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> To any climate change denier... I'd love to smash that idiocy out of your head if that would help Well, one must balance the downsides with the positives. Ch

> To any climate change denier... I'd love to smash that idiocy out of your head if that would help Well, one must balance the downsides with the positives. Cheap energy from fossil fuels allowed humanity to flourish like never before, raising standards of living globally. And in the 50-year span from 1970 to 2019, deaths from climate-related reasons decreased to one-third[0], even as the global population more than doubled. That's one-third the absolute number, not per capita! All this mostly due to the increasing ability of the developing world to deal with extreme weather events, again thanks to cheap energy. I posit it's entirely reasonable to disagree on what we should do about climate change. [0]: https://library.wmo.int/records/item/57564-wmo-atlas-of-mortality-and-economic-losses-from-weather-climate-and-water-extremes-1970-2019 https://library.wmo.int/records/item/57564-wmo-atlas-of-mort...

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
Unfortunately, your analysis of humanity "flourishing" ignores the mass extinctions of many other species and habitats. Ultimately, we depend on our ecosystems to survive, so it remains to be seen how sustainable humanity's population level will be.
- thehappypm 3y ago
  Ecosystem destruction from human activity is way, way bigger than just climate change.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
You were downvoted, but I'm not sure why. To emphasize, your post as written is not denying human-induced climate change (at this point I think it's fair to call people that do this idiots, or at least impervious to evidence), it's just acknowledging that cheap energy has been responsible for a huge surge is standards of living (and lifespans) for humans. > I posit it's entirely reasonable to disagree on what we should do about climate change. I think maybe you could have argued that in the past, but not so much anymore. We know now that it is possible to fully decarbonize the vast majority of our energy sources without a significant decrease in living standards - we just need to ensure the infrastructure exists that incentivizes the transition as quickly as possible, and ensure that organizations/people with large vested interests in fossil fuel extraction aren't allowed to control the direction we, collectively, take.
- Teever 3y ago
  It's denial of a different stripe. Instead of saying "It's not happening." the GP is saying "It's happening but it's no big deal. good stuff came from it." Which to be frank, is a complete waste of time not worth responding to. What they've said has been a meme for 30 years at this point. https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed-tom-toro.html https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed...
  - gottorf 3y ago
    You will have to present something better than a meme cartoon if you want me to change my mind.
    - Teever 3y ago
      I have no intention of changing your mind.
- acdha 3y ago
  There are two problems: one is that cheap energy wasn’t the only factor in things like population growth or quality of life improvements and it’s also not like most of the carbon emissions were directed towards that goal. Attributing everything to cheap energy is effectively using someone in, say, India getting access to antibiotics, water filtration, and fertilizer as an excuse to ignore just how much of the global carbon footprint went not to providing the global poor with the huge reductions in childhood mortality but rather to things like Americans eating beef multiple meals a day and driving inefficient vehicles everywhere. Whether or not that was their intention it reads like an attempt to whitewash our highly disparate contribution to global carbon levels. The other problem is the future: it’s mostly the same places which saw those gains which are also critically at risk from flooding, drought/famine, dangerous heat levels, etc. so there’s very much a “the future is longer than the past” aspect to this conversation where, say, 3-6 good decades shouldn’t be accepted as an excuse for the much larger number of worse decades which have already started.
atoav 3y ago
For a brief moment on the geological timescale we managed to create a lot of wealth for billionaires. »That was worth it«, it will say on the tombstone inside the flame-moated residence of the last man standting, a billionaire.
- gottorf 3y ago
  I'm not sure why you're focusing on the billionaires, when it's evident that the common man of today lives in the comfort of pre-industrial kings.
  - atoav 3y ago
    I am not sure why you're focusing on what is instead of focusing on what could be.
jajko 3y ago
Most of Iran/Pakistan will become unlivable outside during summer (maybe it will shock you most most world doesn't have AC even if its 50C outside). Same could easily go for whole Sahel. We can continue around the globe and name locations where a billion+ people live. Please explain those cool positives you see to them. You won't have to, they will mostly not lay around and wait for collapse and death, instead they will stand up, turn towards also your home and march to a good and safe location (TM). I would do exactly the same in their place. Bear in mind that those folks will be absolutely desperate with nothing to lose. This will be a catastrophe for all developed nations, and I don't see any way to avoid it now.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > (maybe it will shock you most most world doesn't have AC even if its 50C outside) The solution is, again, more energy abundance so that most of the world can have AC. To paraphrase another HNer, I wish for the average Bangladeshi or Nigerian to have the living standards of the average Texan or Swiss; not the other way around, which would be what I foresee as the result of "degrowth" in the name of saving the climate. There's virtually no point in the hand-wringing that the developed world engages in with electric cars and rooftop solar, when the developing world, where the majority of people are, are emitting more per capita CO2 emissions year after year. China alone netted over 40GW of coal power plants last year. > Same could easily go for whole Sahel The Sahel isn't home to all that many people, because it's not very friendly to civilization to begin with. Countries with territories in the Sahel have quite a lot of people, but that's entirely different. > I don't see any way to avoid it now More energy, preferably emission-free, but with emissions if we must. More nuclear power plants. More research into fusion.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

Unfortunately, your analysis of humanity "flourishing" ignores the mass extinctions of many other species and habitats. Ultimately, we depend on our ecosystems to survive, so it remains to be seen how sustainable humanity's population level will be.

thehappypm 3y ago
Ecosystem destruction from human activity is way, way bigger than just climate change.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

You were downvoted, but I'm not sure why. To emphasize, your post as written is not denying human-induced climate change (at this point I think it's fair to call people that do this idiots, or at least impervious to evidence), it's just acknowledging that cheap energy has been responsible for a huge surge is standards of living (and lifespans) for humans. > I posit it's entirely reasonable to disagree on what we should do about climate change. I think maybe you could have argued that in the past, but not so much anymore. We know now that it is possible to fully decarbonize the vast majority of our energy sources without a significant decrease in living standards - we just need to ensure the infrastructure exists that incentivizes the transition as quickly as possible, and ensure that organizations/people with large vested interests in fossil fuel extraction aren't allowed to control the direction we, collectively, take.

Teever 3y ago
It's denial of a different stripe. Instead of saying "It's not happening." the GP is saying "It's happening but it's no big deal. good stuff came from it." Which to be frank, is a complete waste of time not worth responding to. What they've said has been a meme for 30 years at this point. https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed-tom-toro.html https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed...
- gottorf 3y ago
  You will have to present something better than a meme cartoon if you want me to change my mind.
  - Teever 3y ago
    I have no intention of changing your mind.
acdha 3y ago
There are two problems: one is that cheap energy wasn’t the only factor in things like population growth or quality of life improvements and it’s also not like most of the carbon emissions were directed towards that goal. Attributing everything to cheap energy is effectively using someone in, say, India getting access to antibiotics, water filtration, and fertilizer as an excuse to ignore just how much of the global carbon footprint went not to providing the global poor with the huge reductions in childhood mortality but rather to things like Americans eating beef multiple meals a day and driving inefficient vehicles everywhere. Whether or not that was their intention it reads like an attempt to whitewash our highly disparate contribution to global carbon levels. The other problem is the future: it’s mostly the same places which saw those gains which are also critically at risk from flooding, drought/famine, dangerous heat levels, etc. so there’s very much a “the future is longer than the past” aspect to this conversation where, say, 3-6 good decades shouldn’t be accepted as an excuse for the much larger number of worse decades which have already started.

atoav 3y ago

For a brief moment on the geological timescale we managed to create a lot of wealth for billionaires. »That was worth it«, it will say on the tombstone inside the flame-moated residence of the last man standting, a billionaire.

gottorf 3y ago
I'm not sure why you're focusing on the billionaires, when it's evident that the common man of today lives in the comfort of pre-industrial kings.
- atoav 3y ago
  I am not sure why you're focusing on what is instead of focusing on what could be.

jajko 3y ago

Most of Iran/Pakistan will become unlivable outside during summer (maybe it will shock you most most world doesn't have AC even if its 50C outside). Same could easily go for whole Sahel. We can continue around the globe and name locations where a billion+ people live. Please explain those cool positives you see to them. You won't have to, they will mostly not lay around and wait for collapse and death, instead they will stand up, turn towards also your home and march to a good and safe location (TM). I would do exactly the same in their place. Bear in mind that those folks will be absolutely desperate with nothing to lose. This will be a catastrophe for all developed nations, and I don't see any way to avoid it now.

gottorf 3y ago
> (maybe it will shock you most most world doesn't have AC even if its 50C outside) The solution is, again, more energy abundance so that most of the world can have AC. To paraphrase another HNer, I wish for the average Bangladeshi or Nigerian to have the living standards of the average Texan or Swiss; not the other way around, which would be what I foresee as the result of "degrowth" in the name of saving the climate. There's virtually no point in the hand-wringing that the developed world engages in with electric cars and rooftop solar, when the developing world, where the majority of people are, are emitting more per capita CO2 emissions year after year. China alone netted over 40GW of coal power plants last year. > Same could easily go for whole Sahel The Sahel isn't home to all that many people, because it's not very friendly to civilization to begin with. Countries with territories in the Sahel have quite a lot of people, but that's entirely different. > I don't see any way to avoid it now More energy, preferably emission-free, but with emissions if we must. More nuclear power plants. More research into fusion.