11 ms·

Humans have caused 1.5 °C of long-term global warming according to new estimates

399 points by gmays 2y ago

xyst 2y ago
With USA going full climate denial in next 4 yrs and SCOTUS packed with O&G friendly judges. It’s going to get worsw
- varelse 2y ago
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- nojvek 2y ago
  Yep, our grandchildren will have to pay a very dear price to clean up our mess of Glory days.
  - fldskfjdslkfj 2y ago
    On the bright side for a brief moment in time we created lots of shareholder value.
    - xyst 2y ago
      Aka the big grift
  - twothreeone 2y ago
    I don't think cleaning up is an option once you get a runaway atmospheric hot-house. Human population will fall due to global disasters and food-chain collapse, then wars, then the party is pretty much over.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
    Although the dear price is away off, The bill is starting come due today; see news stories about fires and hurricanes.
    - nojvek 2y ago
      Florida - that's where Trump is staffing many folks in his cabinet. They banned the words "climate change" and "global warming" from being mentioned in any official document. Florida - also where there are $100B+ disasters every year. America is now the Florida of the world!
- diath 2y ago
  What has the US administration done in the past 4 years to make a significant impact on the global warming issue?
  - 0xdde 2y ago
    I know you can't be serious, but are you also trying to imply that the incoming administration, staffed from top to bottom with oil industry insiders, won't affect our trajectory?
    - throw_pm23 2y ago
      I think it was a serious question that was relevant to the conversation.
  - glial 2y ago
    * Inflation Reduction Act (IRA): largest federal investment in climate action to date, allocating over $391 billion to reduce carbon emissions. * Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: investments in public transit and infrastructure, promoting sustainable transportation and reducing emissions. * Methane Emissions Reduction: EPA introduced regulations to curb methane emissions from the oil and gas industry * Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) Phase-Down: EPA issued a final rule to reduce HFC production and consumption by 85% over 15 years * Rejoining the Paris Agreement * Climate Finance Pledge: the administration pledged to increase international climate finance to over $11 billion annually by 2024 * National Climate Task Force: established to coordinate a whole-of-government approach to tackling the climate crisis, aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050.
    - krainboltgreene 2y ago
      $391B over ten years. The total sum of this effort is less than 2% of our GDP. UNCTAD says it'll take 18% of 48 countries GDP (distributed appropriately).
- shdh 2y ago
  Even if USA reversed 180 degrees, the rest of the world is going to continue fossil fuel usage. Developing nations will continue to increase individual CO2 usage as their economies improve. People want to live a modern western lifestyle, and that requires more energy. Realistically the world is going to generate far more energy, not reduce energy usage/production. Moving to solar and nuclear is the only likely solution that will result in reduced CO2 volume.
- moffkalast 2y ago
  It's funny seeing people groan and moan about climate change on HN when the average neolib here most likely voted Trump lmao, especially based on the comments in the winner announcement thread. You are preaching to people who wouldn't blink twice to burn an actual mountain of coal if it got them YC funding or a 1% reduction on their tax bill.
OtomotO 2y ago
No, we have caused AT LEAST 1.5°C long-term global warming.
benbristow 2y ago
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- nso 2y ago
  First post and it turned into a US politics discussion. Great. What do you think will fix it?
  - Windchaser 2y ago
    What odds do you want to give that this person doesn't really see it as a problem anyway?
    - benbristow 2y ago
      We keep getting told the average Joe is to blame for eating meat and taking flights whilst large corporations/industry laugh at us. Make it make sense.
      - aniviacat 2y ago
        Temu doesn't ship items across the world for fun. They do it because the average Joe pays them to do it. The meat industry doesn't hold excessive amounts of cattle for fun. They do it because the average Joe pays them to do it. These industries don't just happen to exist. They exist because the average Joe wants them to exist. If the average Joe stopped buying meat, stopped shopping on Temu and stopped buying palm oil, these industries would cease to exist within days. But the average Joes wants them to exist. The average Joe decides, every single day, over and over again, that he wants these industires to destroy the climate. Oh but it's just so convenient and cheap to shop on Temu.
  - benbristow 2y ago
    The whole topic is political. What do you think the fix is? Because the only 'solution' seems to be adding more and more taxes to the average Joe whilst endless e-waste/junk gets shipped over from China via AliExpress/Temu day to day.
decremental 2y ago
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HWR_14 2y ago
This article spends a lot of time worrying about which baseline to use as that determines how much global warming has occurred. Which is important because the 1.5 C limit was raised in the Paris accords. But wouldn't the measurement be absolute. The 1.5 increase is just because that was the baseline they used then.
givan 2y ago
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- pavlov 2y ago
  Shoot, the thousands of scientists who have researched climate change since the 1970s must have never taken the very first class in statistics. They must be embarrassed now that you told them about this.
  - givan 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - klysm 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      No. The greenhouse effect can be demonstrated in a lab. It requires complications to create mechanisms that deny the world outside the lab the evidence found within it. We have no idea how to quantify the short-term effects. But increase the CO2 concentration in an insolated gas and its temperature will go up.
    - Hikikomori 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - givan 2y ago
        Ad hominem
    - mind-blight 2y ago
      That doesn't seem like it applies here. The argument is that "expert consensus has consistently said a thing", which is a very reasonable stance to take. The default would be to assume the scientific consensus is correct, then being evidence/reasons to show when it's not.
oezi 2y ago
Looking into the numbers a couple if months ago I was surprised how little it costs to stop climate change. On the order of 100-200 trillion USD. Which is roughly 100-200% of global yearly GDP. Or 2-5% of yearly GDP until 2050. This could well be provided by printing money at all the federal reserve banks. This investment will likely bring in a positive return on investment because it reduces the negative climate impacts. Without such investments the downstream costs in climate change adaptation will be very expensive
- richardwhiuk 2y ago
  Printing money wouldn't work - you just make all of the existing money less valuable.
  - Schiendelman 2y ago
    That doesn't mean the new money doesn't have value, just has a small percentage less value. It's a wealth transfer from people who currently have money to the new money. It works out well for people who have a negative net worth, as well!
    - kreetx 2y ago
      Yeah, the salaried folk who find out in hindsight will be really happy as well. /s
      - Schiendelman 2y ago
        I don't think sarcastic comments really help, people who aren't capable of having real conversations about this already bring enough of that. It is definitely worth talking openly about whether it's worth trading short term inflationary pain for long-term climate pain.
        kreetx 2y ago
        I guess you're right. The parent speaks of inflation as if printing money is the new norm. If you are going to take money from your citizens then be upfront about it!
zb3 2y ago
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brap 2y ago
That seems… very low?
- donohoe 2y ago
  Yes, seems that way, but the impact will be huge. https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-one-point-five-degrees-two-degrees/index.html https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-o... See also: https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/degrees-matter https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/d...
- klysm 2y ago
  It might sound low, but consider that this number is a distillation of many changes into one proxy which roughly covers a variety of different effects that aren’t strictly related to just temperature. For example, consider ocean acidification. Also consider the number of tipping points and positive feedback loops that exist. How close are we to those?
- vincnetas 2y ago
  Depends on context. for example 1C for all water on earth is still on 1C+ but one would need a lot of energy for that. from open ai: The power required to raise the temperature of all the Earth's water by 1°C in one second would be 5.57 × 10¹⁸ megawatts.
- atoav 2y ago
  - 70 to 90% of coral reefs dying, devastation of maritime ecosystems - potential collapse of maritime currents that lead to relatively mild climates in Britain - triggering of multiple irreversible climate tipping points (arctic ice sheet) - more common and much more devastating extreme weather events (warmer air can carry more water) - the aforementioned weather results in infrastructure damage and lack of food within big parts of the world. Waves of migration - median sea level rise of more than a meter means extremes will be much higher, a big part of the human population lives next to the sea And much more — this was the absolute minimum and we surpassed it faster than expected.
- spencerchubb 2y ago
varelse 2y ago
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jmyeet 2y ago
Call me pessimistic but I don't think anything is going to change and a lot of people are going to die due to climate-forced migration. That being said, it's a difficult topic to discuss rationally. Part of the issue is deciding on what your baseline is. Looking at the last 200 years tells a pretty limited view. Consider around 100,000 years ago when global temperatures were similar [1]. That raises some questions about what caused that spike but, more importantly, what caused it to lower. You can say "an ice age" but what really triggers an ice age? My point here is that doomsday predictions of Venus-like runaway inflation I think are both unrealistic and unhelpful in actually motivating people about an otherwise very real problem. We really have no idea of the mechanics in place. But like I say, we're going to do absolutely nothing about it anyway. [1]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/analysis-is-it-actually-hotter-now-than-any-time-in-the-last-100000-years https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/analysis-is-it-actually...
- baq 2y ago
  It’ll take a couple of mass casualty wet bulb events to shift the discourse from ‘it’s too expensive, just drill more’ to ‘oh shit whatever it takes’
  - yongjik 2y ago
    Sadly, I'm skeptical about that. Covid killed a million Americans and half of America thinks the real enemy was the government telling people to stay home and wear masks. Drive down I-5 of CA's central valley, and you'll see signs saying "Congress created dust bowl." In coming decades, I fully expect to see people blaming renewable energy and carbon tax for whatever new climate disaster we end up with. Hopefully we could ignore them, in the same way adults stop entertaining toddlers when shit happens.
    - Vegenoid 2y ago
      We’ll be lucky if people blame technology, instead of other groups of people that they are then motivated to take vengeance on. That is what I fear.
    - deleted 2y ago
abdullahkhalids 2y ago
The last IPCC report estimates that to limit warming to 2C, humans can only emit at most 1150 GtCO2 (at 67% likelihood) [1]. There are 8.2 billion humans, so about 140tCO2/person left on average. If we assume that we get to net zero by 2050, that means the average person can emit about 5.4tCO2/person/year from today to 2050 (hitting 0tCO2/person/year in 2050). This is what emissions look like currently [2] Top 5 countries > 10m population Saudi Arabia 22.1t United Arab Emirates 21.6t Australia 14.5t United States 14.3t Canada 14.0t Some others China 8.4t Europe 6.7t World average 4.7t Lower-middle-income countries of 1.6t Low-income countries 0.3t Guess what's going to happen and who is going to suffer, despite not doing anything. [1] Page 82 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_FullVolume.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics
- deleted 2y ago
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- kingkongjaffa 2y ago
  > United Arab Emirates 25.8 t > Saudi Arabia 18.2 t > Australia 15.0 t These are all pretty low population though so net CO2 from these countries is not the largest. In terms of per capita, what drives this? These places are hot, is it the 24/7 Air conditioning running?
  - quonn 2y ago
    That is balanced by not having to heat. The more likely explanation for the first two is that plenty of fossil fuels are available so they are used inefficiently.
  - inquirerGeneral 2y ago
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  - abdullahkhalids 2y ago
    I generated this list a few months ago. I picked a threshold population (I think 10 million) and listed the top 5 and then some other groups. I think I would also guess that resource rich countries spend a lot on cars and AC. FYI, I edited list with latest numbers after your comment.
root_axis 2y ago
Doesn't seem like there is any foreseeable future where climate change can be addressed. It's not just the leadership of the u.s, but the citizens themselves reject climate change as a real issue. Hopefully I'm just being pessemsitic.
- baq 2y ago
  Oh a lot of those citizens care - it’s that they travel to Japan for vacation anyway.
  - lukan 2y ago
    There was a famous case of german climate activists, those who glue themself on the road to block the cars to make a statement - they did not showed up to ther appointment in court, because they were enjoying their activism vacation in Bali.
    - Aachen 2y ago
      Fun anecdote but I don't see how a handful of individuals being alleged hypocrites is relevant
      - lukan 2y ago
        Normal people consider climate change to be bad - but still fly far away. But when even the activists fly for vacation - then who will really reduce voluntarily? Apparently not many. I know people who take it seriously, and personally I have not taken a flight in years. Still, the relevant point is individuals are quick to blame others, yet unwilling to change their own behavior.
        Aachen 2y ago
        - You're generalising "a famous case" (pervious post's wording) to "so even the activists do this". I think most people are aware now that <insert race/religion/...> aren't all criminals after a "famous case", but this obviously also goes for every other group consisting of millions of people - Did these particular individuals get a chance to defend against this allegation or is it just assumed to be the whole truth? It has the ring of a convenient belief¹ that you can bring up whenever someone mentions that e.g. much less frequent flying and rarely eating beef/lamb are some large-impact things people could do. Was it actually them? Do they fly across the world regularly or are we expecting these people to live like monks consistently their whole lives, only going on holiday by bicycle and (if that exists in their country) train? Did they do, or buy, something that compensates the emissions (something one can reasonably believe to be effective, not the airline's 2€-on-checkout option)? And even if, I'm also not going to stop flying entirely when literally everybody else here does it. I'm not the pope, even if I advocate for making things better (not trying to go for perfect, the enemy of good). Why should I sacrifice my life? I just came back from a train trip across the continent that I could also have flown or driven in individual transport (for free even, as the car I co-use has a flat fee fuel subscription). I try to do the right thing where reasonably possible, as it was in this case, but I'm not sure we should expect everyone who speaks of climate change to only ever do the right thing, especially when things like direct air capture can plausibly undo your emissions. It's cheaper not to fly than to fly and pay Climeworks to undo it, but that is an option, as is reducing the amount of flying. Both are good, both would allow you to further the anecdotal evidence that climate activists fly ¹ By which I mean a belief to justify something one wants for other reasons. The example that comes to mind is the "protip" that leaving the heater on a constant temperature is more efficient than stopping to burn fuel when you're not even home, which means you come home to a warm and cozy place so yeah sure one loves to hear/believe it and nobody sanity checks the values of how much more efficient your heater actually is when burning at a low rate as compared to the fuel saved while you're not home for 8 working hours + commute time
spraveenitpro 2y ago
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chriscappuccio 2y ago
Wasn't it just a week ago we discovered that widely used models were significantly underestimating CO2 absorption by plants?
- badgersnake 2y ago
  The models may be perfect or imperfect, either way the temperature is still going up.
  - thegrim33 2y ago
    - "Models say X is happening." - "Well, isn't there this specific problem with the model?" - "It doesn't matter, because X is happening" Not sure the line of logic follows there.
    - consteval 2y ago
      The line of logic is that people attempt to push propaganda against the narrative to completely discredit it. Oil industry has been doing it from the sixties. They'll find any small mistake in the science, and say "see? They're wrong! Nothing bad will happen..." Sure, the models might be a little too doomer. That doesn't actually change anything, and for the past ~70 years the only type this type of stuff was brought up was to deny climate change.
    - GeoAtreides 2y ago
      your argument has an invalid premise: "Models say X is happening." It's not the models that are saying X (temp goes up) is happening, it's empirical data. A better argument is: - We observe X is happening - create a model of X happening - use model of X to predict X in the future - model of X might be or might not be flawed - meanwhile, X is still happening in the real world
      - badgersnake 2y ago
        It’s also interesting that this site has been having a collective orgasm over models that frequently give wrong answers for at least a year now. When climate is involved it’s suddenly a big problem.
patrickhogan1 2y ago
Long-term should be defined. We can cool the planet the same amount long-term. Why is it taken as a given that any warming is irreversible when we have historical natural patterns showing global cooling (ice age)?
- chrishare 2y ago
  The damage to ecosystems, flora and fauna populations, etc etc, isn't reversible like that. Extinct species don't just bounce back, sadly.
- therealdrag0 2y ago
  Of course it can be reversed, it’s just vastly more expensive to do so. If your house is on fire and you don’t have insurance you don’t say “eh I can just build a new one”, you put the fire out.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - patrickhogan1 2y ago
    I agree that warming is an important issue to address. I don’t agree that we know that it will be more expensive to cool. Space is cold and technology allowing heat to vent into space may be less expensive than we think.
    - therealdrag0 2y ago
      Sure it's more accurate to say current known methods are expensive or have side effects. For example, Carbon capture is very expensive. Another example, is sulfur dioxide provides reflective properties which was artificially cooling the earth (from shipping exhaust) until it was banned because it causes acid rain and a host of health problems. We'll probably find other interesting geo-engineering techniques over time, but it is very unwise to bank on future solutions. Many things, like nuclear fusion, have been "just around the corner" for years and years. Climate change is accelerating at a rapid pace. Go look at a chart of CO2 emissions over time. I think people default to thinking we're in some stable or slow state, when we're far from it. We're not just increasing CO2 emissions, we're increasing the rate of emissions. Debt (tech, financial or otherwise) when you have a path to pay it off is a useful tool, but taking climate debt with no known good solution is very unwise.
karol 2y ago
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pstrateman 2y ago
The simple reality is that humanity is unable to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without an alternative that is superior. For every ton of CO2 that the west has reduced in the past decade China has produced three tons of CO2.[1] We need another breakthrough on the scale of the Haber process. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?country=OWID_WRL~High-income+countries~Low-income+countries~Lower-middle-income+countries~Upper-middle-income+countries~CHN&hideControls=false&Gas+or+Warming=CO%E2%82%82&Accounting=Territorial&Fuel+or+Land+Use+Change=All+fossil+emissions&Count=Per+country https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?country=OWID_WRL~Hi...
- croes 2y ago
  Because we shifted our production to other countries. Lots of their CO2 is because of us.
  - chanakya 2y ago
    The effect of the shifting is minor. China's exports (to all countries, not just the US) make only a small difference to their emissions growth. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-vs-consumption-co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-vs-consumption...
- benchmarkist 2y ago
  Technology is not going to get us out of this mess.
  - yieldcrv 2y ago
    In time
    - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
      Is there enough left?
  - Freedom2 2y ago
dvfjsdhgfv 2y ago
Title: > Humans have caused 1.5 °C of long-term global warming according to new estimates First sentence of the article: > humans may have already caused 1.5 °C of global warming
- griffzhowl 2y ago
  I guess that can be consistent actually, since the title says "according to new estimates". So the new estimates say humans have caused the warming, and the new estimates may be true
urduntupu 2y ago
We are on the natural rise after a natural ice period. Just check long term temperature curves and stop looking short term, making it look like there has ever been the same average temperature on earth.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
  - blumomo 2y ago
    https://scitechdaily.com/66-million-years-of-earths-climate-history-uncovered-puts-current-changes-in-context/ https://scitechdaily.com/66-million-years-of-earths-climate-...
    - shadowgovt 2y ago
      I'm not sure if this link is intended to contradict or reinforce the image from the previous link. The text of that link indicates that the research concluded that the Earth is currently much warmer than it ought to be given known natural processes.
      - blumomo 2y ago
        The research concluded in a hypothesis, not a factual proof.
- thrance 2y ago
  Simply wrong. Intuitive visualization: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/.
  - blumomo 2y ago
    It’s you who’s simply wrong. You have to look before the ice period, that’s what OP refers to as long term. https://scitechdaily.com/66-million-years-of-earths-climate-history-uncovered-puts-current-changes-in-context/ https://scitechdaily.com/66-million-years-of-earths-climate-...
gcheong 2y ago
Our response to a global pandemic was a disaster other than getting the vaccines made. The most recent large scale collective effort to defeat an existential threat prior to that was probably WWII. We’ve gotten pretty good at waging war but I fear that’s probably where our evolution in the matter of dealing with existential threats will probably remain.
- Tknl 2y ago
  I would argue that numerous initiative to ban highly dangerous substances such as the Montreal Protocol banning ozone layer damaging refrigerant gasses have been successful in this period. Instead it appears to me that global collaboration actually stalled after the fall the Soviet Union and the end of great power competition.
- switch007 2y ago
  > Our response to a global pandemic was a disaster other than getting the vaccines made What would you have liked to have seen? And out of curiosity, what should be the response to the 700k heart disease, 600k cancer, 227k accidental, 165k stroke, 147k respiratory and 101k diabetes deaths each year in the USA? (N.B. COVID sits at 186k in 2023)
- zahlman 2y ago
  Remember "acid rain"? Remember "the ozone hole"? We have solved, or greatly mitigated, environmental problems before.
  - teamonkey 2y ago
    Acid rain is still on the table
    - zahlman 2y ago
      SO2 emissions are still strongly trending downward globally (e.g. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/so-emissions-by-world-region-in-million-tonnes https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/so-emissions-by-world-reg... ). The change is especially dramatic in the US, per EPA reports. Conifers in my neighbourhood look remarkably healthier than what I recall from my childhood as a result.
darksaints 2y ago
I remember about 20 years ago I was pretty entrenched in circles of thought that were not quite "denialist" so much as they were "it's not gonna be as bad as they say it is-ist". I remember a prevailing line of thought was that climate "alarmists" only chose the most extreme predictions of the various models in order to sell the urgency of acting quickly to stop it. There were those that said that the most extreme predictions came from models that emphasized positive feedback loops (like arctic permafrost thawing), and ignored or de-emphasized negative feedback loops (like increasing vegetation growth rates). And above all, I remember one particular number standing out as where they thought we would plateau. It was at 1C of warming arriving around 2030. Whoops. Maybe the scientific consensus should be listened to more often, and the fringe less often.
- thegrim33 2y ago
  This is a pretty common propaganda pattern. Pointing to a massive group of people, throwing them all together under one label (in this case, 'climate deniers', in other cases 'vaccine deniers', etc.) even though the people in the group have a massive range in their opinions and beliefs, and then point out some small subset of the group that are the craziest/weirdest/most "wrong" members in the group, and straw manning them as representative of the entire group.
renewiltord 2y ago
All the people who usually make a big deal out of this usually oppose density and reducing car dependence. Degrowthers always seem to assume that the only job worthwhile is “guy writing meta-analysis paper” and “coffee shop”. They ally with groups that protect golf courses and oppose geothermal energy and nuclear energy. So it’s fine. We’ll tech our way out of this without them. If we don’t, we die. So be it.
- silver_silver 2y ago
  Europe and China are currently leading the transition to renewables so that is an American problem
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    Yeah I have hope for the guys who can build. While America is complaining about Chinese energy sources, China will add sufficient nuclear and renewable to outpace us in decades. People never really look at the delta. They always look at the y.
rr808 2y ago
It feels like we're getting much more than 1.5 degrees. Here in NYC it used to snow several times a month, we've had one tiny storm the last two years. Just 20 years ago I rarely used AC in the summer, now its on nearly every day from May to September. Its not just that the temperatures are more variable, and the rainfall patterns are much more random it really feels like we're at +4 degrees already.
- kbutler 2y ago
  You're probably feeling the urban heat island effect.
  - treyd 2y ago
    How does that explain the change in long term weather when the city is already heavily developed.
    - kbutler 2y ago
      One factor: 38% of population in NYC had air conditioning in 1970, 90% do now. The OP mentioned this as a symptom - "20 years ago I rarely used AC in the summer, now its on nearly every day from May to September." Increased AC use and the associated waste heat is a significant contributor to the urban heat island effect. https://news.asu.edu/content/excess-heat-air-conditioners-causes-higher-nighttime-temperatures#:~:text=%E2%80%9COur%20work%20demonstrates%20one%20Celsius,air%20conditioning%2C%22%20Salamanca%20said https://news.asu.edu/content/excess-heat-air-conditioners-ca....
- NewJazz 2y ago
  1.5 C is a global average. Feels like is anecdotal. Some areas will see higher averages than 1.5 C. Some areas, even if only seeing an average increase of 1.5 C or thereabouts, will see more extreme temperatures exceeding past record highs and lows by several degrees Celsius.
- tomnicholas1 2y ago
  That's partly because the warming experienced over land can be ~50-100% larger than the globally-averaged warming, with the temperatures over the oceans increasing more slowly to make up the difference. https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-does-land-warm-up-faster-than-the-oceans/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-does-land-warm-up...
paganel 2y ago
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- blumomo 2y ago
  [flagged]
- anothername12 2y ago
  Are you wondering if epidemiologists are doing climate science?
- mr_mitm 2y ago
  Well the answer is clearly no. Did you think they all came from the same science school where they produce generic scientists that go on to work at the institute of science? Why would epidemiologists have anything to do with climatologists?
- Vegenoid 2y ago
  Making up a hypothetical relationship between climate scientists and epidemiologists, and using that as your basis to dismiss climate change, does not make sense.
  - paganel 2y ago
    I'm putting all scientists in the same bucket, as they should be put. Science failed all of us miserably during this recent pandemic, but instead of us learning from that experience we continue down the path of "you stupid people should listen to science! The end is near!". We're not listening anymore, that's for sure, as scientists have lost their legitimacy at shaping public policy that affects hundreds of millions to billions of people.
blumomo 2y ago
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- cromulent 2y ago
  You keep posting this link, but it does not support your arguments. > A continuous record of the past 66 million years shows natural climate variability due to changes in Earth’s orbit around the sun is much smaller than projected future warming due to greenhouse gas emissions.
  - blumomo 2y ago
    Read: “projected” not “actual” future (!) warming. It wouldn’t be the first time these climate “scientists” were wrong.
LightBug1 2y ago
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astahlx 2y ago
Since this is the most important and urgent topic humanity should be working on: why isn’t this the case? Idiocracy is here. Don’t look up. We have to throw everything into the race. But how to do this with the current inner workings of our societies? How to overcome greed? What about the power of (social) media? Why do we have Netflix and so on? How can we make people spend their time solving climate crisis, saving our planet earth?
- CodeWriter23 2y ago
  Pro tip: reducing a gas that occupies 0.04% (aka 400ppm) of our atmosphere isn’t going to fix this. The warming of our home has much more to do with astrophysics than puny humans. Do you think The Boring Company is about solving traffic problems?
- oldstrangers 2y ago
  Saving the planet doesn't make the stock prices go up, so no one will care. Private companies are now getting their own nuclear power stations to power AI. We can't get new nuclear power for public use, but private for profit initiatives? Absolutely.
  - syncsynchalt 2y ago
    > Saving the planet doesn't make the stock prices go up, so no one will care. I mean, it _could_, if you set up a market structure to incentivize it. CAISO (California) has done this, and now solar and storage costs are plummeting and associated industries are booming as the solar+storage solution starts outcompeting other forms of energy production. Heck, solar+storage is even booming in ERCOT (Texas), which has no specific market incentives for it. Their spot market swings so wildly that storage makes money on power arbitrage and transmission easing.
  - alwayslikethis 2y ago
    Any nuclear power plants being built decreases the marginal cost of building another. If private companies are willing to front the cost of building the first one in recent times, it may help.
deleted 2y ago
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ddgflorida 2y ago
Enjoy the warmer weather.
- switch007 2y ago
  *Enjoy the windier, wetter, stormier, warmer weather The Spanish are just /loving/ the wetter weather right now. And so did the Bangladeshis in August. /s
- tzs 2y ago
  Unfortunately it is not that simple. The average goes up, but in many places it does so by having both more hot days and more cold days, with the increase in the number of intensity of hot days being a little more than the increase in the number and intensity of cold days.
henry2023 2y ago
Governments won’t act. The best you can do to help with the climate crisis is to have one less kid than what you wanted to have.
- shdh 2y ago
  That's likely not a real solution either. Encouraging a small minority of HN users to not have an additional child won't move the needle. It'll likely just remove a person capable of some level of critical thinking from the population pool.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    I agree, but at least we can discourage people from saying things like, "Russia is doomed because of demographic collapse," when we are just guessing about the effects of a slow down of the birth rate on the economy of a country long term.
    - shdh 2y ago
      Korean and Japanese birth rates are very low. The West is following suit. We'll likely see a global population decline.
  - henry2023 2y ago
    Critical thinking capable people are more likely to work for an ad-corporation whose only side effect is to increase consumption and therefore increase emissions.
- moffkalast 2y ago
  Okay, but having 255 kids sounds like a problem?
anothername12 2y ago
I think we'll blow through these limits. Humanity has never ceased to disappoint me.
whiplash451 2y ago
Genuine question to experts: what could be the positive contribution of agriculture on this and exactly how?
belfalas 2y ago
Asking sincerely because I'm not well-versed on this topic - do we have actual proof that humans are causing global warming? My understanding is that the climate will change independently of human activity. For example, we know that there was an Ice Age and it was not ended by human activity but rather natural processes. So the climate has been known to change historically without human involvement. So here is where I'm looking for clarification: I thought the "controversy" over climate change was the degree to which human activity is accelerating a natural process of warming? Said differently, the planet is warming by itself, but humans pumping hydrocarbons and other things into the atmosphere is speeding up that process. But the cause is not solely because of human activity. Thanks in advance for thoughtful responses, I'm really just trying to learn here.
- srid 2y ago
  Before your comment (and mine) gets flagged to death, I wish to provide this information that might be of interest: https://actualfreedom.com.au/sundry/factsandgroupthink/globalwarming.htm https://actualfreedom.com.au/sundry/factsandgroupthink/globa... Yea, the climate change narrative is highly overblown, but it will take a few more years before the overtone window shifts for larger swaths of people in power to accept it.
- torlok 2y ago
  How hard are you really trying if you're asking early 2000s climate change questions on a VC forum.
  - belfalas 2y ago
    Harder than you for sure since I learned nothing from your low-effort and shaming comment.
- jib96 2y ago
  The rate of change in climate (due greenhouse gas inputs from human activity) is much faster than it has occurred naturally in the past. If you are genuinely curious, the US EPA's climate change indicators report would be a good place to start. https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-united-states-fifth-edition https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...
styczen 2y ago
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shdh 2y ago
The Earth is a complex system. Warming is one aspect of climate change, but we'll likely see cascading effects in the system. --- For example, as global temperatures rise we are seeing that AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation), and as a result the Gulf Stream, are "slowing down". [1] This could result in EU cooling down. The clathrate gun hypothesis suggests that large releases of methane could cause abrupt climate shifts due to methane’s strong greenhouse effect. [2] --- Its likely developing nations and their citizens will increase CO2 usage as they move towards a more western lifestyle. That means there will be an increasing amount of energy production and usage. Ideally we generate more with solar and nuclear. Decreasing energy production and consumption is not a real solution. --- [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
- CalRobert 2y ago
  "Decreasing energy production and consumption is not a real solution." Why not? A 5 passenger vehicle can be 1200kg or 3000kg but both offer almost the same utility. A diet of mostly-plants can be just as delicious as one with a lot of beef. Building a house closer to work can be just as useful as building one a long ways away (more, actually).
  - mirekrusin 2y ago
    Remote working is the best green thing you can do :)
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      Probably not working is even better...
    - dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
      And/Or adjust the population to a lower number. Many things are doable. But the collective consensus in not there and will not be there. Having children is mostly a privilege not a right.
LinuxBender 2y ago
Does the IPCC account for asphalt expansion (added heat) around all the airport sensors as cities expand? What data source do they use to track and compensate for this growth?
- zahlman 2y ago
  >asphalt expansion (added heat) around all the airport sensors as cities expand Why would this be relevant? The airport itself represents quite a bit of land area (thus, a significant distance to any heat sources that could be considered "the rest of the city"), and much of that was already paved the entire time.
  - LinuxBender 2y ago
    Asphalt holds heat from the sun. Cities produce heat plumes that grow as the area of asphalt grows. Even without wind the plumes will expand to the airport and the temperature will increase. Cities grow in circumference expanding the overall area and temperature of the heat. This also increases the heat at night as the asphalt slowly releases the heat after dusk.
    - zahlman 2y ago
      What I'm asking is, what mechanisms allow such expansion to occur over distances that would be relevant to the measurement? The expanding edge of an urbanized area might be many kilometres away.
- tumetab1 2y ago
  Yes. Some data-source that already takes that into account, that issue has been already solved. Most uncertainty in temperature does not come from measured temperature (weather stations) but from temperature estimations from indirect sources. In other words, last 50 years data is pretty much all good.
torlok 2y ago
Sure, but let's keep voting based on culture wars and the new satanic panic.
reramuyc 2y ago
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DavidPiper 2y ago
At the scale we've hit, I fail to see how anyone except billionaires, mega corps and investment funds can solve this problem. The economic incentives aren't there yet without pumping billions of dollars into the problem without a financial return. Governments have clearly failed, and several corporations have won their plays to become more rich and influential anyway in many countries. I don't doubt that humans will continue to survive on this planet if all the worst predictions come true. Many other species won't be so lucky, which is a shame. We have all the technology and power to be caretakers for our home but we just trash it anyway.
teo_zero 2y ago
Don't take me wrong, I'm not in the denial camp, quite the opposite in fact. But I cringe when I read a non sequitur like this: > “If you plot global temperatures against the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, they both fall on a remarkably straight line, much straighter than current theory would predict,” said Dr Jarvis. “That line tells you not only how much the Earth has warmed since pre-industrial times, but also how much of that warming can be blamed on human activity.” How can a straight line tell us anything more than a mere correlation between the two measures, without any hint about which is the cause and which is the effect?
- Aachen 2y ago
  Thankfully we have isotopes to demonstrate the cause and effect relation. Why the article doesn't use that instead of this correlation logic, I don't know, so you're not wrong, but it doesn't seem very relevant to argue here about whether it's caused by us when that's well-established in other ways
- defrost 2y ago
  Isotopes and atmosphere libraries can confirm the sources along with recent satellites that can map CO2 emmissions in real time .. all this goes to confirm the theory of scratched on an envelope a hundred years+ past and laid out in a paper with physics and equations and all that jazz back in '67 “Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity” - Manabe & Wetherald Not hard to find and not a bad read for those that passed high school physics and had exposure to first year university STEM coursework. The basic notion is, well, basic - the more blankets you throw on the bed, the more heat stays trapped. The blanket in this case is CO2 which is "transparent" to incoming light from the sun but not so transparent to heat energy radiating outwards from the land and sea surface. The properties here are easy to demonstrate, the increase are documented, the effects followed.
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
[flagged]
z3ncyberpunk 2y ago
I care far more about pollution than carbon in the short and medium terms but focus has completely been dissolved from that in the interests of the big carbon grift. It's all a scam for large institutions to rake in more money and not fix the problems. So many people in this thread are putting the entire onus on the US but giving passes and ignoring the real problems like China who don't even bother to follow or participate in climate solutions.

399 points by gmays 2y ago

xyst 2y ago

With USA going full climate denial in next 4 yrs and SCOTUS packed with O&G friendly judges. It’s going to get worsw

varelse 2y ago
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nojvek 2y ago
Yep, our grandchildren will have to pay a very dear price to clean up our mess of Glory days.
- fldskfjdslkfj 2y ago
  On the bright side for a brief moment in time we created lots of shareholder value.
  - xyst 2y ago
    Aka the big grift
- twothreeone 2y ago
  I don't think cleaning up is an option once you get a runaway atmospheric hot-house. Human population will fall due to global disasters and food-chain collapse, then wars, then the party is pretty much over.
- SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
  Although the dear price is away off, The bill is starting come due today; see news stories about fires and hurricanes.
  - nojvek 2y ago
    Florida - that's where Trump is staffing many folks in his cabinet. They banned the words "climate change" and "global warming" from being mentioned in any official document. Florida - also where there are $100B+ disasters every year. America is now the Florida of the world!
diath 2y ago
What has the US administration done in the past 4 years to make a significant impact on the global warming issue?
- 0xdde 2y ago
  I know you can't be serious, but are you also trying to imply that the incoming administration, staffed from top to bottom with oil industry insiders, won't affect our trajectory?
  - throw_pm23 2y ago
    I think it was a serious question that was relevant to the conversation.
- glial 2y ago
  * Inflation Reduction Act (IRA): largest federal investment in climate action to date, allocating over $391 billion to reduce carbon emissions. * Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: investments in public transit and infrastructure, promoting sustainable transportation and reducing emissions. * Methane Emissions Reduction: EPA introduced regulations to curb methane emissions from the oil and gas industry * Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) Phase-Down: EPA issued a final rule to reduce HFC production and consumption by 85% over 15 years * Rejoining the Paris Agreement * Climate Finance Pledge: the administration pledged to increase international climate finance to over $11 billion annually by 2024 * National Climate Task Force: established to coordinate a whole-of-government approach to tackling the climate crisis, aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050.
  - krainboltgreene 2y ago
    $391B over ten years. The total sum of this effort is less than 2% of our GDP. UNCTAD says it'll take 18% of 48 countries GDP (distributed appropriately).
shdh 2y ago
Even if USA reversed 180 degrees, the rest of the world is going to continue fossil fuel usage. Developing nations will continue to increase individual CO2 usage as their economies improve. People want to live a modern western lifestyle, and that requires more energy. Realistically the world is going to generate far more energy, not reduce energy usage/production. Moving to solar and nuclear is the only likely solution that will result in reduced CO2 volume.
moffkalast 2y ago
It's funny seeing people groan and moan about climate change on HN when the average neolib here most likely voted Trump lmao, especially based on the comments in the winner announcement thread. You are preaching to people who wouldn't blink twice to burn an actual mountain of coal if it got them YC funding or a 1% reduction on their tax bill.

OtomotO 2y ago

No, we have caused AT LEAST 1.5°C long-term global warming.

benbristow 2y ago

[flagged]

nso 2y ago
First post and it turned into a US politics discussion. Great. What do you think will fix it?
- Windchaser 2y ago
  What odds do you want to give that this person doesn't really see it as a problem anyway?
  - benbristow 2y ago
    We keep getting told the average Joe is to blame for eating meat and taking flights whilst large corporations/industry laugh at us. Make it make sense.
    - aniviacat 2y ago
      Temu doesn't ship items across the world for fun. They do it because the average Joe pays them to do it. The meat industry doesn't hold excessive amounts of cattle for fun. They do it because the average Joe pays them to do it. These industries don't just happen to exist. They exist because the average Joe wants them to exist. If the average Joe stopped buying meat, stopped shopping on Temu and stopped buying palm oil, these industries would cease to exist within days. But the average Joes wants them to exist. The average Joe decides, every single day, over and over again, that he wants these industires to destroy the climate. Oh but it's just so convenient and cheap to shop on Temu.
- benbristow 2y ago
  The whole topic is political. What do you think the fix is? Because the only 'solution' seems to be adding more and more taxes to the average Joe whilst endless e-waste/junk gets shipped over from China via AliExpress/Temu day to day.

decremental 2y ago

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HWR_14 2y ago

This article spends a lot of time worrying about which baseline to use as that determines how much global warming has occurred. Which is important because the 1.5 C limit was raised in the Paris accords. But wouldn't the measurement be absolute. The 1.5 increase is just because that was the baseline they used then.

givan 2y ago

[flagged]

pavlov 2y ago
Shoot, the thousands of scientists who have researched climate change since the 1970s must have never taken the very first class in statistics. They must be embarrassed now that you told them about this.
- givan 2y ago
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  - klysm 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    No. The greenhouse effect can be demonstrated in a lab. It requires complications to create mechanisms that deny the world outside the lab the evidence found within it. We have no idea how to quantify the short-term effects. But increase the CO2 concentration in an insolated gas and its temperature will go up.
  - Hikikomori 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - givan 2y ago
      Ad hominem
  - mind-blight 2y ago
    That doesn't seem like it applies here. The argument is that "expert consensus has consistently said a thing", which is a very reasonable stance to take. The default would be to assume the scientific consensus is correct, then being evidence/reasons to show when it's not.

oezi 2y ago

Looking into the numbers a couple if months ago I was surprised how little it costs to stop climate change. On the order of 100-200 trillion USD. Which is roughly 100-200% of global yearly GDP. Or 2-5% of yearly GDP until 2050. This could well be provided by printing money at all the federal reserve banks. This investment will likely bring in a positive return on investment because it reduces the negative climate impacts. Without such investments the downstream costs in climate change adaptation will be very expensive

richardwhiuk 2y ago
Printing money wouldn't work - you just make all of the existing money less valuable.
- Schiendelman 2y ago
  That doesn't mean the new money doesn't have value, just has a small percentage less value. It's a wealth transfer from people who currently have money to the new money. It works out well for people who have a negative net worth, as well!
  - kreetx 2y ago
    Yeah, the salaried folk who find out in hindsight will be really happy as well. /s
    - Schiendelman 2y ago
      I don't think sarcastic comments really help, people who aren't capable of having real conversations about this already bring enough of that. It is definitely worth talking openly about whether it's worth trading short term inflationary pain for long-term climate pain.
      - kreetx 2y ago
        I guess you're right. The parent speaks of inflation as if printing money is the new norm. If you are going to take money from your citizens then be upfront about it!

zb3 2y ago

[flagged]

brap 2y ago

That seems… very low?

donohoe 2y ago
Yes, seems that way, but the impact will be huge. https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-one-point-five-degrees-two-degrees/index.html https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-o... See also: https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/degrees-matter https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/d...
klysm 2y ago
It might sound low, but consider that this number is a distillation of many changes into one proxy which roughly covers a variety of different effects that aren’t strictly related to just temperature. For example, consider ocean acidification. Also consider the number of tipping points and positive feedback loops that exist. How close are we to those?
vincnetas 2y ago
Depends on context. for example 1C for all water on earth is still on 1C+ but one would need a lot of energy for that. from open ai: The power required to raise the temperature of all the Earth's water by 1°C in one second would be 5.57 × 10¹⁸ megawatts.
atoav 2y ago
- 70 to 90% of coral reefs dying, devastation of maritime ecosystems - potential collapse of maritime currents that lead to relatively mild climates in Britain - triggering of multiple irreversible climate tipping points (arctic ice sheet) - more common and much more devastating extreme weather events (warmer air can carry more water) - the aforementioned weather results in infrastructure damage and lack of food within big parts of the world. Waves of migration - median sea level rise of more than a meter means extremes will be much higher, a big part of the human population lives next to the sea And much more — this was the absolute minimum and we surpassed it faster than expected.
spencerchubb 2y ago

varelse 2y ago

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jmyeet 2y ago

Call me pessimistic but I don't think anything is going to change and a lot of people are going to die due to climate-forced migration. That being said, it's a difficult topic to discuss rationally. Part of the issue is deciding on what your baseline is. Looking at the last 200 years tells a pretty limited view. Consider around 100,000 years ago when global temperatures were similar [1]. That raises some questions about what caused that spike but, more importantly, what caused it to lower. You can say "an ice age" but what really triggers an ice age? My point here is that doomsday predictions of Venus-like runaway inflation I think are both unrealistic and unhelpful in actually motivating people about an otherwise very real problem. We really have no idea of the mechanics in place. But like I say, we're going to do absolutely nothing about it anyway. [1]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/analysis-is-it-actually-hotter-now-than-any-time-in-the-last-100000-years https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/analysis-is-it-actually...

baq 2y ago
It’ll take a couple of mass casualty wet bulb events to shift the discourse from ‘it’s too expensive, just drill more’ to ‘oh shit whatever it takes’
- yongjik 2y ago
  Sadly, I'm skeptical about that. Covid killed a million Americans and half of America thinks the real enemy was the government telling people to stay home and wear masks. Drive down I-5 of CA's central valley, and you'll see signs saying "Congress created dust bowl." In coming decades, I fully expect to see people blaming renewable energy and carbon tax for whatever new climate disaster we end up with. Hopefully we could ignore them, in the same way adults stop entertaining toddlers when shit happens.
  - Vegenoid 2y ago
    We’ll be lucky if people blame technology, instead of other groups of people that they are then motivated to take vengeance on. That is what I fear.
  - deleted 2y ago

abdullahkhalids 2y ago

The last IPCC report estimates that to limit warming to 2C, humans can only emit at most 1150 GtCO2 (at 67% likelihood) [1]. There are 8.2 billion humans, so about 140tCO2/person left on average. If we assume that we get to net zero by 2050, that means the average person can emit about 5.4tCO2/person/year from today to 2050 (hitting 0tCO2/person/year in 2050). This is what emissions look like currently [2] Top 5 countries > 10m population Saudi Arabia 22.1t United Arab Emirates 21.6t Australia 14.5t United States 14.3t Canada 14.0t Some others China 8.4t Europe 6.7t World average 4.7t Lower-middle-income countries of 1.6t Low-income countries 0.3t Guess what's going to happen and who is going to suffer, despite not doing anything. [1] Page 82 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_FullVolume.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kingkongjaffa 2y ago
> United Arab Emirates 25.8 t > Saudi Arabia 18.2 t > Australia 15.0 t These are all pretty low population though so net CO2 from these countries is not the largest. In terms of per capita, what drives this? These places are hot, is it the 24/7 Air conditioning running?
- quonn 2y ago
  That is balanced by not having to heat. The more likely explanation for the first two is that plenty of fossil fuels are available so they are used inefficiently.
- inquirerGeneral 2y ago
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- abdullahkhalids 2y ago
  I generated this list a few months ago. I picked a threshold population (I think 10 million) and listed the top 5 and then some other groups. I think I would also guess that resource rich countries spend a lot on cars and AC. FYI, I edited list with latest numbers after your comment.

root_axis 2y ago

Doesn't seem like there is any foreseeable future where climate change can be addressed. It's not just the leadership of the u.s, but the citizens themselves reject climate change as a real issue. Hopefully I'm just being pessemsitic.

baq 2y ago
Oh a lot of those citizens care - it’s that they travel to Japan for vacation anyway.
- lukan 2y ago
  There was a famous case of german climate activists, those who glue themself on the road to block the cars to make a statement - they did not showed up to ther appointment in court, because they were enjoying their activism vacation in Bali.
  - Aachen 2y ago
    Fun anecdote but I don't see how a handful of individuals being alleged hypocrites is relevant
    - lukan 2y ago
      Normal people consider climate change to be bad - but still fly far away. But when even the activists fly for vacation - then who will really reduce voluntarily? Apparently not many. I know people who take it seriously, and personally I have not taken a flight in years. Still, the relevant point is individuals are quick to blame others, yet unwilling to change their own behavior.
      - Aachen 2y ago
        - You're generalising "a famous case" (pervious post's wording) to "so even the activists do this". I think most people are aware now that <insert race/religion/...> aren't all criminals after a "famous case", but this obviously also goes for every other group consisting of millions of people - Did these particular individuals get a chance to defend against this allegation or is it just assumed to be the whole truth? It has the ring of a convenient belief¹ that you can bring up whenever someone mentions that e.g. much less frequent flying and rarely eating beef/lamb are some large-impact things people could do. Was it actually them? Do they fly across the world regularly or are we expecting these people to live like monks consistently their whole lives, only going on holiday by bicycle and (if that exists in their country) train? Did they do, or buy, something that compensates the emissions (something one can reasonably believe to be effective, not the airline's 2€-on-checkout option)? And even if, I'm also not going to stop flying entirely when literally everybody else here does it. I'm not the pope, even if I advocate for making things better (not trying to go for perfect, the enemy of good). Why should I sacrifice my life? I just came back from a train trip across the continent that I could also have flown or driven in individual transport (for free even, as the car I co-use has a flat fee fuel subscription). I try to do the right thing where reasonably possible, as it was in this case, but I'm not sure we should expect everyone who speaks of climate change to only ever do the right thing, especially when things like direct air capture can plausibly undo your emissions. It's cheaper not to fly than to fly and pay Climeworks to undo it, but that is an option, as is reducing the amount of flying. Both are good, both would allow you to further the anecdotal evidence that climate activists fly ¹ By which I mean a belief to justify something one wants for other reasons. The example that comes to mind is the "protip" that leaving the heater on a constant temperature is more efficient than stopping to burn fuel when you're not even home, which means you come home to a warm and cozy place so yeah sure one loves to hear/believe it and nobody sanity checks the values of how much more efficient your heater actually is when burning at a low rate as compared to the fuel saved while you're not home for 8 working hours + commute time

spraveenitpro 2y ago

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chriscappuccio 2y ago

Wasn't it just a week ago we discovered that widely used models were significantly underestimating CO2 absorption by plants?

badgersnake 2y ago
The models may be perfect or imperfect, either way the temperature is still going up.
- thegrim33 2y ago
  - "Models say X is happening." - "Well, isn't there this specific problem with the model?" - "It doesn't matter, because X is happening" Not sure the line of logic follows there.
  - consteval 2y ago
    The line of logic is that people attempt to push propaganda against the narrative to completely discredit it. Oil industry has been doing it from the sixties. They'll find any small mistake in the science, and say "see? They're wrong! Nothing bad will happen..." Sure, the models might be a little too doomer. That doesn't actually change anything, and for the past ~70 years the only type this type of stuff was brought up was to deny climate change.
  - GeoAtreides 2y ago
    your argument has an invalid premise: "Models say X is happening." It's not the models that are saying X (temp goes up) is happening, it's empirical data. A better argument is: - We observe X is happening - create a model of X happening - use model of X to predict X in the future - model of X might be or might not be flawed - meanwhile, X is still happening in the real world
    - badgersnake 2y ago
      It’s also interesting that this site has been having a collective orgasm over models that frequently give wrong answers for at least a year now. When climate is involved it’s suddenly a big problem.

patrickhogan1 2y ago

Long-term should be defined. We can cool the planet the same amount long-term. Why is it taken as a given that any warming is irreversible when we have historical natural patterns showing global cooling (ice age)?

chrishare 2y ago
The damage to ecosystems, flora and fauna populations, etc etc, isn't reversible like that. Extinct species don't just bounce back, sadly.
therealdrag0 2y ago
Of course it can be reversed, it’s just vastly more expensive to do so. If your house is on fire and you don’t have insurance you don’t say “eh I can just build a new one”, you put the fire out.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- patrickhogan1 2y ago
  I agree that warming is an important issue to address. I don’t agree that we know that it will be more expensive to cool. Space is cold and technology allowing heat to vent into space may be less expensive than we think.
  - therealdrag0 2y ago
    Sure it's more accurate to say current known methods are expensive or have side effects. For example, Carbon capture is very expensive. Another example, is sulfur dioxide provides reflective properties which was artificially cooling the earth (from shipping exhaust) until it was banned because it causes acid rain and a host of health problems. We'll probably find other interesting geo-engineering techniques over time, but it is very unwise to bank on future solutions. Many things, like nuclear fusion, have been "just around the corner" for years and years. Climate change is accelerating at a rapid pace. Go look at a chart of CO2 emissions over time. I think people default to thinking we're in some stable or slow state, when we're far from it. We're not just increasing CO2 emissions, we're increasing the rate of emissions. Debt (tech, financial or otherwise) when you have a path to pay it off is a useful tool, but taking climate debt with no known good solution is very unwise.

karol 2y ago

[flagged]

pstrateman 2y ago

The simple reality is that humanity is unable to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without an alternative that is superior. For every ton of CO2 that the west has reduced in the past decade China has produced three tons of CO2.[1] We need another breakthrough on the scale of the Haber process. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?country=OWID_WRL~High-income+countries~Low-income+countries~Lower-middle-income+countries~Upper-middle-income+countries~CHN&hideControls=false&Gas+or+Warming=CO%E2%82%82&Accounting=Territorial&Fuel+or+Land+Use+Change=All+fossil+emissions&Count=Per+country https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?country=OWID_WRL~Hi...

croes 2y ago
Because we shifted our production to other countries. Lots of their CO2 is because of us.
- chanakya 2y ago
  The effect of the shifting is minor. China's exports (to all countries, not just the US) make only a small difference to their emissions growth. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-vs-consumption-co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-vs-consumption...
benchmarkist 2y ago
Technology is not going to get us out of this mess.
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  In time
  - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
    Is there enough left?
- Freedom2 2y ago

dvfjsdhgfv 2y ago

Title: > Humans have caused 1.5 °C of long-term global warming according to new estimates First sentence of the article: > humans may have already caused 1.5 °C of global warming

griffzhowl 2y ago
I guess that can be consistent actually, since the title says "according to new estimates". So the new estimates say humans have caused the warming, and the new estimates may be true

urduntupu 2y ago

We are on the natural rise after a natural ice period. Just check long term temperature curves and stop looking short term, making it look like there has ever been the same average temperature on earth.

shadowgovt 2y ago
https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- blumomo 2y ago
  https://scitechdaily.com/66-million-years-of-earths-climate-history-uncovered-puts-current-changes-in-context/ https://scitechdaily.com/66-million-years-of-earths-climate-...
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    I'm not sure if this link is intended to contradict or reinforce the image from the previous link. The text of that link indicates that the research concluded that the Earth is currently much warmer than it ought to be given known natural processes.
    - blumomo 2y ago
      The research concluded in a hypothesis, not a factual proof.
thrance 2y ago
Simply wrong. Intuitive visualization: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/.
- blumomo 2y ago
  It’s you who’s simply wrong. You have to look before the ice period, that’s what OP refers to as long term. https://scitechdaily.com/66-million-years-of-earths-climate-history-uncovered-puts-current-changes-in-context/ https://scitechdaily.com/66-million-years-of-earths-climate-...

gcheong 2y ago

Our response to a global pandemic was a disaster other than getting the vaccines made. The most recent large scale collective effort to defeat an existential threat prior to that was probably WWII. We’ve gotten pretty good at waging war but I fear that’s probably where our evolution in the matter of dealing with existential threats will probably remain.

Tknl 2y ago
I would argue that numerous initiative to ban highly dangerous substances such as the Montreal Protocol banning ozone layer damaging refrigerant gasses have been successful in this period. Instead it appears to me that global collaboration actually stalled after the fall the Soviet Union and the end of great power competition.
switch007 2y ago
> Our response to a global pandemic was a disaster other than getting the vaccines made What would you have liked to have seen? And out of curiosity, what should be the response to the 700k heart disease, 600k cancer, 227k accidental, 165k stroke, 147k respiratory and 101k diabetes deaths each year in the USA? (N.B. COVID sits at 186k in 2023)
zahlman 2y ago
Remember "acid rain"? Remember "the ozone hole"? We have solved, or greatly mitigated, environmental problems before.
- teamonkey 2y ago
  Acid rain is still on the table
  - zahlman 2y ago
    SO2 emissions are still strongly trending downward globally (e.g. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/so-emissions-by-world-region-in-million-tonnes https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/so-emissions-by-world-reg... ). The change is especially dramatic in the US, per EPA reports. Conifers in my neighbourhood look remarkably healthier than what I recall from my childhood as a result.

darksaints 2y ago

I remember about 20 years ago I was pretty entrenched in circles of thought that were not quite "denialist" so much as they were "it's not gonna be as bad as they say it is-ist". I remember a prevailing line of thought was that climate "alarmists" only chose the most extreme predictions of the various models in order to sell the urgency of acting quickly to stop it. There were those that said that the most extreme predictions came from models that emphasized positive feedback loops (like arctic permafrost thawing), and ignored or de-emphasized negative feedback loops (like increasing vegetation growth rates). And above all, I remember one particular number standing out as where they thought we would plateau. It was at 1C of warming arriving around 2030. Whoops. Maybe the scientific consensus should be listened to more often, and the fringe less often.

thegrim33 2y ago
This is a pretty common propaganda pattern. Pointing to a massive group of people, throwing them all together under one label (in this case, 'climate deniers', in other cases 'vaccine deniers', etc.) even though the people in the group have a massive range in their opinions and beliefs, and then point out some small subset of the group that are the craziest/weirdest/most "wrong" members in the group, and straw manning them as representative of the entire group.

renewiltord 2y ago

All the people who usually make a big deal out of this usually oppose density and reducing car dependence. Degrowthers always seem to assume that the only job worthwhile is “guy writing meta-analysis paper” and “coffee shop”. They ally with groups that protect golf courses and oppose geothermal energy and nuclear energy. So it’s fine. We’ll tech our way out of this without them. If we don’t, we die. So be it.

silver_silver 2y ago
Europe and China are currently leading the transition to renewables so that is an American problem
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Yeah I have hope for the guys who can build. While America is complaining about Chinese energy sources, China will add sufficient nuclear and renewable to outpace us in decades. People never really look at the delta. They always look at the y.

rr808 2y ago

It feels like we're getting much more than 1.5 degrees. Here in NYC it used to snow several times a month, we've had one tiny storm the last two years. Just 20 years ago I rarely used AC in the summer, now its on nearly every day from May to September. Its not just that the temperatures are more variable, and the rainfall patterns are much more random it really feels like we're at +4 degrees already.

kbutler 2y ago
You're probably feeling the urban heat island effect.
- treyd 2y ago
  How does that explain the change in long term weather when the city is already heavily developed.
  - kbutler 2y ago
    One factor: 38% of population in NYC had air conditioning in 1970, 90% do now. The OP mentioned this as a symptom - "20 years ago I rarely used AC in the summer, now its on nearly every day from May to September." Increased AC use and the associated waste heat is a significant contributor to the urban heat island effect. https://news.asu.edu/content/excess-heat-air-conditioners-causes-higher-nighttime-temperatures#:~:text=%E2%80%9COur%20work%20demonstrates%20one%20Celsius,air%20conditioning%2C%22%20Salamanca%20said https://news.asu.edu/content/excess-heat-air-conditioners-ca....
NewJazz 2y ago
1.5 C is a global average. Feels like is anecdotal. Some areas will see higher averages than 1.5 C. Some areas, even if only seeing an average increase of 1.5 C or thereabouts, will see more extreme temperatures exceeding past record highs and lows by several degrees Celsius.
tomnicholas1 2y ago
That's partly because the warming experienced over land can be ~50-100% larger than the globally-averaged warming, with the temperatures over the oceans increasing more slowly to make up the difference. https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-does-land-warm-up-faster-than-the-oceans/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-does-land-warm-up...

paganel 2y ago

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blumomo 2y ago
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anothername12 2y ago
Are you wondering if epidemiologists are doing climate science?
mr_mitm 2y ago
Well the answer is clearly no. Did you think they all came from the same science school where they produce generic scientists that go on to work at the institute of science? Why would epidemiologists have anything to do with climatologists?
Vegenoid 2y ago
Making up a hypothetical relationship between climate scientists and epidemiologists, and using that as your basis to dismiss climate change, does not make sense.
- paganel 2y ago
  I'm putting all scientists in the same bucket, as they should be put. Science failed all of us miserably during this recent pandemic, but instead of us learning from that experience we continue down the path of "you stupid people should listen to science! The end is near!". We're not listening anymore, that's for sure, as scientists have lost their legitimacy at shaping public policy that affects hundreds of millions to billions of people.

blumomo 2y ago

[flagged]

cromulent 2y ago
You keep posting this link, but it does not support your arguments. > A continuous record of the past 66 million years shows natural climate variability due to changes in Earth’s orbit around the sun is much smaller than projected future warming due to greenhouse gas emissions.
- blumomo 2y ago
  Read: “projected” not “actual” future (!) warming. It wouldn’t be the first time these climate “scientists” were wrong.

LightBug1 2y ago

[flagged]

astahlx 2y ago

Since this is the most important and urgent topic humanity should be working on: why isn’t this the case? Idiocracy is here. Don’t look up. We have to throw everything into the race. But how to do this with the current inner workings of our societies? How to overcome greed? What about the power of (social) media? Why do we have Netflix and so on? How can we make people spend their time solving climate crisis, saving our planet earth?

CodeWriter23 2y ago
Pro tip: reducing a gas that occupies 0.04% (aka 400ppm) of our atmosphere isn’t going to fix this. The warming of our home has much more to do with astrophysics than puny humans. Do you think The Boring Company is about solving traffic problems?
oldstrangers 2y ago
Saving the planet doesn't make the stock prices go up, so no one will care. Private companies are now getting their own nuclear power stations to power AI. We can't get new nuclear power for public use, but private for profit initiatives? Absolutely.
- syncsynchalt 2y ago
  > Saving the planet doesn't make the stock prices go up, so no one will care. I mean, it _could_, if you set up a market structure to incentivize it. CAISO (California) has done this, and now solar and storage costs are plummeting and associated industries are booming as the solar+storage solution starts outcompeting other forms of energy production. Heck, solar+storage is even booming in ERCOT (Texas), which has no specific market incentives for it. Their spot market swings so wildly that storage makes money on power arbitrage and transmission easing.
- alwayslikethis 2y ago
  Any nuclear power plants being built decreases the marginal cost of building another. If private companies are willing to front the cost of building the first one in recent times, it may help.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ddgflorida 2y ago

Enjoy the warmer weather.

switch007 2y ago
*Enjoy the windier, wetter, stormier, warmer weather The Spanish are just /loving/ the wetter weather right now. And so did the Bangladeshis in August. /s
tzs 2y ago
Unfortunately it is not that simple. The average goes up, but in many places it does so by having both more hot days and more cold days, with the increase in the number of intensity of hot days being a little more than the increase in the number and intensity of cold days.

henry2023 2y ago

Governments won’t act. The best you can do to help with the climate crisis is to have one less kid than what you wanted to have.

shdh 2y ago
That's likely not a real solution either. Encouraging a small minority of HN users to not have an additional child won't move the needle. It'll likely just remove a person capable of some level of critical thinking from the population pool.
- hollerith 2y ago
  I agree, but at least we can discourage people from saying things like, "Russia is doomed because of demographic collapse," when we are just guessing about the effects of a slow down of the birth rate on the economy of a country long term.
  - shdh 2y ago
    Korean and Japanese birth rates are very low. The West is following suit. We'll likely see a global population decline.
- henry2023 2y ago
  Critical thinking capable people are more likely to work for an ad-corporation whose only side effect is to increase consumption and therefore increase emissions.
moffkalast 2y ago
Okay, but having 255 kids sounds like a problem?

anothername12 2y ago

I think we'll blow through these limits. Humanity has never ceased to disappoint me.

whiplash451 2y ago

Genuine question to experts: what could be the positive contribution of agriculture on this and exactly how?

belfalas 2y ago

Asking sincerely because I'm not well-versed on this topic - do we have actual proof that humans are causing global warming? My understanding is that the climate will change independently of human activity. For example, we know that there was an Ice Age and it was not ended by human activity but rather natural processes. So the climate has been known to change historically without human involvement. So here is where I'm looking for clarification: I thought the "controversy" over climate change was the degree to which human activity is accelerating a natural process of warming? Said differently, the planet is warming by itself, but humans pumping hydrocarbons and other things into the atmosphere is speeding up that process. But the cause is not solely because of human activity. Thanks in advance for thoughtful responses, I'm really just trying to learn here.

srid 2y ago
Before your comment (and mine) gets flagged to death, I wish to provide this information that might be of interest: https://actualfreedom.com.au/sundry/factsandgroupthink/globalwarming.htm https://actualfreedom.com.au/sundry/factsandgroupthink/globa... Yea, the climate change narrative is highly overblown, but it will take a few more years before the overtone window shifts for larger swaths of people in power to accept it.
torlok 2y ago
How hard are you really trying if you're asking early 2000s climate change questions on a VC forum.
- belfalas 2y ago
  Harder than you for sure since I learned nothing from your low-effort and shaming comment.
jib96 2y ago
The rate of change in climate (due greenhouse gas inputs from human activity) is much faster than it has occurred naturally in the past. If you are genuinely curious, the US EPA's climate change indicators report would be a good place to start. https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-united-states-fifth-edition https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...

styczen 2y ago

[flagged]

shdh 2y ago

The Earth is a complex system. Warming is one aspect of climate change, but we'll likely see cascading effects in the system. --- For example, as global temperatures rise we are seeing that AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation), and as a result the Gulf Stream, are "slowing down". [1] This could result in EU cooling down. The clathrate gun hypothesis suggests that large releases of methane could cause abrupt climate shifts due to methane’s strong greenhouse effect. [2] --- Its likely developing nations and their citizens will increase CO2 usage as they move towards a more western lifestyle. That means there will be an increasing amount of energy production and usage. Ideally we generate more with solar and nuclear. Decreasing energy production and consumption is not a real solution. --- [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

CalRobert 2y ago
"Decreasing energy production and consumption is not a real solution." Why not? A 5 passenger vehicle can be 1200kg or 3000kg but both offer almost the same utility. A diet of mostly-plants can be just as delicious as one with a lot of beef. Building a house closer to work can be just as useful as building one a long ways away (more, actually).
- mirekrusin 2y ago
  Remote working is the best green thing you can do :)
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Probably not working is even better...
  - dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
    And/Or adjust the population to a lower number. Many things are doable. But the collective consensus in not there and will not be there. Having children is mostly a privilege not a right.

LinuxBender 2y ago

Does the IPCC account for asphalt expansion (added heat) around all the airport sensors as cities expand? What data source do they use to track and compensate for this growth?

zahlman 2y ago
>asphalt expansion (added heat) around all the airport sensors as cities expand Why would this be relevant? The airport itself represents quite a bit of land area (thus, a significant distance to any heat sources that could be considered "the rest of the city"), and much of that was already paved the entire time.
- LinuxBender 2y ago
  Asphalt holds heat from the sun. Cities produce heat plumes that grow as the area of asphalt grows. Even without wind the plumes will expand to the airport and the temperature will increase. Cities grow in circumference expanding the overall area and temperature of the heat. This also increases the heat at night as the asphalt slowly releases the heat after dusk.
  - zahlman 2y ago
    What I'm asking is, what mechanisms allow such expansion to occur over distances that would be relevant to the measurement? The expanding edge of an urbanized area might be many kilometres away.
tumetab1 2y ago
Yes. Some data-source that already takes that into account, that issue has been already solved. Most uncertainty in temperature does not come from measured temperature (weather stations) but from temperature estimations from indirect sources. In other words, last 50 years data is pretty much all good.

torlok 2y ago

Sure, but let's keep voting based on culture wars and the new satanic panic.

reramuyc 2y ago

[dead]

DavidPiper 2y ago

At the scale we've hit, I fail to see how anyone except billionaires, mega corps and investment funds can solve this problem. The economic incentives aren't there yet without pumping billions of dollars into the problem without a financial return. Governments have clearly failed, and several corporations have won their plays to become more rich and influential anyway in many countries. I don't doubt that humans will continue to survive on this planet if all the worst predictions come true. Many other species won't be so lucky, which is a shame. We have all the technology and power to be caretakers for our home but we just trash it anyway.

teo_zero 2y ago

Don't take me wrong, I'm not in the denial camp, quite the opposite in fact. But I cringe when I read a non sequitur like this: > “If you plot global temperatures against the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, they both fall on a remarkably straight line, much straighter than current theory would predict,” said Dr Jarvis. “That line tells you not only how much the Earth has warmed since pre-industrial times, but also how much of that warming can be blamed on human activity.” How can a straight line tell us anything more than a mere correlation between the two measures, without any hint about which is the cause and which is the effect?

Aachen 2y ago
Thankfully we have isotopes to demonstrate the cause and effect relation. Why the article doesn't use that instead of this correlation logic, I don't know, so you're not wrong, but it doesn't seem very relevant to argue here about whether it's caused by us when that's well-established in other ways
defrost 2y ago
Isotopes and atmosphere libraries can confirm the sources along with recent satellites that can map CO2 emmissions in real time .. all this goes to confirm the theory of scratched on an envelope a hundred years+ past and laid out in a paper with physics and equations and all that jazz back in '67 “Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity” - Manabe & Wetherald Not hard to find and not a bad read for those that passed high school physics and had exposure to first year university STEM coursework. The basic notion is, well, basic - the more blankets you throw on the bed, the more heat stays trapped. The blanket in this case is CO2 which is "transparent" to incoming light from the sun but not so transparent to heat energy radiating outwards from the land and sea surface. The properties here are easy to demonstrate, the increase are documented, the effects followed.

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

[flagged]

z3ncyberpunk 2y ago

I care far more about pollution than carbon in the short and medium terms but focus has completely been dissolved from that in the interests of the big carbon grift. It's all a scam for large institutions to rake in more money and not fix the problems. So many people in this thread are putting the entire onus on the US but giving passes and ignoring the real problems like China who don't even bother to follow or participate in climate solutions.