53 ms·

For anyone interested in what 1.5C represents, I can't recommend enough the Climate Fresk [1] exercise. It's not just the droughts and floods, the heatwaves, t

by Rygian 4y ago

For anyone interested in what 1.5C represents, I can't recommend enough the Climate Fresk [1] exercise. It's not just the droughts and floods, the heatwaves, the changes in birds, insects, crop yields, … Include permafrost melting and releasing greenhouse gasses, civil unrest in populated areas that won't be livable anymore, unstable food production, and quite a few other causes and consequences. It's a feedback loop of many moving parts. Thinking that "we will reach an equilibrium eventually" is probably a naïve take. The next natural equilibrium probably includes a decimated world population. Positive action is necessary now. If you don't know what action to do, go to [1] and start there. [1] https://climatefresk.org/ https://climatefresk.org/

Retric 4y ago
Overstating impact is detrimental to the cause. > decimated 1.5C will be bad, but it won’t directly kill 800+ million people in a short timeframe. People simply don’t respond to harm spread across 100 years the way they react to harm concentrated into a few large events.
- vkou 4y ago
  And underestimating what's actually going to happen, and how difficult it's going to be to reverse, or even put brakes on it is intellectually criminal, but the pro-AGW group hasn't ever cared about that. Why would they, the track record of 'Let industry self-regulate' has worked out great for them in the past. We're going to blow right past 1.5C, 2C, 2.5C...
  - Retric 4y ago
    Longer term projections on 2.5C look more hopeful. Globally electricity production has gotten significantly more green, though offset by increased demand. But, new coal power plants for example were down 66% globally in 2020 vs 2016 and existing infrastructure only lasts so long. Project things forward to 2040 and emissions should be noticeably below current levels even with increasing demand simple because of economic forces. In 2022 10% of all new cars globally were EV’s and that number keeps rising. Combined with an even cleaner grid and things could look quite different in 2040 again even with increasing demand for cars. Now I don’t want to project those trends over the following 60 years, but lower emissions give even more time to lower them further. 2.5C could easily hit in 2200 rather than 2100, or even be avoided entirely. Thus we might be able to shift 1.5C by a few years, 2C by decades, and 2.5C by literal centuries.
    - vkou 4y ago
      Coal is only going out of style because we are building out new natgas plants. The greatest trick that has been pulled on us this century is somehow billing gas as a 'green' source of energy. Electric cars are an expensive distraction from the problem. The sustainable future of transportation is the electric train, the electric trolley, the electric scooter, and the electric bicycle. Personal automobiles, electric or otherwise, were, are, and will continue to be an environmental catastrophe. And while we can electrify some fraction of personal automobiles by 20whenever, we aren't lifting two fingers on the task of rebuilding our societies to be less car-manic. A few underused bike lanes, a few rental scooters scattered around town, and a light rail extension 10 years from now aren't it.
      - californical 4y ago
        Could not agree more. Spending enormous amounts of energy to move around 4,000+ lbs of metal, just to go to the restaurant down the street, is insane.
      - timr 4y ago
        > The greatest trick that has been pulled on us this century is somehow billing gas as a 'green' source of energy. Gas has significantly lower emissions than coal. Progress is progress. Absolutism gets us nowhere, unless your goal is to drive humanity back to the stone age by "switching" to energy production systems that do not currently exist (with the exception of nuclear, which is the only currently practical solution for "green" base load that we stubbornly refuse to consider). All of those electric transportation doo-dads add significant load to a system that can barely keep up as it is (in the US, anyway). Just to emphasize the point, in NYC environmental extremists shut down Indian Point, thus converting about a quarter of NYC's power demands from clean energy (nuclear) to fossil fuel. Meanwhile, each of the past few summers the city has come close to rolling blackouts. Good job, folks.
        vkou 4y ago
        > Absolutism gets us nowhere, And building out natgas will get us into a situation where we are locked into decades of guaranteed emissions, as all the vested interests in the production and consumption space fight tooth and nail to protect their line of business, and the capex they've dumped into it. There's no plausible net-carbon zero path this century that's compatible with our current buildout of natgas. Perfect is the enemy of the good, but this isn't even good!
  - ratboy666 4y ago
    It has been the "mean, bad Capitalist" vs the "nice, social minded Socialist". I tend to go with the Capitalist. Why? Because it has never been good to kill the consumer of the product. In general, this particular principle does NOT hold with Socialists. They (and again, not all) generally do not care.
- witheld 4y ago
  I would love to make a bet with you, and I'd be willing to, but I really don't think I'll get to collect.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Would you actually be willing to bet that world population drops by 800+ million people within 10 years of 1.5C?
    - javajosh 4y ago
      800M is 10% of the current population - the OP's point is that if he's right, there's a non-trivial chance that he, and you, may be dead, making the prediction moot. In terms of EV, it never pays to bet on the apocalypse since you can't collect. Markets can't price in their own demise. (it would actually be quite interesting if they could). (Also, given how often people make predictions online, how often do you see people saying "mea culpa, I was totally wrong about that one!" It's close to zero. Guessing wrong, even in earnest, about important things, doesn't matter anymore, and doesn't pose even a minor threat to one's reputation. This lack of social/cultural corrective has made our zeitgeist is so remarkably polluted with utterly ignorant, bad faith BS like bets about the apocalypse that it doesn't even register any more. How fascinatingly horrible!)
    - tomatotomato37 4y ago
      Depends, can we filter out any deaths caused by the current major landwar between the breadbasket of europe & the "Order #227" gas station?
      - Retric 4y ago
        No need to filter anything. If world population drops by that much I’ll concede the bet, if it doesn’t then they lose.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- geysersam 4y ago
  So is understating the impact. This take is seriously dangerous. "1.5C is not so bad, chill people" When the fact is - we don't know the impact - if we go beyond 1.5. What we do know (because it's already very much measurable) is that much of the worlds glaciers will melt, causing drought. What we do know is that eventually the sea levels will rise and drown many extremely valuable coastal areas.
  - scottLobster 4y ago
    I'd argue we have no idea what will happen when the glaciers melt, given the lack of accurate climate change predictions to date. We have a lot of models that have historically proven very incomplete with no reason to believe they're any more complete now. The oceans rising is more a problem, but it's not going to end human civilization and will happen slowly enough that adaptation is possible, albeit expensive. "Drowning" is hyperbole. Uncertainty is just that, uncertainty. It will be positive for some areas and negative for others. Those of us who benefit from the status quo (myself included) can argue it would be unwise to mess up a good thing, but the simple fact is we have no idea. There will be winners as well as losers. It's quite possible that the midwest becomes wet enough that American farmers will become even more productive through double-cropping, for starters. Likewise the Russians look forward to their northern coastline thawing. The sky isn't falling, it's shifting, and while we probably should minimize the shift as much as practical, we shouldn't plunge ourselves into an economic depression to do it.
    - taylodl 4y ago
      Oh my Sweet Summer Child, you really have an unplaced faith in humanity - especially given our track record. "The sky is shifting" - is a hand-wave to the life-changing impacts headed our way and what our collective response to those impacts will be. Look how nuts people are getting over what are mere trivialities in comparison. Wait until there's crop failures threatening our food supply, fresh water supplies being threatened, property damage on the scale never seen in history, the religious blaming the non-religious for all our woes - the list goes on. That's some "shifting."
- burkaman 4y ago
  Was the parent comment edited? I don't understand who you're responding to, nobody here or in the article or report made that claim.
  - timr 4y ago
    I don't know, but this: > The next natural equilibrium probably includes a decimated world population. Is obvious speculation and likely hyperbole.
    - burkaman 4y ago
      It doesn't seem hyperbolic to me, and I don't understand the addition of "short timeframe". "next natural equilibrium" implies something like 100 years to me, at least. I am very concerned about climate change even though I understand it's not going to directly kill me in 10 years.
      - timr 4y ago
        Let's be really clear: it's not going to "directly" kill many people at all in the next ten years. People will die from things like storms and floods and heat waves and droughts. Maybe more people will die from causes that someone, somewhere attributes to climate, but these are all indirect. The real, immediate threat of climate is that we'll have to spend huge amounts of money mitigating these things.
        mbgerring 4y ago
        The “real, immediate threat of climate” is trillions of dollars changing hands? A massive TAM, with tons of otherwise intelligent people distracted by chatbots and crypto? Sorry… this is supposed to be a threat? What are you threatening me with, a good time?
        timr 4y ago
        I mean, yes? I'd personally rather see money spent on housing and feeding and educating people than building new seawalls. Particularly in places like Bangladesh, which are both poor and low-lying. The collective delusion of the climate conversation is that first-world countries are going to be the ones who suffer, but that isn't what the risk looks like at all. For example, New York City will be OK, even though mass media loves to show apocalyptic visions of the climate future set in lower Manhattan.
- mrpopo 4y ago
  Of course, 1.5C will not kill 800+ million people. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ 1.5C is the (likely to be overshooted) goal. The IPCC report assesses that 2011-2020 is already 1.1C warmer than 1850-1900 (page 7), that the world has been warming by ~0.2C/decade (saw it somewhere), and that current policies (if implemented) will lead to a warming of +3.2C by 2100 (page 23). Page 16 shows various ways in which a +3.2C world will be hostile to humans. For instance most of south and south-east asia, and some of the most populated areas in Western Africa will experience temperatures and humidity levels that are dangerous for human survival >200 days a year. This is now all determined with rather high confidence.
  - politician 4y ago
    Famine will. Rice fails to germinate at 35°C. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-06118-0_6 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-06118-0_...
    - Retric 4y ago
      False, 35C is described as the highest optimal temperature not the maximum in your link. Yields do slowly decline with increased temperature. For specifics, “Germination occurs within the temperature range of 50° to 107°F with an optimum temperature of about 87°F.” https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/mp192/chapter-2.pdf https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/mp192/chapter-2.p... Further, it’s exactly the kind of reason to chose a new variety over an old one.
      - Daishiman 4y ago
        Ahh fantastic. Now let's talk about the rest of the flora and fauna that is absolutely essential for crop growth beyond the few staples that get researched.
      - politician 4y ago
        Before saying "False" and dropping the mic, you should pull the paper and look at Table 1. High temperature stresses start at 25°C. Above 35°C, photosynthesis drops by 15%, grain size suffers, etc. "Yields slowly decline" is a mischaracterization of the situation.
- bertil 4y ago
  OK: how will their respond? Imagine you live in a valley where elderly people die of heat stroke every summer: 100 three years ago, 500 the summer after, 2,000 last summer. Your parents are 70 and 71 and barely made it. You immigrate, with your children, right? To where? The big city with worse heat management? Repeat with peasants who can’t grow crops without expensive feedstock, or pig farmers whose water supply is dry. Where will they go? People will want to flock to places that are currently openly considering tall walls and machine guns to prevent immigration — and that’s when thousands are coming at a time. You think that having several millions every year will not make that situation a lot more tense?
- specialist 4y ago
  > won’t directly kill 800+ million people in a short timeframe I'd rather we not find out. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
toxik 4y ago
What I always find so hard to believe is that, knowing how well we can predict weather and other complicated systems, climate change science somehow is able to make 1/10 centigrade precision predictions on time horizons of decades and centuries.
- NationalPark 4y ago
  Can we predict weather that well? The 10 day forecasts my phone gives are mostly ok, not great, and often change at the last minute.
  - toxik 4y ago
    That was my point.
- js8 4y ago
  Do you also find it hard to believe that casino can say your chance of winning roulette is 1/37 (and you're gonna lose money), despite the fact every roll is random? Both are just law of large numbers.
  - prottog 4y ago
    Strange to compare the random results of a spinning wheel three feet wide in an air-conditioned room to a planetwide system, isn't it?
    - johnnymorgan 4y ago
      Not really, they both rely on chance to win
    - orbifold 4y ago
      Well in both cases you can ignore a lot of unknown physical details and still reach a valid conclusion. In the case of the climate this is done in terms of energy balance for example. The details are super complicated but you also have historical data that you can use to calibrate and validate your models on.
_khhm 4y ago
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tablespoon 4y ago
> ... the changes in ... crop yields... How would they even predict/model that? Have they modeled all the different plausible crops and agricultural techniques, which regional environmental conditions they're most suited for, and the transitions between them based on regional climate change effects? It's one thing to model a natural system, but seems quite a bit more complicated to model a system where human technology and decision-making is extremely significant.
- mrpopo 4y ago
  Page 16 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ > Have they modeled all the different plausible crops and agricultural techniques, which regional environmental conditions they're most suited for, and the transitions between them based on regional climate change effects? Seems so. > It's one thing to model a natural system, but seems quite a bit more complicated to model a system where human technology and decision-making is extremely significant. "Extremely" is a big word. Agricultural yields depend on the weather. A population of 9-10 billion will not be sustained by vertical farms maintained in a synthetic climate.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Page 16 > https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ >> Have they modeled all the different plausible crops and agricultural techniques, which regional environmental conditions they're most suited for, and the transitions between them based on regional climate change effects? > Seems so. I'm not seeing it. I'm assuming you mean page 16 of the "Summary for Policymakers," but all that has is a unreadable map of "Maize Yield" projections with the disclaimer: > Projected regional impacts reflect biophysical responses to changing temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, humidity, wind, and CO2 enhancement of growth and water retention in currently cultivated areas. Models assume that irrigated areas are not water-limited. Models do not represent pests, diseases, future agro-technological changes and some extreme climate responses. So it sounds like they are not accounting for things like changes between crops or changing which areas are cultivated, which could be pretty significant. For instance: their tiny map shows the cultivated area in Canada remaining unchanged, but if you're looking at total world agricultural yield of a future warmer planet, it seems like you would have account for more Canadian land becoming arable and agriculture spreading further north. > "Extremely" is a big word. Agricultural yields depend on the weather. A population of 9-10 billion will not be sustained by vertical farms maintained in a synthetic climate. Which is not the way I (or anyone reasonable) would think people would adapt. Instead of the software-engineer techno-fetishist fantasy of "vertical farms", I would think the adaptations would consist of things like: 1. Creating new farms in areas where the climate is currently too cold for productive agriculture, 2. Switching to different crops or different varieties that are hardier against heat and drought or otherwise yield more calories (per whatever limiting factor), 3. Switching to different irrigation techniques that may be more water-efficient, 4. etc.
alfor 4y ago
[flagged]
- tito 4y ago
  Haha love it. Reminds me of something out of Game of Thrones. For anyone reading this poem who has a strong negative reaction: Consider it a sign that perhaps there's something more you could be doing in your own life. Take a job in climate (https://workonclimate.org/ https://workonclimate.org/ https://climatebase.org/ https://climatebase.org/). Start a startup working on climate solutions. "Climate deniers" aren't really a problem. Complacency is bullshit though. Consider that future generations may look back and judge your excuse of "but alfor on HN wrote a poem that made fun of a climate person" quite harshly. It's go time :)
  - alfor 4y ago
    Thanks ;) I have no problem with climate action, but the religious tendency is too obvious at this point. Clearly Gretha is our virgin Mary, she is not there because of her knowledge, but because she represent innocence, purity. I think we should balance our actions against other causes that are also vitaly important and be careful with giving too much power to government at this moment. Ironically the activists movement (greenpeace) blocked much of the development of nuclear energy, one of the best solution we had many many years ago. Now solar, batteries, wind and EV are completely decarbonizing the energy sector and activist are trying to block mines projects that could help make batteries. I think the solutions is mostly not austerity, taxes and more government, it’s more technology, more developpement. (I would make exceptions for forever chemicals, air quality, ocean and diversity protection)
tito 4y ago
Thanks! I wonder if there's a digital game or model version of this. Feedback loops can be pretty entertaining if presented well.
barbazoo 4y ago
Thanks for sharing that. I signed up for a workshop on Thursday!
bartislartfast 4y ago
I'm wondering what those workshops will teach people to do. Most of the advice I hear comes down to three things "Vote green at the polls"(1), "Vote with your wallet"(2) and "encourage others to do the same"(3) (1) I live in a democracy with ranked choice voting, and I always vote green #1, but the greens are in minority and the main parties are more interested in playing to the masses. sometimes they're in coalition but they don't achieve much. (2) I'm a relatively well paid person in a relatively wealthy country. I own my own home, and I have rooftop solar installed. But I can't afford an EV that will fit my family, or a heat-pump, so I still have to burn oil or wood to heat the house in winter and burn diesel to bring the kids to school. I die inside a little every time I have to go to a filling station. We live in a rural area with no public transport, so that's not an option either. (3) I talk people into getting solar panels and switching to EVs, lowering electricity usage, buying second hand, reusing, recycling, every green action thing I can do. I urge people to vote green. Sometimes I feel like I have a little effect here, but I could be fooling myself. It's disheartening that an environmentally conscious person like myself, with a good steady income and no big debt, still has to burn fossil fuels on a daily basis to keep warm and move around. I feel like I'm part of the problem, not part of the solution.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  > I'm wondering what those workshops will teach people to do. Takes 3 hours of your time to find out.

by Rygian 4y ago

Retric 4y ago

Overstating impact is detrimental to the cause. > decimated 1.5C will be bad, but it won’t directly kill 800+ million people in a short timeframe. People simply don’t respond to harm spread across 100 years the way they react to harm concentrated into a few large events.

vkou 4y ago
And underestimating what's actually going to happen, and how difficult it's going to be to reverse, or even put brakes on it is intellectually criminal, but the pro-AGW group hasn't ever cared about that. Why would they, the track record of 'Let industry self-regulate' has worked out great for them in the past. We're going to blow right past 1.5C, 2C, 2.5C...
- Retric 4y ago
  Longer term projections on 2.5C look more hopeful. Globally electricity production has gotten significantly more green, though offset by increased demand. But, new coal power plants for example were down 66% globally in 2020 vs 2016 and existing infrastructure only lasts so long. Project things forward to 2040 and emissions should be noticeably below current levels even with increasing demand simple because of economic forces. In 2022 10% of all new cars globally were EV’s and that number keeps rising. Combined with an even cleaner grid and things could look quite different in 2040 again even with increasing demand for cars. Now I don’t want to project those trends over the following 60 years, but lower emissions give even more time to lower them further. 2.5C could easily hit in 2200 rather than 2100, or even be avoided entirely. Thus we might be able to shift 1.5C by a few years, 2C by decades, and 2.5C by literal centuries.
  - vkou 4y ago
    Coal is only going out of style because we are building out new natgas plants. The greatest trick that has been pulled on us this century is somehow billing gas as a 'green' source of energy. Electric cars are an expensive distraction from the problem. The sustainable future of transportation is the electric train, the electric trolley, the electric scooter, and the electric bicycle. Personal automobiles, electric or otherwise, were, are, and will continue to be an environmental catastrophe. And while we can electrify some fraction of personal automobiles by 20whenever, we aren't lifting two fingers on the task of rebuilding our societies to be less car-manic. A few underused bike lanes, a few rental scooters scattered around town, and a light rail extension 10 years from now aren't it.
    - californical 4y ago
      Could not agree more. Spending enormous amounts of energy to move around 4,000+ lbs of metal, just to go to the restaurant down the street, is insane.
    - timr 4y ago
      > The greatest trick that has been pulled on us this century is somehow billing gas as a 'green' source of energy. Gas has significantly lower emissions than coal. Progress is progress. Absolutism gets us nowhere, unless your goal is to drive humanity back to the stone age by "switching" to energy production systems that do not currently exist (with the exception of nuclear, which is the only currently practical solution for "green" base load that we stubbornly refuse to consider). All of those electric transportation doo-dads add significant load to a system that can barely keep up as it is (in the US, anyway). Just to emphasize the point, in NYC environmental extremists shut down Indian Point, thus converting about a quarter of NYC's power demands from clean energy (nuclear) to fossil fuel. Meanwhile, each of the past few summers the city has come close to rolling blackouts. Good job, folks.
      - vkou 4y ago
        > Absolutism gets us nowhere, And building out natgas will get us into a situation where we are locked into decades of guaranteed emissions, as all the vested interests in the production and consumption space fight tooth and nail to protect their line of business, and the capex they've dumped into it. There's no plausible net-carbon zero path this century that's compatible with our current buildout of natgas. Perfect is the enemy of the good, but this isn't even good!
- ratboy666 4y ago
  It has been the "mean, bad Capitalist" vs the "nice, social minded Socialist". I tend to go with the Capitalist. Why? Because it has never been good to kill the consumer of the product. In general, this particular principle does NOT hold with Socialists. They (and again, not all) generally do not care.
witheld 4y ago
I would love to make a bet with you, and I'd be willing to, but I really don't think I'll get to collect.
- Retric 4y ago
  Would you actually be willing to bet that world population drops by 800+ million people within 10 years of 1.5C?
  - javajosh 4y ago
    800M is 10% of the current population - the OP's point is that if he's right, there's a non-trivial chance that he, and you, may be dead, making the prediction moot. In terms of EV, it never pays to bet on the apocalypse since you can't collect. Markets can't price in their own demise. (it would actually be quite interesting if they could). (Also, given how often people make predictions online, how often do you see people saying "mea culpa, I was totally wrong about that one!" It's close to zero. Guessing wrong, even in earnest, about important things, doesn't matter anymore, and doesn't pose even a minor threat to one's reputation. This lack of social/cultural corrective has made our zeitgeist is so remarkably polluted with utterly ignorant, bad faith BS like bets about the apocalypse that it doesn't even register any more. How fascinatingly horrible!)
  - tomatotomato37 4y ago
    Depends, can we filter out any deaths caused by the current major landwar between the breadbasket of europe & the "Order #227" gas station?
    - Retric 4y ago
      No need to filter anything. If world population drops by that much I’ll concede the bet, if it doesn’t then they lose.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
geysersam 4y ago
So is understating the impact. This take is seriously dangerous. "1.5C is not so bad, chill people" When the fact is - we don't know the impact - if we go beyond 1.5. What we do know (because it's already very much measurable) is that much of the worlds glaciers will melt, causing drought. What we do know is that eventually the sea levels will rise and drown many extremely valuable coastal areas.
- scottLobster 4y ago
  I'd argue we have no idea what will happen when the glaciers melt, given the lack of accurate climate change predictions to date. We have a lot of models that have historically proven very incomplete with no reason to believe they're any more complete now. The oceans rising is more a problem, but it's not going to end human civilization and will happen slowly enough that adaptation is possible, albeit expensive. "Drowning" is hyperbole. Uncertainty is just that, uncertainty. It will be positive for some areas and negative for others. Those of us who benefit from the status quo (myself included) can argue it would be unwise to mess up a good thing, but the simple fact is we have no idea. There will be winners as well as losers. It's quite possible that the midwest becomes wet enough that American farmers will become even more productive through double-cropping, for starters. Likewise the Russians look forward to their northern coastline thawing. The sky isn't falling, it's shifting, and while we probably should minimize the shift as much as practical, we shouldn't plunge ourselves into an economic depression to do it.
  - taylodl 4y ago
    Oh my Sweet Summer Child, you really have an unplaced faith in humanity - especially given our track record. "The sky is shifting" - is a hand-wave to the life-changing impacts headed our way and what our collective response to those impacts will be. Look how nuts people are getting over what are mere trivialities in comparison. Wait until there's crop failures threatening our food supply, fresh water supplies being threatened, property damage on the scale never seen in history, the religious blaming the non-religious for all our woes - the list goes on. That's some "shifting."
burkaman 4y ago
Was the parent comment edited? I don't understand who you're responding to, nobody here or in the article or report made that claim.
- timr 4y ago
  I don't know, but this: > The next natural equilibrium probably includes a decimated world population. Is obvious speculation and likely hyperbole.
  - burkaman 4y ago
    It doesn't seem hyperbolic to me, and I don't understand the addition of "short timeframe". "next natural equilibrium" implies something like 100 years to me, at least. I am very concerned about climate change even though I understand it's not going to directly kill me in 10 years.
    - timr 4y ago
      Let's be really clear: it's not going to "directly" kill many people at all in the next ten years. People will die from things like storms and floods and heat waves and droughts. Maybe more people will die from causes that someone, somewhere attributes to climate, but these are all indirect. The real, immediate threat of climate is that we'll have to spend huge amounts of money mitigating these things.
      - mbgerring 4y ago
        The “real, immediate threat of climate” is trillions of dollars changing hands? A massive TAM, with tons of otherwise intelligent people distracted by chatbots and crypto? Sorry… this is supposed to be a threat? What are you threatening me with, a good time?
        timr 4y ago
        I mean, yes? I'd personally rather see money spent on housing and feeding and educating people than building new seawalls. Particularly in places like Bangladesh, which are both poor and low-lying. The collective delusion of the climate conversation is that first-world countries are going to be the ones who suffer, but that isn't what the risk looks like at all. For example, New York City will be OK, even though mass media loves to show apocalyptic visions of the climate future set in lower Manhattan.
mrpopo 4y ago
Of course, 1.5C will not kill 800+ million people. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ 1.5C is the (likely to be overshooted) goal. The IPCC report assesses that 2011-2020 is already 1.1C warmer than 1850-1900 (page 7), that the world has been warming by ~0.2C/decade (saw it somewhere), and that current policies (if implemented) will lead to a warming of +3.2C by 2100 (page 23). Page 16 shows various ways in which a +3.2C world will be hostile to humans. For instance most of south and south-east asia, and some of the most populated areas in Western Africa will experience temperatures and humidity levels that are dangerous for human survival >200 days a year. This is now all determined with rather high confidence.
- politician 4y ago
  Famine will. Rice fails to germinate at 35°C. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-06118-0_6 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-06118-0_...
  - Retric 4y ago
    False, 35C is described as the highest optimal temperature not the maximum in your link. Yields do slowly decline with increased temperature. For specifics, “Germination occurs within the temperature range of 50° to 107°F with an optimum temperature of about 87°F.” https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/mp192/chapter-2.pdf https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/pdf/mp192/chapter-2.p... Further, it’s exactly the kind of reason to chose a new variety over an old one.
    - Daishiman 4y ago
      Ahh fantastic. Now let's talk about the rest of the flora and fauna that is absolutely essential for crop growth beyond the few staples that get researched.
    - politician 4y ago
      Before saying "False" and dropping the mic, you should pull the paper and look at Table 1. High temperature stresses start at 25°C. Above 35°C, photosynthesis drops by 15%, grain size suffers, etc. "Yields slowly decline" is a mischaracterization of the situation.
bertil 4y ago
OK: how will their respond? Imagine you live in a valley where elderly people die of heat stroke every summer: 100 three years ago, 500 the summer after, 2,000 last summer. Your parents are 70 and 71 and barely made it. You immigrate, with your children, right? To where? The big city with worse heat management? Repeat with peasants who can’t grow crops without expensive feedstock, or pig farmers whose water supply is dry. Where will they go? People will want to flock to places that are currently openly considering tall walls and machine guns to prevent immigration — and that’s when thousands are coming at a time. You think that having several millions every year will not make that situation a lot more tense?
specialist 4y ago
> won’t directly kill 800+ million people in a short timeframe I'd rather we not find out. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

toxik 4y ago

What I always find so hard to believe is that, knowing how well we can predict weather and other complicated systems, climate change science somehow is able to make 1/10 centigrade precision predictions on time horizons of decades and centuries.

NationalPark 4y ago
Can we predict weather that well? The 10 day forecasts my phone gives are mostly ok, not great, and often change at the last minute.
- toxik 4y ago
  That was my point.
js8 4y ago
Do you also find it hard to believe that casino can say your chance of winning roulette is 1/37 (and you're gonna lose money), despite the fact every roll is random? Both are just law of large numbers.
- prottog 4y ago
  Strange to compare the random results of a spinning wheel three feet wide in an air-conditioned room to a planetwide system, isn't it?
  - johnnymorgan 4y ago
    Not really, they both rely on chance to win
  - orbifold 4y ago
    Well in both cases you can ignore a lot of unknown physical details and still reach a valid conclusion. In the case of the climate this is done in terms of energy balance for example. The details are super complicated but you also have historical data that you can use to calibrate and validate your models on.

_khhm 4y ago

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tablespoon 4y ago

> ... the changes in ... crop yields... How would they even predict/model that? Have they modeled all the different plausible crops and agricultural techniques, which regional environmental conditions they're most suited for, and the transitions between them based on regional climate change effects? It's one thing to model a natural system, but seems quite a bit more complicated to model a system where human technology and decision-making is extremely significant.

mrpopo 4y ago
Page 16 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ > Have they modeled all the different plausible crops and agricultural techniques, which regional environmental conditions they're most suited for, and the transitions between them based on regional climate change effects? Seems so. > It's one thing to model a natural system, but seems quite a bit more complicated to model a system where human technology and decision-making is extremely significant. "Extremely" is a big word. Agricultural yields depend on the weather. A population of 9-10 billion will not be sustained by vertical farms maintained in a synthetic climate.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Page 16 > https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/ >> Have they modeled all the different plausible crops and agricultural techniques, which regional environmental conditions they're most suited for, and the transitions between them based on regional climate change effects? > Seems so. I'm not seeing it. I'm assuming you mean page 16 of the "Summary for Policymakers," but all that has is a unreadable map of "Maize Yield" projections with the disclaimer: > Projected regional impacts reflect biophysical responses to changing temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, humidity, wind, and CO2 enhancement of growth and water retention in currently cultivated areas. Models assume that irrigated areas are not water-limited. Models do not represent pests, diseases, future agro-technological changes and some extreme climate responses. So it sounds like they are not accounting for things like changes between crops or changing which areas are cultivated, which could be pretty significant. For instance: their tiny map shows the cultivated area in Canada remaining unchanged, but if you're looking at total world agricultural yield of a future warmer planet, it seems like you would have account for more Canadian land becoming arable and agriculture spreading further north. > "Extremely" is a big word. Agricultural yields depend on the weather. A population of 9-10 billion will not be sustained by vertical farms maintained in a synthetic climate. Which is not the way I (or anyone reasonable) would think people would adapt. Instead of the software-engineer techno-fetishist fantasy of "vertical farms", I would think the adaptations would consist of things like: 1. Creating new farms in areas where the climate is currently too cold for productive agriculture, 2. Switching to different crops or different varieties that are hardier against heat and drought or otherwise yield more calories (per whatever limiting factor), 3. Switching to different irrigation techniques that may be more water-efficient, 4. etc.

alfor 4y ago

[flagged]

tito 4y ago
Haha love it. Reminds me of something out of Game of Thrones. For anyone reading this poem who has a strong negative reaction: Consider it a sign that perhaps there's something more you could be doing in your own life. Take a job in climate (https://workonclimate.org/ https://workonclimate.org/ https://climatebase.org/ https://climatebase.org/). Start a startup working on climate solutions. "Climate deniers" aren't really a problem. Complacency is bullshit though. Consider that future generations may look back and judge your excuse of "but alfor on HN wrote a poem that made fun of a climate person" quite harshly. It's go time :)
- alfor 4y ago
  Thanks ;) I have no problem with climate action, but the religious tendency is too obvious at this point. Clearly Gretha is our virgin Mary, she is not there because of her knowledge, but because she represent innocence, purity. I think we should balance our actions against other causes that are also vitaly important and be careful with giving too much power to government at this moment. Ironically the activists movement (greenpeace) blocked much of the development of nuclear energy, one of the best solution we had many many years ago. Now solar, batteries, wind and EV are completely decarbonizing the energy sector and activist are trying to block mines projects that could help make batteries. I think the solutions is mostly not austerity, taxes and more government, it’s more technology, more developpement. (I would make exceptions for forever chemicals, air quality, ocean and diversity protection)

tito 4y ago

Thanks! I wonder if there's a digital game or model version of this. Feedback loops can be pretty entertaining if presented well.

barbazoo 4y ago

Thanks for sharing that. I signed up for a workshop on Thursday!

bartislartfast 4y ago

I'm wondering what those workshops will teach people to do. Most of the advice I hear comes down to three things "Vote green at the polls"(1), "Vote with your wallet"(2) and "encourage others to do the same"(3) (1) I live in a democracy with ranked choice voting, and I always vote green #1, but the greens are in minority and the main parties are more interested in playing to the masses. sometimes they're in coalition but they don't achieve much. (2) I'm a relatively well paid person in a relatively wealthy country. I own my own home, and I have rooftop solar installed. But I can't afford an EV that will fit my family, or a heat-pump, so I still have to burn oil or wood to heat the house in winter and burn diesel to bring the kids to school. I die inside a little every time I have to go to a filling station. We live in a rural area with no public transport, so that's not an option either. (3) I talk people into getting solar panels and switching to EVs, lowering electricity usage, buying second hand, reusing, recycling, every green action thing I can do. I urge people to vote green. Sometimes I feel like I have a little effect here, but I could be fooling myself. It's disheartening that an environmentally conscious person like myself, with a good steady income and no big debt, still has to burn fossil fuels on a daily basis to keep warm and move around. I feel like I'm part of the problem, not part of the solution.

barbazoo 4y ago
> I'm wondering what those workshops will teach people to do. Takes 3 hours of your time to find out.