4 ms·

Don’t give up. Even if we get to catastrophic 5 or 8 or 10 degree warming, it won’t wipe us out completely and we will still have to find a way to pay back our

by jl6 5y ago

Don’t give up. Even if we get to catastrophic 5 or 8 or 10 degree warming, it won’t wipe us out completely and we will still have to find a way to pay back our pollution debt. Why is this supposed to be encouraging? Because every little bit of pollution avoided today is a little bit less pollution to clean up in the future. Every bit does count. Even if avoiding 2.5 degree warming seems impossible, let’s at least make it 3 instead of 5 or 8 or 10. I use “pollution” to make it clear that this is not just about CO2 but also about every other type of trash that we dump onto this planet.

slumpt_ 5y ago
Mobile phone culture is really disturbing in this regard. The amount of annual-upgrade-onto-the-next shit with devices that can last years and years. It’s not the problem in itself, but it highlights an aspect of consumer psychology that really damages the planet and probably our mental health too.
- krainboltgreene 5y ago
  The pollution from mobile phones is actually not even worth thinking about. > We have found that, if unchecked, ICT GHGE relative contribution could grow from roughly 1–1.6% in 2007 to exceed 14% of the 2016-level worldwide GHGE by 2040 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S095965261733233X?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09596...
  - slumpt_ 5y ago
    > It’s not the problem in itself, but it highlights an aspect of consumer psychology that really damages the planet and probably our mental health too.
    - paulmd 5y ago
      the idea that consumer psychology is relevant at all is a deliberate effort by the industry to mislead. Recycling will never matter, not buying a new phone will never matter, that's why they have focused public attention onto those things. collective action, largely regulation and government intervention, is the only way anything will ever change. And yes, pricing those externalities in is certainly going to make prices increase, and if your iphone costs 50% more then you'll have your "personal incentive" to hold onto it longer as well, if that's really the hill you want to die on. phones don't matter in particular, though, and the price wouldn't go up 50%. And broadly speaking electronics are good on climate in general, climate change is largely due to energy consumption and things like not commuting are easy wins in terms of personal energy reduction. Sitting at home on your xbox tonight is way better than you driving to a concert, sitting in your home office is way better than you commuting 30 minutes each way to work twice a day. But it's something that is near and dear to people so of course that's the thing people who are opposed to climate interventions choose to focus on, because what if it meant you had to give up your phone, is THAT what you want, huh!?!?!? Nah, I want companies to be forced to make efficiency improvements and emissions capture technologies that they don't do because it's not economically viable and nobody's forcing them, I want farmers to be forced to use low-methane-emission feeds that they don't do because they aren't economically viable and nobody's forcing them, etc etc. Cumulatively that stuff won't add up to even 50% except for a handful of goods probably. It's just something industries use to drag their feet.
      - slumpt_ 5y ago
        Not disagreeing with you. I think it’s not an either/or situation. Nor do I think it’s specifically the fault of consumers themselves. It is the environment of social norms we’ve created. Wastefulness is for all intents and purposes just a facet of our culture from consumers up to corporations. We don’t worry about the costs we needn’t immediately bear. So yeah - wasn’t an indictment of people or a shrugging off of responsibility on the part of corporations and governments to regulate and manage the issue. I just also lament seeing the manifestations of it in the average person, feeling compelled to throw more useful shit out to replace it with moderately newer shit of practically identical utility.
rastafang 5y ago
We need to make the Government care first... planned obsolescence can easily be avoided. But of course they don't want to fix that because it hurts the economy in the short term.
t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
i know this is cynical but it is also the truth. if i die or my life is ruined then you can all go and fuck yourself. i don't give a flying shit about humanity surviving me.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Some of us have kids, though. Some of us care about them and not just ourselves.
- effingwewt 5y ago
  Now you understand why homeless people piss and shit on wealthy doorsteps and trash every place they visit. Is it any wonder they want to watch the world burn?
dr_dshiv 5y ago
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that Stratospheric aerosol injection "is the most-researched SRM method, with high agreement that it could limit warming to below 1.5°C." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_geoengineering https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_geoengineering
- gralx 5y ago
  In case anyone missed the IEEE Spectrum piece "Here's How We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth" published Sept 7: https://spectrum.ieee.org/climate-change https://spectrum.ieee.org/climate-change Discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28451710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28451710
  - dr_dshiv 5y ago
    I want to test engines on the back of containerships to loft saltwater. That's the kind of R&D that is needed. Or develop a shipping fuel additive that accelerates the production of clouds. These won't solve the problem, but they can buy time. We need time.
BLanen 5y ago
5 to 8 degrees is probably the death of the biosphere with only extremophiles left.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  I have a question which might betray ignorance - why wouldn't humans still be able to live in colder countries which are now warm countries? I agree that 5-8C warming will lead to mass death through war, famine. But why would Siberia be too hot for habitation for the remaining population (whether that's 100 or 500 million people)?
  - TomSwirly 5y ago
    Some humans will survive. There are a lot of us and it's a big planet. When permafrost melts, it turns into a bog. Over decades and centuries, many of those bogs would dry out, but most of Siberia will be one great big morass for generations after it melts.
  - he_is_legend 5y ago
    You can't grow food and crops in suddenly warmed up permafrost earth. Generating nutrient rich soil takes a long time (decades to centuries for long lasting results). Global temperature rises are happening too fast.
- jl6 5y ago
  Not true. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum was this hot, or even hotter, and life was thriving. But not human life. Could humans survive this? Probably yes - we are resourceful and adaptable. But probably with a vastly smaller population and with a type of civilization radically different to our own.
  - BLanen 5y ago
    > The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum was this hot, or even hotter, and life was thriving. Yes, but it didn't become that this fast. > Could humans survive this? Probably yes - we are resourceful and adaptable. No, and we're not.
TomSwirly 5y ago
> Even if we get to catastrophic 5 or 8 or 10 degree warming, it won’t wipe us out completely and we will still have to find a way to pay back our pollution debt. 8 or 10 degree warming!? It wouldn't "wipe us out completely", but mostly, and certainly civilization would not survive, so how are we going to pay back the pollution debt?
- Cosmin_C 5y ago
  I think what the parent comment meant was that the pollution debt will be automatically paid when civilization collapses and industry basically stops functioning. A good way of looking at the situation is that the Earth will be fine regardless - it's been through worse (the Premian-Triassic saw extinction of 57% of biological families, 83% of genera, 81% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species), it's humanity that will be in deep, deep trouble in the near future.
arcanon 5y ago
If you work for the oil industry, by all means give up.

by jl6 5y ago

slumpt_ 5y ago

Mobile phone culture is really disturbing in this regard. The amount of annual-upgrade-onto-the-next shit with devices that can last years and years. It’s not the problem in itself, but it highlights an aspect of consumer psychology that really damages the planet and probably our mental health too.

krainboltgreene 5y ago
The pollution from mobile phones is actually not even worth thinking about. > We have found that, if unchecked, ICT GHGE relative contribution could grow from roughly 1–1.6% in 2007 to exceed 14% of the 2016-level worldwide GHGE by 2040 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S095965261733233X?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09596...
- slumpt_ 5y ago
  > It’s not the problem in itself, but it highlights an aspect of consumer psychology that really damages the planet and probably our mental health too.
  - paulmd 5y ago
    the idea that consumer psychology is relevant at all is a deliberate effort by the industry to mislead. Recycling will never matter, not buying a new phone will never matter, that's why they have focused public attention onto those things. collective action, largely regulation and government intervention, is the only way anything will ever change. And yes, pricing those externalities in is certainly going to make prices increase, and if your iphone costs 50% more then you'll have your "personal incentive" to hold onto it longer as well, if that's really the hill you want to die on. phones don't matter in particular, though, and the price wouldn't go up 50%. And broadly speaking electronics are good on climate in general, climate change is largely due to energy consumption and things like not commuting are easy wins in terms of personal energy reduction. Sitting at home on your xbox tonight is way better than you driving to a concert, sitting in your home office is way better than you commuting 30 minutes each way to work twice a day. But it's something that is near and dear to people so of course that's the thing people who are opposed to climate interventions choose to focus on, because what if it meant you had to give up your phone, is THAT what you want, huh!?!?!? Nah, I want companies to be forced to make efficiency improvements and emissions capture technologies that they don't do because it's not economically viable and nobody's forcing them, I want farmers to be forced to use low-methane-emission feeds that they don't do because they aren't economically viable and nobody's forcing them, etc etc. Cumulatively that stuff won't add up to even 50% except for a handful of goods probably. It's just something industries use to drag their feet.
    - slumpt_ 5y ago
      Not disagreeing with you. I think it’s not an either/or situation. Nor do I think it’s specifically the fault of consumers themselves. It is the environment of social norms we’ve created. Wastefulness is for all intents and purposes just a facet of our culture from consumers up to corporations. We don’t worry about the costs we needn’t immediately bear. So yeah - wasn’t an indictment of people or a shrugging off of responsibility on the part of corporations and governments to regulate and manage the issue. I just also lament seeing the manifestations of it in the average person, feeling compelled to throw more useful shit out to replace it with moderately newer shit of practically identical utility.

rastafang 5y ago

We need to make the Government care first... planned obsolescence can easily be avoided. But of course they don't want to fix that because it hurts the economy in the short term.

t8e56vd4ih 5y ago

i know this is cynical but it is also the truth. if i die or my life is ruined then you can all go and fuck yourself. i don't give a flying shit about humanity surviving me.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Some of us have kids, though. Some of us care about them and not just ourselves.
effingwewt 5y ago
Now you understand why homeless people piss and shit on wealthy doorsteps and trash every place they visit. Is it any wonder they want to watch the world burn?

dr_dshiv 5y ago

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that Stratospheric aerosol injection "is the most-researched SRM method, with high agreement that it could limit warming to below 1.5°C." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_geoengineering https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_geoengineering

gralx 5y ago
In case anyone missed the IEEE Spectrum piece "Here's How We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth" published Sept 7: https://spectrum.ieee.org/climate-change https://spectrum.ieee.org/climate-change Discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28451710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28451710
- dr_dshiv 5y ago
  I want to test engines on the back of containerships to loft saltwater. That's the kind of R&D that is needed. Or develop a shipping fuel additive that accelerates the production of clouds. These won't solve the problem, but they can buy time. We need time.

BLanen 5y ago

5 to 8 degrees is probably the death of the biosphere with only extremophiles left.

fighterpilot 5y ago
I have a question which might betray ignorance - why wouldn't humans still be able to live in colder countries which are now warm countries? I agree that 5-8C warming will lead to mass death through war, famine. But why would Siberia be too hot for habitation for the remaining population (whether that's 100 or 500 million people)?
- TomSwirly 5y ago
  Some humans will survive. There are a lot of us and it's a big planet. When permafrost melts, it turns into a bog. Over decades and centuries, many of those bogs would dry out, but most of Siberia will be one great big morass for generations after it melts.
- he_is_legend 5y ago
  You can't grow food and crops in suddenly warmed up permafrost earth. Generating nutrient rich soil takes a long time (decades to centuries for long lasting results). Global temperature rises are happening too fast.
jl6 5y ago
Not true. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum was this hot, or even hotter, and life was thriving. But not human life. Could humans survive this? Probably yes - we are resourceful and adaptable. But probably with a vastly smaller population and with a type of civilization radically different to our own.
- BLanen 5y ago
  > The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum was this hot, or even hotter, and life was thriving. Yes, but it didn't become that this fast. > Could humans survive this? Probably yes - we are resourceful and adaptable. No, and we're not.

TomSwirly 5y ago

> Even if we get to catastrophic 5 or 8 or 10 degree warming, it won’t wipe us out completely and we will still have to find a way to pay back our pollution debt. 8 or 10 degree warming!? It wouldn't "wipe us out completely", but mostly, and certainly civilization would not survive, so how are we going to pay back the pollution debt?

Cosmin_C 5y ago
I think what the parent comment meant was that the pollution debt will be automatically paid when civilization collapses and industry basically stops functioning. A good way of looking at the situation is that the Earth will be fine regardless - it's been through worse (the Premian-Triassic saw extinction of 57% of biological families, 83% of genera, 81% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species), it's humanity that will be in deep, deep trouble in the near future.

arcanon 5y ago

If you work for the oil industry, by all means give up.