6 ms·

> One reason for this is that in Herrington’s words, “the scenarios do not significantly diverge until 2020.” After that point, the scenarios start to diverge d

> One reason for this is that in Herrington’s words, “the scenarios do not significantly diverge until 2020.” After that point, the scenarios start to diverge drastically ... This sounds more like a selection bias. If any model drastically diverged from reality earlier, then it would have been already discarded, and we won't be talking about it. So, we'll be only talking about models that start to diverge around 2020 or later. I.e., the fact that these models start to diverge around "now" doesn't mean we're nearing some ominous inflection point - it's just a consequence of "hindsight is 20/20."

iaw 5y ago
Having dabbled with chaotic heavily dynamic systems in college I actually disagree. It may be that our system was in a relatively stable highly linear regime and we just knocked it out into a non-linear chaotic region that we can't escape even if we cut emissions entirely. Chaotic systems do some scary unpredictable things, I wish I shared your confidence.
- yongjik 5y ago
  Sure, I do agree that the world, especially the climate system, may veer off into uncharted territory soon. (Maybe it already started.) I'm just saying these particular "predictions" don't seem to contain any useful information. Anyone can say "things can go wrong." Hell, I can say that, and I may even be right.
  - dvt 5y ago
    > Hell, I can say that, and I may even be right. Not only may you be right, you are in fact guaranteed to be right. Of course, predicting exactly when things go wrong is another ballgame altogether. Edit: the downvotes on HN are becoming so reactionary lately, it feels like it's slowly turning into reddit. Or maybe people just aren't familiar with Poincaré recurrence, etc.?
    - Klinky 5y ago
      Perhaps the uncouth voting on HN is a further sign of impending societal collapse.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ximeng 5y ago
      Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills. HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - premium-gecko 5y ago
      For the preservation of (inauthentic) harmony, HN has a special rule that says you can't mention the roving mob of the HN equivalent of Twitter blue checkmarks who don't have any substantive rebuttal, but just don't want your comment to be seen, so they downvote or flag it. It's common knowledge, but you can't acknowledge it, or you get the treatment.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    I think you are right. I guess it depends on specificity of predictions. In one white paper I called some of the current trends of 2021 ( granted, I personally believed they were relatively apparent, but I did have some arguments over my assumptions ).
- username90 5y ago
  This is just the Mayan calendar phenomena. Just because something is old and accurate up until today doesn't meant that it actually predicts the end of the world.
  - schoen 5y ago
    The Mayan calendar also doesn't predict the world would end in 2012. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon#Maya_references_to_b%CA%BCak%CA%BCtun_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon#Maya_reference... There is just one inscription predicting that a particular god would do something (that's not clearly understood) at that time. Charles Mann suggested that it could be just as plausible to interpret the "investiture" when this god comes to Earth as a kind of party or celebration, and not a cataclysm.
- premium-gecko 5y ago
  > we just knocked it out into a non-linear chaotic region What was supposed to have done that? Adding 100 ppm of CO2?
mercy_dude 5y ago
I am a huge fan of Nassim Taleb and his book Fooled By Randomness really impacted the way I look at a lot of doom and gloom scenarios. His notion of fat tailed events/tail risks along with survivors confirmation bias is a central theme of many of the risks he describes. So as an example, if in October 2019 someone said a virus outbreak that could be largely prevented would be lead cause of over 100k deaths over climate change, you would be laughed at. Yet here we are. The largest hidden risk is often what is right in front of our eyes that we don’t acknowledge as a risk. For example if there is a >9 magnitude earthquake due to San Andreas fault, I have zero doubt California has any preparedness and if will even be able to airlift millions of people even though everyone knows it’s a ticking time bomb.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  > would be lead cause of over 100k deaths over climate change What does that even mean?
  - mercy_dude 5y ago
    It means if one was asked to bet on an event between 100k death from a virus outbreak and 100k death from climate change, one would place their bet largely on climate change. Even though we have been warned the hidden systemic risk of pandemic preparedness l.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - emteycz 5y ago
      You live in a bubble. The majority of people still deny climate change entirely.
      - wongarsu 5y ago
        Source? A quick google search would suggest that around 70% of Americans agree that climate change is real. That's way too low, but still a solid majority. According to an UN poll, 65% of Americans and 64% of the world think that climate change is a global emergency [1]. In every questioned country, a majority said it's a global emergency. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/27/un-global-climate-poll-peoples-voice-is-clear-they-want-action https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/27/un-globa...
xbpx 5y ago
Luckily there are many models that show divergence from the norm many years ago and continue to show stable and accurate predictions. Like the IPCC reports, and well, most climate CO2 models. Now it's less about determining if divergence is occuring and more about the slope of the divergence. Will we have societal collapse at 2 degrees or 3 degrees warming seems speculative but the general consensus is that it'll be in range of bad to terrible to apocalypse. All eyes on those slope lines! And yeh, phone your representatives and demand faster and more consequntial action!!
- nr2x 5y ago
  I’ve lost hope in politics, I’m buying a sturdy helmet and hoping for the best.
  - webinvest 5y ago
    Yeah I watched a cspan question and answer session and one dinosaur-aged Republican representative from West Palm Beach Florida sounded so backwards. He was saying that we shouldn’t transition to green energy because of all the coal miner jobs that will be displaced by green energy jobs. It seemed like he was just being difficult or corrupt because Florida doesn’t even have any coal mines or coal mining jobs! Also, it’s not like people can’t go get new income sources or start new businesses.. I think the issue is that many of these retirement-age folks don’t care because they aren’t expecting repercussions or negative externalities in their remaining short lifespan. The situation around global warming would be a lot different if the environmentalist Al Gore hadn’t lost to conservative George Bush. The election hinged on a narrow Florida Supreme Court decision of 5-4 over the votes and controversial butterfly ballots. Based on that decision, Bush won the USA presidential election by only 537 votes. The 3rd party spoiler effect from the Green Party was also to blame since Florida isn’t yet advanced enough to have ranked-choice voting.
    - xxpor 5y ago
      US Supreme Court. And there's a very good chance the entire world look different if Gore won. There may have not been a 9/11, for one. There would have certainly not been an Iraq war.

iaw 5y ago

Having dabbled with chaotic heavily dynamic systems in college I actually disagree. It may be that our system was in a relatively stable highly linear regime and we just knocked it out into a non-linear chaotic region that we can't escape even if we cut emissions entirely. Chaotic systems do some scary unpredictable things, I wish I shared your confidence.

yongjik 5y ago
Sure, I do agree that the world, especially the climate system, may veer off into uncharted territory soon. (Maybe it already started.) I'm just saying these particular "predictions" don't seem to contain any useful information. Anyone can say "things can go wrong." Hell, I can say that, and I may even be right.
- dvt 5y ago
  > Hell, I can say that, and I may even be right. Not only may you be right, you are in fact guaranteed to be right. Of course, predicting exactly when things go wrong is another ballgame altogether. Edit: the downvotes on HN are becoming so reactionary lately, it feels like it's slowly turning into reddit. Or maybe people just aren't familiar with Poincaré recurrence, etc.?
  - Klinky 5y ago
    Perhaps the uncouth voting on HN is a further sign of impending societal collapse.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ximeng 5y ago
    Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills. HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - premium-gecko 5y ago
    For the preservation of (inauthentic) harmony, HN has a special rule that says you can't mention the roving mob of the HN equivalent of Twitter blue checkmarks who don't have any substantive rebuttal, but just don't want your comment to be seen, so they downvote or flag it. It's common knowledge, but you can't acknowledge it, or you get the treatment.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  I think you are right. I guess it depends on specificity of predictions. In one white paper I called some of the current trends of 2021 ( granted, I personally believed they were relatively apparent, but I did have some arguments over my assumptions ).
username90 5y ago
This is just the Mayan calendar phenomena. Just because something is old and accurate up until today doesn't meant that it actually predicts the end of the world.
- schoen 5y ago
  The Mayan calendar also doesn't predict the world would end in 2012. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon#Maya_references_to_b%CA%BCak%CA%BCtun_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon#Maya_reference... There is just one inscription predicting that a particular god would do something (that's not clearly understood) at that time. Charles Mann suggested that it could be just as plausible to interpret the "investiture" when this god comes to Earth as a kind of party or celebration, and not a cataclysm.
premium-gecko 5y ago
> we just knocked it out into a non-linear chaotic region What was supposed to have done that? Adding 100 ppm of CO2?

mercy_dude 5y ago

I am a huge fan of Nassim Taleb and his book Fooled By Randomness really impacted the way I look at a lot of doom and gloom scenarios. His notion of fat tailed events/tail risks along with survivors confirmation bias is a central theme of many of the risks he describes. So as an example, if in October 2019 someone said a virus outbreak that could be largely prevented would be lead cause of over 100k deaths over climate change, you would be laughed at. Yet here we are. The largest hidden risk is often what is right in front of our eyes that we don’t acknowledge as a risk. For example if there is a >9 magnitude earthquake due to San Andreas fault, I have zero doubt California has any preparedness and if will even be able to airlift millions of people even though everyone knows it’s a ticking time bomb.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
> would be lead cause of over 100k deaths over climate change What does that even mean?
- mercy_dude 5y ago
  It means if one was asked to bet on an event between 100k death from a virus outbreak and 100k death from climate change, one would place their bet largely on climate change. Even though we have been warned the hidden systemic risk of pandemic preparedness l.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - emteycz 5y ago
    You live in a bubble. The majority of people still deny climate change entirely.
    - wongarsu 5y ago
      Source? A quick google search would suggest that around 70% of Americans agree that climate change is real. That's way too low, but still a solid majority. According to an UN poll, 65% of Americans and 64% of the world think that climate change is a global emergency [1]. In every questioned country, a majority said it's a global emergency. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/27/un-global-climate-poll-peoples-voice-is-clear-they-want-action https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/27/un-globa...

xbpx 5y ago

Luckily there are many models that show divergence from the norm many years ago and continue to show stable and accurate predictions. Like the IPCC reports, and well, most climate CO2 models. Now it's less about determining if divergence is occuring and more about the slope of the divergence. Will we have societal collapse at 2 degrees or 3 degrees warming seems speculative but the general consensus is that it'll be in range of bad to terrible to apocalypse. All eyes on those slope lines! And yeh, phone your representatives and demand faster and more consequntial action!!

nr2x 5y ago
I’ve lost hope in politics, I’m buying a sturdy helmet and hoping for the best.
- webinvest 5y ago
  Yeah I watched a cspan question and answer session and one dinosaur-aged Republican representative from West Palm Beach Florida sounded so backwards. He was saying that we shouldn’t transition to green energy because of all the coal miner jobs that will be displaced by green energy jobs. It seemed like he was just being difficult or corrupt because Florida doesn’t even have any coal mines or coal mining jobs! Also, it’s not like people can’t go get new income sources or start new businesses.. I think the issue is that many of these retirement-age folks don’t care because they aren’t expecting repercussions or negative externalities in their remaining short lifespan. The situation around global warming would be a lot different if the environmentalist Al Gore hadn’t lost to conservative George Bush. The election hinged on a narrow Florida Supreme Court decision of 5-4 over the votes and controversial butterfly ballots. Based on that decision, Bush won the USA presidential election by only 537 votes. The 3rd party spoiler effect from the Green Party was also to blame since Florida isn’t yet advanced enough to have ranked-choice voting.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    US Supreme Court. And there's a very good chance the entire world look different if Gore won. There may have not been a 9/11, for one. There would have certainly not been an Iraq war.