4 ms·

Well, hang on. Which was the correct climate? At various times, the planet has apparently completely encased itself in ice and then thawed itself out. According

Well, hang on. Which was the correct climate? At various times, the planet has apparently completely encased itself in ice and then thawed itself out. According to the climate historian Scotese, the average temperature has varied between 10C and 25C for two billion years. "Recently" it's been about as cold as it ever gets. Is it actually sad that it's warming up? What was it supposed to do, stay cold forever or get even colder? http://scotese.com/climate.htm http://scotese.com/climate.htm

hack-news 5y ago
The "correct" climate is one that isn't changing so fast that we'll need to globally rethink the logistics of food production. It's one that does not include being in the middle of an extinction event.
- germandiago 5y ago
  There have been fatalist predictions since ever and about so many topics. In my own country, Spain, you could find an article about Maldives shrunk in 2010 and with no human-consumable water in 1992, that would make 200,000 people abandon the islands. It never happened. The article from 1988. Also about a lack of food and a hunger in 1975. Syberian weather for 2000 in 1970 article for UK... And many I am not going to mention here since the 60s as far as I researched. It looks like we are approaching a disaster and the end of the world continuously. It could be a fact that climate is changing. And also that we contribute to it in some known ways. What I am not convinced about at all if most of this phenomenon is human-induced. If it is not we will set heavy restrictions for no gain, maybe even impoverishing people. Who will be responsible for the consequences? Also, we can keep adapting, as we always did if the climate is changing. I do not see the point in taking every piece of news from climate change like the end of thw world: we will have to keep adapting. But no fatalisms, after all, media has a TERRIBLE track in publishing bogus predictions or incorrect and half-baked.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    > It could be a fact that climate is changing. And also that we contribute to it in some known ways. > Who will be responsible for the consequences? Also, we can keep adapting, as we always did if the climate is changing. > I do not see the point in taking every piece of news from climate change like the end of thw world: we will have to keep adapting. This is only because you don't understand the problem, or don't listen/trust the entirety of the scientific community. Like all organisms on Earth, humans and human society can adapt to a limited set of circumstances. We can create thriving societies in Finland and at the Equator, but we can't create thriving societies in Antarctica or the Sahara desert. What (the certainly man-made and certainly happening) climate change is doing is going to make a lot more of the Earth unlivable for humans. Even the livable parts will become much more variable in their livability. Humans will migrate in massive numbers from the now-unlivable places (such as Bangladesh, currently housing ~160 million people) to places where society can still thrive - but as can be seen from the massive reaction to the minuscule trickle of refugees from Syria to Europe, this is met with utter hostility. Further, scarcer resources (especially water in many places, such as the US south or India and Pakistan) will likely lead to wars, further creating refugee crises and disrupting supply chains. The timeline is indeed unclear, and there have been cycles of too-pessimistic predictions and too-optimistic predictions. The current discussions seem to imagine massive changes in the 50-100 year range, but recent weather patterns seem to suggest we may be on the optimistic side at the moment. But regardless of timeline, the general trend is clear and undeniable, as are the conclusions. In some sense, you are right that "we will adapt", as humanity as a species or even human civilization are unlikely to simply end. But they are also not going to remain the change, and there is no plausible path from current society to a +2-4C average temp society that does not involve the deaths of billions.
    - davidhbolton 5y ago
      The trend is not clear and undeniable. Climate science is at best contentious and certainly highly politicised. All of the IPCC predictions of temperature rises have not happened. Sea level rises? The Maldives have been building several airports and both Al Gore and Barack Obama bought very expensive properties ($9 million and $15 million) by the sea. Hardly the actions of someone who believes flooding is imminent.
- User23 5y ago
  I don't want to diminish the importance of climate change, but I'm pretty sure that in the next 8 decades population growth is going to present a massively bigger challenge to the logistics of food production than a ~1 degree C change in average temperatures. We're currently a tad shy of 7.8 billion human beings on the planet and UN projections[1] for the year 2100 range as high as nearly 16 billion with a median of about 11 billion. [1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9...
umanwizard 5y ago
The “correct” climate is the one human civilization is adapted to.
- BoHerfIIIJrEsq 5y ago
  Well, suppose climate change wasn't thought to be anthropogenic, but it was happening the same way, i.e., warming up from being about the coldest it ever gets. So, it's not humans' fault, but it's inconvenient for humans. Would you still want to try to stop it? If so, would it be fair to call your stance nature obstructionism or something like that?
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    Yes, of course we'd still want to stop it. It would be much riskier though, as the consequences would be harder to know - messing with the environment is always risky. This is also why geo-engineering solutions to climate change are suspect - stopping CO2 production is just going back to a state of the world that we know worked. Seeding the ocean with iron or changing the color of the sky are radically different from any previous state of the Earth, so their impact is unknown.
germandiago 5y ago
You reply better than I could have but my reply was going to be in similar terms. Thank you. Your view represents me. What is the correct thing? What the media bombs us with all the time? I think I have many reasons to not find media scientific enough to give a hell about them. These problems are difficult, take a lot of research and still, predictions are really difficult. But even if you have them, you still need to know the real causes. And even if that, humans are well-known for adapting well to the environment. However, we have this fatalist attitude and willingness of people to impose rules to everyone even if we do not know what the right strategy could be. Of course many ppl live from this stuff so they just use it as their business and take the rest for idiots.
tsimionescu 5y ago
This bad take reminds me of an old George Carlin joke about environmentalism: people often use(d) the term "save the planet", but it's in fact us that need saving - "the planet" will go on regardless. So yes, there is no "correct"\"natural" temperature for the Earth. But there very much exists a correct temperature for human (and many others) organized life, and that is basically the temperature of ~200 years ago. As it will get hotter, hundreds of millions will die of heat stroke and water and food shortages, wars will erupt probably killing billions, civilization as it exists today will dramatically change. Many plants and animals will die as well. Other people, societies, plants and animals will take their place of course - the Earth will sustain life for a wide range of temperatures - but that does not mean that we shouldn't fear these possibilities. Edit: George Carlin, not "Steve" Carlin...
- BoHerfIIIJrEsq 5y ago
  > As it will get hotter, hundreds of millions will die of heat stroke and water and food shortages We used to die in droves from heatwaves and water and food shortages, but we don't anymore, because of technology. Is increased CO2 going to harm crop yields? No, it's the opposite. Was increased CO2 bad for life on ancient earth? No, it was the opposite -- earth used to be an endless jungle teeming with life. It seems to me like some people want to mess around with the climate because they imagine some neo-Malthusian horror story about the future, like we won't use technology to adapt. But they don't want to call themselves nature obstructionists, like I suggested elsewhere, because they insist that the warming is the fault of humans, despite the fact that the climate seemed due to warm up anyway, even if all humans had been wiped out by a plague in the year 1000 or whatever, since it had been in the Scotese "ice box" stage.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    We still die because of heatwaves and water and food shortages. It doesn't happen so much in the colonial empires of Europe and the USA, but it is still happening in most other places on Earth. Any attempt to export the lifestyle of average US and European citizens to the billions of other people would accelerate the problem even more, requiring an ever-increased rate of energy use to maintain livable conditions. The solution is precisely the opposite: dial down energy use (from all sources - industry, consumerism, travel etc) in the parts that consume too much. Increased CO2 is creating higher temperatures, which in turn is disrupting temperature-regulation mechanisms everywhere on earth - leading not only to higher temperatures, but to more temperature variability throughout the year, more than has been seen in 10,000 years. It's also leading to more water remaining trapped as vapor, creating longer and more devastating droughts. > Was increased CO2 bad for life on ancient earth? No, it was the opposite -- earth used to be an endless jungle teeming with life. This only happens if forests and jungles are allowed to grow to use up the extra CO2. The opposite is happening today: everywhere in the world, jungles and forests are being actively cut down and the land cleared for agricultural use - capturing significantly less CO2 than an entire forest ecosystem. > because they insist that the warming is the fault of humans, despite the fact that the climate seemed due to warm up anyway They insist on this because we can actually quantify almost precisely how this is the fault of human activity. The rate of global warming is almost perfectly matched to greenhouse gas emissions. Historical ice age / warm age models entirely fail to account for this miraculous coincidence, and are in fact propaganda held up by massive industrial and financial interests that have an institutional lack of care for the long-term viability of current societies.

hack-news 5y ago

The "correct" climate is one that isn't changing so fast that we'll need to globally rethink the logistics of food production. It's one that does not include being in the middle of an extinction event.

germandiago 5y ago
There have been fatalist predictions since ever and about so many topics. In my own country, Spain, you could find an article about Maldives shrunk in 2010 and with no human-consumable water in 1992, that would make 200,000 people abandon the islands. It never happened. The article from 1988. Also about a lack of food and a hunger in 1975. Syberian weather for 2000 in 1970 article for UK... And many I am not going to mention here since the 60s as far as I researched. It looks like we are approaching a disaster and the end of the world continuously. It could be a fact that climate is changing. And also that we contribute to it in some known ways. What I am not convinced about at all if most of this phenomenon is human-induced. If it is not we will set heavy restrictions for no gain, maybe even impoverishing people. Who will be responsible for the consequences? Also, we can keep adapting, as we always did if the climate is changing. I do not see the point in taking every piece of news from climate change like the end of thw world: we will have to keep adapting. But no fatalisms, after all, media has a TERRIBLE track in publishing bogus predictions or incorrect and half-baked.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > It could be a fact that climate is changing. And also that we contribute to it in some known ways. > Who will be responsible for the consequences? Also, we can keep adapting, as we always did if the climate is changing. > I do not see the point in taking every piece of news from climate change like the end of thw world: we will have to keep adapting. This is only because you don't understand the problem, or don't listen/trust the entirety of the scientific community. Like all organisms on Earth, humans and human society can adapt to a limited set of circumstances. We can create thriving societies in Finland and at the Equator, but we can't create thriving societies in Antarctica or the Sahara desert. What (the certainly man-made and certainly happening) climate change is doing is going to make a lot more of the Earth unlivable for humans. Even the livable parts will become much more variable in their livability. Humans will migrate in massive numbers from the now-unlivable places (such as Bangladesh, currently housing ~160 million people) to places where society can still thrive - but as can be seen from the massive reaction to the minuscule trickle of refugees from Syria to Europe, this is met with utter hostility. Further, scarcer resources (especially water in many places, such as the US south or India and Pakistan) will likely lead to wars, further creating refugee crises and disrupting supply chains. The timeline is indeed unclear, and there have been cycles of too-pessimistic predictions and too-optimistic predictions. The current discussions seem to imagine massive changes in the 50-100 year range, but recent weather patterns seem to suggest we may be on the optimistic side at the moment. But regardless of timeline, the general trend is clear and undeniable, as are the conclusions. In some sense, you are right that "we will adapt", as humanity as a species or even human civilization are unlikely to simply end. But they are also not going to remain the change, and there is no plausible path from current society to a +2-4C average temp society that does not involve the deaths of billions.
  - davidhbolton 5y ago
    The trend is not clear and undeniable. Climate science is at best contentious and certainly highly politicised. All of the IPCC predictions of temperature rises have not happened. Sea level rises? The Maldives have been building several airports and both Al Gore and Barack Obama bought very expensive properties ($9 million and $15 million) by the sea. Hardly the actions of someone who believes flooding is imminent.
User23 5y ago
I don't want to diminish the importance of climate change, but I'm pretty sure that in the next 8 decades population growth is going to present a massively bigger challenge to the logistics of food production than a ~1 degree C change in average temperatures. We're currently a tad shy of 7.8 billion human beings on the planet and UN projections[1] for the year 2100 range as high as nearly 16 billion with a median of about 11 billion. [1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9...

umanwizard 5y ago

The “correct” climate is the one human civilization is adapted to.

BoHerfIIIJrEsq 5y ago
Well, suppose climate change wasn't thought to be anthropogenic, but it was happening the same way, i.e., warming up from being about the coldest it ever gets. So, it's not humans' fault, but it's inconvenient for humans. Would you still want to try to stop it? If so, would it be fair to call your stance nature obstructionism or something like that?
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Yes, of course we'd still want to stop it. It would be much riskier though, as the consequences would be harder to know - messing with the environment is always risky. This is also why geo-engineering solutions to climate change are suspect - stopping CO2 production is just going back to a state of the world that we know worked. Seeding the ocean with iron or changing the color of the sky are radically different from any previous state of the Earth, so their impact is unknown.

germandiago 5y ago

You reply better than I could have but my reply was going to be in similar terms. Thank you. Your view represents me. What is the correct thing? What the media bombs us with all the time? I think I have many reasons to not find media scientific enough to give a hell about them. These problems are difficult, take a lot of research and still, predictions are really difficult. But even if you have them, you still need to know the real causes. And even if that, humans are well-known for adapting well to the environment. However, we have this fatalist attitude and willingness of people to impose rules to everyone even if we do not know what the right strategy could be. Of course many ppl live from this stuff so they just use it as their business and take the rest for idiots.

tsimionescu 5y ago

This bad take reminds me of an old George Carlin joke about environmentalism: people often use(d) the term "save the planet", but it's in fact us that need saving - "the planet" will go on regardless. So yes, there is no "correct"\"natural" temperature for the Earth. But there very much exists a correct temperature for human (and many others) organized life, and that is basically the temperature of ~200 years ago. As it will get hotter, hundreds of millions will die of heat stroke and water and food shortages, wars will erupt probably killing billions, civilization as it exists today will dramatically change. Many plants and animals will die as well. Other people, societies, plants and animals will take their place of course - the Earth will sustain life for a wide range of temperatures - but that does not mean that we shouldn't fear these possibilities. Edit: George Carlin, not "Steve" Carlin...

BoHerfIIIJrEsq 5y ago
> As it will get hotter, hundreds of millions will die of heat stroke and water and food shortages We used to die in droves from heatwaves and water and food shortages, but we don't anymore, because of technology. Is increased CO2 going to harm crop yields? No, it's the opposite. Was increased CO2 bad for life on ancient earth? No, it was the opposite -- earth used to be an endless jungle teeming with life. It seems to me like some people want to mess around with the climate because they imagine some neo-Malthusian horror story about the future, like we won't use technology to adapt. But they don't want to call themselves nature obstructionists, like I suggested elsewhere, because they insist that the warming is the fault of humans, despite the fact that the climate seemed due to warm up anyway, even if all humans had been wiped out by a plague in the year 1000 or whatever, since it had been in the Scotese "ice box" stage.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  We still die because of heatwaves and water and food shortages. It doesn't happen so much in the colonial empires of Europe and the USA, but it is still happening in most other places on Earth. Any attempt to export the lifestyle of average US and European citizens to the billions of other people would accelerate the problem even more, requiring an ever-increased rate of energy use to maintain livable conditions. The solution is precisely the opposite: dial down energy use (from all sources - industry, consumerism, travel etc) in the parts that consume too much. Increased CO2 is creating higher temperatures, which in turn is disrupting temperature-regulation mechanisms everywhere on earth - leading not only to higher temperatures, but to more temperature variability throughout the year, more than has been seen in 10,000 years. It's also leading to more water remaining trapped as vapor, creating longer and more devastating droughts. > Was increased CO2 bad for life on ancient earth? No, it was the opposite -- earth used to be an endless jungle teeming with life. This only happens if forests and jungles are allowed to grow to use up the extra CO2. The opposite is happening today: everywhere in the world, jungles and forests are being actively cut down and the land cleared for agricultural use - capturing significantly less CO2 than an entire forest ecosystem. > because they insist that the warming is the fault of humans, despite the fact that the climate seemed due to warm up anyway They insist on this because we can actually quantify almost precisely how this is the fault of human activity. The rate of global warming is almost perfectly matched to greenhouse gas emissions. Historical ice age / warm age models entirely fail to account for this miraculous coincidence, and are in fact propaganda held up by massive industrial and financial interests that have an institutional lack of care for the long-term viability of current societies.