5 ms·

Yesterday, planet Earth took its first step over the 2.0 degrees Celsius barrier

76 points by ljf 3y ago

kubiton 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
  - kubiton 3y ago
    ? I expressed a feeling which communicates a type of commentary. Another comment questioned another comment in a normal way with personal touch. There are plenty of useless comments on hn. Plenty of personal anecdotal evidence which people don't get. If you want a pure discussion a link to sources would be a sane default
    - dang 3y ago
      Other comments being unsubstantive or flamebait doesn't make it ok to post more of them. Users here need to follow the rules regardless of what anyone else does. Otherwise we end up in a downward spiral: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=downward%20spiral%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=likeliest%20explanation%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
hyperman1 3y ago
The last few days, my region (De westhoek in Flanders, Belgium) had serious troubles with flooding. A politician on the news complained how she took measures, but climate change came faster than expected. This level of idiocy creeped me out. Climate change has been known since the 1970's. Everybody with half a braincell knows the IPCC reports are underestimating things badly, even if they were correct we were going in for a rough ride, political investments are below what these reports require from us, and the small amount of money spent is badly mismanaged. I can't blame her alone personally. She's a child of her political generation. But that generation has only seen good times and is completely incapable of doing anything in a crisis. They'll keep going trough the same old motions, and feel very sorry for us when disaster inevitably strikes. Unfortunately, the average voter agrees with her. 'Eco realism' is the preferred course, and even the Belgian green parties care more about integration than climate.
- junofan 3y ago
  Unless they’re voting to block industrialization agendas of African nations by force or diplomacy, there’s nothing your Flanders-based politician can do.
- hyperman1 3y ago
  Peyton being flagged, I can't directly respond. But the expressed sentiment (There is nothing the politician can do) happens regular enough that I want to respond. Flanders is a small region, and climate change is so huge and multi facetted that no nation on its own can do it. Its the ultimate case of death by a thousand papercuts. But we are a rich region with a lot of industry and research. We should be able to develop and deploy partial solutions locally. In fact, we should be able to get richer by exporting these solutions. We're also owning Antwerp, one of the biggest ports in Europe, so we partially decide what Europe does or doesn't buy. Brussels is next to our border and a lot of us work there. Flanders has an outsized impact on the EU. We could put our thumbs on that scale if we wanted.
- euroderf 3y ago
  > Climate change has been known since the 1970's. And in particular, Soylent Green.
msmenardi 3y ago
I don't understand that graph. Why is it so spiky? for any particular year. It almost looks like the temperature varies by ~0.5 degrees week to week. Can someone explain it to me?
- Turskarama 3y ago
  The anomaly is the variation from the average, and the anomaly is measured daily. What happens on any given day is _weather_, and it is expected to vary greatly based on things like cloud cover and wind speed and direction. The 2C anomaly on November 18th was just the anomaly on that day and doesn't represent climate change having reached 2 degrees.
devaiops9001 3y ago
This is good for plant growth, is it not?
- 8bitsrule 3y ago
  Depends on whether you are a plant.
- lm28469 3y ago
  Yep, and a nuclear holocaust would be very good for small mammals too Now what's your point ?
- sillywalk 3y ago
  Depends on whether you think heroin is an effective treatment for depression.
- solumunus 3y ago
  Yes, and that’s great for plants! It’s terrible for human beings though, which personally I’m more concerned with being as though I’m not a plant.
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  > This is good for plant growth, is it not? Hardly. Higher temps in temperate climate zones, and higher CO2 in atmosphere help, yes. But many warmer areas will become too warm for almost anything to grow. Let alone agriculture. Increased rainfall is a blessing in some areas. But (increased) floodings are a curse elsewhere. Agricultural zones will move towards the poles. See how that works out on a globe: smaller area. And quickly changing climate + more regular weather extremes increase the chance of crop failures. Not to mention collapse of ecosystems. Or spread of diseases & pests. Or that a tree killed in a drought (or wildfire!), takes 50+ years to regrow. All in all: bad news.
8fingerlouie 3y ago
What scares me the most about that graph is the outlier/singularity of it compared to almost 100 years of data. Every other year on the graph, the temperature has begun declining roughly halfway through the year, but this year it just keeps climbing. I'm not ready to call "we're doomed" (yet), and it is probably just natural variation, but it's scary none the less.
- ath3nd 3y ago
  I am convinced we are doomed, but still would like humanity to try something to mitigate the amount of hellfire that is going to rain on us in the not so distant future.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
imtringued 3y ago
People compare climate change hysteria to fear of nuclear war back during the cold war but the difference is that in the former, it is as if the bombs have already been sent and the explosion has been slowed down so much it will take decades for a single bomb to explode.
- kaba0 3y ago
  Total nuclear war would leave a much more livable planet behind, than climate change will.
RHSman2 3y ago
It’s ok Sam thingy-bob has joined Microsoft
tonfreed 3y ago
We did it Reddit!
eye-robot 3y ago
really crappy graph...
ath3nd 3y ago
Where I am at (Amsterdam), we see a slight awakening of the green voters, but that's drowned by the rise of right wing populism. In the last 5 years I became convinced that unless some very very very strong and forceful measures are taken by governments all over the world to be more eco, we are in for something that people can't fathom. Unfortunately, moderate steps would be too late now, and when governments and people become ready for less moderate steps in tackling climate change, it will be irreversible. I am atm convinced we already passed that threshold, but I still would like to see much more green change, maybe there is still some chance...
goodSteveramos 3y ago
Not every milestone is a barrier the way the speed of sound is a “sound barrier”.
pjmlp 3y ago
The way wars are going, we might as well destroy ourselves before it becomes critical.
- sillywalk 3y ago
  That would be devastating to my retirement stock portfolio, if I could afford to have one.
- netsharc 3y ago
  Well, lack of resources leads to conflict - although I'm not sure if it's a real lack or a perceived lack. A drought in Syria lead to rural farmers moving into the cities to try to earn money differently, and the tensions there sparked the civil war (and as NY Times called it, proto world war[1]). Refugees entering Europe and Merkel's "We can do it!" after her years of saying "Austerity uber Alles!" to Europeans under her de-facto rule (remember the whole Euro crisis, the PIIGS, featuring special case Greece?) probably caused natives' resentment against the refugees, and now right-wing politics are winning across Europe (e.g. Brexit), because hey, we humans are selfish, we want to save ourselves first, and then our family, and then our tribe, and we identify with people who are like us, visually, culturally (heh, I've got Polish people I know who hated middle eastern war refugees and were then proud for Poland to be taking Ukranian war refugees, spot the difference, "But it's different!" they say, after using their confirmation bias), and we're still under the effects of goverments being idiots about saving vs spending... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/16/world/middleeast/untangling-the-overlapping-conflicts-in-the-syrian-war.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/16/world/middlee...
  - gentleman11 3y ago
    Unlimited growth eventually leads to resource shortages. And we’re about to see a massive amount of growth from a lot of countries in the next century (not to mention how the west is about to spend electricity on ai and/or crypto in the near future)
    - RetroTechie 3y ago

76 points by ljf 3y ago

kubiton 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- kubiton 3y ago
  ? I expressed a feeling which communicates a type of commentary. Another comment questioned another comment in a normal way with personal touch. There are plenty of useless comments on hn. Plenty of personal anecdotal evidence which people don't get. If you want a pure discussion a link to sources would be a sane default
  - dang 3y ago
    Other comments being unsubstantive or flamebait doesn't make it ok to post more of them. Users here need to follow the rules regardless of what anyone else does. Otherwise we end up in a downward spiral: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=downward%20spiral%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=likeliest%20explanation%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

hyperman1 3y ago

The last few days, my region (De westhoek in Flanders, Belgium) had serious troubles with flooding. A politician on the news complained how she took measures, but climate change came faster than expected. This level of idiocy creeped me out. Climate change has been known since the 1970's. Everybody with half a braincell knows the IPCC reports are underestimating things badly, even if they were correct we were going in for a rough ride, political investments are below what these reports require from us, and the small amount of money spent is badly mismanaged. I can't blame her alone personally. She's a child of her political generation. But that generation has only seen good times and is completely incapable of doing anything in a crisis. They'll keep going trough the same old motions, and feel very sorry for us when disaster inevitably strikes. Unfortunately, the average voter agrees with her. 'Eco realism' is the preferred course, and even the Belgian green parties care more about integration than climate.

junofan 3y ago
Unless they’re voting to block industrialization agendas of African nations by force or diplomacy, there’s nothing your Flanders-based politician can do.
hyperman1 3y ago
Peyton being flagged, I can't directly respond. But the expressed sentiment (There is nothing the politician can do) happens regular enough that I want to respond. Flanders is a small region, and climate change is so huge and multi facetted that no nation on its own can do it. Its the ultimate case of death by a thousand papercuts. But we are a rich region with a lot of industry and research. We should be able to develop and deploy partial solutions locally. In fact, we should be able to get richer by exporting these solutions. We're also owning Antwerp, one of the biggest ports in Europe, so we partially decide what Europe does or doesn't buy. Brussels is next to our border and a lot of us work there. Flanders has an outsized impact on the EU. We could put our thumbs on that scale if we wanted.
euroderf 3y ago
> Climate change has been known since the 1970's. And in particular, Soylent Green.

msmenardi 3y ago

I don't understand that graph. Why is it so spiky? for any particular year. It almost looks like the temperature varies by ~0.5 degrees week to week. Can someone explain it to me?

Turskarama 3y ago
The anomaly is the variation from the average, and the anomaly is measured daily. What happens on any given day is _weather_, and it is expected to vary greatly based on things like cloud cover and wind speed and direction. The 2C anomaly on November 18th was just the anomaly on that day and doesn't represent climate change having reached 2 degrees.

devaiops9001 3y ago

This is good for plant growth, is it not?

8bitsrule 3y ago
Depends on whether you are a plant.
lm28469 3y ago
Yep, and a nuclear holocaust would be very good for small mammals too Now what's your point ?
sillywalk 3y ago
Depends on whether you think heroin is an effective treatment for depression.
solumunus 3y ago
Yes, and that’s great for plants! It’s terrible for human beings though, which personally I’m more concerned with being as though I’m not a plant.
RetroTechie 3y ago
> This is good for plant growth, is it not? Hardly. Higher temps in temperate climate zones, and higher CO2 in atmosphere help, yes. But many warmer areas will become too warm for almost anything to grow. Let alone agriculture. Increased rainfall is a blessing in some areas. But (increased) floodings are a curse elsewhere. Agricultural zones will move towards the poles. See how that works out on a globe: smaller area. And quickly changing climate + more regular weather extremes increase the chance of crop failures. Not to mention collapse of ecosystems. Or spread of diseases & pests. Or that a tree killed in a drought (or wildfire!), takes 50+ years to regrow. All in all: bad news.

8fingerlouie 3y ago

What scares me the most about that graph is the outlier/singularity of it compared to almost 100 years of data. Every other year on the graph, the temperature has begun declining roughly halfway through the year, but this year it just keeps climbing. I'm not ready to call "we're doomed" (yet), and it is probably just natural variation, but it's scary none the less.

ath3nd 3y ago
I am convinced we are doomed, but still would like humanity to try something to mitigate the amount of hellfire that is going to rain on us in the not so distant future.

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

imtringued 3y ago

People compare climate change hysteria to fear of nuclear war back during the cold war but the difference is that in the former, it is as if the bombs have already been sent and the explosion has been slowed down so much it will take decades for a single bomb to explode.

kaba0 3y ago
Total nuclear war would leave a much more livable planet behind, than climate change will.

RHSman2 3y ago

It’s ok Sam thingy-bob has joined Microsoft

tonfreed 3y ago

We did it Reddit!

eye-robot 3y ago

really crappy graph...

ath3nd 3y ago

Where I am at (Amsterdam), we see a slight awakening of the green voters, but that's drowned by the rise of right wing populism. In the last 5 years I became convinced that unless some very very very strong and forceful measures are taken by governments all over the world to be more eco, we are in for something that people can't fathom. Unfortunately, moderate steps would be too late now, and when governments and people become ready for less moderate steps in tackling climate change, it will be irreversible. I am atm convinced we already passed that threshold, but I still would like to see much more green change, maybe there is still some chance...

goodSteveramos 3y ago

Not every milestone is a barrier the way the speed of sound is a “sound barrier”.

pjmlp 3y ago

The way wars are going, we might as well destroy ourselves before it becomes critical.

sillywalk 3y ago
That would be devastating to my retirement stock portfolio, if I could afford to have one.
netsharc 3y ago
Well, lack of resources leads to conflict - although I'm not sure if it's a real lack or a perceived lack. A drought in Syria lead to rural farmers moving into the cities to try to earn money differently, and the tensions there sparked the civil war (and as NY Times called it, proto world war[1]). Refugees entering Europe and Merkel's "We can do it!" after her years of saying "Austerity uber Alles!" to Europeans under her de-facto rule (remember the whole Euro crisis, the PIIGS, featuring special case Greece?) probably caused natives' resentment against the refugees, and now right-wing politics are winning across Europe (e.g. Brexit), because hey, we humans are selfish, we want to save ourselves first, and then our family, and then our tribe, and we identify with people who are like us, visually, culturally (heh, I've got Polish people I know who hated middle eastern war refugees and were then proud for Poland to be taking Ukranian war refugees, spot the difference, "But it's different!" they say, after using their confirmation bias), and we're still under the effects of goverments being idiots about saving vs spending... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/16/world/middleeast/untangling-the-overlapping-conflicts-in-the-syrian-war.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/16/world/middlee...
- gentleman11 3y ago
  Unlimited growth eventually leads to resource shortages. And we’re about to see a massive amount of growth from a lot of countries in the next century (not to mention how the west is about to spend electricity on ai and/or crypto in the near future)
  - RetroTechie 3y ago