5 ms·

Annoyingly you'll see this brought up as a "false alarm by environmentalist" by climate change deniers when it's really a time we absolutely succeeded.

by rtkwe 2y ago

gunian 2y ago
on the nature of ontology :)
ajross 2y ago
"If a problem was fixed, it wasn't a problem" is a really, really difficult cognition problem to crack. And unlike a lot of other fallacies it tends to affect the hyper-rationalist HN set worse than other demographics (who generally don't have a problem with the idea that someone fixed something). We saw the same thing on the front page here just last week in the Bald Eagle thread, pointing out that it wasn't particularly endangered and that even if it was it was never so in Alaska. This in a discussion about how it was not listed as endangered in the continental US anymore precisely because of the success of the conservation effort under the Endangered Species Act.
nashashmi 2y ago
I always wondered why the climate impact of a recovering ozone was not taken into account when forecasting climate change?
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  Is it not?
- rtkwe 2y ago
  Back then? Can't say but my guess is it wasn't assumed we would actually manage to do anything about it I imagine. CFC is one of the few times we've managed to win an environmental fight. I'm not even sure it has a particularly strong effect, a quick search [0] shows that a depleted ozone would have a moderate cooling effect and a full layer would be slightly warmer but it's swamped by the effects of more direct green house gases. Now the current and some variation of the future state of the ozone layer is definitely accounted for in the models, we just have so much more compute to throw at the modelling we can try many more scenarios but even then by [0] it looks like it's a minor effect. [0] https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/research/ozone-uv/moreinfo?view=deleption-climate-change https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/research/ozone-uv/moreinfo?view=...
  - bluGill 2y ago
    > CFC is one of the few times we've managed to win an environmental fight. Go back to 1950 and try to breath in LA. Go to your local gas station and ask for leaded fuel. To measure the PH of the next rain fall. There are been many environmental wins over the decades.
    - JadeNB 2y ago
      > Go back to 1950 and try to breath in LA. Go to your local gas station and ask for leaded fuel. To measure the PH of the next rain fall. There are been many environmental wins over the decades. Your parent might mean by "we" the people who are living now, in the era when environmental concerns have become politicized, so that victories can't be bipartisan and so have become much less common. (It's inconceivable to me these days that the EPA was founded by Nixon!)
      - bluGill 2y ago
        Environmental policy has always been political. That you are surprised the EPA was founded by Nixon show how little you understand how political it always has been, and how common compromise has been in all policies.
        JadeNB 2y ago
        Certainly all policy matters are political, in at least the sense that politicians want to be seen to be pursuing the policies that are supported by those who votes they expect or want, and to be seen to be fighting against the policies that those voters oppose. But the idea that even acknowledging the existence of environmental concerns is a political position, systematically embraced by one major US political party and denied by the other, is new, even if the specific policies for addressing the (acknowledged) environmental concerns, and the wrangling of votes to accomplish those policies, is and always has been with us.
    - jmward01 2y ago
      I remember visiting LA in the late 80's and having my eyes water due to the pollution. I can't imagine what the 60's and 70's must have been like. Unfortunately it is only easy to be an environmentalist in this country only when lakes are burning and the air is so bad you choke on it. We should have national pollution park where companies are allowed to do whatever they want but it is also a national park that has guides to show how bad things are just so people can understand what life is like without environmental controls.
- chowells 2y ago
  Wasn't the concern about the ozone layer primarily about the UV shield it provides? That has a much more significant direct effect on human health than it does on the climate.
- DidYaWipe 2y ago
  Well, they didn't expect the cleanup of container-ship emissions to exacerbate global warming either. Makes you wonder if we really couldn't attempt some kind of man-made "pollution" in the atmosphere to mitigate warming.
  - defrost 2y ago
    "they" for some value of they knew of the properties of sulphur compounds in advance. The minor shade advantages didn't count much against the billions of tonnes of additional insulating gases added each and every year, and the decision was made to remove sulphur compounds because of the downsides of using them - acid rain and other consequences. That said there are private groups that collecting money as credits and putting sulphur back into the atmosphere as we type .. they're here on HN and may or may not be doing a good thing.
hammock 2y ago
Haven’t seen that personally, which is a good thing
dylan604 2y ago
As a kid we learned about the hole in the ozone layer as well as acid rain in LA, and how it was reversed by changes in human behavior. Talking to younger kids today, they act shocked at the concept of acid rain as if they no longer discuss it. I'm sure that's as designed by the climate deniers in government positions. I can only imagine it getting worse over the next 4 years
- cogman10 2y ago
  The change in LA from the EPA's and cali's strict emissions rules is incredible. I remember visiting in the 90s as a kid and seeing how incredibly smoggy it was. It was just as bad as pretty much any place out there and all from burning gas in cars. Now it's very often crystal clear. It's really stunning how much policy changes can impact the air.
  - jedberg 2y ago
    I grew up in LA. In the late 80s the joke was that you had to chew your air before breathing it. The sky was brown most days. > Now it's very often crystal clear. It's really stunning how much policy changes can impact the air. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the air is often clear. There is still the natural geography that traps all particles in the air over the basin. But the policy changes absolutely made a huge difference. Interesting to note however that during the first couple of days of COVID lockdown, when almost no one was driving in LA, LA had the lowest AQI on the entire planet (it was just 4). So the next thing they have to do is solve traffic to get the air cleaner. :)
    - dylan604 2y ago
      > the first couple of days of COVID lockdown To me, this was the clearest example of how much human activity truly is causing issues, and how it can be reversed.
      - pllbnk 2y ago
        What I would like remote working advocates to say more for the benefits of this arrangement is not only the time saved, being with families, but also these things regarding pollution: by not driving to the offices co-located in the same districts, people not only stop emitting themselves, they also reduce the emissions of those who must drive by reducing or eliminating traffic jams. Also, expanding and living in suburbs, I believe in contrast to the general consensus, reduces emissions as well. Though people still need cars to get somewhere just because the distances are larger, the use of cars is much more efficient.
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
stuaxo 2y ago
Acid rain was all over the news in the UK in the early 80s, when I was in infant school - we must have been covering it, at school as I remember we as small kids we were pointing out pollution on some farm visit (a load of small kids on a farm trailer pointing at something burning chanting "pollution pollution pollution").

Annoyingly you'll see this brought up as a "false alarm by environmentalist" by climate change deniers when it's really a time we absolutely succeeded.

by rtkwe 2y ago

Annoyingly you'll see this brought up as a "false alarm by environmentalist" by climate change deniers when it's really a time we absolutely succeeded.

gunian 2y ago

on the nature of ontology :)

ajross 2y ago

"If a problem was fixed, it wasn't a problem" is a really, really difficult cognition problem to crack. And unlike a lot of other fallacies it tends to affect the hyper-rationalist HN set worse than other demographics (who generally don't have a problem with the idea that someone fixed something). We saw the same thing on the front page here just last week in the Bald Eagle thread, pointing out that it wasn't particularly endangered and that even if it was it was never so in Alaska. This in a discussion about how it was not listed as endangered in the continental US anymore precisely because of the success of the conservation effort under the Endangered Species Act.

nashashmi 2y ago

I always wondered why the climate impact of a recovering ozone was not taken into account when forecasting climate change?

pavel_lishin 2y ago
Is it not?
rtkwe 2y ago
Back then? Can't say but my guess is it wasn't assumed we would actually manage to do anything about it I imagine. CFC is one of the few times we've managed to win an environmental fight. I'm not even sure it has a particularly strong effect, a quick search [0] shows that a depleted ozone would have a moderate cooling effect and a full layer would be slightly warmer but it's swamped by the effects of more direct green house gases. Now the current and some variation of the future state of the ozone layer is definitely accounted for in the models, we just have so much more compute to throw at the modelling we can try many more scenarios but even then by [0] it looks like it's a minor effect. [0] https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/research/ozone-uv/moreinfo?view=deleption-climate-change https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/research/ozone-uv/moreinfo?view=...
- bluGill 2y ago
  > CFC is one of the few times we've managed to win an environmental fight. Go back to 1950 and try to breath in LA. Go to your local gas station and ask for leaded fuel. To measure the PH of the next rain fall. There are been many environmental wins over the decades.
  - JadeNB 2y ago
    > Go back to 1950 and try to breath in LA. Go to your local gas station and ask for leaded fuel. To measure the PH of the next rain fall. There are been many environmental wins over the decades. Your parent might mean by "we" the people who are living now, in the era when environmental concerns have become politicized, so that victories can't be bipartisan and so have become much less common. (It's inconceivable to me these days that the EPA was founded by Nixon!)
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Environmental policy has always been political. That you are surprised the EPA was founded by Nixon show how little you understand how political it always has been, and how common compromise has been in all policies.
      - JadeNB 2y ago
        Certainly all policy matters are political, in at least the sense that politicians want to be seen to be pursuing the policies that are supported by those who votes they expect or want, and to be seen to be fighting against the policies that those voters oppose. But the idea that even acknowledging the existence of environmental concerns is a political position, systematically embraced by one major US political party and denied by the other, is new, even if the specific policies for addressing the (acknowledged) environmental concerns, and the wrangling of votes to accomplish those policies, is and always has been with us.
  - jmward01 2y ago
    I remember visiting LA in the late 80's and having my eyes water due to the pollution. I can't imagine what the 60's and 70's must have been like. Unfortunately it is only easy to be an environmentalist in this country only when lakes are burning and the air is so bad you choke on it. We should have national pollution park where companies are allowed to do whatever they want but it is also a national park that has guides to show how bad things are just so people can understand what life is like without environmental controls.
chowells 2y ago
Wasn't the concern about the ozone layer primarily about the UV shield it provides? That has a much more significant direct effect on human health than it does on the climate.
DidYaWipe 2y ago
Well, they didn't expect the cleanup of container-ship emissions to exacerbate global warming either. Makes you wonder if we really couldn't attempt some kind of man-made "pollution" in the atmosphere to mitigate warming.
- defrost 2y ago
  "they" for some value of they knew of the properties of sulphur compounds in advance. The minor shade advantages didn't count much against the billions of tonnes of additional insulating gases added each and every year, and the decision was made to remove sulphur compounds because of the downsides of using them - acid rain and other consequences. That said there are private groups that collecting money as credits and putting sulphur back into the atmosphere as we type .. they're here on HN and may or may not be doing a good thing.

hammock 2y ago

Haven’t seen that personally, which is a good thing

dylan604 2y ago

As a kid we learned about the hole in the ozone layer as well as acid rain in LA, and how it was reversed by changes in human behavior. Talking to younger kids today, they act shocked at the concept of acid rain as if they no longer discuss it. I'm sure that's as designed by the climate deniers in government positions. I can only imagine it getting worse over the next 4 years

cogman10 2y ago
The change in LA from the EPA's and cali's strict emissions rules is incredible. I remember visiting in the 90s as a kid and seeing how incredibly smoggy it was. It was just as bad as pretty much any place out there and all from burning gas in cars. Now it's very often crystal clear. It's really stunning how much policy changes can impact the air.
- jedberg 2y ago
  I grew up in LA. In the late 80s the joke was that you had to chew your air before breathing it. The sky was brown most days. > Now it's very often crystal clear. It's really stunning how much policy changes can impact the air. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the air is often clear. There is still the natural geography that traps all particles in the air over the basin. But the policy changes absolutely made a huge difference. Interesting to note however that during the first couple of days of COVID lockdown, when almost no one was driving in LA, LA had the lowest AQI on the entire planet (it was just 4). So the next thing they have to do is solve traffic to get the air cleaner. :)
  - dylan604 2y ago
    > the first couple of days of COVID lockdown To me, this was the clearest example of how much human activity truly is causing issues, and how it can be reversed.
    - pllbnk 2y ago
      What I would like remote working advocates to say more for the benefits of this arrangement is not only the time saved, being with families, but also these things regarding pollution: by not driving to the offices co-located in the same districts, people not only stop emitting themselves, they also reduce the emissions of those who must drive by reducing or eliminating traffic jams. Also, expanding and living in suburbs, I believe in contrast to the general consensus, reduces emissions as well. Though people still need cars to get somewhere just because the distances are larger, the use of cars is much more efficient.

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

stuaxo 2y ago

Acid rain was all over the news in the UK in the early 80s, when I was in infant school - we must have been covering it, at school as I remember we as small kids we were pointing out pollution on some farm visit (a load of small kids on a farm trailer pointing at something burning chanting "pollution pollution pollution").