14 ms·

Many scientists don’t want to tell the truth about climate change. Here’s why

100 points by kitkat_new 3y ago

fellowniusmonk 3y ago
Idk, I saw a lot of takes from people I know from IRL in 2020/21 where the moment 100% containment seemed like it wasn't an option people said "why try anything at all? what happens, happens, if your grandma dies she dies." even though vaccines looked promising but weren't generally available yet... even with these promising percentile "solutions" very close, if the solution isn't 100% effective people seem to give up. I think if you've ever been around depressed or emotionally overwhelmed people or just people generally you see this kind of all or nothing thinking is not just common but prevalent. I've always been against paternalism historically but the last few years have provided a fair amount of evidence that it might be a valid tactic. I used to be ideologically against cohersive power as well but persuasion often doesn't come from well reasoned argument, it can come from brute repetition, or for addicts of different stripes (drugs, ragebait, social media, personality) persuasion seems like a dead end.
- lazide 3y ago
  Authoritarianism isn’t bad because it doesn’t work. Authoritarianism is bad because it works too well - for the authority. And while the authorities interests and everyone else’s may align well at the beginning, that is very unlikely after awhile. And then there is nothing anyone can do about it.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    I have three words for anyone who doesn't think authoritarianism can work out well in the long run -- Lee Kuan Yew. Thanks to him, Singapore is a single-party autocracy -- that's rich, clean, and generally pleasant to live in.
    - lazide 3y ago
      For one generation. That isn’t the long run yet. He didn’t die that long ago. He also left a lot of angry Malays and Indians in his wake. Dictators worked out well for Rome for awhile! And Saddam did really turn Iraq around. The biggest issue IMO with Authoritarians is they tend to take out realistic competition (Cincinnatus excepted) and force everyone else to march in lockstep with them. Part of the ideology. So even if they do allow succession, it’s controlled and ‘monoculture’. Which long term (or even short term if done harshly enough) weakens the state and the population, as it makes everything rigid. It tends to snap instead of bend. But only time will tell. The CCP has also been doing pretty well by most standards too, and they have a ‘leader for life’ now too. Some kind of authoritarianism (by committee, dictator, king, etc) has been and is the historic norm, no?
  - fellowniusmonk 3y ago
    I agree with your take on Authoritarianism, it's not a good multi generational approach since transfer of power eventually becomes violent and incompetent dictators are normative. Paternalistic communication isn't necessarily authoritarianism though. No info is being withheld, anyone who cares can still look it up, it's more of a marketing tactic.
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    In the past few years we've learned that no matter what course of action a group of any significant size chooses to take, at least 25% of them will just say "no, fuck you" and either refuse to go along or actively sabotage the effort. Given that, what's your alternative? How do you get the necessary level of cooperation happening right now so there's some semblance of civilization left for people 3 generations from now?
    - lazide 3y ago
      Since when is 25% enough to block the other 75%? Actually? 75% is a supermajority. Think about that a bit, and I think you’ll get your answer. You’re being lied to, and it isn’t actually that 25% that is (solely) at fault.
      - Paul-Craft 3y ago
        Since we can't accomplish what we need to accomplish without 100% participation. You're deluding yourself if you think we have any hope of a reasonable climate future without universal participation. And, yes, it is the 25%'s fault when they're just willing to say "no" to anything because it hurts someone they want hurt, even if it also hurts them in the process.
        lazide 3y ago
        There has never been a time where 100% of anyone has ever actually been on board. Nor a time when it was ever required. Actually. It isn’t even in the rules that such a thing is even requested or desired. If someone is giving you another impression, that is a good place to start in your investigation. The answer is staring you in the face, you just don’t want to see it.
        Paul-Craft 3y ago
        Please enlighten me.
        3y ago
seventytwo 3y ago
I get why some people are trying to stick to the 1.5C thing, but it’s the role of scientists to just give it to us straight. We rely on that. Additionally, I think it is actually better that they express the situation as-is (getting worse, faster) because the public isn’t going to change unless things are dire. There’s so much social and economic inertia that nothing is going to change until it absolutely has to. By voicing the reality that we’re going to shoot way past 1.5C, maybe that will start to raise more alarms.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  > By voicing the reality that we’re going to shoot way past 1.5C, maybe that will start to raise more alarms. I don't think that's going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced.
- esafak 3y ago
  At the same time, you want to give hope otherwise paralysis sets in.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    yes, and this is literally the "old lie" that TFA discusses. sure, you want to give people hope, but you shouldn't lie to them about what's coming simply to give them hope. "hope" can also be things like "let's keep it to 4C". how did we get to "hope" being defined solely by this 1.5C number? this also generally discounts the loss of hope people are going to feel when they realize they've been lied to, especially when you are demanding they make these huge sacrifices. We already saw the result of this approach during COVID - not only was nobody fooled by the "masks don't reduce transmission" but when scientists admitted this was false messaging primarily intended to massage people's behavior, it pretty well destroyed any rapport between the scientific community and the public. If you are someone who "does everything right" and stops eating meat, sorts your recycleables, and reduces the number of times you flush - how do you feel when the outcome is "lol, yeah, none of that is going to be enough, we know and knew that, but despite your sacrifice we're gonna blow way past that anyway because we didn't tackle any of the systemic issues around production or distribution"?
kurthr 3y ago
I almost didn't click on this... it turns out the scientists are just as depressed by the news. I'm not surprised that 1.5C is overly hopeful. Frankly, it looks like geoengineering may be more viable/profitable/necessary than currently discussed.
- go_elmo 3y ago
  I think it will come like most things - as a sigmoid curve. People will ask for it once the catastrophes become locally constant.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    Makes me truly wonder if we wouldn't be better off with a benevolent AGI controlling things on our behalf
    - sharemywin 3y ago
      keyword benevolent
      - arrowsmith 3y ago
        "benevolent" makes it kind of tautological... if it's benevolent then it'll make us better off by definition. The real question is "can we make a benevolent AGI?", to which I strongly suspect the answer is "no".
        pmarreck 3y ago
        We already did, it's called ChatGPT
      - pmarreck 3y ago
        it has no reason (or will) to choose malevolence, it will only use the morality we tell it to have, and thus will be a perfect reflection of what we want to be, in a way that even our very own kids cannot fulfill
V__ 3y ago
> I think climate scientists (and journalists) are underestimating people. If you treat people like children who can’t handle the truth, they will behave like children. He should get outside right now and ask a few people about the topic. People ignore the truth, don't care or are actively working against it because it is a Chinese hoax.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  I wish journalists were underestimating people. They have just reached an integrity bankruptcy where they run press releases instead of articles. The truth is readily available on demand and large numbers of people still behave like children.
  - ImAnAmateur 3y ago
    It's the age of mis-information. False things and lies are also available on demand. People have to decide what is true and who to listen to. That's not easy.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  The idea that it's a Chinese hoax is actually a Russian hoax.
  - lawlessone 3y ago
    Can't have people not buying all that fuel..
- b59831 3y ago
  [dead]
- hitsurume 3y ago
  I don't think they believe its a hoax. A lot of it is also hoping someone else will solve the problem for them. Or because climate change hasn't dramatically changed their normal lives yet that forces them for action. People are not really good at preventing problems, hence why history tends to repeat itself.
1attice 3y ago
Ironically, as terrifying as the climate news is, I don't think that's what's going to do us in. Increasingly, I think the delegitimization of political institutions (which failed to prevent this predictable calamity) is going to be the business end of the stick. It can seem weird to draw a line between our wobbling democracies and climate change, but when you recall that institutions derive their legitimacy from their ability to deliver repeatable results, and the opportunity to deliver (climate) results of any sort is diminishing, I imagine it will essentially stretch and then snap the overton window. Soon is the time of monsters.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Well look on the bright side, a global collapse of civilization that sets humanity back 500 years is one way to reduce carbon emissions!
  - lm28469 3y ago
    The twist is that if we collapse we will most likely never come back since we already burned all the easy to reach fuel. Can't go from bronze age to CPUs without an industrial revolution somewhere in between
    - Paul-Craft 3y ago
      That's right. Absolute best case scenario, we'd probably be looking at 2-3000 years to recover the amount of progress we've made in the past 250 years. Worst case, we're never again able to progress past 18th century technology. Fossil fuels are a hell of a drug.
  - 1attice 3y ago
    Not necessarily -- there are a lot more wood-burning stoves in a world without solar panels, and we don't have the population that we had 500 years ago. It's not like rewinding a tape or time travel. I would predict we start moving backward and simply do not stop -- not at 500 years, not at 1000 years. A positive feedback loop is just someone else's interrupted homeostasis.
slibhb 3y ago
> Climate experts talk a lot about “cathedral thinking.” It’s the idea of working towards long term goals — like a medieval cathedral. These goals require vision, shared commitment, and decades, even centuries, of planning. The planners and builders don’t live to see the end product, but future generations reap the rewards. > It’s an inspiring idea. Something maybe only humans could divine. But here’s the thing: cathedral thinking also requires a firm grasp of facts. A cathedral built on fantasy won’t stand for long. > If my son and his friends think the coral reefs will be OK, the reefs are doomed. If he knows the truth, maybe he’ll become a biologist who tries to save them. When people know what they’re up against, many will be sad — I’m sad! — but then they can prepare. This is an example of a perennial mistake where the science behind global warming is conflated with the science behind the consequences of global warming. No one knows if the coral reefs are doomed! Additionally, it's ironic to use the term "cathedral thinking" and then talk about the necessity of sticking to the facts. Cathedrals are built by Christians as a way to worship God. As someone who doesn't believe in God, I see a lesson here: beleving in something, whether it's true or not, can be useful. In fact, it may even be necessary if you want beautiful things like cathedrals. And even us heathens can be inspiried by ideals that are -- being ideals -- unattainable.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  I hate to point this out, but the cathedral thinking idea is just working on something you're likely not going to see finished. The original baggage is irrelevant to the metaphor. In fact, that's the point of metaphors - being able to take the core idea while understanding that the particulars are superfluous.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  On the other hand, just because the coral reefs seem "fine" today doesn't mean they will be in 2 weeks. Referring to the recent mass die off of corals off the Florida Keys, Dr. Cory Krediet, a professor of marine science who studies corals had this to say: > “The health of the coral is at a catastrophic loss,” Krediet said. “This is an unprecedented level of temperature increase and it happened at a rate that the corals cannot deal with. We went from healthy reefs to bleach reefs and dead reefs within 10 days.” https://www.clickorlando.com/weather/2023/07/27/floridas-coral-reefs-are-dying-heres-why-you-should-care/ https://www.clickorlando.com/weather/2023/07/27/floridas-cor... And the temperature just keeps going up. It might be months, years, maybe even a couple decades, but things keep looking worse and worse for the corals, and we're not doing enough to stop it.
moomin 3y ago
One thing that scientists have learned over the last year is that facts and honesty don’t help. There are many financially motivated people trying their best to keep the temperature rising unchecked, and they know that complex, nuanced messages just don’t land at a political level. So you want something to happen, you keep the message consistent and clear. Don’t tell the losing team they should give their opponents more chances to score. If society had wanted straight talking, we wouldn’t be in this situation.
- mixedCase 3y ago
  Right, because the "you'll all be underwater by the 2000s" messages 30-40 years ago sure helped a lot and nobody is claiming climate change is a hoax anymore.
- readthenotes1 3y ago
  Seems like they learned that facts and honesty don't help sometime before the pandemic...
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    I, too, have learned an awful lot about human nature since about 2015 or so.
- Jensson 3y ago
  > If society had wanted straight talking, we wouldn’t be in this situation. USA is by far the worst climate change offender, and USA uses way more alarmist messaging than any other country I've seen. So to me it looks like alarmist messaging makes it worse, not better. Facts and honesty does help, big tobacco lost, tons of countries all over the world have already added plans to ban fossil fuel cars in about a decade etc. The caveat is that it takes decades for that change to happen, and US "scientists" seems to always want to sway the current election in their favor, so they happily sacrifice trust and long term get those small short term wins.
  - moomin 3y ago
jtfairbank 3y ago
It's an unfortunate reality that we're going to exceed +1.5C, and we need to begin preparing for the consequences now. "Solving" climate change requires humanity to both prevent further warming AND take care of the people impacted by it. 10% of us could be forced to flee our homes by 2050... In 2019 I founded Distribute Aid to develop community supply-chains that can support displaced people at scale. Since then, we've delivered $25M of aid between 100+ communities in 16+ countries. Given the size of the problem, and the need for rapid growth of successful solutions, we're taking a distributed approach that prioritizes local aid groups who are supporting displaced people. Everything is open-source of course! If anyone wants to learn more / support us, please leave a comment or email me at taylor /at/ distributeaid.org. :)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
somedude895 3y ago
Absolutely agree with this. I see this juxtaposition between calls for basically civilization-ending extreme measures to stay below 1.5 and others saying 1.5 is already a certainty and will end us all, and it just ends up making me tired and not care about climate change anymore because nobody's talking sense on what should and could be done.
- hkt 3y ago
  What you're experiencing and saying is actually completely right. Issues don't motivate people, and actions lead beliefs as much (or more) than vice versa A paper on exactly this : https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abcd5a https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abcd5a My suggestions would be these: * Think about where your food comes from, and how it is fertilised. Read about different modes of agriculture. * Think about minimising your energy usage, especially fossil fuels. Look at heat pumps, cycling infrastructure, that kind of thing. * Learn about alternatives for building and anything else. Building with straw bales is a particular favourite of mine because it can be done so simplistically by people with relatively little training. * Find projects where other people are doing stuff and join in. See the above article - self-efficacy is a muscle, build it by exercising it. A great source of inspiration: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/ https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/ Edit: also, we'll blow the 1.5C carbon budget in 8 years. Sorry - we'd have to cut emissions by 20% a year every year to avoid that. Plus sequestration of course.
  - sharemywin 3y ago
    My question is at what point do government fail? I know it seems like a nut job question but, if we assume global warming is nothing we've seen before event then wouldn't at least some governments fail? Is there some way to predict it? Let's also assume some radical change in some governments like to a fascist or communist type regime is possible as well
    - hkt 3y ago
      I'd guess no western governments would fail. Personally I suspect when the west reaches its ideological reflexive response to climate change, it'll look like fascism. I also suspect we'd have preferred communism. What's scary to me is the malign actions that are possible in the name of climate change. Imagine you're living in Pakistan and your home has been washed away. Is it so hard to believe someone somewhere will choose to pursue revenge? Armed with the simple fact that Americans have higher per capita carbon emissions than any other people - double as much, if memory serves - then someone sufficiently angry may well be able to justify indiscriminate killing of Americans to themselves. Apologies for the morbidity here, but what I'm saying here is that by not adopting explicit policies of "just transition" we're setting up the conditions for climate fascism in the west and climate terrorism too.
simbolit 3y ago
I get "We’re sorry, the page you requested is currently unavailable." Tried three times. Edit: Works if I proxy it: https://12ft.io/proxy?&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wbur.org%2Fcognoscenti%2F2023%2F10%2F03%2F1-5-degrees-celcius-un-climate-change-report-barbara-moran https://12ft.io/proxy?&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wbur.org%2Fcognos...
gfarah 3y ago
How can we sensibly prepare ourselves as individuals for the challenges that lie ahead? Anyone got articles on this topic?
- bullfightonmars 3y ago
  Vote for politicians who support carbon taxes and investing in climate resilience and infrastructure. You can’t prepare for this as an individual. This is a global societal problem. The effects of climate change are predictable on a global scale but much less so on a local scale.
  - arrowsmith 3y ago
    > You can’t prepare for this as an individual. This is a global societal problem. Why not both? "Climate resilience" will in large part be driven by individuals and communities working on a local scale. Support big-scale political initiatives where you can, but that doesn't mean you can't make a difference locally too.
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    > You can’t prepare for this as an individual. I think we can in minor ways. Adjusting expectations, becoming more resilient, simplifying one's life, consuming less, learning to make and do things yourself. I think those things will pay off even if they won't change anything substantial.
  - jakear 3y ago
    If voting could change anything it'd be illegal. In CA we aren't even allowed to vote anymore. Gavin simply appoints senators who look the way he wants and we get stuck with them. And that's something as simple as senators (who barely have any power in the first place). A change to the world power structure (corporate interests that profit of mass-consumerism) is achievable only through violent revolution. But nobody cares enough about the climate for that. They just complain online, put soup on things, and pat themselves on the back.
- arrowsmith 3y ago
CodeWriter23 3y ago
[flagged]
- pmarreck 3y ago
  Climate science, by its nature, is a multidisciplinary field. It marries the knowledge from oceanography, meteorology, geology, and yes, even astrophysics to some extent—given that solar radiation is a key driver of Earth's climate. However, the core of climate science revolves around Earth's atmospheric processes and how they interact with various terrestrial and oceanic systems. Astrophysics, on the other hand, is the study of celestial bodies and phenomena occurring far beyond Earth's atmosphere. While it's true that astrophysical phenomena like solar cycles and cosmic radiation can have an effect on Earth's climate, these are often secondary or tertiary influences when compared to more proximate factors like greenhouse gas emissions and albedo changes. Thus, dismissing climate models as "junk science" for not heavily featuring astrophysics is akin to dismissing the expertise of a cardiac surgeon because they don't also perform neurosurgery. Lastly, to borrow a Pascal's Wager argument form, what exactly is the cost of being wrong in either case, here? Do you know it? Can you calculate it with any certainty? Note: Every paragraph but the last one was selected by me from a ChatGPT4 answer regarding this. I strongly believe in the potential of LLM's to massively, and one day hopefully automatically, refute disinformation
  - jakear 3y ago
    "I'm right because the corporate interests governing openAI's output agree with me" isn't the dunk you think it is.
    - pmarreck 3y ago
      Well, "I'm right because carefully cherry-picked opinion and misleading statistics agree with me" is arguably worse. Tell me, would you use the same "reasoning" applied to literally anything else? Will you be taking up a cigar habit in the defense of Ronald Fisher, literally the "father of modern statistics", who disputed the link between smoking and cancer? https://priceonomics.com/why-the-father-of-modern-statistics-didnt-believe/ https://priceonomics.com/why-the-father-of-modern-statistics... While doing this, will you turn a blind eye to the evidence that corporate interests had in maintaining doubt (in this case, it would be tobacco companies, but in the OP case, oil companies)? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879177/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879177/ Or will you stop wearing seatbelts because of some niche cases of it preventing people from escaping submerged vehicles? https://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/safety-regulatory-devices/can-seatbelts-kill-you.htm https://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/safety-reg... What's the potential cost of you being right vs. the cost of you being wrong? Can you even calculate it with any certainty? Do you know which groups of people it might impact? Do you know what parts will be irreversible? Or are you just another armchair rabblerouser whose day job is... Not remotely connected to studying this stuff at least 8/5?
Eumenes 3y ago
[flagged]
belval 3y ago
> There’s something else going on, too: Scientists are shielding the public. They say: “We don’t want people to give up,” or “We don’t want the island nations to feel abandoned,” or “We don’t want people to lose hope.” This is called out by the author, but in my opinion as soon as you start changing the truth to fit a narrative you are not being scientific. If their model says we are missing the mark and we will get warming of 4C then this is what should be reported. What would we say if a scientist doing Alzheimer research said that their new medecine could reduce symptoms by 50% even though their data shows that the reduction is only 10%? Even if it's not for money and purely so that patients treated with the medecine would "keep hope" we would call that person a liar.
- simbolit 3y ago
  From my conversations with climate scientists my understanding is that around 2005-2015 (rough estimate) the opposite was the case: A few people said "we are going straight to hell", and the majority publicly called them "alarmist" and "counterproductive", while (in private conversation, with multiple people) admitting that the "alarmists" might well be correct.
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    I still get called "alarmist" and "doomer" when I bring up what the realistic impacts of climate change 10 years out, based just on current emissions is. Just look here: https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/ https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/ You can plainly see that if we just do as we've been doing, by 2100, we're looking at 2.6-2.9 degrees of warming over pre-industrial levels. If we actually managed to hit the 2030 targets that have been set (and, that's a huge long shot, to be clear), then we're in for about 2.4 degrees. If we literally just do what the fuck we've said we were going to do, then the prediction is still about 2 degrees of warming. The "optimistic scenario" (lol) is labeled 1.8 degrees. Even if we got the help of a magical genie to stop emitting all greenhouse gasses today, we're still looking at at least 1.2-1.6 degrees of warming, according to NASA: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/climateqa/would-gw-stop-with-greenhouse-gases/ https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/climateqa/would-gw-s... In the past year, we've seen mass die offs of salmon and snow crabs. Insects, as a group, are on the decline. Climate migration is starting to happen, and the countries that are receiving these refugees are not welcoming them with open arms. This is barely the beginning. It only gets worse from here over the next decade. I honestly would not be surprised to see global civilization collapse in my lifetime, and my actuarial lifespan is up in about 45 years.
Apreche 3y ago
One set of facts, climate science, tell us the reality of what's happening to our environment. But another set of facts, communications and psychology, tell us what messaging will get people to put forth the greatest effort at combating the problem. What good are principles if the cost of adhering to them is an increase in actual pain, suffering, death, and destruction? Say whatever needs to be said keep people from giving up.
yuvadam 3y ago
The Deep Adaptation [1] movement has been talking for years about how science has been peddling hopium to the masses (my words, not theirs). Thinking of climate collapse with the understanding that these changes will happen well within our lifetime can open up new perspectives that can help individuals - and society at large - better deal with what's to come. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Adaptation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Adaptation
kansface 3y ago
Does anyone know if the coral reefs will migrate to cooler waters? Maybe that’s not feasible in a timely fashion given current locations and continental shelfs? Seems like humans could help them out in that case.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  They already are.
- crote 3y ago
  Coral reefs grow at about 3 millimeters a year. Many reefs are many thousands of years old. New reefs will probably grow in cooler waters, but it will not happen nearly fast enough. The entire ecosystem around the reefs will basically collapse before migration becomes even remotely viable.
  - jakear 3y ago
    New ecosystems will form, eventually. Humans love to think their time scales are the only ones that matter.
    - lawlessone 3y ago
      >Humans love to think their time scales are the only ones that matter. They matter to humans.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    Ocean acidity will go up worldwide though
- lm28469 3y ago
  You're missing the forest for the trees The coral reef thing was more of a marketing campaign, it's beautiful, it dies quickly, you can see it almost live, but all in all it doesn't matter much Ocean acidification, massive change in wind and ocean currents , the permafrost melting, loss of albedo in the poles, &c. These are all much bigger problems we can't deal with at all, it'll start self reinforcing loops we can't even pretend to understand yet
pmarreck 3y ago
My son is 2.25 years old (and honestly, I absolutely can't wait until he is old enough to have conversations about science with me). I won't hold back. I will certainly ask him if he is ready to discuss a topic that he will likely not like the truth of, and that I feel it is only fair to be honest with him, and that I am here to support him if it is upsetting. At least, that's what I think now. When you see your own kid get upset, it is REALLY hard to stay the course.
- dougmwne 3y ago
  I’m almost 40. Climate change was everywhere when I was young. It will be everywhere for him also. It’s not your choice if he knows or not. He will know.
jfengel 3y ago
The real question, he said, is whether we overshoot 1.5 C by a little bit and come back down, “Or whether we go blasting through one and a half degrees, go through even two degrees and keep on going.” That's not even a question. Of course we're going to go blasting through 1.5C. And we're going to keep accelerating. We haven't even come close to pretending to try to make a difference. I have absolutely no idea what messaging is most appropriate to convey that. We're still stuck on trying to convince people that anything is happening at all. A minority of people, to be sure, but a minority controlling a significant fraction of the world's wealth (and, not coincidentally, a wildly disproportionate fraction of the world's energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions). To my mind, the fact that we're looking at 4-5C by the end of the century isn't even the worst part. I'll be dead by then. But right now, today, we're having battles over really obvious and simple scientific facts, where the overwhelming evidence is on one side and we still can't make progress. That goes well beyond climate change. It shows up in every aspect of American culture. That's making a lot of lives much worse, today, right now.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  All my life I've felt like I'm taking crazy pills talking to these people. The basics of the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect are almost trivial science - first written about (as far as is now known) by an American woman citizen scientist before the Civil War. To say that humans can dump an unlimited amount of that gas into the atmosphere (and it's a terribly awesome accomplishment that the very air we breathe now contains one third more carbon than it did when my parents were children) with zero consequence always struck me as bonkers.
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    To play the devil’s advocate: I have an otherwise intelligent friend who doesn’t believe in global warming because in his mind the cause-and-effect hasn’t been clearly articulated. So I started to explain to him in more rigorous, scientific terms that he’ll understand and accept. I found that it was much, much harder than I had anticipated. I did my own research, and it turns out that the “real story” can’t really be explained without resorting to nonlinear differential equations and high-resolution spectra of exotic chemicals. For example it turns out that it matters a lot that near the poles the upper atmosphere has a higher concentration of various rare isotopes, which shifts the fine structure of absorption spectra just so as to absorb heat from the lower layers. To be perfectly honest, despite a physics degree and a background in chemistry, I didn’t quite follow the full argument and couldn’t relay it to my friend. However when I saw a NASA page about the precision spectra of truly obscure specie such as doubly-ionised isotopically non-standard excited radicals as key inputs into supercomputer climate simulations I was reassured that smart people have sunk an awful lot of effort into the problem.
simbolit 3y ago
Naomi Klein has a 2014 book called "this changes everything", and she makes the following argument. (1) if we don't act, everything will change (via climate catastrophe) (2) if we do act, everything will change (via our actions) (3) in the former case it's basically just bad things are happening to us, in the latter we have some choice how we change it. (4) as everything will change in any case, conservatism (as in "everything should be conserved as it is") is no longer an alternative This is, of course, radically compressed, she is more subtle and writes better than I do. I think a massive problem is that this argument hasn't spread wider. A lot of people seem to think/wish/hope/imagine/copium/lie/phantasise/extrapolate a future basically like our world, just a bit more futuristic, is a possibility. It isn't. And telling your children the coral reefs will be okay creates more of such people.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  Part of the problem here is that we have/had the option to have a world pretty much like the existing one, except that it was one in which oil and coal companies went out of business or lost trillions of dollars, and got replaced with renewable and nuclear power generation and electric vehicles etc. But those trillion dollar industries fought against their own destruction, and continue to do so, and all of the other alternatives are worse. The best time to fossilize the fossil fuel industries was 30 years ago. The second best time is right now.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  > (4) as everything will change in any case, conservatism (as in "everything should be conserved as it is") is no longer an alternative Forget "conservatism." I posted an article a few days ago that made a convincing case that capitalism is no longer possible. It hit the front page, then got flagged to death all within 15 minutes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628674 And it's all because the capitalist mind virus has taken hold to such an extent that ""the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it." [0] It's a sentiment that gets paraphrased into "people find it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism." In the entire history of capitalism and industrial society, neither global energy use nor global CO2 emissions have ever decreased, except for one brief instant when we shut everything down in order that many more of us wouldn't die of COVID. We're driving ourselves off a metaphorical cliff and laughing about it. We're not going to get the last laugh on this one. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism
lawlessone 3y ago
So is the gist here that it's actually far far worse than we are being told?
- jfengel 3y ago
  Yes. They've gone out of their way to fend off accusations of "alarmism" by focusing on the low end predictions and avoiding anything with even a hint of worse cases. At least some of those worse cases are becoming likely and even inevitable, while even worse case lurk largely unmentioned by scientists.
  - lawlessone 3y ago
    Venus here we come...
uptown 3y ago
I think the messaging needs to improve if you want buy-in from the public. 1.5 doesn’t sound like a big number, and I’d wager that a single-digit percentage of Americans could translate that to it’s Fahrenheit equivalent.
sys32768 3y ago
The article and comments here use the editorial "we" as if the biggest emissions offender China (double the USA in 2021 [1]), is going to bow to global peer pressure and start sacrificing industries and fortunes in order to cut their emissions by half or more. We know that won't happen unless "we" collectively stop relying upon China for our toys and necessities, which might happen through a grassroots movement if a few 100 million global citizens suddenly become luddites and/or agrarians. Call me gloomy, but I think the only event that will dramatically slow human-accelerated climate change in the next 10 years will be a global economic collapse. [1] = https://www.statista.com/statistics/270499/co2-emissions-in-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/270499/co2-emissions-in-...
- tzs 3y ago
  > The article and comments here use the editorial "we" as if the biggest emissions offender China (double the USA in 2021 [1]), is going to bow to global peer pressure and start sacrificing industries and fortunes in order to cut their emissions by half or more. China has 4 times the population of the US. They are only a bigger offender than the US if you believe that people who live in the US have some sort of natural or divine right to live a more emitting lifestyle that do people in China. The atmosphere does not care about arbitrary political boundaries which makes per capita a better measure. By per capita emissions China is around the same as a typical European country, and half the US. If we wanted to hold emissions to current levels, people in China are 56% above their fair share. People in the US are 220% above their fair share. (People in India are at only 40% of their fair share). More important, China is building a ton of solar farms, wind farms, and nuclear plants, and a lot of pumped hydro storage (which when combined with solar or wind reduce or eliminate the need for fossil fuels to deal with the intermittent nature of wind and solar). Compare to the US where every time the Presidency or control of Congress changes parties there is a 50/50 change that the new party in power will try to roll back any clean energy initiatives of the previous party and boost reliance on fossil fuels. That means when China says they are going to be net zero by 2060 they have actually got a decent chance of achieving that, and if they don't it is more likely to be a "missed it by a few years" thing rather than a "abandoned it" thing. The US currently has a 2050 goal for net zero but with the current political situation here it is likely to be 2030 at the earliest that we actually seriously start on the things we need to do to prepare for that.
lamontcg 3y ago
> Climate experts talk a lot about “cathedral thinking.” It’s the idea of working towards long term goals — like a medieval cathedral. These goals require vision, shared commitment, and decades, even centuries, of planning. The planners and builders don’t live to see the end product, but future generations reap the rewards. We're living in the MBA/enshittification society where its all about pumping next quarters numbers to dump the stock and profit, even if it ruins the company in the long run. These are the kinds of leaders that we're the best in the world at producing. EDIT: I forgot a shout-out to regulatory capture and rent seeking behavior that makes it difficult to get anything done at all.
incomingpain 3y ago
Climate change suffers from lying and politically motivated influence. Lets just look at the science itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_Pathway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P... RCP6 isn't happening because we absolutely have gone into renewables, hybrid and ev cars, etc. From link on RCP8.5: "Since AR5 this has been thought to be very unlikely, but still possible as feedbacks are not well understood. RCP8.5, generally taken as the basis for worst-case climate change scenarios, was based on what proved to be overestimation of projected coal outputs." 8.5 and 6 are not happening, therefore climate change is not going to result in any sort of catastrophe. Fantastic news, so why the lying? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/media/File:All_palaeotemps.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/m... If you look at examples of climate change representation, they near universally will always use RCP 8.5 as the prediction. Like the graph above, why the lying? The models have been out long enough. We know we are actually following somewhere between 2.6 and 4.5. We have been doing a great job migrating away from carbon. We won't even be peaking similar to the peaks every 150,000 years.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

100 points by kitkat_new 3y ago

Idk, I saw a lot of takes from people I know from IRL in 2020/21 where the moment 100% containment seemed like it wasn't an option people said "why try anything at all? what happens, happens, if your grandma dies she dies." even though vaccines looked promising but weren't generally available yet... even with these promising percentile "solutions" very close, if the solution isn't 100% effective people seem to give up. I think if you've ever been around depressed or emotionally overwhelmed people or just people generally you see this kind of all or nothing thinking is not just common but prevalent. I've always been against paternalism historically but the last few years have provided a fair amount of evidence that it might be a valid tactic. I used to be ideologically against cohersive power as well but persuasion often doesn't come from well reasoned argument, it can come from brute repetition, or for addicts of different stripes (drugs, ragebait, social media, personality) persuasion seems like a dead end.

lazide 3y ago
Authoritarianism isn’t bad because it doesn’t work. Authoritarianism is bad because it works too well - for the authority. And while the authorities interests and everyone else’s may align well at the beginning, that is very unlikely after awhile. And then there is nothing anyone can do about it.
- bitwize 3y ago
  I have three words for anyone who doesn't think authoritarianism can work out well in the long run -- Lee Kuan Yew. Thanks to him, Singapore is a single-party autocracy -- that's rich, clean, and generally pleasant to live in.
  - lazide 3y ago
    For one generation. That isn’t the long run yet. He didn’t die that long ago. He also left a lot of angry Malays and Indians in his wake. Dictators worked out well for Rome for awhile! And Saddam did really turn Iraq around. The biggest issue IMO with Authoritarians is they tend to take out realistic competition (Cincinnatus excepted) and force everyone else to march in lockstep with them. Part of the ideology. So even if they do allow succession, it’s controlled and ‘monoculture’. Which long term (or even short term if done harshly enough) weakens the state and the population, as it makes everything rigid. It tends to snap instead of bend. But only time will tell. The CCP has also been doing pretty well by most standards too, and they have a ‘leader for life’ now too. Some kind of authoritarianism (by committee, dictator, king, etc) has been and is the historic norm, no?
- fellowniusmonk 3y ago
  I agree with your take on Authoritarianism, it's not a good multi generational approach since transfer of power eventually becomes violent and incompetent dictators are normative. Paternalistic communication isn't necessarily authoritarianism though. No info is being withheld, anyone who cares can still look it up, it's more of a marketing tactic.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  In the past few years we've learned that no matter what course of action a group of any significant size chooses to take, at least 25% of them will just say "no, fuck you" and either refuse to go along or actively sabotage the effort. Given that, what's your alternative? How do you get the necessary level of cooperation happening right now so there's some semblance of civilization left for people 3 generations from now?
  - lazide 3y ago
    Since when is 25% enough to block the other 75%? Actually? 75% is a supermajority. Think about that a bit, and I think you’ll get your answer. You’re being lied to, and it isn’t actually that 25% that is (solely) at fault.
    - Paul-Craft 3y ago
      Since we can't accomplish what we need to accomplish without 100% participation. You're deluding yourself if you think we have any hope of a reasonable climate future without universal participation. And, yes, it is the 25%'s fault when they're just willing to say "no" to anything because it hurts someone they want hurt, even if it also hurts them in the process.
      - lazide 3y ago
        There has never been a time where 100% of anyone has ever actually been on board. Nor a time when it was ever required. Actually. It isn’t even in the rules that such a thing is even requested or desired. If someone is giving you another impression, that is a good place to start in your investigation. The answer is staring you in the face, you just don’t want to see it.
        Paul-Craft 3y ago
        Please enlighten me.
        3y ago

seventytwo 3y ago

I get why some people are trying to stick to the 1.5C thing, but it’s the role of scientists to just give it to us straight. We rely on that. Additionally, I think it is actually better that they express the situation as-is (getting worse, faster) because the public isn’t going to change unless things are dire. There’s so much social and economic inertia that nothing is going to change until it absolutely has to. By voicing the reality that we’re going to shoot way past 1.5C, maybe that will start to raise more alarms.

SoftTalker 3y ago
> By voicing the reality that we’re going to shoot way past 1.5C, maybe that will start to raise more alarms. I don't think that's going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced.
esafak 3y ago
At the same time, you want to give hope otherwise paralysis sets in.
- paulmd 3y ago
  yes, and this is literally the "old lie" that TFA discusses. sure, you want to give people hope, but you shouldn't lie to them about what's coming simply to give them hope. "hope" can also be things like "let's keep it to 4C". how did we get to "hope" being defined solely by this 1.5C number? this also generally discounts the loss of hope people are going to feel when they realize they've been lied to, especially when you are demanding they make these huge sacrifices. We already saw the result of this approach during COVID - not only was nobody fooled by the "masks don't reduce transmission" but when scientists admitted this was false messaging primarily intended to massage people's behavior, it pretty well destroyed any rapport between the scientific community and the public. If you are someone who "does everything right" and stops eating meat, sorts your recycleables, and reduces the number of times you flush - how do you feel when the outcome is "lol, yeah, none of that is going to be enough, we know and knew that, but despite your sacrifice we're gonna blow way past that anyway because we didn't tackle any of the systemic issues around production or distribution"?

kurthr 3y ago

I almost didn't click on this... it turns out the scientists are just as depressed by the news. I'm not surprised that 1.5C is overly hopeful. Frankly, it looks like geoengineering may be more viable/profitable/necessary than currently discussed.

go_elmo 3y ago
I think it will come like most things - as a sigmoid curve. People will ask for it once the catastrophes become locally constant.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  Makes me truly wonder if we wouldn't be better off with a benevolent AGI controlling things on our behalf
  - sharemywin 3y ago
    keyword benevolent
    - arrowsmith 3y ago
      "benevolent" makes it kind of tautological... if it's benevolent then it'll make us better off by definition. The real question is "can we make a benevolent AGI?", to which I strongly suspect the answer is "no".
      - pmarreck 3y ago
        We already did, it's called ChatGPT
    - pmarreck 3y ago
      it has no reason (or will) to choose malevolence, it will only use the morality we tell it to have, and thus will be a perfect reflection of what we want to be, in a way that even our very own kids cannot fulfill

V__ 3y ago

> I think climate scientists (and journalists) are underestimating people. If you treat people like children who can’t handle the truth, they will behave like children. He should get outside right now and ask a few people about the topic. People ignore the truth, don't care or are actively working against it because it is a Chinese hoax.

plagiarist 3y ago
I wish journalists were underestimating people. They have just reached an integrity bankruptcy where they run press releases instead of articles. The truth is readily available on demand and large numbers of people still behave like children.
- ImAnAmateur 3y ago
  It's the age of mis-information. False things and lies are also available on demand. People have to decide what is true and who to listen to. That's not easy.
kelseyfrog 3y ago
The idea that it's a Chinese hoax is actually a Russian hoax.
- lawlessone 3y ago
  Can't have people not buying all that fuel..
b59831 3y ago
[dead]
hitsurume 3y ago
I don't think they believe its a hoax. A lot of it is also hoping someone else will solve the problem for them. Or because climate change hasn't dramatically changed their normal lives yet that forces them for action. People are not really good at preventing problems, hence why history tends to repeat itself.

1attice 3y ago

Ironically, as terrifying as the climate news is, I don't think that's what's going to do us in. Increasingly, I think the delegitimization of political institutions (which failed to prevent this predictable calamity) is going to be the business end of the stick. It can seem weird to draw a line between our wobbling democracies and climate change, but when you recall that institutions derive their legitimacy from their ability to deliver repeatable results, and the opportunity to deliver (climate) results of any sort is diminishing, I imagine it will essentially stretch and then snap the overton window. Soon is the time of monsters.

SoftTalker 3y ago
Well look on the bright side, a global collapse of civilization that sets humanity back 500 years is one way to reduce carbon emissions!
- lm28469 3y ago
  The twist is that if we collapse we will most likely never come back since we already burned all the easy to reach fuel. Can't go from bronze age to CPUs without an industrial revolution somewhere in between
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    That's right. Absolute best case scenario, we'd probably be looking at 2-3000 years to recover the amount of progress we've made in the past 250 years. Worst case, we're never again able to progress past 18th century technology. Fossil fuels are a hell of a drug.
- 1attice 3y ago
  Not necessarily -- there are a lot more wood-burning stoves in a world without solar panels, and we don't have the population that we had 500 years ago. It's not like rewinding a tape or time travel. I would predict we start moving backward and simply do not stop -- not at 500 years, not at 1000 years. A positive feedback loop is just someone else's interrupted homeostasis.

slibhb 3y ago

> Climate experts talk a lot about “cathedral thinking.” It’s the idea of working towards long term goals — like a medieval cathedral. These goals require vision, shared commitment, and decades, even centuries, of planning. The planners and builders don’t live to see the end product, but future generations reap the rewards. > It’s an inspiring idea. Something maybe only humans could divine. But here’s the thing: cathedral thinking also requires a firm grasp of facts. A cathedral built on fantasy won’t stand for long. > If my son and his friends think the coral reefs will be OK, the reefs are doomed. If he knows the truth, maybe he’ll become a biologist who tries to save them. When people know what they’re up against, many will be sad — I’m sad! — but then they can prepare. This is an example of a perennial mistake where the science behind global warming is conflated with the science behind the consequences of global warming. No one knows if the coral reefs are doomed! Additionally, it's ironic to use the term "cathedral thinking" and then talk about the necessity of sticking to the facts. Cathedrals are built by Christians as a way to worship God. As someone who doesn't believe in God, I see a lesson here: beleving in something, whether it's true or not, can be useful. In fact, it may even be necessary if you want beautiful things like cathedrals. And even us heathens can be inspiried by ideals that are -- being ideals -- unattainable.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kelseyfrog 3y ago
I hate to point this out, but the cathedral thinking idea is just working on something you're likely not going to see finished. The original baggage is irrelevant to the metaphor. In fact, that's the point of metaphors - being able to take the core idea while understanding that the particulars are superfluous.
Paul-Craft 3y ago
On the other hand, just because the coral reefs seem "fine" today doesn't mean they will be in 2 weeks. Referring to the recent mass die off of corals off the Florida Keys, Dr. Cory Krediet, a professor of marine science who studies corals had this to say: > “The health of the coral is at a catastrophic loss,” Krediet said. “This is an unprecedented level of temperature increase and it happened at a rate that the corals cannot deal with. We went from healthy reefs to bleach reefs and dead reefs within 10 days.” https://www.clickorlando.com/weather/2023/07/27/floridas-coral-reefs-are-dying-heres-why-you-should-care/ https://www.clickorlando.com/weather/2023/07/27/floridas-cor... And the temperature just keeps going up. It might be months, years, maybe even a couple decades, but things keep looking worse and worse for the corals, and we're not doing enough to stop it.

moomin 3y ago

One thing that scientists have learned over the last year is that facts and honesty don’t help. There are many financially motivated people trying their best to keep the temperature rising unchecked, and they know that complex, nuanced messages just don’t land at a political level. So you want something to happen, you keep the message consistent and clear. Don’t tell the losing team they should give their opponents more chances to score. If society had wanted straight talking, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

mixedCase 3y ago
Right, because the "you'll all be underwater by the 2000s" messages 30-40 years ago sure helped a lot and nobody is claiming climate change is a hoax anymore.
readthenotes1 3y ago
Seems like they learned that facts and honesty don't help sometime before the pandemic...
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  I, too, have learned an awful lot about human nature since about 2015 or so.
Jensson 3y ago
> If society had wanted straight talking, we wouldn’t be in this situation. USA is by far the worst climate change offender, and USA uses way more alarmist messaging than any other country I've seen. So to me it looks like alarmist messaging makes it worse, not better. Facts and honesty does help, big tobacco lost, tons of countries all over the world have already added plans to ban fossil fuel cars in about a decade etc. The caveat is that it takes decades for that change to happen, and US "scientists" seems to always want to sway the current election in their favor, so they happily sacrifice trust and long term get those small short term wins.
- moomin 3y ago

jtfairbank 3y ago

It's an unfortunate reality that we're going to exceed +1.5C, and we need to begin preparing for the consequences now. "Solving" climate change requires humanity to both prevent further warming AND take care of the people impacted by it. 10% of us could be forced to flee our homes by 2050... In 2019 I founded Distribute Aid to develop community supply-chains that can support displaced people at scale. Since then, we've delivered $25M of aid between 100+ communities in 16+ countries. Given the size of the problem, and the need for rapid growth of successful solutions, we're taking a distributed approach that prioritizes local aid groups who are supporting displaced people. Everything is open-source of course! If anyone wants to learn more / support us, please leave a comment or email me at taylor /at/ distributeaid.org. :)

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

somedude895 3y ago

Absolutely agree with this. I see this juxtaposition between calls for basically civilization-ending extreme measures to stay below 1.5 and others saying 1.5 is already a certainty and will end us all, and it just ends up making me tired and not care about climate change anymore because nobody's talking sense on what should and could be done.

hkt 3y ago
What you're experiencing and saying is actually completely right. Issues don't motivate people, and actions lead beliefs as much (or more) than vice versa A paper on exactly this : https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abcd5a https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abcd5a My suggestions would be these: * Think about where your food comes from, and how it is fertilised. Read about different modes of agriculture. * Think about minimising your energy usage, especially fossil fuels. Look at heat pumps, cycling infrastructure, that kind of thing. * Learn about alternatives for building and anything else. Building with straw bales is a particular favourite of mine because it can be done so simplistically by people with relatively little training. * Find projects where other people are doing stuff and join in. See the above article - self-efficacy is a muscle, build it by exercising it. A great source of inspiration: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/ https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/ Edit: also, we'll blow the 1.5C carbon budget in 8 years. Sorry - we'd have to cut emissions by 20% a year every year to avoid that. Plus sequestration of course.
- sharemywin 3y ago
  My question is at what point do government fail? I know it seems like a nut job question but, if we assume global warming is nothing we've seen before event then wouldn't at least some governments fail? Is there some way to predict it? Let's also assume some radical change in some governments like to a fascist or communist type regime is possible as well
  - hkt 3y ago
    I'd guess no western governments would fail. Personally I suspect when the west reaches its ideological reflexive response to climate change, it'll look like fascism. I also suspect we'd have preferred communism. What's scary to me is the malign actions that are possible in the name of climate change. Imagine you're living in Pakistan and your home has been washed away. Is it so hard to believe someone somewhere will choose to pursue revenge? Armed with the simple fact that Americans have higher per capita carbon emissions than any other people - double as much, if memory serves - then someone sufficiently angry may well be able to justify indiscriminate killing of Americans to themselves. Apologies for the morbidity here, but what I'm saying here is that by not adopting explicit policies of "just transition" we're setting up the conditions for climate fascism in the west and climate terrorism too.

simbolit 3y ago

I get "We’re sorry, the page you requested is currently unavailable." Tried three times. Edit: Works if I proxy it: https://12ft.io/proxy?&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wbur.org%2Fcognoscenti%2F2023%2F10%2F03%2F1-5-degrees-celcius-un-climate-change-report-barbara-moran https://12ft.io/proxy?&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wbur.org%2Fcognos...

gfarah 3y ago

How can we sensibly prepare ourselves as individuals for the challenges that lie ahead? Anyone got articles on this topic?

bullfightonmars 3y ago
Vote for politicians who support carbon taxes and investing in climate resilience and infrastructure. You can’t prepare for this as an individual. This is a global societal problem. The effects of climate change are predictable on a global scale but much less so on a local scale.
- arrowsmith 3y ago
  > You can’t prepare for this as an individual. This is a global societal problem. Why not both? "Climate resilience" will in large part be driven by individuals and communities working on a local scale. Support big-scale political initiatives where you can, but that doesn't mean you can't make a difference locally too.
- barbazoo 3y ago
  > You can’t prepare for this as an individual. I think we can in minor ways. Adjusting expectations, becoming more resilient, simplifying one's life, consuming less, learning to make and do things yourself. I think those things will pay off even if they won't change anything substantial.
- jakear 3y ago
  If voting could change anything it'd be illegal. In CA we aren't even allowed to vote anymore. Gavin simply appoints senators who look the way he wants and we get stuck with them. And that's something as simple as senators (who barely have any power in the first place). A change to the world power structure (corporate interests that profit of mass-consumerism) is achievable only through violent revolution. But nobody cares enough about the climate for that. They just complain online, put soup on things, and pat themselves on the back.
arrowsmith 3y ago

CodeWriter23 3y ago

[flagged]

pmarreck 3y ago
Climate science, by its nature, is a multidisciplinary field. It marries the knowledge from oceanography, meteorology, geology, and yes, even astrophysics to some extent—given that solar radiation is a key driver of Earth's climate. However, the core of climate science revolves around Earth's atmospheric processes and how they interact with various terrestrial and oceanic systems. Astrophysics, on the other hand, is the study of celestial bodies and phenomena occurring far beyond Earth's atmosphere. While it's true that astrophysical phenomena like solar cycles and cosmic radiation can have an effect on Earth's climate, these are often secondary or tertiary influences when compared to more proximate factors like greenhouse gas emissions and albedo changes. Thus, dismissing climate models as "junk science" for not heavily featuring astrophysics is akin to dismissing the expertise of a cardiac surgeon because they don't also perform neurosurgery. Lastly, to borrow a Pascal's Wager argument form, what exactly is the cost of being wrong in either case, here? Do you know it? Can you calculate it with any certainty? Note: Every paragraph but the last one was selected by me from a ChatGPT4 answer regarding this. I strongly believe in the potential of LLM's to massively, and one day hopefully automatically, refute disinformation
- jakear 3y ago
  "I'm right because the corporate interests governing openAI's output agree with me" isn't the dunk you think it is.
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    Well, "I'm right because carefully cherry-picked opinion and misleading statistics agree with me" is arguably worse. Tell me, would you use the same "reasoning" applied to literally anything else? Will you be taking up a cigar habit in the defense of Ronald Fisher, literally the "father of modern statistics", who disputed the link between smoking and cancer? https://priceonomics.com/why-the-father-of-modern-statistics-didnt-believe/ https://priceonomics.com/why-the-father-of-modern-statistics... While doing this, will you turn a blind eye to the evidence that corporate interests had in maintaining doubt (in this case, it would be tobacco companies, but in the OP case, oil companies)? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879177/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879177/ Or will you stop wearing seatbelts because of some niche cases of it preventing people from escaping submerged vehicles? https://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/safety-regulatory-devices/can-seatbelts-kill-you.htm https://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/safety-reg... What's the potential cost of you being right vs. the cost of you being wrong? Can you even calculate it with any certainty? Do you know which groups of people it might impact? Do you know what parts will be irreversible? Or are you just another armchair rabblerouser whose day job is... Not remotely connected to studying this stuff at least 8/5?

Eumenes 3y ago

[flagged]

belval 3y ago

> There’s something else going on, too: Scientists are shielding the public. They say: “We don’t want people to give up,” or “We don’t want the island nations to feel abandoned,” or “We don’t want people to lose hope.” This is called out by the author, but in my opinion as soon as you start changing the truth to fit a narrative you are not being scientific. If their model says we are missing the mark and we will get warming of 4C then this is what should be reported. What would we say if a scientist doing Alzheimer research said that their new medecine could reduce symptoms by 50% even though their data shows that the reduction is only 10%? Even if it's not for money and purely so that patients treated with the medecine would "keep hope" we would call that person a liar.

simbolit 3y ago
From my conversations with climate scientists my understanding is that around 2005-2015 (rough estimate) the opposite was the case: A few people said "we are going straight to hell", and the majority publicly called them "alarmist" and "counterproductive", while (in private conversation, with multiple people) admitting that the "alarmists" might well be correct.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  I still get called "alarmist" and "doomer" when I bring up what the realistic impacts of climate change 10 years out, based just on current emissions is. Just look here: https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/ https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/ You can plainly see that if we just do as we've been doing, by 2100, we're looking at 2.6-2.9 degrees of warming over pre-industrial levels. If we actually managed to hit the 2030 targets that have been set (and, that's a huge long shot, to be clear), then we're in for about 2.4 degrees. If we literally just do what the fuck we've said we were going to do, then the prediction is still about 2 degrees of warming. The "optimistic scenario" (lol) is labeled 1.8 degrees. Even if we got the help of a magical genie to stop emitting all greenhouse gasses today, we're still looking at at least 1.2-1.6 degrees of warming, according to NASA: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/climateqa/would-gw-stop-with-greenhouse-gases/ https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/climateqa/would-gw-s... In the past year, we've seen mass die offs of salmon and snow crabs. Insects, as a group, are on the decline. Climate migration is starting to happen, and the countries that are receiving these refugees are not welcoming them with open arms. This is barely the beginning. It only gets worse from here over the next decade. I honestly would not be surprised to see global civilization collapse in my lifetime, and my actuarial lifespan is up in about 45 years.

Apreche 3y ago

One set of facts, climate science, tell us the reality of what's happening to our environment. But another set of facts, communications and psychology, tell us what messaging will get people to put forth the greatest effort at combating the problem. What good are principles if the cost of adhering to them is an increase in actual pain, suffering, death, and destruction? Say whatever needs to be said keep people from giving up.

yuvadam 3y ago

The Deep Adaptation [1] movement has been talking for years about how science has been peddling hopium to the masses (my words, not theirs). Thinking of climate collapse with the understanding that these changes will happen well within our lifetime can open up new perspectives that can help individuals - and society at large - better deal with what's to come. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Adaptation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Adaptation

kansface 3y ago

Does anyone know if the coral reefs will migrate to cooler waters? Maybe that’s not feasible in a timely fashion given current locations and continental shelfs? Seems like humans could help them out in that case.

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
They already are.
crote 3y ago
Coral reefs grow at about 3 millimeters a year. Many reefs are many thousands of years old. New reefs will probably grow in cooler waters, but it will not happen nearly fast enough. The entire ecosystem around the reefs will basically collapse before migration becomes even remotely viable.
- jakear 3y ago
  New ecosystems will form, eventually. Humans love to think their time scales are the only ones that matter.
  - lawlessone 3y ago
    >Humans love to think their time scales are the only ones that matter. They matter to humans.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  Ocean acidity will go up worldwide though
lm28469 3y ago
You're missing the forest for the trees The coral reef thing was more of a marketing campaign, it's beautiful, it dies quickly, you can see it almost live, but all in all it doesn't matter much Ocean acidification, massive change in wind and ocean currents , the permafrost melting, loss of albedo in the poles, &c. These are all much bigger problems we can't deal with at all, it'll start self reinforcing loops we can't even pretend to understand yet

pmarreck 3y ago

My son is 2.25 years old (and honestly, I absolutely can't wait until he is old enough to have conversations about science with me). I won't hold back. I will certainly ask him if he is ready to discuss a topic that he will likely not like the truth of, and that I feel it is only fair to be honest with him, and that I am here to support him if it is upsetting. At least, that's what I think now. When you see your own kid get upset, it is REALLY hard to stay the course.

dougmwne 3y ago
I’m almost 40. Climate change was everywhere when I was young. It will be everywhere for him also. It’s not your choice if he knows or not. He will know.

jfengel 3y ago

The real question, he said, is whether we overshoot 1.5 C by a little bit and come back down, “Or whether we go blasting through one and a half degrees, go through even two degrees and keep on going.” That's not even a question. Of course we're going to go blasting through 1.5C. And we're going to keep accelerating. We haven't even come close to pretending to try to make a difference. I have absolutely no idea what messaging is most appropriate to convey that. We're still stuck on trying to convince people that anything is happening at all. A minority of people, to be sure, but a minority controlling a significant fraction of the world's wealth (and, not coincidentally, a wildly disproportionate fraction of the world's energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions). To my mind, the fact that we're looking at 4-5C by the end of the century isn't even the worst part. I'll be dead by then. But right now, today, we're having battles over really obvious and simple scientific facts, where the overwhelming evidence is on one side and we still can't make progress. That goes well beyond climate change. It shows up in every aspect of American culture. That's making a lot of lives much worse, today, right now.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hotpotamus 3y ago
All my life I've felt like I'm taking crazy pills talking to these people. The basics of the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect are almost trivial science - first written about (as far as is now known) by an American woman citizen scientist before the Civil War. To say that humans can dump an unlimited amount of that gas into the atmosphere (and it's a terribly awesome accomplishment that the very air we breathe now contains one third more carbon than it did when my parents were children) with zero consequence always struck me as bonkers.
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  To play the devil’s advocate: I have an otherwise intelligent friend who doesn’t believe in global warming because in his mind the cause-and-effect hasn’t been clearly articulated. So I started to explain to him in more rigorous, scientific terms that he’ll understand and accept. I found that it was much, much harder than I had anticipated. I did my own research, and it turns out that the “real story” can’t really be explained without resorting to nonlinear differential equations and high-resolution spectra of exotic chemicals. For example it turns out that it matters a lot that near the poles the upper atmosphere has a higher concentration of various rare isotopes, which shifts the fine structure of absorption spectra just so as to absorb heat from the lower layers. To be perfectly honest, despite a physics degree and a background in chemistry, I didn’t quite follow the full argument and couldn’t relay it to my friend. However when I saw a NASA page about the precision spectra of truly obscure specie such as doubly-ionised isotopically non-standard excited radicals as key inputs into supercomputer climate simulations I was reassured that smart people have sunk an awful lot of effort into the problem.

simbolit 3y ago

Naomi Klein has a 2014 book called "this changes everything", and she makes the following argument. (1) if we don't act, everything will change (via climate catastrophe) (2) if we do act, everything will change (via our actions) (3) in the former case it's basically just bad things are happening to us, in the latter we have some choice how we change it. (4) as everything will change in any case, conservatism (as in "everything should be conserved as it is") is no longer an alternative This is, of course, radically compressed, she is more subtle and writes better than I do. I think a massive problem is that this argument hasn't spread wider. A lot of people seem to think/wish/hope/imagine/copium/lie/phantasise/extrapolate a future basically like our world, just a bit more futuristic, is a possibility. It isn't. And telling your children the coral reefs will be okay creates more of such people.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Part of the problem here is that we have/had the option to have a world pretty much like the existing one, except that it was one in which oil and coal companies went out of business or lost trillions of dollars, and got replaced with renewable and nuclear power generation and electric vehicles etc. But those trillion dollar industries fought against their own destruction, and continue to do so, and all of the other alternatives are worse. The best time to fossilize the fossil fuel industries was 30 years ago. The second best time is right now.
Paul-Craft 3y ago
> (4) as everything will change in any case, conservatism (as in "everything should be conserved as it is") is no longer an alternative Forget "conservatism." I posted an article a few days ago that made a convincing case that capitalism is no longer possible. It hit the front page, then got flagged to death all within 15 minutes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628674 And it's all because the capitalist mind virus has taken hold to such an extent that ""the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it." [0] It's a sentiment that gets paraphrased into "people find it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism." In the entire history of capitalism and industrial society, neither global energy use nor global CO2 emissions have ever decreased, except for one brief instant when we shut everything down in order that many more of us wouldn't die of COVID. We're driving ourselves off a metaphorical cliff and laughing about it. We're not going to get the last laugh on this one. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism

lawlessone 3y ago

So is the gist here that it's actually far far worse than we are being told?

jfengel 3y ago
Yes. They've gone out of their way to fend off accusations of "alarmism" by focusing on the low end predictions and avoiding anything with even a hint of worse cases. At least some of those worse cases are becoming likely and even inevitable, while even worse case lurk largely unmentioned by scientists.
- lawlessone 3y ago
  Venus here we come...

uptown 3y ago

I think the messaging needs to improve if you want buy-in from the public. 1.5 doesn’t sound like a big number, and I’d wager that a single-digit percentage of Americans could translate that to it’s Fahrenheit equivalent.

sys32768 3y ago

The article and comments here use the editorial "we" as if the biggest emissions offender China (double the USA in 2021 [1]), is going to bow to global peer pressure and start sacrificing industries and fortunes in order to cut their emissions by half or more. We know that won't happen unless "we" collectively stop relying upon China for our toys and necessities, which might happen through a grassroots movement if a few 100 million global citizens suddenly become luddites and/or agrarians. Call me gloomy, but I think the only event that will dramatically slow human-accelerated climate change in the next 10 years will be a global economic collapse. [1] = https://www.statista.com/statistics/270499/co2-emissions-in-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/270499/co2-emissions-in-...

tzs 3y ago
> The article and comments here use the editorial "we" as if the biggest emissions offender China (double the USA in 2021 [1]), is going to bow to global peer pressure and start sacrificing industries and fortunes in order to cut their emissions by half or more. China has 4 times the population of the US. They are only a bigger offender than the US if you believe that people who live in the US have some sort of natural or divine right to live a more emitting lifestyle that do people in China. The atmosphere does not care about arbitrary political boundaries which makes per capita a better measure. By per capita emissions China is around the same as a typical European country, and half the US. If we wanted to hold emissions to current levels, people in China are 56% above their fair share. People in the US are 220% above their fair share. (People in India are at only 40% of their fair share). More important, China is building a ton of solar farms, wind farms, and nuclear plants, and a lot of pumped hydro storage (which when combined with solar or wind reduce or eliminate the need for fossil fuels to deal with the intermittent nature of wind and solar). Compare to the US where every time the Presidency or control of Congress changes parties there is a 50/50 change that the new party in power will try to roll back any clean energy initiatives of the previous party and boost reliance on fossil fuels. That means when China says they are going to be net zero by 2060 they have actually got a decent chance of achieving that, and if they don't it is more likely to be a "missed it by a few years" thing rather than a "abandoned it" thing. The US currently has a 2050 goal for net zero but with the current political situation here it is likely to be 2030 at the earliest that we actually seriously start on the things we need to do to prepare for that.

lamontcg 3y ago

incomingpain 3y ago

Climate change suffers from lying and politically motivated influence. Lets just look at the science itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_Pathway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P... RCP6 isn't happening because we absolutely have gone into renewables, hybrid and ev cars, etc. From link on RCP8.5: "Since AR5 this has been thought to be very unlikely, but still possible as feedbacks are not well understood. RCP8.5, generally taken as the basis for worst-case climate change scenarios, was based on what proved to be overestimation of projected coal outputs." 8.5 and 6 are not happening, therefore climate change is not going to result in any sort of catastrophe. Fantastic news, so why the lying? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/media/File:All_palaeotemps.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/m... If you look at examples of climate change representation, they near universally will always use RCP 8.5 as the prediction. Like the graph above, why the lying? The models have been out long enough. We know we are actually following somewhere between 2.6 and 4.5. We have been doing a great job migrating away from carbon. We won't even be peaking similar to the peaks every 150,000 years.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]