5 ms·

Stop telling kids that climate change will destroy their world

17 points by zthrowaway 4y ago

wrycoder 4y ago
It's just crazy. Even this quote from article is an exaggeration: As I’ve written about before, climate change is going to be bad, and it will hold back humanity from thriving as much as we should this century. It will likely cause mass migration and displacement and extinctions of many species. The global tropospheric temperature has been steadily increasing at a rate of only 0.13C per decade over the last forty years[0]. [0] https://www.drroyspencer.com/2022/06/uah-global-temperature-update-for-may-2022-0-17-deg-c/ https://www.drroyspencer.com/2022/06/uah-global-temperature-...
- fallingfrog 4y ago
  Roy Spencer is a creationist, just FYI, and that link is to a climate change denial website. The RSS examined the same data and got .184.
  - wrycoder 4y ago
    Spencer is not a global warming "denialist". He believes that warming is occurring, but that it is modest. The link is to Spencer's personal website, not some random "climate change denial website". RSS has their own data from their own satellites. Here's Spencer's remarks on the discrepancy between the satellite measurements[0]. I have no opinion on Spencer's theology, since it is irrelevant and does not appear in his climate science work. Your slur of "creationist" is likely no more valid than calling him a "denialist". [0] https://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/04/uah-rss-noaa-uw-which-satellite-dataset-should-we-believe/ https://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/04/uah-rss-noaa-uw-which-s...
    - momdad420 4y ago
    - fallingfrog 4y ago
      "creationist" definitely wasn't meant as a slur in the sense that its a word he chose to describe himself. There shouldn't be any link between the two- logically there is none- but yet nearly all people who doubt climate change are fundamentalist christians. I sure don't know why, I wish someone could explain it to me. I think it could possibly be some thought process like "this is all a ploy to undermine the power of the west by taking away fossil fuels, which is a land that god has blessed due to our virtuous obedience to the word of god, and therefore the people pushing the narrative of climate change are against god". Something like that. But again I don't really know. I'm sure he's a perfectly decent person though. And you know, some of the hype is overblown, like that uninhabitable earth book, which I'm pretty sure most scientists disagree with.
      - wrycoder 4y ago
        Do "creationists" call themselves by that term? Or do they view it as dismissive of their beliefs? To say, "nearly all people who doubt climate change are fundamentalist christians" is a pretty sweeping statement. I'm not a Christian myself, and I don't actually know any fundamentalists. Yet, about 80% of the older crowd I hang with are negative about the actuality of human-caused global warming (and 80% of the younger crowd, e.g. HN, are very worried). I believe that only perhaps one percent of people have any personal exposure to climate science, in the sense that they have at least scanned the IPCC reports, read some of the refereed papers presenting alternate views, and formed their own opinions. The other 99% in the US are divided into two tribes, whose members form their opinions by listening to the tribal influencers. In the resulting polarization, if I know someone's opinion on a specific issue, I can pretty well predict their opinion on many other issues, including global warming. I'm personally a "luke-warmer", like Spencer. My position is that we are still coming out of the last ice age - there was ice a mile thick where I sit only fifteen thousand years ago, so some warming is expected. My background is physics, and I've been following climate science pretty closely for over twenty years. It's increasingly apparent that the tropospheric temperature record, as measured by satellite, is not in agreement with the computer models that are the source of all the excitement. It's also apparent that the official position on global warming is gradually being adjusted downward. Getting off fossil fuels is a very good idea. We need to switch to solar and nuclear energy. Personally, I get about half my heat from burning locally grown wood, including from my own property. We grow a good part of our own food and keep chickens. I don't have any high energy toys, and I believe in treading lightly on the earth. I'm an independent thinker, and I don't fall into either tribe. There is an interview with Spencer, done following Google's demonetization of his website for spreading disinformation[0]. I'd recommend at least reading the preface to his short book[1], which is part of the Kindle sample on Amazon. I'll include a paragraph from the book's conclusion: Given that CO2 is necessary for life on Earth, yet had been at dangerously low levels for thousands of years, the scientific community needs to stop accepting the premise that more CO2 in the atmosphere is necessarily a bad thing. Global greening has been observed by satellites over the last few decades, which is during the period of most rapid rises in atmospheric CO2. The benefits of increasing CO2 to agriculture have been calculated to be in the trillions of dollars. Crop yields continue to break records around the world, due to a combination of human ingenuity and the direct effects of CO2 on plant growth and water use efficiency. Spencer, Roy. Global Warming Skepticism for Busy People (pp. 126-127). Kindle Edition. [0] https://youtu.be/CZy8mgD05QA https://youtu.be/CZy8mgD05QA [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H57WVYJ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H57WVYJ/ref=dbs_a_def_r...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tabtab 4y ago
After gagging on CA fire pollution every summer (due to long drought), It's hard to think that worse shit ain't coming. It may not kill us all, but will make life harder.
fallingfrog 4y ago
I think the message of encouraging kids to feel a sense of agency rather than nihilistic despair is a good message. I wonder if giving kids agency in other matters might help them be the leaders they're going to need to be- give them the chance to make their own choices when possible. I'm going to try to raise my kids that way.
- tacet 4y ago
  agency comes from power. i think nihilistic despair in kids comes from sense that people who actually have power (and for kids it is primary parents) have failed to solve the problem. for grown ups, of course it is more nuanced - we know that we lack power to solve the issue or else we would have done it. instead we put hopes and expectations on our kids - that they will rise to meaningful power, where they can change things.
jfengel 4y ago
There is no way to frame "You can grow up to do something about climate change" in tandem with "We are going to do fuck-all about climate change". The longer you wait, the harder it's going to be do deal with it. The messaging gets louder because the situation gets worse. By the time today's kids are in a position to do anything about climate change, we will have sailed through the 1.5C level that is widely thought to bring serious, expensive damage. Climate denial is the dominant force today, and kids are learning a lesson that goes far beyond the distant prospect of climate disasters. It's telling them that science denial is effective. It's already working with the pandemic -- there is a ton of ideological overlap between climate denial and vaccine denial. The best way to teach children that something can be done is to do something. Changing the words will never be as clear a message as the fact that we're not doing anything.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > The best way to teach children that something can be done is to do something. Changing the words will never be as clear a message as the fact that we're not doing anything. This. As a a person who has dedicated most of my young to adult life to environmental activism, it's been eye opening to see just how many people are feckless and apathetic. I've lost respect for so many people, especially those who demand it from me, because of their inability or out right refusal to do anything about this issue. In short, I realized that their are seldom any grown ups, just people who never grew up and assumed roles of responsibility in which they could diffuse responsibility in a way that makes them look inculpable. I've literately seen TEPCO shame themselves and deny until they couldn't and accepted that Fukushima was avoidable, I've seen the NRC acquiesce to powerful corporate power to the detriment of everyone within a 100 mile radius of San Onofre, I've seen lower management at Syngenta double down on their use of crops that require more inputs 'because f those hippies.' I could go on, and make this an essay, but in short: I don't expect much from most people anymore, what I think is more vital is making the youth more proactive than all the generations before: as a millennial I knew my standards of living would not be like my parents after 2008 so I deluded myself to change things within the system only to realize the system I was in was Cancer Inc. and business was good, and I was the problem. I decided that if I could channel my energy into the things I cared about I could lose myself in a way that I could stop caring about materialism and focus on the things that mattered most. Stability was never in my cards, and rather than fear this reality I embraced it and I lived a Life that I couldn't have planned better as opportunities that I thought impossible began to emerge as I got to work with amazing people on great projects.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Pointless inaction on climate change will only cancel out decades worth of progress in other areas but, probably, on average, not actually reduce average global living conditions. And that's the good news?
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Rebuttal: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-climate-crisis-is-worse-than-you-can-imagine-heres-what-happens-if-you-try https://www.propublica.org/article/the-climate-crisis-is-wor...
- wrycoder 4y ago
  That's not a rebuttal - it's a confirmation of the psychological damage being caused by constant harping on purported drastic climate change and the human responsibility for it. The man is completely obsessed by it.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    You can’t have a reasonable debate about it with someone who minimizes the seriousness of the situation. https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr/
    - wrycoder 4y ago
      If you mean me, of course you can. But if you think that the root of the problem is CO2, then you'd better take it up with China and India. The EU and the US are doing a good job in reducing CO2 output and will continue to do so.

17 points by zthrowaway 4y ago

It's just crazy. Even this quote from article is an exaggeration: As I’ve written about before, climate change is going to be bad, and it will hold back humanity from thriving as much as we should this century. It will likely cause mass migration and displacement and extinctions of many species. The global tropospheric temperature has been steadily increasing at a rate of only 0.13C per decade over the last forty years[0]. [0] https://www.drroyspencer.com/2022/06/uah-global-temperature-update-for-may-2022-0-17-deg-c/ https://www.drroyspencer.com/2022/06/uah-global-temperature-...

fallingfrog 4y ago
Roy Spencer is a creationist, just FYI, and that link is to a climate change denial website. The RSS examined the same data and got .184.
- wrycoder 4y ago
  Spencer is not a global warming "denialist". He believes that warming is occurring, but that it is modest. The link is to Spencer's personal website, not some random "climate change denial website". RSS has their own data from their own satellites. Here's Spencer's remarks on the discrepancy between the satellite measurements[0]. I have no opinion on Spencer's theology, since it is irrelevant and does not appear in his climate science work. Your slur of "creationist" is likely no more valid than calling him a "denialist". [0] https://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/04/uah-rss-noaa-uw-which-satellite-dataset-should-we-believe/ https://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/04/uah-rss-noaa-uw-which-s...
  - momdad420 4y ago
  - fallingfrog 4y ago
    "creationist" definitely wasn't meant as a slur in the sense that its a word he chose to describe himself. There shouldn't be any link between the two- logically there is none- but yet nearly all people who doubt climate change are fundamentalist christians. I sure don't know why, I wish someone could explain it to me. I think it could possibly be some thought process like "this is all a ploy to undermine the power of the west by taking away fossil fuels, which is a land that god has blessed due to our virtuous obedience to the word of god, and therefore the people pushing the narrative of climate change are against god". Something like that. But again I don't really know. I'm sure he's a perfectly decent person though. And you know, some of the hype is overblown, like that uninhabitable earth book, which I'm pretty sure most scientists disagree with.
    - wrycoder 4y ago
      Do "creationists" call themselves by that term? Or do they view it as dismissive of their beliefs? To say, "nearly all people who doubt climate change are fundamentalist christians" is a pretty sweeping statement. I'm not a Christian myself, and I don't actually know any fundamentalists. Yet, about 80% of the older crowd I hang with are negative about the actuality of human-caused global warming (and 80% of the younger crowd, e.g. HN, are very worried). I believe that only perhaps one percent of people have any personal exposure to climate science, in the sense that they have at least scanned the IPCC reports, read some of the refereed papers presenting alternate views, and formed their own opinions. The other 99% in the US are divided into two tribes, whose members form their opinions by listening to the tribal influencers. In the resulting polarization, if I know someone's opinion on a specific issue, I can pretty well predict their opinion on many other issues, including global warming. I'm personally a "luke-warmer", like Spencer. My position is that we are still coming out of the last ice age - there was ice a mile thick where I sit only fifteen thousand years ago, so some warming is expected. My background is physics, and I've been following climate science pretty closely for over twenty years. It's increasingly apparent that the tropospheric temperature record, as measured by satellite, is not in agreement with the computer models that are the source of all the excitement. It's also apparent that the official position on global warming is gradually being adjusted downward. Getting off fossil fuels is a very good idea. We need to switch to solar and nuclear energy. Personally, I get about half my heat from burning locally grown wood, including from my own property. We grow a good part of our own food and keep chickens. I don't have any high energy toys, and I believe in treading lightly on the earth. I'm an independent thinker, and I don't fall into either tribe. There is an interview with Spencer, done following Google's demonetization of his website for spreading disinformation[0]. I'd recommend at least reading the preface to his short book[1], which is part of the Kindle sample on Amazon. I'll include a paragraph from the book's conclusion: Given that CO2 is necessary for life on Earth, yet had been at dangerously low levels for thousands of years, the scientific community needs to stop accepting the premise that more CO2 in the atmosphere is necessarily a bad thing. Global greening has been observed by satellites over the last few decades, which is during the period of most rapid rises in atmospheric CO2. The benefits of increasing CO2 to agriculture have been calculated to be in the trillions of dollars. Crop yields continue to break records around the world, due to a combination of human ingenuity and the direct effects of CO2 on plant growth and water use efficiency. Spencer, Roy. Global Warming Skepticism for Busy People (pp. 126-127). Kindle Edition. [0] https://youtu.be/CZy8mgD05QA https://youtu.be/CZy8mgD05QA [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H57WVYJ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H57WVYJ/ref=dbs_a_def_r...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tabtab 4y ago

After gagging on CA fire pollution every summer (due to long drought), It's hard to think that worse shit ain't coming. It may not kill us all, but will make life harder.

fallingfrog 4y ago

I think the message of encouraging kids to feel a sense of agency rather than nihilistic despair is a good message. I wonder if giving kids agency in other matters might help them be the leaders they're going to need to be- give them the chance to make their own choices when possible. I'm going to try to raise my kids that way.

tacet 4y ago
agency comes from power. i think nihilistic despair in kids comes from sense that people who actually have power (and for kids it is primary parents) have failed to solve the problem. for grown ups, of course it is more nuanced - we know that we lack power to solve the issue or else we would have done it. instead we put hopes and expectations on our kids - that they will rise to meaningful power, where they can change things.

jfengel 4y ago

There is no way to frame "You can grow up to do something about climate change" in tandem with "We are going to do fuck-all about climate change". The longer you wait, the harder it's going to be do deal with it. The messaging gets louder because the situation gets worse. By the time today's kids are in a position to do anything about climate change, we will have sailed through the 1.5C level that is widely thought to bring serious, expensive damage. Climate denial is the dominant force today, and kids are learning a lesson that goes far beyond the distant prospect of climate disasters. It's telling them that science denial is effective. It's already working with the pandemic -- there is a ton of ideological overlap between climate denial and vaccine denial. The best way to teach children that something can be done is to do something. Changing the words will never be as clear a message as the fact that we're not doing anything.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Melting_Harps 4y ago
> The best way to teach children that something can be done is to do something. Changing the words will never be as clear a message as the fact that we're not doing anything. This. As a a person who has dedicated most of my young to adult life to environmental activism, it's been eye opening to see just how many people are feckless and apathetic. I've lost respect for so many people, especially those who demand it from me, because of their inability or out right refusal to do anything about this issue. In short, I realized that their are seldom any grown ups, just people who never grew up and assumed roles of responsibility in which they could diffuse responsibility in a way that makes them look inculpable. I've literately seen TEPCO shame themselves and deny until they couldn't and accepted that Fukushima was avoidable, I've seen the NRC acquiesce to powerful corporate power to the detriment of everyone within a 100 mile radius of San Onofre, I've seen lower management at Syngenta double down on their use of crops that require more inputs 'because f those hippies.' I could go on, and make this an essay, but in short: I don't expect much from most people anymore, what I think is more vital is making the youth more proactive than all the generations before: as a millennial I knew my standards of living would not be like my parents after 2008 so I deluded myself to change things within the system only to realize the system I was in was Cancer Inc. and business was good, and I was the problem. I decided that if I could channel my energy into the things I cared about I could lose myself in a way that I could stop caring about materialism and focus on the things that mattered most. Stability was never in my cards, and rather than fear this reality I embraced it and I lived a Life that I couldn't have planned better as opportunities that I thought impossible began to emerge as I got to work with amazing people on great projects.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Pointless inaction on climate change will only cancel out decades worth of progress in other areas but, probably, on average, not actually reduce average global living conditions. And that's the good news?

toomuchtodo 4y ago

Rebuttal: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-climate-crisis-is-worse-than-you-can-imagine-heres-what-happens-if-you-try https://www.propublica.org/article/the-climate-crisis-is-wor...

wrycoder 4y ago
That's not a rebuttal - it's a confirmation of the psychological damage being caused by constant harping on purported drastic climate change and the human responsibility for it. The man is completely obsessed by it.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  You can’t have a reasonable debate about it with someone who minimizes the seriousness of the situation. https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr/
  - wrycoder 4y ago
    If you mean me, of course you can. But if you think that the root of the problem is CO2, then you'd better take it up with China and India. The EU and the US are doing a good job in reducing CO2 output and will continue to do so.