6 ms·

Twelve months at 1.5 °C signals earlier than expected breach of Paris Agreement

117 points by rntn 2y ago

sega_sai 2y ago
I am sure we will reach 3 degrees, given what's going on in the world. Deniers will always come up with some arguments that this is somehow not real. The question is at what temperature we will see cliff edge like effects, i.e. stopping of Gulf stream and the like.
- croes 2y ago
  The deniers will admit it but then it’s because of Space lasers, Chemtrails, vaccines and weather engineering.
  - quesera 2y ago
    "It's not happening" "OK maybe it's happening, but it's not a big deal" "OK maybe it's a big deal, but we didn't do it" "OK maybe we did some of it, but we can't fix it alone" "OK maybe we could do something but, that would put us at a disadvantage" "OK maybe we all need to do something, but how can we coordinate such a thing?" "OK maybe we could coordinate, but it would take 50 years to see any improvement" "OK it's too late, but at least some of us have made alternate plans for ourselves and our families" "OK I guess that's not how society and economy work, but how could we have known better?" ... Silly humans.
- bognition 2y ago
  Until the pain hits the wallet and stomach of the American middle class nothing is going to change. The ruling class and their media machine have people whipped into line and parroting back the talking points of the ultra wealthy. It’s going to take pain of a seismic level to break the hold on the minds that of the people.
  - yread 2y ago
    I dont think India or China will close brand new coal power plants because US middle class has a wallet ache. We are fucked no matter what
    - lblume 2y ago
      China's exports (and by extension, carbon emissions) are driven by American and European demands for cheap products. Drastically decreasing industrial demand would lead to Asian carbon emissions shrinking by a large margin.
    - leosanchez 2y ago
      There is a huge push for rooftop solar in India.
    - rwyinuse 2y ago
      At least China is also doing some good things, like building massive amounts of solar energy, and exporting cheap electric vehicles all around the world. Meanwhile the regime in America is actively attacking climate science and denying the whole issue. Compared to Trump's administration the Chinese Communist party is quite okay from environmental perspective.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        > Compared to Trump's administration the Chinese Communist party is quite okay from environmental perspective. Yet the Chinese government is blocking the export of inputs for Battery and Solar technology to India [0], which incentivizes India to remain using coal and natural gas as a stopgap, as those are sourced from domestic and close allies (Saudi Arabia and now the US) respectively. And China itself has begun expanding coal power capacity at the highest rate in almost 10 years due to energy security concerns [1] Ironically, the Trump admin just gave a massive cash and tech injection into India's civilian nuclear and battery tech industries by starting to ToT American nuclear power plant designs, as well as subsidizing India's critical minerals industry (materials that are used to manufacture batteries and intermediate parts for PEVs) [2] Reality is, no state or leader of a large country actually cares about environmental factors because they can afford to paper the effects, and the brunt of the suffering will affect poorest countries/LDCs that lack that capacity [3] [0] - https://www.straitstimes.com/world/china-export-ban-on-engineers-and-equipment-disrupts-manufacturing-overseas https://www.straitstimes.com/world/china-export-ban-on-engin... [1] - https://apnews.com/article/china-coal-power-plant-carbon-climate-change-ba86e7584e3afe1826eed5cffa25354a https://apnews.com/article/china-coal-power-plant-carbon-cli... [2] - https://in.usembassy.gov/united-states-india-joint-leaders-statement/ https://in.usembassy.gov/united-states-india-joint-leaders-s... [3] - https://www.economist.com/special-report/2022/11/01/the-rich-world-is-wrong-to-think-that-climate-impacts-in-poor-countries-dont-matter https://www.economist.com/special-report/2022/11/01/the-rich...
- rwyinuse 2y ago
  Yep, the potential tipping points are terrifying. If the gulf stream collapses, my country will basically turn into Siberia, and our agriculture will collapse. It's kind of hard justify taking a typical mortgage that takes 20 years to pay back, when I'm not sure if the country will be habitable by the time I would own the house fully. Maybe geoengineering will save us, and we'll spray the atmosphere full of stuff that reflects sunlight to lower global temperatures. But it's best to prepare for the worst. I expect birth rates to continue collapsing as more young people realize they're probably doomed.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    Birth rates will go right up when JD Vance relaxes federal mandates on car safety.
  - jmclnx 2y ago
    >my country will basically turn into Siberia, I assume you are in NW Europe. It will not, it will be a bit or more warmer on average then now and you may get regular snow in the winter. Winters will probably be similar to New Brunswick now. But no, not Siberia.
    - janice1999 2y ago
      > it will be a bit or more warmer on average then now Averages don't matter as much as extremes for agriculture and infrastructure. The changes in extremes, particularly in winter, will completely upend the way of life for 10s of million of people. Parts of Norway will drop 20C. https://theconversation.com/atlantic-ocean-is-headed-for-a-tipping-point-once-melting-glaciers-shut-down-the-gulf-stream-we-would-see-extreme-climate-change-within-decades-study-shows-222834 https://theconversation.com/atlantic-ocean-is-headed-for-a-t...
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        > Parts of Norway will drop 20C. Yet you will still live, like millions do in similar temperatures across Canada and the US. The true brunt of the global climate catastrophe will be bore by the the global poor in LDCs which do not have the economies of scale or capital to mitigate some of the worst aspects of a degrading climate.
jmclnx 2y ago
From what I read, this is not a real surprise to many Climate Scientists. Most researchers have been worried about this, but I heard due to political and institutional interference, they moderated their papers. Now with a 2nd Term, I am sure by 2100 we will hit 4C, and my unscientific prediction is the Pollyanna one. Young people in the US need to be out protesting for their future. First get the US to eliminate all fossil fuel subsidiaries. And then maybe add a huge tax on the use of fossil fuels. That is the only way at this point to get change to happen quick enough to prevent 3C.
- Trasmatta 2y ago
  > Young people in the US need to be out protesting for their future The changes you are outlining aren't going to happen from protesting. What we need is a general strike, but there is no appetite to do that in the numbers necessary to actually make any change.
  - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - diggan 2y ago
      > Where "strike" means some kind of domestic terrorism level interference with infrastructure. "Strike" usually means "refuse work", not some sort of violence that you seem to be advocating. It's possible to get real policy change through peaceful demonstrations, strikes and similar actions, as history will kindly remind you of.
      - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
        My point was that a strike won't be enough. Climate action has failed to gain traction for, what 30+ years? I wasn't intending to encourage personal violence, but saying that violence against infrastructure (not people) is the only way to force the level of attention necessary. I mean, the US has recently pivoted in the opposite direction. You think a strike would change the minds of those who made that decision?
yostrovs 2y ago
I'm calling for someone, anyone to take responsibility for promises made that were not kept. How can any agreement of this sort be taken seriously in the future when it seems that some people sign it, applaud each other, then some other people are expected to abide by it without any enforcement mechanisms? Matters of existential importance should be taken with great seriousness and not just for short term benefits to those wielding the pens.
- cluckindan 2y ago
  Obviously, it is not their existence on the line. That must change.
- protimewaster 2y ago
  No one wants to be responsible for anything. It's the same way at companies. Everything is constructed so that any failure can be blamed on the organization as a whole, and thus no one has to feel like they personally contributed to the failure. That's how it feels to me, anyway.
- bjoli 2y ago
  I mean, there are some real life cartoon villains with a lot of money working against humanity. Check out the fake interview Greenpeace did with Exxon lobbyists: https://www.npr.org/2021/07/01/1012138741/exxon-lobbyist-caught-on-video-talks-about-undermining-bidens-climate-push https://www.npr.org/2021/07/01/1012138741/exxon-lobbyist-cau... Thunderscum. Proudly showing off the worst parts of humanity.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  When the politicians lie about everything and then do not get called out for it by either the media or the populace, the problems are even deeper than the serious problems caused by our not honoring such well-intentioned and well-designed agreements. The two most important human concepts are compassion and truth. Our losing touch with those most important values has pushed our world society to the brink of misery. What's important for the people here at HN, however, is that their investments in energy-wasting tech are protected from people realizing that PG et al are not at all different than IBM in 1930's Germany: "We are just making the adding machines." "We're just investors." The world needs to wake up to the likes of the callously cruel. PG is asleep at the wheel of the machines his machine has helped produce. "So sick of complacence." --Zach de la Rocha
unchocked 2y ago
It is insane that the Paris agreement requires a centered 20-year running mean of global surface temperature to define global warming thresholds. That bureaucratic sleight of hand builds roughly a decade of delay into the system. Sclerotic by design.
- transcriptase 2y ago
  Considering climate was generally defined as a 30 year window when I took earth sciences classes in the early 2000s I don’t think it’s a sleight of hand. Pretending that every minor outlier year in the span of 200 out of tens of thousands of years is an Armageddon-signalling catastrophe in order to secure more funding is far less genuine.
MrMcCall 2y ago
fake money "coins" + LLMs -> accelerated heating
- sph 2y ago
  The planet has been heating since much earlier than ~2008.
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    In calculus there is a concept called acceleration.
    - usrnm 2y ago
      To be really pedantic, there is no such concept in calculus, it's just a (second) derivative
- lblume 2y ago
  I would doubt the additional power usage of Blockchain technology and modern AI had a significant impact on global carbon emissions.
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    It's hard to believe that which you don't want to believe. Believing the truth in the face of one's prejudices take real courage, especially in this world full of moral and intellectual cowards. At at least one point, the coin-generating was consuming the electricity of entire nation-states, my friend.
    - lblume 2y ago
      I know that. I read the paper published in Joule, stating that Bitcoin was responsible for 0.2% of global carbon emissions via 0.4% of global energy usage. That, to me, does not sound significant enough to claim it has a measurable impact on warming, as worldwide electricity usage surely increases by more than 0.4% each year. With that said, I agree that cryptocurrencies are largely unnecessary and their usage should be regulated, together with other more effective measures.
bognition 2y ago
Honestly I’m starting to wonder if all the bluster around acquiring Greenland and annexing Canada is all focused on having land available for the United States when the southern and central states become uninhabitable.
- micromacrofoot 2y ago
  bold of you to assume the people running the United States care about what happens to the people living there
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    The serfs have to till fields somewhere.
- croisillon 2y ago
  that would imply some kind of guided long-term planning on their part
- quesera 2y ago
  I think any smart strategist would have to consider that value, yes. Also Arctic mineral rights / maritime boundaries. The current administration definitely has some smart strategists inside it. This is not new or unique of course, but the willingness to consider such ideas publicly is unusual. And in a different expansionist colonial age, both Greenland and Canada would be easy and valuable wins, justified by Manifest Destiny or American Exceptionalist Prosperity Gospel or somesuch garbage mythology. Going back to that age would have winners and losers. I cringe to say this, but there's a defensible argument that in a time of shrinking resources, it is logical and appropriate to go back to that kind of world order. It's even net-beneficial, as a really strong argument can be made that Canada and Greenland and the Arctic zones are not being utilized to their current or future potentials. The minor problems of sovereignty etc, are very minor problems if the stakes are high enough to accept global trade disruption. The only reason the US hasn't rolled over Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and all the Central American countries including Panama and the Canal Zone already is, well, the politeness of our age. And the corresponding stability advantages of preferential trade over conquest. The US is bursting at the seams of economic dominance in the North American zone. The age of politeness and free-ish trade might be ending. I'm personally opposed to living in that kind of new (old) age, but certain ground truths feel uncomfortably obvious.
amazingamazing 2y ago
Luckily we have AI to accelerate things.
dsotirovski 2y ago
seems like the the "Fall of Civilizations" episode on us is coming sooner that we thought. to be fair, it's likely that some of the others(that have their episode) saw it coming and made an "effort" proportional to ours :D
smallerfish 2y ago
There's a book called "I Want A Better Catastrophe", which is about the role of hope in climate activism. (It's a little uneven, but interesting to see the breadth of perspectives from the people he talks to in the climate space). One doomer he speaks to expects us to hit 6 degrees (which is also apparently backed up by one of the IPCC climate scientists he talks to), and describes the scenario this way: * By 2050, we're expecting to hit a global population level of 10 billion * By 2150, the carrying capacity of the planet (given degraded food production capacities, etc, in the 6 degree scenario) will be 2 billion * Imagine what that century would be like to live through 2.5 degrees is obviously a much "less worse" scenario, hence the title of the book. Another book along the same lines is "Ministry of the Future", also quite uneven, but an interesting enough read. I think it's important to be non-avoidant and really contemplate what the higher-degree scenarios would look like, since we're clearly heading in that direction.
- trescenzi 2y ago
  I struggle with this recommendation. I am anything but non avoidant. I’ve gone vegan, I rarely drive, I know that mass famine, immigration and war are highly likely before I die. Realistically people like me cannot make change. I question the value of continuing to soak myself in the understanding that there is a strong chance the future will be shit. I recently abandoned a reread of Parable of the Sower. I don’t need a reminder of what’s possible. Would a better catastrophe cause people to take things seriously? Honestly after covid I doubt it.
throw098320923 2y ago
"Preindustrial period" was known as a Little Ice Age. River Thames froze over several times. Being 1.5 degrees over that is not too bad.
frakrx 2y ago
I am very concerned about global warming, but we need to find solutions and plans that can include everyone from all political spectrums, and that do not disproportionately affect the poorer sections of society. And if the poor people have to make sacrifices, then other sections of society have to bear the burden too. The rich, but also the state bureaucracies that are only using the crisis to increase their size and spending.
- nneonneo 2y ago
  This does not work when there are parts of the political spectrum that won’t even believe there’s a problem, and which reject the scientific consensus out of hand, and which even threaten to defund the scientific research entirely.
  - frakrx 2y ago
    Then science and education must adapt to the times and do better to educate and convey their message to a wider audience, everyone must do their part, including scientists and educators. If you exclude half the population from your plans before you even start, you will very probably fail.
    - silverquiet 2y ago
      Then propaganda and misinformation must adapt to prevent science and education from swaying that half of the population away from profitable fossil fuel extraction.
- epistasis 2y ago
  > we need to find solutions and plans that can include everyone from all political spectrums You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. What you are delicately saying is that Republicans are children and somehow we must all change to coddle them and their snowflake beliefs. No, just no. We need accountability and responsibility. Every single Republican that is actually responsible needs to be holding their fellow Republicans to account for the lies they spread. I have tried every strategy under the sun with my family. When it comes to politics, they just want somebody to tell them they can act like children, which is what today's Republican part gives them.
piyuv 2y ago
It’s inevitable, that’s why billionaires keep building underground shelters
dr_dshiv 2y ago
Geoengineering research needs to happen ASAP if we care about preventing runaway positive feedback effects. Calcium carbonate in upper atmosphere is a very promising solution. So is bringing back containership ship tracks via fuel additives or salt-based marine cloud brightening. The unknown unknown risks of these solutions is not a good reason for ignoring the known risk of unarrested heat imbalances. And it is a fantasy to think that governments will stop fossil fuels consumption to the degrees needed. Clean energy is the future, but we need a stop gap before the permafrost melts. Stopping fossil fuels isn’t about punishing evil mankind for consumption, it is about stabilizing a climate. And there are other more politically feasible ways of accomplishing this need.
- epistasis 2y ago
  The funny thing is we have all the technology to stop climate change today, and it's cheaper than burning fossil fuels. So I suspect that geoengineering will face the same problems: a political party that refused to acknowledge the problem and deal with it, because it's politically incorrect to acknowledge climate change.
  - dr_dshiv 2y ago
    I don’t think so. At the end of the day, I think people are pragmatic. It’s not about not believing in climate change, it’s about money. What is the tech that allows us to stop climate change today?
    - epistasis 2y ago
      Look at Texas, pretty much the only energy system that is capitalist with people trying to make money by producing energy cheaper than the competition. It's allllll solar and batteries going in, because it's the cheapest energy source. If people were pragmatic and cared about money, that's what would be happening everywhere. Instead, most utilities make more money when energy costs more, so they go with the old fossil fuel tech and keep old infrastructure in place. If you're on HN and don't know how cheap renewables and storage are, that's a really bad sign, and proof that people are not very pragmatic and fundamentally lazy. There's a massive technological shift going on and nobody even seems know about it.
codr7 2y ago
We could just as well be heading straight into the next ice age, it's been a while, maybe this is how they begin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLkiQ0qIm-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLkiQ0qIm-M
matteoraso 2y ago
I hope this turns out to just be an anomaly, but I know that's likely not the case. The kicker is that global warming isn't even terribly hard to prevent, just give up your car and you've pretty much done your part.
- Towaway69 2y ago
  For me, the best visualation of temperature change over the last 170 years was the graphic in this article[1] Going by that graphic, I doubt very much that it was an anomaly. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-10-10/temporary-overshoot-global-climate-target-1-5-degree-damage/104449214 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-10-10/temporary-ove...
  - matteoraso 2y ago
    >I doubt very much that it was an anomaly. The article that OP posted says the odds that it's not an anomaly is around 80%, so there's still a 1 / 5 chance that this is just noise.
    - Towaway69 2y ago
      At what point should we believe in climate change? When the first islands disappear under the raising sea levels? When the first cities become uninhabitable because of rising temperatures? When the first wars begin over of resources that aren't there anymore? Or when the there are no container ships to bring cheap products from China, or long distance air travel becomes prohibitively expensive, or climate refugees start knocking at our doors? I.e. when it is us who are personally affected? Most of humankind will select option four, we shouldn't wonder.
      - matteoraso 2y ago
        Oh, I'm not denying climate change, I'm just saying that we can't say for certain whether or not we passed the Paris Agreement threshold, even though it's likely that we did.
sebazzz 2y ago
We are frogs that sit in a pan of increasingly hotter water. We see some disasters left and right, of course. But linking that by yourself to climate change - one generally doesn't, they need scientist and researchers for that. If they even believe them and haven't been told by the PM that is all fake. Then we have that abstract figure of 1.5C - not understanding that it is an average. A scientist or mathematician understands that - but for the average person it is too abstract. Even for me, someone who doesn't doubt man-made climate change, 1.5C is still... odd. We should communicate in expected maximum temperatures w/ durations, droughts, disasters this causes. Yet the media keep repeating "1.5C" more often than any alternative.
jibbit 2y ago
i've never seen a post with so many upvotes disappear so quickly

117 points by rntn 2y ago

I am sure we will reach 3 degrees, given what's going on in the world. Deniers will always come up with some arguments that this is somehow not real. The question is at what temperature we will see cliff edge like effects, i.e. stopping of Gulf stream and the like.

croes 2y ago
The deniers will admit it but then it’s because of Space lasers, Chemtrails, vaccines and weather engineering.
- quesera 2y ago
  "It's not happening" "OK maybe it's happening, but it's not a big deal" "OK maybe it's a big deal, but we didn't do it" "OK maybe we did some of it, but we can't fix it alone" "OK maybe we could do something but, that would put us at a disadvantage" "OK maybe we all need to do something, but how can we coordinate such a thing?" "OK maybe we could coordinate, but it would take 50 years to see any improvement" "OK it's too late, but at least some of us have made alternate plans for ourselves and our families" "OK I guess that's not how society and economy work, but how could we have known better?" ... Silly humans.
bognition 2y ago
Until the pain hits the wallet and stomach of the American middle class nothing is going to change. The ruling class and their media machine have people whipped into line and parroting back the talking points of the ultra wealthy. It’s going to take pain of a seismic level to break the hold on the minds that of the people.
- yread 2y ago
  I dont think India or China will close brand new coal power plants because US middle class has a wallet ache. We are fucked no matter what
  - lblume 2y ago
    China's exports (and by extension, carbon emissions) are driven by American and European demands for cheap products. Drastically decreasing industrial demand would lead to Asian carbon emissions shrinking by a large margin.
  - leosanchez 2y ago
    There is a huge push for rooftop solar in India.
  - rwyinuse 2y ago
    At least China is also doing some good things, like building massive amounts of solar energy, and exporting cheap electric vehicles all around the world. Meanwhile the regime in America is actively attacking climate science and denying the whole issue. Compared to Trump's administration the Chinese Communist party is quite okay from environmental perspective.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      > Compared to Trump's administration the Chinese Communist party is quite okay from environmental perspective. Yet the Chinese government is blocking the export of inputs for Battery and Solar technology to India [0], which incentivizes India to remain using coal and natural gas as a stopgap, as those are sourced from domestic and close allies (Saudi Arabia and now the US) respectively. And China itself has begun expanding coal power capacity at the highest rate in almost 10 years due to energy security concerns [1] Ironically, the Trump admin just gave a massive cash and tech injection into India's civilian nuclear and battery tech industries by starting to ToT American nuclear power plant designs, as well as subsidizing India's critical minerals industry (materials that are used to manufacture batteries and intermediate parts for PEVs) [2] Reality is, no state or leader of a large country actually cares about environmental factors because they can afford to paper the effects, and the brunt of the suffering will affect poorest countries/LDCs that lack that capacity [3] [0] - https://www.straitstimes.com/world/china-export-ban-on-engineers-and-equipment-disrupts-manufacturing-overseas https://www.straitstimes.com/world/china-export-ban-on-engin... [1] - https://apnews.com/article/china-coal-power-plant-carbon-climate-change-ba86e7584e3afe1826eed5cffa25354a https://apnews.com/article/china-coal-power-plant-carbon-cli... [2] - https://in.usembassy.gov/united-states-india-joint-leaders-statement/ https://in.usembassy.gov/united-states-india-joint-leaders-s... [3] - https://www.economist.com/special-report/2022/11/01/the-rich-world-is-wrong-to-think-that-climate-impacts-in-poor-countries-dont-matter https://www.economist.com/special-report/2022/11/01/the-rich...
rwyinuse 2y ago
Yep, the potential tipping points are terrifying. If the gulf stream collapses, my country will basically turn into Siberia, and our agriculture will collapse. It's kind of hard justify taking a typical mortgage that takes 20 years to pay back, when I'm not sure if the country will be habitable by the time I would own the house fully. Maybe geoengineering will save us, and we'll spray the atmosphere full of stuff that reflects sunlight to lower global temperatures. But it's best to prepare for the worst. I expect birth rates to continue collapsing as more young people realize they're probably doomed.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Birth rates will go right up when JD Vance relaxes federal mandates on car safety.
- jmclnx 2y ago
  >my country will basically turn into Siberia, I assume you are in NW Europe. It will not, it will be a bit or more warmer on average then now and you may get regular snow in the winter. Winters will probably be similar to New Brunswick now. But no, not Siberia.
  - janice1999 2y ago
    > it will be a bit or more warmer on average then now Averages don't matter as much as extremes for agriculture and infrastructure. The changes in extremes, particularly in winter, will completely upend the way of life for 10s of million of people. Parts of Norway will drop 20C. https://theconversation.com/atlantic-ocean-is-headed-for-a-tipping-point-once-melting-glaciers-shut-down-the-gulf-stream-we-would-see-extreme-climate-change-within-decades-study-shows-222834 https://theconversation.com/atlantic-ocean-is-headed-for-a-t...
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      > Parts of Norway will drop 20C. Yet you will still live, like millions do in similar temperatures across Canada and the US. The true brunt of the global climate catastrophe will be bore by the the global poor in LDCs which do not have the economies of scale or capital to mitigate some of the worst aspects of a degrading climate.

jmclnx 2y ago

From what I read, this is not a real surprise to many Climate Scientists. Most researchers have been worried about this, but I heard due to political and institutional interference, they moderated their papers. Now with a 2nd Term, I am sure by 2100 we will hit 4C, and my unscientific prediction is the Pollyanna one. Young people in the US need to be out protesting for their future. First get the US to eliminate all fossil fuel subsidiaries. And then maybe add a huge tax on the use of fossil fuels. That is the only way at this point to get change to happen quick enough to prevent 3C.

Trasmatta 2y ago
> Young people in the US need to be out protesting for their future The changes you are outlining aren't going to happen from protesting. What we need is a general strike, but there is no appetite to do that in the numbers necessary to actually make any change.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - diggan 2y ago
    > Where "strike" means some kind of domestic terrorism level interference with infrastructure. "Strike" usually means "refuse work", not some sort of violence that you seem to be advocating. It's possible to get real policy change through peaceful demonstrations, strikes and similar actions, as history will kindly remind you of.
    - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
      My point was that a strike won't be enough. Climate action has failed to gain traction for, what 30+ years? I wasn't intending to encourage personal violence, but saying that violence against infrastructure (not people) is the only way to force the level of attention necessary. I mean, the US has recently pivoted in the opposite direction. You think a strike would change the minds of those who made that decision?

yostrovs 2y ago

I'm calling for someone, anyone to take responsibility for promises made that were not kept. How can any agreement of this sort be taken seriously in the future when it seems that some people sign it, applaud each other, then some other people are expected to abide by it without any enforcement mechanisms? Matters of existential importance should be taken with great seriousness and not just for short term benefits to those wielding the pens.

cluckindan 2y ago
Obviously, it is not their existence on the line. That must change.
protimewaster 2y ago
No one wants to be responsible for anything. It's the same way at companies. Everything is constructed so that any failure can be blamed on the organization as a whole, and thus no one has to feel like they personally contributed to the failure. That's how it feels to me, anyway.
bjoli 2y ago
I mean, there are some real life cartoon villains with a lot of money working against humanity. Check out the fake interview Greenpeace did with Exxon lobbyists: https://www.npr.org/2021/07/01/1012138741/exxon-lobbyist-caught-on-video-talks-about-undermining-bidens-climate-push https://www.npr.org/2021/07/01/1012138741/exxon-lobbyist-cau... Thunderscum. Proudly showing off the worst parts of humanity.
MrMcCall 2y ago
When the politicians lie about everything and then do not get called out for it by either the media or the populace, the problems are even deeper than the serious problems caused by our not honoring such well-intentioned and well-designed agreements. The two most important human concepts are compassion and truth. Our losing touch with those most important values has pushed our world society to the brink of misery. What's important for the people here at HN, however, is that their investments in energy-wasting tech are protected from people realizing that PG et al are not at all different than IBM in 1930's Germany: "We are just making the adding machines." "We're just investors." The world needs to wake up to the likes of the callously cruel. PG is asleep at the wheel of the machines his machine has helped produce. "So sick of complacence." --Zach de la Rocha

unchocked 2y ago

It is insane that the Paris agreement requires a centered 20-year running mean of global surface temperature to define global warming thresholds. That bureaucratic sleight of hand builds roughly a decade of delay into the system. Sclerotic by design.

transcriptase 2y ago
Considering climate was generally defined as a 30 year window when I took earth sciences classes in the early 2000s I don’t think it’s a sleight of hand. Pretending that every minor outlier year in the span of 200 out of tens of thousands of years is an Armageddon-signalling catastrophe in order to secure more funding is far less genuine.

MrMcCall 2y ago

fake money "coins" + LLMs -> accelerated heating

sph 2y ago
The planet has been heating since much earlier than ~2008.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  In calculus there is a concept called acceleration.
  - usrnm 2y ago
    To be really pedantic, there is no such concept in calculus, it's just a (second) derivative
lblume 2y ago
I would doubt the additional power usage of Blockchain technology and modern AI had a significant impact on global carbon emissions.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  It's hard to believe that which you don't want to believe. Believing the truth in the face of one's prejudices take real courage, especially in this world full of moral and intellectual cowards. At at least one point, the coin-generating was consuming the electricity of entire nation-states, my friend.
  - lblume 2y ago
    I know that. I read the paper published in Joule, stating that Bitcoin was responsible for 0.2% of global carbon emissions via 0.4% of global energy usage. That, to me, does not sound significant enough to claim it has a measurable impact on warming, as worldwide electricity usage surely increases by more than 0.4% each year. With that said, I agree that cryptocurrencies are largely unnecessary and their usage should be regulated, together with other more effective measures.

bognition 2y ago

Honestly I’m starting to wonder if all the bluster around acquiring Greenland and annexing Canada is all focused on having land available for the United States when the southern and central states become uninhabitable.

micromacrofoot 2y ago
bold of you to assume the people running the United States care about what happens to the people living there
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  The serfs have to till fields somewhere.
croisillon 2y ago
that would imply some kind of guided long-term planning on their part
quesera 2y ago
I think any smart strategist would have to consider that value, yes. Also Arctic mineral rights / maritime boundaries. The current administration definitely has some smart strategists inside it. This is not new or unique of course, but the willingness to consider such ideas publicly is unusual. And in a different expansionist colonial age, both Greenland and Canada would be easy and valuable wins, justified by Manifest Destiny or American Exceptionalist Prosperity Gospel or somesuch garbage mythology. Going back to that age would have winners and losers. I cringe to say this, but there's a defensible argument that in a time of shrinking resources, it is logical and appropriate to go back to that kind of world order. It's even net-beneficial, as a really strong argument can be made that Canada and Greenland and the Arctic zones are not being utilized to their current or future potentials. The minor problems of sovereignty etc, are very minor problems if the stakes are high enough to accept global trade disruption. The only reason the US hasn't rolled over Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and all the Central American countries including Panama and the Canal Zone already is, well, the politeness of our age. And the corresponding stability advantages of preferential trade over conquest. The US is bursting at the seams of economic dominance in the North American zone. The age of politeness and free-ish trade might be ending. I'm personally opposed to living in that kind of new (old) age, but certain ground truths feel uncomfortably obvious.

amazingamazing 2y ago

Luckily we have AI to accelerate things.

dsotirovski 2y ago

seems like the the "Fall of Civilizations" episode on us is coming sooner that we thought. to be fair, it's likely that some of the others(that have their episode) saw it coming and made an "effort" proportional to ours :D

smallerfish 2y ago

There's a book called "I Want A Better Catastrophe", which is about the role of hope in climate activism. (It's a little uneven, but interesting to see the breadth of perspectives from the people he talks to in the climate space). One doomer he speaks to expects us to hit 6 degrees (which is also apparently backed up by one of the IPCC climate scientists he talks to), and describes the scenario this way: * By 2050, we're expecting to hit a global population level of 10 billion * By 2150, the carrying capacity of the planet (given degraded food production capacities, etc, in the 6 degree scenario) will be 2 billion * Imagine what that century would be like to live through 2.5 degrees is obviously a much "less worse" scenario, hence the title of the book. Another book along the same lines is "Ministry of the Future", also quite uneven, but an interesting enough read. I think it's important to be non-avoidant and really contemplate what the higher-degree scenarios would look like, since we're clearly heading in that direction.

trescenzi 2y ago
I struggle with this recommendation. I am anything but non avoidant. I’ve gone vegan, I rarely drive, I know that mass famine, immigration and war are highly likely before I die. Realistically people like me cannot make change. I question the value of continuing to soak myself in the understanding that there is a strong chance the future will be shit. I recently abandoned a reread of Parable of the Sower. I don’t need a reminder of what’s possible. Would a better catastrophe cause people to take things seriously? Honestly after covid I doubt it.

throw098320923 2y ago

"Preindustrial period" was known as a Little Ice Age. River Thames froze over several times. Being 1.5 degrees over that is not too bad.

frakrx 2y ago

I am very concerned about global warming, but we need to find solutions and plans that can include everyone from all political spectrums, and that do not disproportionately affect the poorer sections of society. And if the poor people have to make sacrifices, then other sections of society have to bear the burden too. The rich, but also the state bureaucracies that are only using the crisis to increase their size and spending.

nneonneo 2y ago
This does not work when there are parts of the political spectrum that won’t even believe there’s a problem, and which reject the scientific consensus out of hand, and which even threaten to defund the scientific research entirely.
- frakrx 2y ago
  Then science and education must adapt to the times and do better to educate and convey their message to a wider audience, everyone must do their part, including scientists and educators. If you exclude half the population from your plans before you even start, you will very probably fail.
  - silverquiet 2y ago
    Then propaganda and misinformation must adapt to prevent science and education from swaying that half of the population away from profitable fossil fuel extraction.
epistasis 2y ago
> we need to find solutions and plans that can include everyone from all political spectrums You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. What you are delicately saying is that Republicans are children and somehow we must all change to coddle them and their snowflake beliefs. No, just no. We need accountability and responsibility. Every single Republican that is actually responsible needs to be holding their fellow Republicans to account for the lies they spread. I have tried every strategy under the sun with my family. When it comes to politics, they just want somebody to tell them they can act like children, which is what today's Republican part gives them.

piyuv 2y ago

It’s inevitable, that’s why billionaires keep building underground shelters

dr_dshiv 2y ago

Geoengineering research needs to happen ASAP if we care about preventing runaway positive feedback effects. Calcium carbonate in upper atmosphere is a very promising solution. So is bringing back containership ship tracks via fuel additives or salt-based marine cloud brightening. The unknown unknown risks of these solutions is not a good reason for ignoring the known risk of unarrested heat imbalances. And it is a fantasy to think that governments will stop fossil fuels consumption to the degrees needed. Clean energy is the future, but we need a stop gap before the permafrost melts. Stopping fossil fuels isn’t about punishing evil mankind for consumption, it is about stabilizing a climate. And there are other more politically feasible ways of accomplishing this need.

epistasis 2y ago
The funny thing is we have all the technology to stop climate change today, and it's cheaper than burning fossil fuels. So I suspect that geoengineering will face the same problems: a political party that refused to acknowledge the problem and deal with it, because it's politically incorrect to acknowledge climate change.
- dr_dshiv 2y ago
  I don’t think so. At the end of the day, I think people are pragmatic. It’s not about not believing in climate change, it’s about money. What is the tech that allows us to stop climate change today?
  - epistasis 2y ago
    Look at Texas, pretty much the only energy system that is capitalist with people trying to make money by producing energy cheaper than the competition. It's allllll solar and batteries going in, because it's the cheapest energy source. If people were pragmatic and cared about money, that's what would be happening everywhere. Instead, most utilities make more money when energy costs more, so they go with the old fossil fuel tech and keep old infrastructure in place. If you're on HN and don't know how cheap renewables and storage are, that's a really bad sign, and proof that people are not very pragmatic and fundamentally lazy. There's a massive technological shift going on and nobody even seems know about it.

codr7 2y ago

We could just as well be heading straight into the next ice age, it's been a while, maybe this is how they begin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLkiQ0qIm-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLkiQ0qIm-M

matteoraso 2y ago

I hope this turns out to just be an anomaly, but I know that's likely not the case. The kicker is that global warming isn't even terribly hard to prevent, just give up your car and you've pretty much done your part.

Towaway69 2y ago
For me, the best visualation of temperature change over the last 170 years was the graphic in this article[1] Going by that graphic, I doubt very much that it was an anomaly. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-10-10/temporary-overshoot-global-climate-target-1-5-degree-damage/104449214 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-10-10/temporary-ove...
- matteoraso 2y ago
  >I doubt very much that it was an anomaly. The article that OP posted says the odds that it's not an anomaly is around 80%, so there's still a 1 / 5 chance that this is just noise.
  - Towaway69 2y ago
    At what point should we believe in climate change? When the first islands disappear under the raising sea levels? When the first cities become uninhabitable because of rising temperatures? When the first wars begin over of resources that aren't there anymore? Or when the there are no container ships to bring cheap products from China, or long distance air travel becomes prohibitively expensive, or climate refugees start knocking at our doors? I.e. when it is us who are personally affected? Most of humankind will select option four, we shouldn't wonder.
    - matteoraso 2y ago
      Oh, I'm not denying climate change, I'm just saying that we can't say for certain whether or not we passed the Paris Agreement threshold, even though it's likely that we did.

sebazzz 2y ago

We are frogs that sit in a pan of increasingly hotter water. We see some disasters left and right, of course. But linking that by yourself to climate change - one generally doesn't, they need scientist and researchers for that. If they even believe them and haven't been told by the PM that is all fake. Then we have that abstract figure of 1.5C - not understanding that it is an average. A scientist or mathematician understands that - but for the average person it is too abstract. Even for me, someone who doesn't doubt man-made climate change, 1.5C is still... odd. We should communicate in expected maximum temperatures w/ durations, droughts, disasters this causes. Yet the media keep repeating "1.5C" more often than any alternative.

jibbit 2y ago

i've never seen a post with so many upvotes disappear so quickly