6 ms·

World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021

38 points by jonbaer 5y ago

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
I think this is a pretty clear example of what you might call "science laundering", where people put their political views into the form of a journal article to try and prevent debate. There's some reasonable stuff in here, but broad social agendas like "switching to mostly plant-based diets" or "stabilizing and gradually reducing the population" can't be decided based solely on their climate impacts.
- zzedd 5y ago
  these issues should be addressed in reasoned debate if we're talking about a existential crisis.
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    Well, what counts as existential? The paper isn't suggesting that climate change will cause humans to go extinct. There's no doubt that it will have very bad consequences if not mitigated, but to a lot of people, being unable to eat meat would itself be a climate disaster. This is kinda what I was getting at - their analysis of what we "have" to do has smuggled in a lot of assumptions about human desires which aren't universally shared.
    - goatlover 5y ago
      Which is why it's not a realistic solution.
      - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
        I suppose I don't disagree, but I don't think realistic vs. unrealistic is the right way to frame this. Questions like "should we eat meat" or "should we promote having kids" are huge, cross-cutting issues which strike to the heart of what we value as a society. The idea that you could analyze them solely in terms of the climate, that climate concerns would compel us to ban meat if it were politically feasible, is already fundamentally confused.
nikkinana 5y ago
Everybody needs an electric car.
- misiti3780 5y ago
  The need to more or less halve in price and we need A LOT more chargers.
- jchanimal 5y ago
  You mean an electric cargo bike.
  - kingsloi 5y ago
    My wife and I just had a day in Chicago, our original plans fell through so we ended up going on a little bike ride on the new(?) e-bikes by Divvy/Lyft, the actual renting of it was complete garbage (I've never used ApplePay before, so I had to set that up, cards didn't work, etc), but the actual e-bikes were bloody fantastic, a really fantastic way to experience the city, I think we did 10-20 miles and barely broke a sweat. I think we're going to buy one/two so I can nip out to groceries and not drive
    - jchrisa 5y ago
      The one I ride has a box in the front that can hold 3 grownups (or a monster trip to the garden store). The motor means I can go 28 mph. On the occasional day where we have a rental car (grandma in town) sometimes I drive the kids to school and I am always surprised how long it takes. On the bike I never wait in a queue, and I always get the best parking. Maybe they cost a lot for a bike but they are faster, cheaper, and more fun than a minivan: https://www.splendidcycles.com/products/riese-and-muller/riese-muller-cargo-bikes https://www.splendidcycles.com/products/riese-and-muller/rie... (see "Triple Badger Box for Packster 80" it comes with 6 seat belts.)
      - taylodl 5y ago
        Those prices are going to seriously discourage adoption. I can buy a Honda off road capable motorcycle that can go anywhere for half the money - and it would still be a better environmental investment than driving my Honda Civic!
paulcole 5y ago
As a person reading HN, here's what you can do: Don't have kids. Don't eat meat. Don't fly in planes. Don't drive a car. Don't buy stuff you don't need. Live in small dense housing. Take political action. Whether you choose to do them or rationalize a way to not do them doesn't matter that much. But at least you can say you tried. For whatever that's worth.
- fsflover 5y ago
  Reference: http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full.jpg http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full...
- kingsloi 5y ago
  Shouldn't political action be first on the list? I wish I had the image handy, but it was something like this: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eda91260bbb7e7a4bf528d8/1619187421930-OW9HUYKJ4Q2MAH8LVFTE/meme23.png?format=500w https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eda91260bbb7e...
  - rahen 5y ago
    No, having one less child makes sens as the first element on the list, as it's estimated to be up to 60 times more efficient than any other action when it comes to fighting global warming. In fact, having too many children appears to be the single most destructive thing a person can to do to the environment. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541
  - paulcole 5y ago
    Not having kids is both incredibly impactful and incredibly easy. It's also clear whether you've done "enough" or not. Either you had a kid or you didn't. Political action is much more wishy-washy and hand wavey. Did you do enough of it? What impact did it have? Sure if you could take political action that fixes the whole mess do that first. But understand that's not likely at all.
  - MickerNews 5y ago
fsflover 5y ago
I wonder why nothing is said about the nuclear energy. You cannot just immediately abandon coal and switch to renewables. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987 https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/nuclear-power-may-have-saved-1-8-million-lives-otherwise-lost-to-fossil-fuels-may-save-up-to-7-million-more/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunctio...
- tommiegannert 5y ago
  I was looking at page 36 in JPM's Guide to the Markets [1] the other day. Looks like nuclear is getting more expensive, coal/gas laying flat, and solar/wind dropping in price. Oil and hydro are missing, but make a cameo on page 60. I can understand solar/wind being favored right now. Also curious about wave energy, which is often announced, but AFAIK has limited use. I'm guessing this is something about regulations increasing costs for nuclear, but does anyone know what happened? [1] https://am.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-am-aem/global/en/insights/market-insights/guide-to-the-markets/mi-guide-to-the-markets-us.pdf https://am.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-am-aem/global/en/ins...
tryingtogetback 5y ago
it is pretty much a common knowledge that we will never reach consensus with this issue. Question: assuming that prognosis is actually true (this time), what could we do to prepare for the worst? With renewable energy advancements we shouldn't have problems with powering city-wide air-conditioning systems. Architectural engineering would be one of the booming domains, I imagine (re-engineering shorelines, artificial islands - similar to what UAE is doing, or how Miami beach was engineered) What else? Countries that can afford it - i imagine it's the perfect time to invest in/strengthen military and, most importantly, border security. Indoor farming with irrigation complimented by a condescension from cooling systems?
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  The backstop is ultimately geoengineering. We know in principle that we can forcibly bring down global temperatures if needed, although we don't and probably can't know all the secondary outcomes that would result.
  - MickerNews 5y ago
    How can we bring down temperatures?
    - polotics 5y ago
      Pumping sulfur up, a dangerous game if you can't keep doing it all the way to the time when CO2 scrubbing fusion plants save your crispy bacon. There is a recent book named: under a white sky.
      - MickerNews 5y ago
        Interesting thanks!
- polotics 5y ago
  Why do you think consensus will never be reached? In the face of mounting evidence it seems to me the move of short-term focussed actors from a denial to a delay strategy is well underway. This demonstrates strong consensus on the fact our climate is dangerously drifting I think. Investing in military is only as good as your ability to keep a civilian society able to feed that military. At one point all you got yourself is one more mercenary tribe...

38 points by jonbaer 5y ago

I think this is a pretty clear example of what you might call "science laundering", where people put their political views into the form of a journal article to try and prevent debate. There's some reasonable stuff in here, but broad social agendas like "switching to mostly plant-based diets" or "stabilizing and gradually reducing the population" can't be decided based solely on their climate impacts.

zzedd 5y ago
these issues should be addressed in reasoned debate if we're talking about a existential crisis.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  Well, what counts as existential? The paper isn't suggesting that climate change will cause humans to go extinct. There's no doubt that it will have very bad consequences if not mitigated, but to a lot of people, being unable to eat meat would itself be a climate disaster. This is kinda what I was getting at - their analysis of what we "have" to do has smuggled in a lot of assumptions about human desires which aren't universally shared.
  - goatlover 5y ago
    Which is why it's not a realistic solution.
    - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
      I suppose I don't disagree, but I don't think realistic vs. unrealistic is the right way to frame this. Questions like "should we eat meat" or "should we promote having kids" are huge, cross-cutting issues which strike to the heart of what we value as a society. The idea that you could analyze them solely in terms of the climate, that climate concerns would compel us to ban meat if it were politically feasible, is already fundamentally confused.

nikkinana 5y ago

Everybody needs an electric car.

misiti3780 5y ago
The need to more or less halve in price and we need A LOT more chargers.
jchanimal 5y ago
You mean an electric cargo bike.
- kingsloi 5y ago
  My wife and I just had a day in Chicago, our original plans fell through so we ended up going on a little bike ride on the new(?) e-bikes by Divvy/Lyft, the actual renting of it was complete garbage (I've never used ApplePay before, so I had to set that up, cards didn't work, etc), but the actual e-bikes were bloody fantastic, a really fantastic way to experience the city, I think we did 10-20 miles and barely broke a sweat. I think we're going to buy one/two so I can nip out to groceries and not drive
  - jchrisa 5y ago
    The one I ride has a box in the front that can hold 3 grownups (or a monster trip to the garden store). The motor means I can go 28 mph. On the occasional day where we have a rental car (grandma in town) sometimes I drive the kids to school and I am always surprised how long it takes. On the bike I never wait in a queue, and I always get the best parking. Maybe they cost a lot for a bike but they are faster, cheaper, and more fun than a minivan: https://www.splendidcycles.com/products/riese-and-muller/riese-muller-cargo-bikes https://www.splendidcycles.com/products/riese-and-muller/rie... (see "Triple Badger Box for Packster 80" it comes with 6 seat belts.)
    - taylodl 5y ago
      Those prices are going to seriously discourage adoption. I can buy a Honda off road capable motorcycle that can go anywhere for half the money - and it would still be a better environmental investment than driving my Honda Civic!

paulcole 5y ago

As a person reading HN, here's what you can do: Don't have kids. Don't eat meat. Don't fly in planes. Don't drive a car. Don't buy stuff you don't need. Live in small dense housing. Take political action. Whether you choose to do them or rationalize a way to not do them doesn't matter that much. But at least you can say you tried. For whatever that's worth.

fsflover 5y ago
Reference: http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full.jpg http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full...
kingsloi 5y ago
Shouldn't political action be first on the list? I wish I had the image handy, but it was something like this: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eda91260bbb7e7a4bf528d8/1619187421930-OW9HUYKJ4Q2MAH8LVFTE/meme23.png?format=500w https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eda91260bbb7e...
- rahen 5y ago
  No, having one less child makes sens as the first element on the list, as it's estimated to be up to 60 times more efficient than any other action when it comes to fighting global warming. In fact, having too many children appears to be the single most destructive thing a person can to do to the environment. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541
- paulcole 5y ago
  Not having kids is both incredibly impactful and incredibly easy. It's also clear whether you've done "enough" or not. Either you had a kid or you didn't. Political action is much more wishy-washy and hand wavey. Did you do enough of it? What impact did it have? Sure if you could take political action that fixes the whole mess do that first. But understand that's not likely at all.
- MickerNews 5y ago

fsflover 5y ago

I wonder why nothing is said about the nuclear energy. You cannot just immediately abandon coal and switch to renewables. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987 https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/nuclear-power-may-have-saved-1-8-million-lives-otherwise-lost-to-fossil-fuels-may-save-up-to-7-million-more/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunctio...

tommiegannert 5y ago
I was looking at page 36 in JPM's Guide to the Markets [1] the other day. Looks like nuclear is getting more expensive, coal/gas laying flat, and solar/wind dropping in price. Oil and hydro are missing, but make a cameo on page 60. I can understand solar/wind being favored right now. Also curious about wave energy, which is often announced, but AFAIK has limited use. I'm guessing this is something about regulations increasing costs for nuclear, but does anyone know what happened? [1] https://am.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-am-aem/global/en/insights/market-insights/guide-to-the-markets/mi-guide-to-the-markets-us.pdf https://am.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-am-aem/global/en/ins...

tryingtogetback 5y ago

it is pretty much a common knowledge that we will never reach consensus with this issue. Question: assuming that prognosis is actually true (this time), what could we do to prepare for the worst? With renewable energy advancements we shouldn't have problems with powering city-wide air-conditioning systems. Architectural engineering would be one of the booming domains, I imagine (re-engineering shorelines, artificial islands - similar to what UAE is doing, or how Miami beach was engineered) What else? Countries that can afford it - i imagine it's the perfect time to invest in/strengthen military and, most importantly, border security. Indoor farming with irrigation complimented by a condescension from cooling systems?

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
The backstop is ultimately geoengineering. We know in principle that we can forcibly bring down global temperatures if needed, although we don't and probably can't know all the secondary outcomes that would result.
- MickerNews 5y ago
  How can we bring down temperatures?
  - polotics 5y ago
    Pumping sulfur up, a dangerous game if you can't keep doing it all the way to the time when CO2 scrubbing fusion plants save your crispy bacon. There is a recent book named: under a white sky.
    - MickerNews 5y ago
      Interesting thanks!
polotics 5y ago
Why do you think consensus will never be reached? In the face of mounting evidence it seems to me the move of short-term focussed actors from a denial to a delay strategy is well underway. This demonstrates strong consensus on the fact our climate is dangerously drifting I think. Investing in military is only as good as your ability to keep a civilian society able to feed that military. At one point all you got yourself is one more mercenary tribe...