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Climate change: Thousands of penguins die in Antarctic ice breakup
- wahnfrieden 3y agoThis is why we recycle our plastic, vote carefully every couple years, and wait for technical solutions
- happytoexplain 3y agoI can't tell if this is sarcasm, and if it is, I can't tell which direction the underlying opinion is leaning in.
- lemper 3y agoit's a top tier sarcasm. recycling plastic does nothing, United States of America is known to export its garbage, literal garbage, to bumfuck nowhere country across the pond. whoever you elect to the office, lobbyists already bought their asses before day one. technical solution is never the answer of this problem.
- malnourish 3y ago> whoever you elect to the office, lobbyists already bought their asses before day one This is a disingenuous attitude; yes, special interests/lobbyists fund far more than (I think) they should, but there are _very_ clearly differences in opinion and legislation amongst political candidates and elected officials.
- lemper 3y agoalright, i'll ammend my reply. republican politicians are assholes who don't care about imminent catastrophe while democrat politicians care a little more about it but still do nothing effective about it.
- briandear 3y ago[flagged]
- mort96 3y agoRight but if you look at data and scientific consensus rather than focusing on the media's catastrophizing, you see a much clearer, consistent image of a real problem. Also what's this preferred left wing candidate who promises to alter the means of production..? If you're talking about the US, all potential candidates for both major parties are in favor of a capitalist mode of production. Not that this would have any impact at all, even if there were major parties which tried to use climate change as an argument in favor of socialism, that would have no effect on whether or not climate change is a real problem.
- bitwize 3y agoAnd do you know what prevented further ozone layer catastrophe? When leaders around the world got together and, without input from the people, voted to ban CFCs because the science was clear that CFC pollution was the problem. Government regulation works. It solves environmental problems like ozone layer depletion. What COVID showed us is that individual freedom is an illusion we choose to believe in when times are good and energy is cheap. There are no libertarians in a crisis. If we want to solve the climate crisis -- really solve it, not pretend to try to solve it while supporting the status quo -- governments are going to have to impose drastic restrictions the public will not like.
- mrguyorama 3y agoWhich is why Exxon's internal research made accurate predictions about CO2 quantities and resulting temperature increases all the way back in the 70s right? Because Exxon is a liberal think tank attempting to get liberals elected?
- dangoor 3y agoResponding specifically to the "vote carefully every couple years" part of this presumably sarcastic remark: I think this kind of throwaway comment belittles the fact that voting _does_ matter. Last night, the Republicans held a primary debate in which none would acknowledge human-caused climate change. Last year, the Democratic party passed the inflation reduction act which puts a bunch of resources into addressing climate change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_Reduction_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_Reduction_Act "Recycle our plastic" may be worthless, but voting and acting while also developing technical solutions really does matter.
- wahnfrieden 3y agovoting is at best tactical harm reduction, like plastic recycling. at worst it's a distraction from necessary change, like plastic recycling.
- dangoor 3y agoDo you have a solution for the "necessary change" that does not involve governments? Or are you in the "we're all going to die anyway so it doesn't matter what we do at this point" camp?
- wahnfrieden 3y agosure, and absolutely not
- myshpa 3y agoThe necessary changes are situated on the production side.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoabsolutely
- Julesman 3y agoLOL!!! This HAS to be parody.
- igor47 3y agoThis is heartbreaking. News like this is why I'm devoting my career to fighting climate change.
- jayparth 3y agoWhat are you working on?
- 40yearoldman 3y ago[flagged]
- tonmoy 3y ago> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- CalRobert 3y agoAny suggestions? I found my current job on climatebase.org but am interested in other ways to help. I would love to be able to directly quantify my work's impact on the planet.
- rpastuszak 3y ago+1 also interested in some tips
- bad_alloc 3y agoI want to do that too, my background so far is CS, robotics and traching programming. What avenues exist?
- etrautmann 3y agoI'm also curious for more information
- h2odragon 3y ago> up to 10,000 young birds ... most likely drowned or froze to death. or possibly they managed to shuffle ~2km or less in 43 days and were just fine. That's not a tear jerker headline tho. edit: asked `units` and doubled the distance: You have: 3km/43days You want: m/day 69.767442
- tshaddox 3y agoI bet I couldn't make the 2km swim in 43 days, because I also lack the waterproof feathers needed to swim in the ocean.
- CalRobert 3y agoThe deviation in sea ice extent from previous years is terrifying. I've been watching lines be slightly lower than previous years my whole life but it seems like the ice loss has accelerated dramatically.
- nemo44x 3y agoAntarctic sea ice extent had been rising from 1979 (when satellite data started) to 2015. It regressed for a few years and then expanded again in 2020 and 2021 and then regressed again. There's a lot of causes of this and there are studies looking at it going back many hundreds and thousands of years, but they aren't as accurate as satellite data. Additionally, different seas in the antarctic have had different behaviors. Some have regressed and some have expanded at different times. https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/18/1729/2022/ https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/18/1729/2022/ > ...changes in atmospheric circulation, wind stress and thermodynamic processes linked to the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) >...Thus, projections of future Antarctic sea-ice extent and the associated climate implications are highly uncertain. Point is - we don't know.
- dj_mc_merlin 3y agoSeems this was immediately heavily downvoted (I'm not OP). Curious to see what arguments against this stance are.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kristopolous 3y agoCiting large technical volumes and claiming they say something counter to a consensus, such as https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/ is a classic bluff. For example, it's one of Alex Jones's favorite tactics. I spent a couple minutes on the article in question and it does not agree with the OP. The bluffer in this classic game, however, has already moved on to misappropriating their next large volume. It's easy to toss smoke bombs.
- rybosworld 3y agoThe ice levels this year are definitely a cause for concern. There's good evidence that 2023 is trending to be the hottest year on record because of reduction of sulfur in cargo ship fuels. Sulfur is a pollutant that reduces air quality but on the flip side, it can increase cloud formation (which prevents heat being trapped in the atmosphere). https://www.nasa.gov/feature/esnt/2022/nasa-study-finds-evidence-that-fuel-regulation-reduced-air-pollution-from-shipping https://www.nasa.gov/feature/esnt/2022/nasa-study-finds-evid... Some folks see this as an argument in favor of continuing to use high-sulfur fuels, and perhaps, intentionally disperse sulfur in the atmosphere. That's a bad idea for a number of reasons, one of which is acidification of rain. The biggest and most alarming takeaway imo, is that high-sulfur fuels have been obscuring the severity of climate change.
- mort96 3y agoOthers see it as an argument in favour of continuing to pump stuff into the atmosphere to increase the albedo of the earth, but using less harmful materials than sulfur. That really seems like the obvious next step in my opinion.
- myshpa 3y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/30/radical-ways-to-fix-the-earth-are-they-magic-bullets-or-just-band-aids https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/30/radical-... Dismissing SRM technology, Prof Joeri Rogelj of Imperial College, London, called it “irresponsible, dangerous and a threat to the manageability” of our survival, saying: “It is not a solution but an extremely dangerous band-aid that covers up the global warming problem without healing it, creating a false and unwarranted sense of climate safety while the core of the problem continues to fester.” https://phys.org/news/2023-08-viewpoint-guardrails-geoengineering-gamble-potentially.html https://phys.org/news/2023-08-viewpoint-guardrails-geoengine... Viewpoint: Without more research and guardrails, geoengineering is a costly gamble, with potentially harmful results While theoretically capable of cooling the planet, solar radiation management could have drastic side effects by shifting patterns of global atmospheric circulation that can lead to more extreme weather events. It also does nothing to reduce harms of excess greenhouse gases, including ocean acidification. A 2022 study published in the scientific journal Nature predicted that stratospheric aerosol injection could alter global precipitation patterns and reduce agricultural productivity. Beyond safety, another important question involves accountability. There's a good chance that geoengineering meant to help one region would harm others. That's because ocean and weather systems are globally interconnected. As Riley Duren, a systems engineer from NASA, said in an interview with the space agency: "Geoengineering is not a cure. At best, it's a Band-Aid or tourniquet; at worst, it could be a self-inflicted wound."
- Transpire7487 3y ago99.9% species to ever exist have gone extinct. Just because we see one happening in front of us with expensive measuring equipment doesn't mean much. This has big "the polar bears are starving" because of climate change vibes.
- stouset 3y agoThis would be incredibly insightful if only we didn’t know that the current rate of extinction is extremely high, and on par with (if not exceeding) that of other mass extinction periods in our planet’s history.
- myshpa 3y ago> the current rate of extinction is extremely high, and on par with (if not exceeding) that of other mass extinction periods in our planet’s history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction "The current rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates, and is increasing" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-70-of-animal-populations-wiped-out-since-1970-report-reveals-aoe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-7... Animal populations experience average decline of almost 70% since 1970, report reveals
- virgildotcodes 3y ago100% of all people who have ever lived have died. Does this mean we don't draw attention to genocide?
- Transpire7487 3y agoThere's no such thing as genocide in the (non-human) animal kingdom. There is only natural selection.
- virgildotcodes 3y agoYou've completely sidestepped the analogy and are just talking past me.
- Julesman 3y agohttps://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-a... I have a dark fascination with the inevitable industry-friendly responses you find on a post like this. I always wonder if the people know that the industry says very different things behind closed doors than they do in congress.
- nvm0n2 3y agoIt's the other way around. Huge quantities of climate related claims and journalism are bought and paid for. Supposedly "non profit" organizations are the most corrupt of all. https://www.ap.org/ap-in-the-news/2022/climate-grant-illustrates-growth-in-philanthropy-funded-news https://www.ap.org/ap-in-the-news/2022/climate-grant-illustr... The Associated Press said Tuesday that it is assigning more than two dozen journalists across the world to cover climate issues, in the news organization’s largest single expansion paid for through philanthropic grants. The announcement illustrates how philanthropy has swiftly become an important new funding source for journalism — at the AP and elsewhere — at a time when the industry’s financial outlook has been otherwise bleak. For many years, Journalists and philanthropists were more wary of each other. News organizations were concerned about maintaining independence and, until the past two decades, financially secure enough not to need help. Philanthropists didn’t see the need, or how journalists could help them achieve their goals. Nonprofit news organizations like ProPublica and Texas Tribune led the way in changing minds Both sides had things to learn. For Carovillano, it was getting used to the idea that funders weren’t just being generous; they had their own goals to achieve. “This is a mutually beneficial arrangement,” he said. Note that all 20 of the new hires are tasked to "focus on climate change’s impact" - i.e. impact is assumed, and then they go looking for stories to support this narrative. Something they explicitly aren't funded to investigate: whether the science is robust. As always, the loudest shrieking about corruption comes from the most corrupt people.
- Julesman 3y agoThis is not, in any way, a direct response to my comment.