37 ms·

>By 2000 Kinda makes you wonder why people don’t take global warming seriously…

chickenchicken 3y ago
reversed by 2000
MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
People seem unable to hold these separate thoughts in their head at the same time: - none of the predictions regarding global warming became true - this does not mean that human-induced warming isn't happening - but this also doesn't mean prosperity-ending measures to curb co2 emissions are justified in every case The climate deniers are probably wrong, but so are the climate doomers who have shown a lack of epistemic humility and a failure to weigh the pros and cons of potential interventions. At its worst, its a death cult, and thankfully it seems to be in decline. None of the interventions in western countries has made any impact globally, they literally don't matter and are a rounding error when compared to China and India.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  > None of the interventions in western countries has made any impact globally The Montreal Protocol[1] is the first counterexample to this that comes to mind. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol
  - somedude895 3y ago
    I'd like to add the phase-out of incandescent lightbulbs [0], which in Europe happened when I was younger and didn't care about much of anything, but even so I was always impressed by how a ban on something so widespread happened in a somewhat concerted effort without too much resistance in this part of the world. But then it really had almost only benefits for everyone. (Although I will say the warm light of the old bulbs is still unmatched by LEDs) Did the reduction in fluorocarbons actually impact economies and everyday people in any significant way though? Because CO2 reduction has massive impacts on those, which is why unless all countries are simultaneously willing to incur significant costs on standards of living and economic prosperity, risk stunting developing countries' growth, etc, it simply isn't going to work. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_ligh...
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      I’m pretty sure it did: CFCs are ridiculously good refrigerants, propellants, etc. Entire supply chains had to be re-rolled around replacements. But the point wasn’t to argue that the scope of the Montreal Protocol is comparable to the scope of the Kyoto Protocol or other international CO2 reduction plans. It was solely to point out that Western countries have contributed meaningfully to global climate protections; shrugging everything off as China’s responsibility is neither sensible nor historically accurate.
    - Syonyk 3y ago
      > But then it really had almost only benefits for everyone. (Although I will say the warm light of the old bulbs is still unmatched by LEDs) How's your sleep? The blue coming out even the "warm" LEDs is firmly in the bioactive melatonin suppression regions of the spectrum.
  - pharmakom 3y ago
    Not a carbon things (in fact may have made that worse) but plastic bag minimum charge laws have had a tremendous impact on littering. The usual suspects were all against it at the time but there is no major support for reversing the laws now.
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      Yep, this is another good example (and agreed re: ultimate carbon impact).
- a_humean 3y ago
  You say that none of the interventions made any impact globally, and that is true, but only if you ignore all of the times that climate/ecological interventions through global agreements did work.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "they literally don't matter and are a rounding error when compared to China and India" Is that your gut feeling, or do you have some numbers to back that up? Also China is investing quite heavily in renewables and one can argue that they started doing so, because the demand (through subsidies in the beginning) for them exploded, so then the prices dropped, so further demand happened - so now there is an industry in china that spits them out by the masses. Btw. it is a really comfortable position to say "look at china", how much they consume - when they mainly produce OUR stuff we then consume. One has to look at the CO2 consumption per human - (see here for example: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions). How can we expect the low income world to lead with industry change, when we still consume way more per citizen, than they do?
  - MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
    I'm all for leading by example, but if you accept the premise that climate change is an existential risk, how do you explain the actions of the German green party that insisted on shutting down the last remaining nuclear power plants, even as Nordstream was blown up? The LNG that we currently consumes as a substitute for the Russian gas is emitting even more greenhouse gases than burning lignite btw, because the US shale gas extraction is extremely dirty [0]. You can not hold both positions at the same time: either climate change is existential, in which case we should do everything that we can to stop it, or shut down nuclear, stop using relatively clean Russian gas and instead increase emissions to new levels by burning coal and "dirty" gas. This tells me there is more to it than the surface-level discussion, possibly a religious doomsday movement that purity-spiraled out of control. [0] https://www.research.howarthlab.org/publications/Howarth_LNG_assessment_preprint_archived_2023-1103.pdf https://www.research.howarthlab.org/publications/Howarth_LNG...
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      "how do you explain the actions of the German green party that insisted on shutting down the last remaining nuclear power plants" Politics and fear for radiation, Chernobyl, Fukoshima etc? The whole history of the green party with its roots in anti nuclear? I don't think political parties are the right metric when looking for rationality.
- Levitz 3y ago
  >None of the interventions in western countries has made any impact globally, they literally don't matter and are a rounding error when compared to China and India. I think we knew all along. Those policies aren't meant to make an impact on climate change as much as they are meant to make a political, hopefully influential, push towards such policies. It's one thing to ask China to do something we are not doing, it's a whole different thing to ask them to do something we are.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Not to mention the fact such "interventions" almost universally condemn developing countries to economic irrelevance. It's easy to act all virtuous about the climate when you're an obscenely wealthy industrial country. I for one would burn down the entire Amazon jungle if it brought my nation the industrial strength needed to rival the developed world. I wouldn't even think twice.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  Some people were complaining about low quality climate denial comments, but this is a good example of high-effort climate denial you find on HN. It's the equivalent of "intelligent Design" in evolution where they wrap an obviously wrong and totally discredited position like Creationism in sophistry to confuse matters.
  - MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
    Yours is a good example of a low-effort climate absolutist comment that is trying to portray simple matters of fact as "obviously wrong and totally discredited position".
- proc0 3y ago
  How can you claim some hypothesis is true if the predictions are wrong? At the very least the hypothesis should be adjusted to try and include why the predictions have failed. I'm not saying there isn't evidence, but the details do matter. There is a massive difference if the hypothesized phenomena happens in 100 years instead of 10 years (which it seems has been the claim for decades). At the very least there seems to be no accountability for incorrect predictions, which ends up determining the politics of a country. This politicizes it even more as people feel forced to change too quickly in ways they do not see justified.
- hm-nah 3y ago
  > … prosperity-ending measures More like capitalism-ending measures. Capitalism is the culprit. I need to imagine different models for making a living, models outside of profit-for-the-few. Models focused on benefits-for-the-many.
onion2k 3y ago
Kinda makes you wonder why people don’t take global warming seriously… This is what makes climate change a bigger problem - when the models are right and people take action it looks like a waste of time because the issues don't arise because they're mitigated (similar to Y2K really), and when the models are 20, or 30, or 50 years off, or flat out wrong, that means governments can ignore them with impunity. The only time climate science looks right is when the model is correct and no one takes action. The result of this is that where there's a feedback loop that happens over decades or centuries (eg almost all environmental science) governments won't act when the problem is small, so humanity is setting itself up for a much bigger problem in the future. I'm in my late 40s and I don't have kids, so I'm not really sure I care, but if you do have kids and you don't want them to be drafted into wars over habitable land or have to live the second half of their lives on Mars, it might be worthwhile taking the climate seriously. We don't really have a big problem to solve for ourselves. We have a problem to solve for future generations.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > We don't really have a big problem to solve for ourselves. Well, actually we do, because climate change has accelerated to the point that we are threatened too. The 2022 heatwaves in Europe, for example, surpassed the height of the COVID pandemic in excess deaths [1], last year France and Switzerland had serious issues with power as their NPPs didn't have enough cooling water, and wildfires are growing stronger, more frequent and more devastating every year. And that doesn't even take into account invisible threats like thawing permafrost in Russia releasing pathogens that have laid dormant for tens of thousands of years [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_European_heatwaves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_European_heatwaves [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/02/zombie-virus-russia-permafrost-thaw/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/0...

reversed by 2000

People seem unable to hold these separate thoughts in their head at the same time: - none of the predictions regarding global warming became true - this does not mean that human-induced warming isn't happening - but this also doesn't mean prosperity-ending measures to curb co2 emissions are justified in every case The climate deniers are probably wrong, but so are the climate doomers who have shown a lack of epistemic humility and a failure to weigh the pros and cons of potential interventions. At its worst, its a death cult, and thankfully it seems to be in decline. None of the interventions in western countries has made any impact globally, they literally don't matter and are a rounding error when compared to China and India.

woodruffw 3y ago
> None of the interventions in western countries has made any impact globally The Montreal Protocol[1] is the first counterexample to this that comes to mind. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol
- somedude895 3y ago
  I'd like to add the phase-out of incandescent lightbulbs [0], which in Europe happened when I was younger and didn't care about much of anything, but even so I was always impressed by how a ban on something so widespread happened in a somewhat concerted effort without too much resistance in this part of the world. But then it really had almost only benefits for everyone. (Although I will say the warm light of the old bulbs is still unmatched by LEDs) Did the reduction in fluorocarbons actually impact economies and everyday people in any significant way though? Because CO2 reduction has massive impacts on those, which is why unless all countries are simultaneously willing to incur significant costs on standards of living and economic prosperity, risk stunting developing countries' growth, etc, it simply isn't going to work. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_ligh...
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    I’m pretty sure it did: CFCs are ridiculously good refrigerants, propellants, etc. Entire supply chains had to be re-rolled around replacements. But the point wasn’t to argue that the scope of the Montreal Protocol is comparable to the scope of the Kyoto Protocol or other international CO2 reduction plans. It was solely to point out that Western countries have contributed meaningfully to global climate protections; shrugging everything off as China’s responsibility is neither sensible nor historically accurate.
  - Syonyk 3y ago
    > But then it really had almost only benefits for everyone. (Although I will say the warm light of the old bulbs is still unmatched by LEDs) How's your sleep? The blue coming out even the "warm" LEDs is firmly in the bioactive melatonin suppression regions of the spectrum.
- pharmakom 3y ago
  Not a carbon things (in fact may have made that worse) but plastic bag minimum charge laws have had a tremendous impact on littering. The usual suspects were all against it at the time but there is no major support for reversing the laws now.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    Yep, this is another good example (and agreed re: ultimate carbon impact).
a_humean 3y ago
You say that none of the interventions made any impact globally, and that is true, but only if you ignore all of the times that climate/ecological interventions through global agreements did work.
hutzlibu 3y ago
"they literally don't matter and are a rounding error when compared to China and India" Is that your gut feeling, or do you have some numbers to back that up? Also China is investing quite heavily in renewables and one can argue that they started doing so, because the demand (through subsidies in the beginning) for them exploded, so then the prices dropped, so further demand happened - so now there is an industry in china that spits them out by the masses. Btw. it is a really comfortable position to say "look at china", how much they consume - when they mainly produce OUR stuff we then consume. One has to look at the CO2 consumption per human - (see here for example: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions). How can we expect the low income world to lead with industry change, when we still consume way more per citizen, than they do?
- MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
  I'm all for leading by example, but if you accept the premise that climate change is an existential risk, how do you explain the actions of the German green party that insisted on shutting down the last remaining nuclear power plants, even as Nordstream was blown up? The LNG that we currently consumes as a substitute for the Russian gas is emitting even more greenhouse gases than burning lignite btw, because the US shale gas extraction is extremely dirty [0]. You can not hold both positions at the same time: either climate change is existential, in which case we should do everything that we can to stop it, or shut down nuclear, stop using relatively clean Russian gas and instead increase emissions to new levels by burning coal and "dirty" gas. This tells me there is more to it than the surface-level discussion, possibly a religious doomsday movement that purity-spiraled out of control. [0] https://www.research.howarthlab.org/publications/Howarth_LNG_assessment_preprint_archived_2023-1103.pdf https://www.research.howarthlab.org/publications/Howarth_LNG...
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    "how do you explain the actions of the German green party that insisted on shutting down the last remaining nuclear power plants" Politics and fear for radiation, Chernobyl, Fukoshima etc? The whole history of the green party with its roots in anti nuclear? I don't think political parties are the right metric when looking for rationality.
Levitz 3y ago
>None of the interventions in western countries has made any impact globally, they literally don't matter and are a rounding error when compared to China and India. I think we knew all along. Those policies aren't meant to make an impact on climate change as much as they are meant to make a political, hopefully influential, push towards such policies. It's one thing to ask China to do something we are not doing, it's a whole different thing to ask them to do something we are.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
Not to mention the fact such "interventions" almost universally condemn developing countries to economic irrelevance. It's easy to act all virtuous about the climate when you're an obscenely wealthy industrial country. I for one would burn down the entire Amazon jungle if it brought my nation the industrial strength needed to rival the developed world. I wouldn't even think twice.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Some people were complaining about low quality climate denial comments, but this is a good example of high-effort climate denial you find on HN. It's the equivalent of "intelligent Design" in evolution where they wrap an obviously wrong and totally discredited position like Creationism in sophistry to confuse matters.
- MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
  Yours is a good example of a low-effort climate absolutist comment that is trying to portray simple matters of fact as "obviously wrong and totally discredited position".
proc0 3y ago
How can you claim some hypothesis is true if the predictions are wrong? At the very least the hypothesis should be adjusted to try and include why the predictions have failed. I'm not saying there isn't evidence, but the details do matter. There is a massive difference if the hypothesized phenomena happens in 100 years instead of 10 years (which it seems has been the claim for decades). At the very least there seems to be no accountability for incorrect predictions, which ends up determining the politics of a country. This politicizes it even more as people feel forced to change too quickly in ways they do not see justified.
hm-nah 3y ago
> … prosperity-ending measures More like capitalism-ending measures. Capitalism is the culprit. I need to imagine different models for making a living, models outside of profit-for-the-few. Models focused on benefits-for-the-many.

onion2k 3y ago

Kinda makes you wonder why people don’t take global warming seriously… This is what makes climate change a bigger problem - when the models are right and people take action it looks like a waste of time because the issues don't arise because they're mitigated (similar to Y2K really), and when the models are 20, or 30, or 50 years off, or flat out wrong, that means governments can ignore them with impunity. The only time climate science looks right is when the model is correct and no one takes action. The result of this is that where there's a feedback loop that happens over decades or centuries (eg almost all environmental science) governments won't act when the problem is small, so humanity is setting itself up for a much bigger problem in the future. I'm in my late 40s and I don't have kids, so I'm not really sure I care, but if you do have kids and you don't want them to be drafted into wars over habitable land or have to live the second half of their lives on Mars, it might be worthwhile taking the climate seriously. We don't really have a big problem to solve for ourselves. We have a problem to solve for future generations.

mschuster91 3y ago
> We don't really have a big problem to solve for ourselves. Well, actually we do, because climate change has accelerated to the point that we are threatened too. The 2022 heatwaves in Europe, for example, surpassed the height of the COVID pandemic in excess deaths [1], last year France and Switzerland had serious issues with power as their NPPs didn't have enough cooling water, and wildfires are growing stronger, more frequent and more devastating every year. And that doesn't even take into account invisible threats like thawing permafrost in Russia releasing pathogens that have laid dormant for tens of thousands of years [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_European_heatwaves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_European_heatwaves [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/02/zombie-virus-russia-permafrost-thaw/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/0...