7 ms·
Thousands of scientists warn climate tipping points ‘imminent’
- vaylian 5y agoPublic link to paper: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab079/6325731 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1... But how do we make politicians aware of the seriousness?
- edoceo 5y agoWe have to get new ones, the current group is way out of touch. Old dogs, new tricks and all that.
- Broken_Hippo 5y agoBecome a politician or support your friends with such desires.
- ben_w 5y agoTo play devil’s advocate, perhaps they already know it’s serious but prioritise other things because on political timescales even “a decade” is the opposite of urgent.
- bambax 5y ago"politicians"? What about all of us? Climate change deniers are evil and crazy people, but even the rest of us, who admit it's real, still have to change our behaviors.
- rapnie 5y ago> But how do we make politicians aware of the seriousness? Don't you think they ought to be very much aware by now? And probably they are, but are either unwilling or unable to affect true change. Unwilling because it is insufficiently in their own interest, and unable because those unwilling and their friends wield too much power. Making things move very, very slowly, at a glacial pace.
- clifdweller 5y agowhy jump to the main course when can run through decades of elections getting campaign funding arguing each side. If any problem is solved then they would have to re-canvas their population to see what other polarizing topic to use
- berikv 5y agoThanks for the question (which should be on the top, instead of the climate change deniers). Politicians are chosen by the citizens. So the question could be rephrased to “how do we make a big portion of the world aware of the seriousness?”. A web search for “how to convince your opponent” gives some great suggestions: ———————————————————— How to Convince Someone Ask them to share their thoughts. Match their type of reasoning -- if they're being emotional, appeal to their emotions; if they're relying on logic, be logical. Get them to lower their guard with a genuine compliment. Pose a counter-argument (without making them defensive). ———————————————————— This is quite counter intuitive: I would think that if you would tell the data and scientific method used to obtain the data you would be able to convince anyone, but not so. Instead you have to open the discussion and have both sides on the table, which leads to ridiculous situations eg: a TV show gives a scientist who builds upon many years of research equal time to speak on some matter as a fancy vlogger with a quirky opinion. The more noise you make the more you will be noticed. If people aren’t confronted with their actions, they have little chance to change their opinion and behaviour. It is important to be respectful while also making clear that change is needed, by each and everyone.
- forcry 5y ago> “how do we make a big portion of the world aware of the seriousness?” A big portion of the world is pretty convinced that scientific community is full of shit. It might be the case that what they are saying might be true. But it is the boy that cried wolf at this point. But unlike the story, both the boy and the farmers could end up paying the price here. Sad.
- Delk 5y agoWhen has the scientific community really been crying wolf on environmental matters, on a large scale? It can certainly feel like it has, with warnings about climate change and other ecological issues getting near-constant and having more and more visibility over the last couple of decades. But that's not really the scientific community calling wolf unless they were wrong. That's just people getting jaded. That doesn't mean the warnings have been wrong, it just means things have been going on for a long time with no solution.
- ttonkytonk 5y agoMass (peaceful) civil disobedience?
- josh_today 5y agoWhat makes this group of scientists and their warning more legitimate than these previous “imminent tipping points” https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/ https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-poca...
- bigbaguette 5y agoIt's been thirty years the IPCC is warning humanity about this. Should be about time to listen, nah?
- bmat 5y agoComparing a few dozen cherry-picked headlines over 30+ years to a specific warning by 14,000 scientists is hardly apples to apples. Also, CEI claims the ozone hole was climate alarmism and nothing bad actually happened, but that’s because scientists warned us and we took action. Even the chart CEI cites shows the hole stopped growing and leveled off. But apparently because it didn’t disappear completely, our actions were futile?
- andrepd 5y agoI didn't expect climate change denialism and the most base and idiotic and tabloid-tier cherry picking of facts, here on hn.
- spicymaki 5y agoHN is a public forum. Even with heroic moderation efforts you find idiotic tabloid-tier rants for every topic.
- probably_wrong 5y agoI would be suspicious abount anything published by "one of the Conservative think tanks funded to overturn the environmentalism of the 1960s, central to promoting climate change denial"[1]. The article is also clearly written in bad faith, with their so-called "counter-arguments" being a case of selectively choosing the information that supports their agenda and discarding everything else. Having said that: that article cites about one scientist a year, while we are currently getting one warning a week. No scientist in their right mind would deny that global warming is real and it's here [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_Enterprise_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_Enterprise_Institu...
- Akronymus 5y agoHaven't we had multiple tipping points already? It really feels weird how the tipping point is always very soon(tm).
- josh_today 5y agoSame thing every decade https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/ https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-poca...
- guilhas 5y agoIt is a tradition by now
- GaryTang 5y agoweird how no one wants to mention china either
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoSo, what item, that mr. Johnny Average uses daily, will now be banned (or made more expensive, by having to use barely "recyclable" materials), while nothing will be done about huge industries, and other countries that pollute a lot more? We,ve forbidden plastic bags and replaced them with reusable bags, which contain more plastic, or with cotton ones, tha thave to be reused 20.000times, to make it worth it, compared to plastic bags ( https://qz.com/1585027/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-cotton-totes-might-be-worse-than-plastic/ https://qz.com/1585027/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-cotto... ). We've forbidden straws. So what's next?
- pharmakom 5y agoPlastic bag charge is to prevent fly tipping / littering more than anything else. It definitely encourages bag re-use, including for plastic bags. “Ban” is probably the wrong word. It’s really an artificial price floor of about 5c.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoI see a lot more plastic bottles on the ground than bags. Usually you need a bag to take stuff home, and once there, you use it for trash, and then take the trash to the outside/large trash can. Plastic bottle.. you drink the contents, and some people just throw it away. Some countries have returnable plastic bottles (so at worst, homeless/poor people pick them up, to make some money). Most don't.
- simmerup 5y agoHopefully policy makers will target both consumers and industry in order to tackle this crisis. Otherwise when we’re talking to our kids, and they’re asking us what we did to stop the climate crisis, all we’ll be able to say is ‘Child, I gave up unlimited free plastic bags for you, what more could I have done?’
- andrepd 5y agoI think the point is so far action has been limited to token actions (such as the ridiculous straw thing) targeted at consumers, and no real action targeted at companies.
- applepple 5y agoThe best way to stop global warning is through intervention by Central Banks. We need to create monetary policy which promotes incentives such as green energy and carbon capture technology. We also need to focus on improving battery technology to store excess energy for later use. We need to introduce innovation permits to restrict who is allowed to work on green tech so that we don't waste effort reinventing the wheel. We need to bring all the top green energy minds under one roof with one director at the top who has a PhD and a proven track record of success at raising capital. The key to innovation is to reduce competition and increase collaboration. With such focus, it's critical that we don't put the wrong people in a position of power. We need a solid proven track record in academia, politics and/or business - The only way to do this is by looking at the financial track record. The stock market is the only mechanism which we can trust for ranking top people. Mediocre people who can't achieve success in such easy economic times should not occupy positions of power. If they can't make it during such easy fiscally expansionary times, how will they perform during hard times? We need better leaders with a proven track record and top credentials from top universities.
- spicymaki 5y agoTo summarize, you are asking for a hero to come and to save us all with the power of meritocracy. This hero of yours is a PhD executive (from a top university) with access to venture capital and will lead other eminent people to produce world changing green technologies. The stock market will be the bar for which this hero is selected. Companies that exploit the environment already have PhD executive types (from great schools) with great track records and amazing access to capital already. That is part of the problem. These eminent people have already decided that their personal wealth now is worth destroying our future. These geniuses have already found a solution: rampant hedonism. Squeeze out every moment of pleasure while you still can and when time is up, jet over to New Zealand and hunker down while the world is engulfed in flames.
- tsimionescu 5y agoFirst of all, to have any hope of of reducing global warming to mild proportions, energy usage will have to shrink, and so will the economy. We are simply too far advanced for any green energy solution and magical carbon sequestration to be able to help in time while also growing the global economy. Since we also want the global south to reach decent levels of development, the rich countries will have to accept even more shrinkage in their economy to accommodate rising consumption in the poorer ones - especially those hurt the most by the last few centuries of industrial progress. This shrinkage will happen either way, due to the effects of global warming in theatter half of this century - today, we still have an option of doing it in a somewhat controlled manner. Tomorrow we will not. Secondly, it is important to realize that it is theoretically impossible, not just technologically, to produce a battery that has the energy density of gasoline or most fossil fuels. The best realistic batteries we can think of are about 6MJ/kg, compared to 44-50 MJ/kg for hydrocarbons. This also means that transportation will become much more expensive in the coming decades, especially for goods - a battery powered cargo ship will transport ~10 times less cargo per journey than today, and so will an electrical truck (though the truck would likely be replaced by rail transport).
- john579 5y agoWe passed the tipping point years ago. Nothing can be done. Stop denying the inevitable. Be happy, have a big family with lots of fun children and grandchildren, and quit listening to the lying jew media and lying jew academics.