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Overly dramatic articles like this do a disservice to helping convince people to be more proactive about climate change. There’s obviously no data going back 1

Overly dramatic articles like this do a disservice to helping convince people to be more proactive about climate change. There’s obviously no data going back 1200 years and the temperature proxies used, like ice cores, or tree rings, haven’t been consistently reliable. The truth is, no one knows what the annual temps of major cities were before about 1870. Real scientists lack the hubris to be sure of basic truths like whether dinosaurs were warm blooded or cold blooded, how general anesthesia works, how great whites mate, or even why we sleep, much less the exact ebbs and flows of 350,000 daily temperatures. So for these scientists to say they have an understanding of what the previous thousand years temps were before that, turns the science into faith and adds fuel to those who argue climate science is more religion than science. Focusing on the last 50 years is more than enough quality data to definitively prove the world is getting hotter, start there. Then provide a list of 3 basic things people can do to help lower temps themselves. ie, Campaign for nuclear power. Eat less meat, Adjust your thermostat, Change your tires, Buy an electric car, Buy better bulbs, Plant trees with friends.

linuxftw 5y ago
Much of the northern hemisphere was under ice thousands of years ago. Of course the Earth is warming, it has been warming since the end of the last ice age. 99% of the worlds ice coverage melted before 1900, and some people are ringing alarm bells because the remaining 1% is melting faster than whatever completely fabricated baseline.
- treeman79 5y ago
  A look at historical sea levels is a fun way to outrage people. https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-does-present-glacier-extent-and-sea-level-compare-extent-glaciers-and-global-sea-level?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-does-present-glacier-extent-an...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ryantgtg 5y ago
  Sounds like a good reason to minimize pollutants and use cleaner, renewable resources.
abeppu 5y ago
> There’s obviously no data going back 1200 years and the temperature proxies used, like ice cores, or tree rings, haven’t been consistently reliable. Not my area, but what does it mean to say they're not consistently reliable if we don't have the ground truth to compare them with? Especially given that, when talking about a given region, you may only have one imperfect signal? But aside from that, the claim that "this current drought is potentially on track to become the worst that we’ve seen in at least 1,200 years" doesn't say anything specifically about temperatures. It would be nice if they had explicitly clarified what "worst" means. Do we have better ways to judge how _wet_ years or decades were a millennia ago, for given regions? You're accusing the cited experts from turning the issue into a faith, but the second and third scientists both mention the way that the current observations are in line with prior, model-based predictions. That sounds like falsifiable hypotheses being held up to new information. Isn't that almost the essence of science?
- Flatcircle 5y ago
  It’s basically career suicide to spend any time at all trying to disprove anything in climate science. Who’s gonna fund you? Exxon Mobile? So the climate scientists have carte blanche to provide data and analysis with little fear of critical pushback. Prestigious science academies and ad hoc expert committees deliver reports that say (or imply), first, that meaningful trends can be identified, and, second, that the rates and magnitudes of temperature increase observed are ipso facto unusual or dangerous. “To compare late 20th century warming with earlier geological warm events requires the use of local proxy data, because no global temperature statistics are available prior to the 20th century. One of the best such datasets that extends over an adequate period of time is the oxygen isotope record from the Greenland ice core already referred to (Grootes et al, 1993; Davis and Bohling, 2001). These data show a ~1500 year warming-cooling cycle of 1 - 2°C magnitude. This cyclicity is probably of solar origin (Bond et al, 2001; Singer and Avery, 2006), and the late 20th century warming period represents a peak within it (Figure 10). Consistent with this, Solanki et al (2004) have shown that the activity of the sun has been building since the end of the Little Ice Age in the late 19th century, and that over the last 60 years it has been at its strongest since the early Holocene, c. 8000 ybp. In turn, Svensmark (2007, and other papers) has identified a possible mechanism whereby solar activity affects cosmic ray influx which in turn controls the cloud formation that acts as one of the Earth’s main thermostats. The Greenland ice core data also reveal typical rates of temperature change of up to 2.5°C/century for periods of cooling and warming of decadal to centennial time span (Figure 11). In Greenland, then, the late 20th century warming proceeded at unalarming rates to reach a peak that was probably cooler than were the preceding Minoan, Mediaeval and Roman warm periods. And at the other pole, in Antarctica, similar ice core evidence shows that late 20th century temperature was up to 5°C cooler than temperature highs associated with geologically recent interglacial periods (Watanabe et al, 2003). Therefore, the magnitude of the late 20th century warming, and its rate of change, both fall well within known natural limits. In addition, the late 20th century warming that is widely attributed to human greenhouse emissions is of similar rate and magnitude to an earlier natural warming between 1905 and 1940; in relationship to which, it has been shown that the warmest decade of the last 1250 years in the European Alps was the 1940s rather than the 1990s (Buntgen et al, 2006). The IPCC’s (2001, p 97) prescient diagnosis therefore remains true today: The fact that the global mean temperature has increased since the late 19th century and that other trends have been observed does not necessarily mean that an anthropogenic effect on the climate system has been identified. Climate has always varied on all time-scales, so the observed change may be natural. A more detailed analysis is required to provide evidence of a human impact. “" But who’s gonna dispute any of that said analysis? Basically it's the Big Labowski meme, "You're not wrong, you're just a dick," because at the end of the day, being ecologically aware, and trying to minimize human's environmental footprint is still a noble cause and will still effect our grandchildren even if the end result is only cleaner air, cleaner water, and less trash in our communities.
zamalek 5y ago
Anything that was growing, or dying, or depositing, 1200 years ago was pretty familiar with the temperature. Direct observation is not the only form of measurement.
canadianfella 5y ago
This comment is ridiculous. You’re obviously not a scientist.
pvaldes 5y ago
> There’s obviously no data going back 1200 years Historical period. Rome, Egypt, Mayans wrote everything related with taxes and management, including every bad year for agriculture or origin of raw matters. Several 2000 to 4000 Yo documents are available. 12300 years back register: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology 45000 years back fauna catalogue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting 800000 years back register: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core And to look backwards further there is the fossil register, including some species so similar than extant ones that we can have a good clues about the climate where they grow, because they are still among us.
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  Ice cores are interesting. I've given that a bit of thought and what I can't get past is the possibility that the cores show stored CO2 but not CO2 in the air at the time. This was also brought up in a couple PBS space time episodes and a documentary I can't recall the name of. Basically the storage of CO2 is not always related to the CO2 in the atmosphere and there are so many contributing and confounding factors that it is really hard to correlate with certainty. It is entirely possible that there have been brief periods (sub 1k years) that had large spikes of C02 that are not represented by the ice core and sea floor samples. I am not suggesting that core samples are invalid, rather that we may be missing some variables. I am certainly no expert on this topic.
vegetablepotpie 5y ago
> Eat less meat, Adjust your thermostat, Change your tires, Buy an electric car, Buy better bulbs, Plant trees with friends. Those are all good things, and we should do that, but the vast majority of emissions come from commerce and industry and not consumers. The single most important thing for people to do is to use whatever influence they have to compel governments, and institutions to eliminate carbon emissions. > Campaign for nuclear power. It takes a decade to build a plant. For this to work, we need to speed this up. Scrutinizing regulations and bringing down capital investment needed to build plants could help. But wind and solar can be deployed now, and can be built quickly and I think that, in combination with storage, is our best hope.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  In my state of California, 28% of the GHGs are from light passenger vehicles, 7.7% from agriculture (virtually all of that for animal production), 6.1% for direct residential emissions (natural gas cooking and heating) and 15% for electric generation, of which a third goes to residential loads. That means the majority of the GHG emissions in California are under the direct control of individuals, not commerce and industry.
  - mwint 5y ago
    What percentage from wildfires?
    - sgrove 5y ago
      Quite an interesting question as well. Looks like SF Chronicle did an article on it [0] and estimates 111,700,000 metric tons released last year (a record year with 4.2 million acres burned). I don't know how that fits into the overall % the the OP shared, but it'd be good to factor into the plan since it's likely to make things worse. [0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/California-wildfires-emitted-a-huge-amount-of-15775044.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Cal...
    - jeffbee 5y ago
rufus_foreman 5y ago
>> Eat less meat, Adjust your thermostat, Change your tires, Buy an electric car, Buy better bulbs, Plant trees with friends I'm not going to be doing any of those things.
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago
  I’ll eat more pasture raised meat, which sequesters carbon and improves soil health.
  - rufus_foreman 5y ago
    You could eat less meat, pasture raised or not.
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      Not too fast. New Zealand produces beef and diary. It’s trashing the waterways and producing methane at an alarming rate. It’s really bad for the environment.
Bukhmanizer 5y ago
This is terrible advice. So first of all, scientists that study phenomena that started before 1870 are “real” scientists. Not having absolute certainty over something doesn’t mean yours or my opinion has the same weight as a significant amount of evidence that points to a trend over time. Secondly, telling people to eat less meat, and adjust their thermostat does basically nothing to combat climate change. The amount an individual affects the climate is absolutely trivial compared to the amount that corporations affect the climate. As far as I can tell, most of these actions are best for making people feel like they are making a difference, while doing nothing in reality. It is much more effective to increase accountability over corporations affect on the environment than individual humans.
- jdavis703 5y ago
  Most of the companies that are claimed to be the biggest polluters are energy providers. This is energy that is ultimately used to produce meat, drive cars and cool our houses. Consumers can either consume less or they can pay more for low/no carbon goods, which has the side effect of lowering consumption.
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    Goverments need to push a massive funding for accelerating our transition of energy to renewable sources. While in parallel pushing for low carbon manufacturing and agriculture techniques to be put into use by corporations.
  - TheAceOfHearts 5y ago
    When dealing with systemic issues of this magnitude taking individual action is often insufficient to affect meaningful change. Some people simply can't afford it or the options are inaccessible due to geographical constraints. A good example of this is exposure to harmful plastics. As an individual it's impossible for me to fully avoid all plastic exposure to my body and food.
- lucb1e 5y ago
  > telling people to eat less meat [...] does basically nothing to combat climate change Are you sure? The main source of deforestation is to use the land for livestock[1], as far as I know the reason is that previously-poor countries are getting rich enough to buy meat (semi-)regularly. Yet you say that eating less meat will do nothing but make you feel good? Seems to me it would help against deforestation if nothing else. But is deforestation bad in the context of climate change? [2] > Averaged over 2015—2017, global loss of tropical forests contributed about 4.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year (or about 8-10% of annual human emissions of carbon dioxide). 10% of our current emissions is deforestation?! The change in forest cover, so the extra consumption of meat (not the current consumption)? Frankly this number seems too high. The source of this source checks out at least[3] and it also seems to match with this .gov site [4] at first glance. But I've spent 20 minutes on finding numbers now, it's someone else's turn. I'd be happy to know if it's wrong. Until such time, please check your facts before talking to other people about just leaning back and letting someone else solve the problem because your contribution "does nothing in reality". Some things like plugging out chargers when not in use are indeed feel-good. Other things that we all do are not. Each individual contribution is obviously meaningless, but we're not talking about Jesus cutting out his individual meat consumption and thereby saving us all, nor do we all have to play Jesus either. Skip meat one day of the week where you would normally have meat, and you already decrease your consumption by >10%. Or replace half your beef-based meals with poultry, that also saves a shitton of CO2e. Obviously this is not the only thing we need to do. But let's not put on blindfolds and just continue what we've been doing until now while the rest of the world also wants to start doing that. [1] "agriculture accounts for around 85% of deforestation worldwide. And while this can mostly be attributed to meat production (beef in particular)" https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/deforestation-causes https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/deforestation-cause... [2] https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/deforestation/ https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/deforestation/ [3] https://www.wri.org/insights/numbers-value-tropical-forests-climate-change-equation https://www.wri.org/insights/numbers-value-tropical-forests-... [4] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
HWR_14 5y ago
> There’s obviously no data going back 1200 years Yes, it's not like there were societies with writing in Europe, Asia, Africa or the Americas back then (probably Oceania too, but they may have been 100% oral tradition). It's not like they would notice and write down major weather events. It's not like we have reports about supernovas from 1400 years ago.
- hidden_news 5y ago
  Game set match! Wow
oezi 5y ago
I think you are underestimating the severity of climate change. The climate science models are likely too cautious in general with the exception of considering a technological breakthrough to save us. I find it curious that many comments echo similar denials. I never understand what the point is in arguing with science results unless you are working in the field yourself. It is as if mathematicians would see a barrage of comments telling them their proofs are obviously wrong. > ie, Campaign for nuclear power. Eat less meat, Adjust your thermostat, Change your tires, Buy an electric car, Buy better bulbs, Plant trees with friends. Nuclear has no chance to compete with today's renewables which are on aggressive downward trajectories in price and aren't restricted by long planning cycles. The missing things in your lists are a general reduction in consumption, a reduction in home size, a reduction in travel.
- rajin444 5y ago
  > I think you are underestimating the severity of climate change. The climate science models are likely too cautious in general with the exception of considering a technological breakthrough to save us. You have about as much ground as the parent to state this. You’re making an appeal to authority. > I find it curious that many comments echo similar denials. I never understand what the point is in arguing with science results unless you are working in the field yourself. I agree. The root issue is that the article and more broadly media discussing science. That should not be happening as well, but it is, so the parents post is warranted. Science is done by humans who are biased. 99% of people cannnot argue with scientists from first principles, so they’re left with trust which is sorely lacking. They naturally start to investigate on their own. What else can they do?
  - oezi 5y ago
    > You’re making an appeal to authority Yes, what is wrong with that? You cannot rationalize the climate change discussion. The information density of the argument cannot be much compressed than what is tomes of scientific literature. So you need to build trust in authorities and just believe them. This is better than believing your or soembody else's train of thought in an online discussion. > What else can they do? No, why do you need to investigate on your own? Nobody does that, and they shouldn't. Heck most people would have a hard time finding the federal code which says that you have to stop at a stop sign. The good thing is that you don't need to because it says Stop and people you trust such as a driving instructor told you. > The root issue is that the article and more broadly media discussing science. No, the article is giving statements by scientists that are meant to be approachable to lay-people. There isn't anything bad with that. In particular, the OPs point that a statement such as "maybe the worst drought since 1200 years" (which might as well be) is doing a disservice to fighting climate change, is troubling. It is as if the firefighters are telling you to get out of your house because it is burning, but you are staying because they used bad grammar in their request to you.
secnono 5y ago
Less people, about 7 billion less people. If we had 7 billion less people everything would be fine. Since humans have no natural predator our reproduction is uncontrolled. Any time a species can reproduce at will with no control bad things happen to their environment, bad things which ultimately will correct the uncontrolled population growth. Humans inhabited the entire planet and our uncontrolled population growth impacts the entire planet, which is why the climate of the entire planet is impacted. What's happening with the environment is EXACTLY what should be happening with the planet as a response to humans uncontrolled population growth. The unfortunate side effect is that we are going to take down a lot of other species with us.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- OrvalWintermute 5y ago
  No natural predators? Nile Crocodiles Saltwater Crocodiles hippopotami Wolves Mosquitoes (by far the most deadly) have all preyed on humans for tens of thousands of years https://www.npr.org/2019/08/04/748002281/a-history-of-the-mosquito-our-deadliest-predator https://www.npr.org/2019/08/04/748002281/a-history-of-the-mo... https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-2806_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-2806_article

linuxftw 5y ago

Much of the northern hemisphere was under ice thousands of years ago. Of course the Earth is warming, it has been warming since the end of the last ice age. 99% of the worlds ice coverage melted before 1900, and some people are ringing alarm bells because the remaining 1% is melting faster than whatever completely fabricated baseline.

treeman79 5y ago
A look at historical sea levels is a fun way to outrage people. https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-does-present-glacier-extent-and-sea-level-compare-extent-glaciers-and-global-sea-level?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-does-present-glacier-extent-an...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ryantgtg 5y ago
Sounds like a good reason to minimize pollutants and use cleaner, renewable resources.

abeppu 5y ago

> There’s obviously no data going back 1200 years and the temperature proxies used, like ice cores, or tree rings, haven’t been consistently reliable. Not my area, but what does it mean to say they're not consistently reliable if we don't have the ground truth to compare them with? Especially given that, when talking about a given region, you may only have one imperfect signal? But aside from that, the claim that "this current drought is potentially on track to become the worst that we’ve seen in at least 1,200 years" doesn't say anything specifically about temperatures. It would be nice if they had explicitly clarified what "worst" means. Do we have better ways to judge how _wet_ years or decades were a millennia ago, for given regions? You're accusing the cited experts from turning the issue into a faith, but the second and third scientists both mention the way that the current observations are in line with prior, model-based predictions. That sounds like falsifiable hypotheses being held up to new information. Isn't that almost the essence of science?

Flatcircle 5y ago
It’s basically career suicide to spend any time at all trying to disprove anything in climate science. Who’s gonna fund you? Exxon Mobile? So the climate scientists have carte blanche to provide data and analysis with little fear of critical pushback. Prestigious science academies and ad hoc expert committees deliver reports that say (or imply), first, that meaningful trends can be identified, and, second, that the rates and magnitudes of temperature increase observed are ipso facto unusual or dangerous. “To compare late 20th century warming with earlier geological warm events requires the use of local proxy data, because no global temperature statistics are available prior to the 20th century. One of the best such datasets that extends over an adequate period of time is the oxygen isotope record from the Greenland ice core already referred to (Grootes et al, 1993; Davis and Bohling, 2001). These data show a ~1500 year warming-cooling cycle of 1 - 2°C magnitude. This cyclicity is probably of solar origin (Bond et al, 2001; Singer and Avery, 2006), and the late 20th century warming period represents a peak within it (Figure 10). Consistent with this, Solanki et al (2004) have shown that the activity of the sun has been building since the end of the Little Ice Age in the late 19th century, and that over the last 60 years it has been at its strongest since the early Holocene, c. 8000 ybp. In turn, Svensmark (2007, and other papers) has identified a possible mechanism whereby solar activity affects cosmic ray influx which in turn controls the cloud formation that acts as one of the Earth’s main thermostats. The Greenland ice core data also reveal typical rates of temperature change of up to 2.5°C/century for periods of cooling and warming of decadal to centennial time span (Figure 11). In Greenland, then, the late 20th century warming proceeded at unalarming rates to reach a peak that was probably cooler than were the preceding Minoan, Mediaeval and Roman warm periods. And at the other pole, in Antarctica, similar ice core evidence shows that late 20th century temperature was up to 5°C cooler than temperature highs associated with geologically recent interglacial periods (Watanabe et al, 2003). Therefore, the magnitude of the late 20th century warming, and its rate of change, both fall well within known natural limits. In addition, the late 20th century warming that is widely attributed to human greenhouse emissions is of similar rate and magnitude to an earlier natural warming between 1905 and 1940; in relationship to which, it has been shown that the warmest decade of the last 1250 years in the European Alps was the 1940s rather than the 1990s (Buntgen et al, 2006). The IPCC’s (2001, p 97) prescient diagnosis therefore remains true today: The fact that the global mean temperature has increased since the late 19th century and that other trends have been observed does not necessarily mean that an anthropogenic effect on the climate system has been identified. Climate has always varied on all time-scales, so the observed change may be natural. A more detailed analysis is required to provide evidence of a human impact. “" But who’s gonna dispute any of that said analysis? Basically it's the Big Labowski meme, "You're not wrong, you're just a dick," because at the end of the day, being ecologically aware, and trying to minimize human's environmental footprint is still a noble cause and will still effect our grandchildren even if the end result is only cleaner air, cleaner water, and less trash in our communities.

zamalek 5y ago

Anything that was growing, or dying, or depositing, 1200 years ago was pretty familiar with the temperature. Direct observation is not the only form of measurement.

canadianfella 5y ago

This comment is ridiculous. You’re obviously not a scientist.

pvaldes 5y ago

> There’s obviously no data going back 1200 years Historical period. Rome, Egypt, Mayans wrote everything related with taxes and management, including every bad year for agriculture or origin of raw matters. Several 2000 to 4000 Yo documents are available. 12300 years back register: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology 45000 years back fauna catalogue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting 800000 years back register: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core And to look backwards further there is the fossil register, including some species so similar than extant ones that we can have a good clues about the climate where they grow, because they are still among us.

LinuxBender 5y ago
Ice cores are interesting. I've given that a bit of thought and what I can't get past is the possibility that the cores show stored CO2 but not CO2 in the air at the time. This was also brought up in a couple PBS space time episodes and a documentary I can't recall the name of. Basically the storage of CO2 is not always related to the CO2 in the atmosphere and there are so many contributing and confounding factors that it is really hard to correlate with certainty. It is entirely possible that there have been brief periods (sub 1k years) that had large spikes of C02 that are not represented by the ice core and sea floor samples. I am not suggesting that core samples are invalid, rather that we may be missing some variables. I am certainly no expert on this topic.

vegetablepotpie 5y ago

> Eat less meat, Adjust your thermostat, Change your tires, Buy an electric car, Buy better bulbs, Plant trees with friends. Those are all good things, and we should do that, but the vast majority of emissions come from commerce and industry and not consumers. The single most important thing for people to do is to use whatever influence they have to compel governments, and institutions to eliminate carbon emissions. > Campaign for nuclear power. It takes a decade to build a plant. For this to work, we need to speed this up. Scrutinizing regulations and bringing down capital investment needed to build plants could help. But wind and solar can be deployed now, and can be built quickly and I think that, in combination with storage, is our best hope.

jeffbee 5y ago
In my state of California, 28% of the GHGs are from light passenger vehicles, 7.7% from agriculture (virtually all of that for animal production), 6.1% for direct residential emissions (natural gas cooking and heating) and 15% for electric generation, of which a third goes to residential loads. That means the majority of the GHG emissions in California are under the direct control of individuals, not commerce and industry.
- mwint 5y ago
  What percentage from wildfires?
  - sgrove 5y ago
    Quite an interesting question as well. Looks like SF Chronicle did an article on it [0] and estimates 111,700,000 metric tons released last year (a record year with 4.2 million acres burned). I don't know how that fits into the overall % the the OP shared, but it'd be good to factor into the plan since it's likely to make things worse. [0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/California-wildfires-emitted-a-huge-amount-of-15775044.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Cal...
  - jeffbee 5y ago

rufus_foreman 5y ago

>> Eat less meat, Adjust your thermostat, Change your tires, Buy an electric car, Buy better bulbs, Plant trees with friends I'm not going to be doing any of those things.

ed25519FUUU 5y ago
I’ll eat more pasture raised meat, which sequesters carbon and improves soil health.
- rufus_foreman 5y ago
  You could eat less meat, pasture raised or not.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    Not too fast. New Zealand produces beef and diary. It’s trashing the waterways and producing methane at an alarming rate. It’s really bad for the environment.

Bukhmanizer 5y ago

This is terrible advice. So first of all, scientists that study phenomena that started before 1870 are “real” scientists. Not having absolute certainty over something doesn’t mean yours or my opinion has the same weight as a significant amount of evidence that points to a trend over time. Secondly, telling people to eat less meat, and adjust their thermostat does basically nothing to combat climate change. The amount an individual affects the climate is absolutely trivial compared to the amount that corporations affect the climate. As far as I can tell, most of these actions are best for making people feel like they are making a difference, while doing nothing in reality. It is much more effective to increase accountability over corporations affect on the environment than individual humans.

jdavis703 5y ago
Most of the companies that are claimed to be the biggest polluters are energy providers. This is energy that is ultimately used to produce meat, drive cars and cool our houses. Consumers can either consume less or they can pay more for low/no carbon goods, which has the side effect of lowering consumption.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  Goverments need to push a massive funding for accelerating our transition of energy to renewable sources. While in parallel pushing for low carbon manufacturing and agriculture techniques to be put into use by corporations.
- TheAceOfHearts 5y ago
  When dealing with systemic issues of this magnitude taking individual action is often insufficient to affect meaningful change. Some people simply can't afford it or the options are inaccessible due to geographical constraints. A good example of this is exposure to harmful plastics. As an individual it's impossible for me to fully avoid all plastic exposure to my body and food.
lucb1e 5y ago
> telling people to eat less meat [...] does basically nothing to combat climate change Are you sure? The main source of deforestation is to use the land for livestock[1], as far as I know the reason is that previously-poor countries are getting rich enough to buy meat (semi-)regularly. Yet you say that eating less meat will do nothing but make you feel good? Seems to me it would help against deforestation if nothing else. But is deforestation bad in the context of climate change? [2] > Averaged over 2015—2017, global loss of tropical forests contributed about 4.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year (or about 8-10% of annual human emissions of carbon dioxide). 10% of our current emissions is deforestation?! The change in forest cover, so the extra consumption of meat (not the current consumption)? Frankly this number seems too high. The source of this source checks out at least[3] and it also seems to match with this .gov site [4] at first glance. But I've spent 20 minutes on finding numbers now, it's someone else's turn. I'd be happy to know if it's wrong. Until such time, please check your facts before talking to other people about just leaning back and letting someone else solve the problem because your contribution "does nothing in reality". Some things like plugging out chargers when not in use are indeed feel-good. Other things that we all do are not. Each individual contribution is obviously meaningless, but we're not talking about Jesus cutting out his individual meat consumption and thereby saving us all, nor do we all have to play Jesus either. Skip meat one day of the week where you would normally have meat, and you already decrease your consumption by >10%. Or replace half your beef-based meals with poultry, that also saves a shitton of CO2e. Obviously this is not the only thing we need to do. But let's not put on blindfolds and just continue what we've been doing until now while the rest of the world also wants to start doing that. [1] "agriculture accounts for around 85% of deforestation worldwide. And while this can mostly be attributed to meat production (beef in particular)" https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/deforestation-causes https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/deforestation-cause... [2] https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/deforestation/ https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/deforestation/ [3] https://www.wri.org/insights/numbers-value-tropical-forests-climate-change-equation https://www.wri.org/insights/numbers-value-tropical-forests-... [4] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...

HWR_14 5y ago

> There’s obviously no data going back 1200 years Yes, it's not like there were societies with writing in Europe, Asia, Africa or the Americas back then (probably Oceania too, but they may have been 100% oral tradition). It's not like they would notice and write down major weather events. It's not like we have reports about supernovas from 1400 years ago.

hidden_news 5y ago
Game set match! Wow

oezi 5y ago

I think you are underestimating the severity of climate change. The climate science models are likely too cautious in general with the exception of considering a technological breakthrough to save us. I find it curious that many comments echo similar denials. I never understand what the point is in arguing with science results unless you are working in the field yourself. It is as if mathematicians would see a barrage of comments telling them their proofs are obviously wrong. > ie, Campaign for nuclear power. Eat less meat, Adjust your thermostat, Change your tires, Buy an electric car, Buy better bulbs, Plant trees with friends. Nuclear has no chance to compete with today's renewables which are on aggressive downward trajectories in price and aren't restricted by long planning cycles. The missing things in your lists are a general reduction in consumption, a reduction in home size, a reduction in travel.

rajin444 5y ago
> I think you are underestimating the severity of climate change. The climate science models are likely too cautious in general with the exception of considering a technological breakthrough to save us. You have about as much ground as the parent to state this. You’re making an appeal to authority. > I find it curious that many comments echo similar denials. I never understand what the point is in arguing with science results unless you are working in the field yourself. I agree. The root issue is that the article and more broadly media discussing science. That should not be happening as well, but it is, so the parents post is warranted. Science is done by humans who are biased. 99% of people cannnot argue with scientists from first principles, so they’re left with trust which is sorely lacking. They naturally start to investigate on their own. What else can they do?
- oezi 5y ago
  > You’re making an appeal to authority Yes, what is wrong with that? You cannot rationalize the climate change discussion. The information density of the argument cannot be much compressed than what is tomes of scientific literature. So you need to build trust in authorities and just believe them. This is better than believing your or soembody else's train of thought in an online discussion. > What else can they do? No, why do you need to investigate on your own? Nobody does that, and they shouldn't. Heck most people would have a hard time finding the federal code which says that you have to stop at a stop sign. The good thing is that you don't need to because it says Stop and people you trust such as a driving instructor told you. > The root issue is that the article and more broadly media discussing science. No, the article is giving statements by scientists that are meant to be approachable to lay-people. There isn't anything bad with that. In particular, the OPs point that a statement such as "maybe the worst drought since 1200 years" (which might as well be) is doing a disservice to fighting climate change, is troubling. It is as if the firefighters are telling you to get out of your house because it is burning, but you are staying because they used bad grammar in their request to you.

secnono 5y ago

Less people, about 7 billion less people. If we had 7 billion less people everything would be fine. Since humans have no natural predator our reproduction is uncontrolled. Any time a species can reproduce at will with no control bad things happen to their environment, bad things which ultimately will correct the uncontrolled population growth. Humans inhabited the entire planet and our uncontrolled population growth impacts the entire planet, which is why the climate of the entire planet is impacted. What's happening with the environment is EXACTLY what should be happening with the planet as a response to humans uncontrolled population growth. The unfortunate side effect is that we are going to take down a lot of other species with us.

deleted 5y ago
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OrvalWintermute 5y ago
No natural predators? Nile Crocodiles Saltwater Crocodiles hippopotami Wolves Mosquitoes (by far the most deadly) have all preyed on humans for tens of thousands of years https://www.npr.org/2019/08/04/748002281/a-history-of-the-mosquito-our-deadliest-predator https://www.npr.org/2019/08/04/748002281/a-history-of-the-mo... https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-2806_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-2806_article