well enough to keep the people dying directly from them at a minimum.
- vimy 6y agoYou are okay with the state deciding you can only watch 30 mins of TV per day and 30 min of playstation? You seem to think once we decide what is useful energy use and what is not, only the things you deem not useful will be affected.
- anyfoo 6y agoWhat a weird straw-man. There is a whole spectrum for how regulation applies, it does not have to be the extreme you just made up. The same applies to everything. In a drought for example water usage has to be regulated, and by your reasoning I can go along and say: "You are okay with the state deciding you can only drink 1 gallon of water every day, and use 2 gallons for showering?"--even if the actual regulation is much more forthcoming. If I wasted all energy available to us both on growing poisonous fruit that smells bad, would you object to that? Oh, but doing so would be deciding what is useful and what is not!
- ekianjo 6y agoA full country worth of electricity is worth nothing if you produce electricity anyway with coal and fossil fuels.
- anyfoo 6y agoI don't understand this argument, at all. Less energy wasted means less coal and fossil fuels wasted, until everything is 100% CO2-neutral regenerative energy sources.
- asphaltycode 6y agoYes, climate change is happening. Do most people who are not progressive westerners care? No. Can you convince them without bribing or bullying them? No. Does calling it an emergency make you look like a crazy person? Yes.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Impassionata 6y agoYou want to call other people crazy for using precise, accurate terms, I think that makes you crazy.
- burnished 6y agoHow does that make anyone seem crazy? I can only speak for the region I live in, but due to neighboring areas now having regular fire seasons my area now has regular smokey seasons. This is new and looks like its here to stay. How is that not an emergency?
- devenblake 6y ago> Does calling it an emergency make you look like a crazy person? Yes. Caring about the world, even invisible aspects of it, does not make anyone look crazy except to those that already are. Hopefully someone's crazy enough to do something to start fixing it.
- vesinisa 6y agoIsn't China taking climate change pretty seriously, though? They are the second largest CO2 producer but seem aware of it and are investing massively in developing lots of green tech. Your claim is actually borderline chauvinist, as if other people than "progressive westerners" could not comprehend the long term effects of climate change.
- Syonyk 6y ago> Isn't China taking climate change pretty seriously, though? It's hard to argue that they're taking it terribly seriously when they continue building out massive amounts of coal power. They've got something north of 50% of the world's coal plants, and are stamping out more at an alarming rate. Regardless of what they say, their actions would indicate that they're happy with other people being concerned about climate change, because then those people will buy Chinese panels, inverters, turbines, etc.
- clpm4j 6y ago"Given the circumstances, Scientific American has agreed with major news outlets worldwide to start using the term “climate emergency” in its coverage of climate change." This seems reasonable and appropriate. As much as I want to believe in humanity, I'm not optimistic that we're going to be able to actually solve this before things get really bad.
- idownvoted 6y agoUsing a depiction of Cali wildfires which are mostly caused by the state's own forest management policies puts your quote into perspective: Framing.
- Daishiman 6y agoThe catastrophe would be dramatically different if it weren't because of that. Climate change makes things more catastrophic. It's not dishonest.
- cma 6y ago> state's own forest management policies Weren't most burned acres on federal land (managed by executive branch under Trump)?
- carpedimebagjoe 6y agoYes and no. I wouldn't blame just Trump per se, because forest management policy implementation across jurisdictions moves glacially-slow. There is likely enough blame to go around, such as not clearing fuel around the electrical grid and not setting intentional, controlled clearance fires. https://www.redding.com/story/news/2018/11/11/trump-blames-state-fires-but-many-worst-federal-land/1971196002/ https://www.redding.com/story/news/2018/11/11/trump-blames-s... The most economically-destructive fires are at the Wildland-urban interface (WUI), especially new residential developments that build right up to and in large, dense forested areas. Without proper fire mitigation for houses, infrastructure, and communities, devastating Camp Fire scenarios are entirely possible again.
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- goache 6y agoWhere is a good place to find sustainability related tech jobs? Is indeed/governmental sites my best bet?
- modularform123 6y agoFuck them. I canceled my subscription when they jumped on the white supremacy conspiracy bandwagon and said everyone was racist.
- toolz 6y agoAt this point is there anybody who reads this journal or watches the news regularly who doesn't have an opinion on the situation? I really dislike how it feels scientists are positioning themselves into politics more and more. I have less and less confidence that journals are attempting to describe and report without bias. Maybe it's because I hadn't read anything but tech related white papers pre-covid, but reading a ton of research during covid really lowered my expectations for the standard to which publishing scientists hold themselves to.
- throwaway8581 6y agoThis is the same "science" magazine that recently ran a cover story arguing that transwomen don't have a massive advantage in women's sports.
- 8bitsrule 6y agoScientific American is one of the most-respected science magazines for the intelligent layperson (non-professional) and has been for close to two centuries. When 13,000+ scientists publicly get on-board with something, people had damned-well better pay attention. If you disagree, you'd better have some extremely convincing evidence.
- throwaway8581 6y agoHigh school boys routinely perform better than professional female athletes.
- edanm 6y agoI get where you're coming from, and I'm not sure how I feel about this myself. As far as I understand it, the view proposed by people who think that trans women don't have an advantage only applies in cases where the trans women have been taking various drugs, which e.g. lower testosterone. This would at least somewhat mitigate how much of an advantage someone who was male at birth has over someone who was female at birth. That also makes your counterargument (high school boys perform better than pro female athletes) less relevant - I think that everyone agrees that in most cases, males without any hormone changes will perform better than females in various female activities. As for whether the supplementation to cause a transition from male to female is sufficient to "overcome" the default biological advantage males have over females - I think that's a valid question, but that's exactly what scientists publishing in journals are trying to do. If we dismiss that ahead of time, then how will we ever know the truth?
- oh_sigh 6y agoI suspect upgrading the phrasing to "emergency" is just going to have the opposite effect and make people care less. Sort of like how no one cares about the "THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS CHEMICALS KNOWN TO THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO CAUSE CANCER" warnings that are on literally everything.
- nsxwolf 6y ago"Emergency" in the public consciousness is a heart attack or a fire. Applying the word to something that operates over such long time scales just isn't going to work.
- DangitBobby 6y agoThere just isn't a good word for "immediate and drastic action is needed to slow or hopefully reverse the catalysts of what will already be severe, society collapsing series of events over many decades." We don't live long enough for our brains to fully appreciate a crisis which evolves so slowly, even if we trust the people who are doing research on it.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ultrablack 6y agoThere are 11.000 scientists doing research on climate change??
- pavlov 6y agoWhat's surprising about that? The dynamics of our planet's atmosphere is an important research topic for a lot of reasons, not just man-made climate change specifically. There are presumably thousands of people in the world who study ancient Mesopotamia, and there's nothing wrong with that either.
- caterama 6y agoI'm not sure how many climate scientists there are specifically, but scientists will see impacts even if they're not studying climate change specifically. Biologists are noticing changes, eg. trees flowering earlier than normal [1], coral bleaching [2], record low moisture content [3], etc. Even psychologists are involved [4]. It's pretty hard to escape. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-31/japans-cherry-blossoms-bloom-early-as-climate-warms/100042486 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-31/japans-cherry-blossom... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_bleaching#Pacific_Ocean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_bleaching#Pacific_Ocean [3] https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/fuel-moisture-content-California-wildfire-16087019.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/fuel-moisture-content... [4] https://www.apa.org/science/about/publications/climate-change https://www.apa.org/science/about/publications/climate-chang...
- stolenmerch 6y agoI have no issue whatsoever with calling it a "Climate Emergency". However, when you open nearly any Scientific American topics page and find a bunch of partisan opinion pieces all leaning towards Progressive causes, it's going to be too easy to dismiss this for a lot of people.
- devenblake 6y agoWild that science leans towards the left wing.
- ekianjo 6y agothe idea that people follow Science is pure fiction. Nobody does Science: you only hear about Science through other humans talking about it, and mostly misinformed ones (like journalists) or people with a political agenda (WHO obviously lying about everything COVID related during the first months of the epidemic). Also, "Science" is not a static state, it's ever-moving with new discoveries and topics that end up being revised over time as more data coming in. Science is not dogma.
- threatofrain 6y agoFrom the perspective of western peers like Australia, NZ, Germany, France, or the UK, the American right is rather extreme, and the American left is rather moderate in its energy, economic, civil, and ecological and climate politics.
- nec4b 6y agoNo it is not. American left with its identity politics and wokism is way more extreme than anything else in other western countries.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Impassionata 6y ago
- dominicjj 6y agoMakes sense. I mean, you can't call it global warming any more when the US has just had its coldest winter in 30 years. Climate emergency. Very catchy.
- timeon 6y agoHeh this argument is still a thing? Comparing local winter with global warming is hardly catchy.
- kergonath 6y agoThe average temperature on the planet is increasing, hence “global warming”. The climate does not care about how exceptional some people think their country is. Last time I checked, the US were not the world.
- cecida 6y agoI've rarely been so optimistic about computer science as I have been in the last few weeks; when we make a stand about the disaster for humanity that is proof-of-work. This is bad shit. Worse than 'do no evil' Google destroying the press.
- closeparen 6y agoWhat would it look like if climate were an emergency? Evacuation orders with perhaps 48 hours notice to leave the suburbs and never return. Defense Production Act cranking out prefab multifamily housing for urban cores. Blackouts when it’s cloudy. Transcontinental travel only when you know somebody who knows somebody with a sailboat. Keep dreaming.
- pavlov 6y ago"Blackouts when it’s cloudy" — because wind and nuclear get depressed if the weather isn't perfect, I guess.
- closeparen 6y agoNuclear plants take a little while to build. On that time scale we will have pretty good battery tech too, and skyscrapers that aren’t prefab. None can really be spun up on an emergency basis.
- Shivetya 6y agoWe won't know because it will be ever changing. The problem has always been is alarmist have exaggerated, set dead lines, and scare tactics, and never once been right. You can simply search old news papers less than ten years old or even early youtube videos to see all sorts of predictions by people we were told you cannot question and they are all wrong. I've given up even trying to debate any portion of the climate because no opinion other than agreement is allowed. You must fully agree with all statements because even questioning minor parts gets your branded. The damage done to serious debate is astounding. Yet, read a paper from a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, twenty, or ten, and even five, and you will see what has been predicted before and never come to pass will be predicted again with the same vehemence if not worse. Are there things we can change and need to change. Yes, and we have been making great progress. However doubling down each time you don't get it right will not make it better. It was fun here while it lasted
- DangitBobby 6y agoIt's unfortunate that some inaccurate predictions are used as "justification" to discredit research which has actually been conducted and communicated rather carefully for the most part. The predictions made have often been conservative with in the level of indicated catastrophe to prevent exactly the sort of backlash of alarmist-alarmism you are now espousing.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y agoOne thing the whole COVID-19 thing has convinced me is that trying to change human behavior the amount required to fight climate change is politically untenable. Look at California Governor Newsom. From what I have read, he seemed to have tried to implement the restrictions recommended to him by scientists (not withstanding his politically stupid decision to celebrate at the French Laundry). But he is now facing recall, and that is in deep blue California. If a leader in a democratic country actually tried to implement what was really required to fight climate change, they would be finished politically, and all their agenda rolled back. If you can't convince people that a novel pandemic filling killing millions and routinely filling TV with coverage of dead bodies in overflowing morgues is something that requires them to change their behavior, good luck trying to do that with climate change! Just like the big bright spot in the USA's fight against Covid are the vaccines, I think ultimately, it will have to be a technological solution that still allows people to continue their consumption that will have to save us. If we don't come up with such a solution before it is too late, we are in for a world of hurt.
- triceratops 6y ago> Look at California Governor Newsom He is facing recall because he proceeded to go ahead and ignore his own lockdown rules.
- jimbob45 6y agoNewsom isn’t facing recall because of his climate policies lol Also his recall effort was aided by COVID. Without some special stipulations put in place for COVID (relating to extended dates for signatures), it’s possible he wouldn’t even be facing the recall.
- luxuryballs 6y agoGeorge Carlin nailed it: https://youtu.be/7W33HRc1A6c https://youtu.be/7W33HRc1A6c
- regularemployee 6y agoIn January, I took 2 weeks PTO from work to visit this community to checkout what they do: https://wheaton-labs.com/ https://wheaton-labs.com/ What I saw was incredible! They were making homes that keep cool during the summer and warm during the winter and you can grow crops on the roof because the house is covered in mud (wow!). For 2 weeks when I was there (during the winter in Montana) I woke up earlier than everyone so I can light up their rocket mass heater. A few blocks of wood heats up this mass that dissipates heat throughout the day. The house stays between 66 degrees (coldest) to 72 (warmest) in the morning when the fireplace is on. As a Californian, I never thought there were so much efficiency to be gained from something as simple as a fireplace. They lived a healthy lifestyle with minimal waste and energy usage and it helped inspire me to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Just a really cool experience! I'm going back again this summer for their conference: https://wheaton-labs.com/permaculture-design-course/ https://wheaton-labs.com/permaculture-design-course/ Permaculture is really awesome.
- hotz 6y agoLiberals really do live in a bubble. "Emergency," will join "racism" in losing its meaning through overuse.
- dang 6y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamewar comments to HN? You've been doing it a lot and we ban that sort of account, because it's not the intended use of the site. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
- 0xbadc0de5 6y agoSciAm posting such obvious click-bait really only seems to confirm that they've joined the likes of PopSci in terms of chasing sensationalism. If you're whining into the ether about how humanity is doomed, I have good news for you! People just like you have been predicting the end of days since the dawn of time - and they've all been wrong. Every time. If you believe that climate change is the most serious problem humanity has ever faced, then you should pursue a career that helps move us toward a more desirable future. I'm not talking about politics or activism (or any other form of coercion) either. Pursue a career in energy or material science or agriculture - something genuinely challenging and genuinely meaningful - and make a difference. Have kids. Teach them what you know about how to innovate. Teach them how to be better stewards of the planet than you have been. Teach them to be the change they would like to see in the world.
- baix777 6y agoPeople weren't saying we are doomed, but were saying are doomed if we don't do anything about an issue. For example, if the birds are dying out because of ddt, we eliminate ddt. If the ozone layer is disappearing from the atmosphere, then we try to eliminate certain gases that destroy the the ozone layer. If we find out certain chemicals cause cancer then we try to clean up the chemicals and reduce the creation of those chemicals. And there are always people that say these obvious issues aren't a problem even with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. People don't want to understand science. But we are still here because there are enough people that can recognize and fix out mistakes. And global climate change is one of the biggest mistakes humankind has made. As a side note, do people think Russian trolls have invaded this site to foster dissension? If any group of people could figure this out the people on this site could.
- vladTheInhaler 6y agoAnd everyone who has played Russian roulette will tell you that it's perfectly harmless. Every time. Strange that you consider advocacy to be both "whining into the ether" and also "coercion". Do you outsource all your personal decisions to whoever happens to be waving a sign outside city hall? If you don't have the strength to make your own choices in the face of a few eco-friendly Chevron commercials or people sharing memes on Facebook, then they aren't your real problem. Many of the people "whining into the ether" are already doing those "genuinely meaningful" things. They're calling for you to come join them.
- hntroll666 6y agoIf there were a climate emergency, it would be unnecessary to run a headline saying so. They're running this headline precisely because there isn't an emergency, but they'd like you to believe there is despite not seeing anything to indicate it with your own eyes. But if I'm wrong, I'd love to see it. Step outside and snap a picture of the havoc the climate emergency is wreaking where you live. Why would Scientific American want to needlessly pump fear? Well, the alleged cure for our alleged ailments is... all the things that leftists have always wanted to do anyway. Little Hitlers in this thread seem to be licking their lips at the possibility of having some good reason to control the lives of others. This thread is a good example of one of the psychoses that grips HN. Doomsday cultists thinking themselves sophisticated and elevated in morality.
- orwin 6y agoCO2 have almost no greenhouse effect in low mesosphere. In high mesosphere/stratosphere, however, he is a high, net contributor to the GH effect. CO2 surplus also takes 15 to 25 year to go up to the high mesosphere. That mean that a climate drift we experience today is not to consequence of the CO2 we put in the atmosphere last year, but the carbon we put in year 2000. You will never see the 2020 climate again, neither will your children or grandchildren. If we did act today, drastically (we won't), maybe we will stabilise 2040 climate over a long period of time. in 2040 wet-bulb temperature is only reached a dozen day a year in a few 3rd world countries, nothing to worry about if you don't have familly in SA, West Africa, India or Indonesia. 2060s climate will be sightly harsher if you have family in Florida, but as long as their air conditioner doesn't fall apart and they don't go out for more than an hour, they should survive. Maybe by 2080 we will have stabilized the climate. The other issues might be non-factor with enough technology (crop failing can be managed better, sea rise can be handled). If we don't follow though, this will be harsher than wet-bulb temperature in few area of the world.
- hntroll666 6y agoSo, twenty years hence, if the expected higher temperatures fail to materialize, would you consider that adequate falsification of the CO2 hypothesis?
- nemo44x 6y agoThis so called climate emergency isn’t a falsifiable theory. So why is an apparent science journal committing to it? We know putting carbon in the air has an inverse square relation to temperature increases. We can prove this. So why not focus on the actual science instead of debasing yourself further? (2+2 can equal 5 was a recent position this journal took) Do actual science, please.
- mimikatz 6y agoI thought we were already doomed and past the point where any change would matter 5 years ago? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CXRaTnKDXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CXRaTnKDXA Sure it is fiction, but a real take by people and that aired 6 years ago.
- GoodJokes 6y agoLiterally an opinion article that says its a scientific article.