9 ms·
The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
- blueflow 8mo agoIts not a "risk". Water vapor (clouds) is a stonger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. We already got measurably higher temperatures, so we also have higher water evaporation, and from the last 5 years it looks like it happens every year. So the runaway is already happening, until something stops it near hothouse conditions or hopefully earlier than that.
- karmakurtisaani 8mo agoAnd that's just one of the many positive feedback loops.
- rkrisztian 8mo agoThank you for saying this. If you want to know the answer to what causes climate problems, you need to go back to the era of dinosaurs, where CO2 levels were multiple times higher than today. Trees could thrive because they could breathe in a lot of CO2. Dinosaurs got so big because there were plenty of food. How could dinosaurs happily live with such high CO2 levels? The key is that there were plenty of forests. Peter Wohlleben's book "The Power of Trees: How Ancient Forests Can Save Us if We Let Them" explains how forests naturally circulate water.
- vaylian 8mo agoThe climate system in those prehistoric times was in a different stable state. The world that we live in has different ecosystems that are well-adapted to the current stable state and we will likely face a mass-extinction event once the ecological scales tip over. The problem is also the speed in which the CO2 levels are rising. Such a massive change in such a short geological time is very unusual.
- rkrisztian 8mo ago[dead]
- SoftTalker 8mo agoWater vapor (clouds) also reflects sunlight. So it's complicated. We know the planet has had higher CO2 and higher temperatures in the past, and it did not "run away"
- viraptor 8mo agoIt doesn't matter if the top of the curve flattens out, if we can't survive outside of the bottom part that looks exponential.
- teamonkey 8mo agoIt might not run away to infinity, but it may well run away in the sense that the rate of change could continue to increase even if humans stop contributing to it.
- panarchy 8mo agoWe can't say for sure that the current feedback loops will be identical to those that did or did not exist in the past. Differences in the initial state could result in different outcomes. For example was there as much methane trapped in the arctics during the last time CO2 was high? Does the rate of the increase of CO2 and temperature have an effect? Because it's currently getting hotter far faster (absurdly so) than any other period we have records for.
- fc417fc802 8mo agoNo citations to hand but Antarctica used to be temperate rainforest and many of the conditions of present day tropical rainforests and savanna could be found much farther from the equator. The paleocene–eocene thermal maximum makes for interesting related reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_thermal_maximum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_therm...
- Windchaser 8mo ago> Water vapor (clouds) also reflects sunlight. So it's complicated. We know the planet has had higher CO2 and higher temperatures in the past, and it did not "run away" Yes. But stars like ours burn brighter as they move through their lifetimes, and the Sun is a bit brighter now than it was back when we had higher CO2 levels. That's why a runaway GHG didn't happen back then, but is basically guaranteed to happen within a billion years.
- eitau_1 8mo agoTrue runaway (i.e. oceans boiling / Venus) cannot happen on Earth unless you significantly increase incoming radiation stream (or alternatively halve the planet's albedo). The runaway effect is scary b/c at certain temperature (~400K) atmosphere consisting predominantly of water vapor looses its ability to radiate out more heat up until 1600K. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1892 https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1892 (see fig. 2b) (edit: the figure: https://imgur.com/a/ytoEXzd https://imgur.com/a/ytoEXzd) edit #2: I've measured some pixels and the starting runaway temp is closer to 315K / 42C, damn
- mitthrowaway2 8mo agoAre you certain we can't become Venus? Venus itself has such a high albedo that it effectively receives less radiation than Earth does.
- vaylian 8mo agoThis is one of the key sentences: > Policymakers and the public, however, remain largely unaware of the risks posed by such a practically irreversible transition Most people still underestimate what it means for the earth system to change from the current stable state into another state, which might need many years to become stable again. And that new stable state might be a lot less favourable for us humans.
- bayindirh 8mo agoI think most people bet that they'd be dead until that transition happens, so the problem won't be theirs to address.
- anon84873628 8mo agoIt's a classic multi-agent coordination problem. Should I stop taking jet liners and eating meat, when everyone else is anyway? (Edit: purely illustrative rhetorical question, but I appreciate the responses)
- bayindirh 8mo agoFor me, it's a hard problem. For business trips, the choice is between two hours and two days, and unfortunately my body goes haywire if I don't eat some meat at least a couple of days per week (talking about 200g/300g total though. Not kilos of it). On the other hand, I'd happily take trains as more high speed lines open in my country, and reduce meat consumption to bare minimum my body can tolerate. For personal transportation, going fully electric won't be possible due to my circumstances, but I'd happily switch to a hybrid which would convert 75% of my in-city travel to electric (which I'm actively planning to do). I also work on projects which tries to reduce footprint of data centers and computation, so there's that.
- AnthonyMouse 8mo ago> my body goes haywire if I don't eat some meat at least a couple of days per week Isn't this just a nutrient deficiency in whatever you were eating instead of meat? Meat is "convenient" because it's high in a wide variety of minerals, vitamins, essential amino acids, etc. that your body can't make. (The animals mostly can't make them either but guess what livestock eats.) There are plants that contain each of them, but few if any that contain all of them, and then if you're missing one you're going to have a bad time. So the problem there is almost certainly that you need to eat some different plants than that the thing you were missing is only found in animals.
- aperrien 8mo agoAre there any attempts to start geo-engineering to fix this? I'm assuming there will be no attempt to stop dumping carbon into the atmosphere, can we at least do something to take it back out? Can we use solar or renewables to possibly do that at scale?
- bamboozled 8mo agoNeeded to happen 30 years ago. Now it’s drill baby drill time.
- bayindirh 8mo agoThere are currently no power efficient and scalable ways to remove carbon dioxide from air or water. Renewables are considered woke technology which mock old and masculine fossil fuel tech, which feel threatened by all these white spinny things, hence renewable energy projects are being actively discouraged or canceled altogether. You know, we'd be all woke and weird if our cars don't have 8 cylinders and make wroom sounds. Same for our chimneys and power architecture. Woke electrons should be banned. We need masculine, fossil based electrons, which are more powerful per electron than wind/solar based fluffy/hippie ones.
- exitb 8mo agoThe rich don’t care which side you’re on, as long as you’re fighting each other.
- bayindirh 8mo agoI don't play that game. I only do what I can do with what I have and don't care about losing time with pointless fights. I may not be able to save the whole planet, but at least I'll leave my area a bit better as my capacity and time allows.
- theossuary 8mo agoBoth sides aren't fighting each other, one side has turned themselves into a weapon for rich pedophiles to attack the other side with.
- OGEnthusiast 8mo agoSo maybe the people who aren’t having kids due to climate change were right after all?
- axus 8mo agoThe problem can now only be solved on the supply side. Cut the production of oil and gas below the planet's natural carbon sequestration.
- fc417fc802 8mo agos/production/extraction/ Nothing wrong with synthetic.
- grumbelbart 8mo agoThe low prices of solar and batteries are a glimmer of hope. For many regions it's now the cheapest source of electricity.
- razster 8mo agoYou mean cutting into the profit/MONEY of these large corporations? How will they survive!?
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- htx80nerd 8mo agoGo ask Google about China and the 3rd world contribution to global pollution. The West is bending over backwards to 'fight climate change' and a huge chunk of the world is just doing whatever they want, completely negating all of the west efforts.
- triceratops 8mo ago> Go ask Google about China China's doing better than the US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108292. Please don't lie.
- aleda145 8mo agoVery alarming. I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right (https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-for-germany-heat-pump-election-climate-change/ https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-f...) I don't know what to do.
- bamboozled 8mo agoDie a horrible death while watching a group of hateful people scream that it’s all the immigrants fault and that they ate all the cats and dogs, I guess …
- shrubby 8mo ago... immigrants, LGBT, women, another religion, the ones with no religion, communist, liberal,... But never the zillionaires, they've worked haaaard and deserve everything!
- csmpltn 8mo ago[flagged]
- xyzal 8mo agoYou work in software, right? Then you can donate some money to enviro orgs.
- cosmic_cheese 8mo agoNot an expert in any of that, but I think overall impact may be greater if people with sufficient means take a more hands-on approach that grants visibility of where money is going. I lean environmentalist be the truth is that there’s a good deal of well-marketed snake oil in the environmental space.
- tdb7893 8mo agoThe issue with quibbling over impact is my experience is that people end up doing neither. I recently started a Master's in ecology so I don't have a good idea of what's cost effective right now but I know the field is pretty shockingly underfunded (both for general research and conservation projects). I learned the "fun" fact recently that bird populations in the US are down ~30% in the last 55 years.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- smartmic 8mo agoIt is important to keep reminding ourselves that climate change is a real problem for humanity and that each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. It is a problem that requires solutions, but implementing these solutions involves so much inertia that it can sometimes be painful. And let's contrast that with the AI hype. It's more the opposite, a kind of solution to problems we didn't really have, but are now being persuaded we do. It would be sensible to invest an equal share of the resources currently being pumped into AI with uncertain outcomes into the complex issue of climate change. And, no, AI won't solve it; unfortunately, it only makes it worse.
- Carrok 8mo agoI've started composting. I'm sure that'll outweigh the average Vegas visitor's emissions. /s I'm being a bit facetious obviously, but it does feel a bit like tilting against windmills. We need policy and systemic changes, if we're relying on individuals to all collectively start doing the "right thing", we're sunk.
- smartmic 8mo agoI agree. But at least in a democratic system, the "each and everyone of us" are politicians that each and everyone elects. So it starts from the basis, IMHO.
- adolph 8mo agoSorry to be a debbie-downer but the composting process is also a source of greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9933540/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9933540/
- Carrok 8mo agoFrom your source: > Effective pile management and aeration are key to minimizing CH4 emissions. So it sounds like a correctly managed pile is not a problem. Also, I have a hard time believing my composting in my backyard is in any way worse than my sending the same food scraps to a landfill.
- shrubby 8mo agoEhm, we're royally fuxed. Unless the fake reality starts to crack with the Epstein and other current events and humanity's coming of age will happen. Even if a hundred years later than Bonhoeffer though it would.
- 1970-01-01 8mo agoVote Giant Meteor 2028. Thick Dust or Bust.
- baq 8mo agoNothing new under the sun. We can't cut emissions fast enough politically, but we can race towards economically viable fusion power which would solve the problem from the supply side and would make industrial scale carbon sequestration not insane, for a century or so, until waste heat itself can't be radiated fast enough even in 250 ppm CO2 atmosphere - but that's a problem for the XXII century.
- FarmerPotato 8mo agoHow about economically viable fission power, right now.
- baq 8mo agoThat's the thing, can't be done
- sien 8mo agoFrance, Sweden and Ontario exist. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/12mo/monthly https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/12mo/monthly It literally has been done.
- baq 8mo agoPast performance does not guarantee future results. Building out nuclear requires political will and deregulation which today is not attainable in the west. China is the only one actually building reactors, but that isn't enough.
- sien 8mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea... Under construction : Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Hungary, Japan, South Korea and more. Poland is going to start building soon too.
- 8mo ago
- jeffybefffy519 8mo agoI really think the key to addressing climate change should have started 20 years ago in a lot of primary schools, whereby the curriculum includes subjects that are more tailored to solving problems with capturing or converting C02 (eg sciences) so that these students are thinking about these problems when graduating and starting businesses to solve the challenges (hopefully with gov incentives at same time).
- PaulKeeble 8mo agoWe have had the technology to decarbonise the grid since the 1950s and we have known about the problem since the 1970s. Politics however has driven the use of CO2 instead of nuclear energy and required the drastic development of high end wind and solar. Even that wasn't enough, it also had to get considerably cheaper than CO2 producing energy sources and the entire time the entire worlds population has been subjected to massive amounts of propaganda to keep burning oil, gas and coal. This transition was possible 55 years ago when the problem was first surfaced, the political will just wasn't there so it didn't happen. Its not an education issue, it has always been governments getting in the way and refusing to change the power source. its why I think Solar will win out, it can be deployed on an individual house level unlike everything else and that changes things enormously.
- Moldoteck 8mo agoeh... imagine a planet scale messmer plan... too bad petro-dollar is a thing
- kccqzy 8mo ago20 years ago was when Al Gore’s influential documentary An Inconvenient Truth first appeared. Almost everyone I knew discussed it, including primary school pupils. Guess what, we do have better tools today than 20 years ago to fight climate change, such as practical and useful electric vehicles to replace CO2-emitting conventional vehicles.
- chasil 8mo agoWhat is generally not understood is that our current icehouse phase is rare. 'A "greenhouse Earth" is a period during which no continental glaciers exist anywhere on the planet... Earth has been in a greenhouse state for about 85% of its history. 'Earth is now in an icehouse state, and ice sheets are present in both poles simultaneously... Earth's current icehouse state is known as the Quaternary Ice Age and began approximately 2.58 million years ago.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earthhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earthh...
- bhickey 8mo agoThe _state_ isn't alarming, it's the rate of change. The transition is happening on a scale of human lifetimes instead of geological time.
- jacquesm 8mo agoPrecisely. Humans can adapt to almost anything but we can not do it fast enough with 8 billion+ people.
- filoeleven 8mo agoYeah. The XKCD "Timeline of Earth's Average Temperature" is, I'm pretty certain, the most frightening chart I have ever seen. https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- andyjohnson0 8mo ago> Earth has been in a greenhouse state for about 85% of its history. And during those periods there were no human beings. And no agriculture, or unstable globalised economiies, or dense urban societies vulnerable to disruption. It is, of course, interesting that our planet has this long, varied existence that pre-dates us. But it is of little use in understanding how to get us out of the hole we're in. And it is arguably dangerous, because it misleads people into thinking that we have the capacity to adapt to such conditions, when we manifestly don't.
- vdupras 8mo agoAnd yet, the only reasonable action to take is to flag this topic and move along with the "humanity has always found a way out, technology will save us. Remember, we were supposed to drown in horse manure!" Why? Because candidly looking at those risks as a society means deep collective existential dread, which automatically means an immediate civilizational collapse. So I'm guessing some of our elite is actually ignorant and the other part is willfully shutting the hell up on this subject to let our civilization run on fumes a few more years. It's unfortunate because a rapid civilizational collapse could give humanity as a species a better chance of survival.
- maybelsyrup 8mo ago> It's unfortunate because a rapid civilizational collapse could give humanity as a species a better chance of survival. How's that?
- vdupras 8mo agoAn effective way to cut carbon emissions before feedback loops are triggered
- Aeveus 8mo agoMiss the days where YC put emphasis on climate tech too: - https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/rfs-climatetech https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/rfs-climatetech - http://carbon.ycombinator.com/ http://carbon.ycombinator.com/
- MengerSponge 8mo ago[flagged]
- jacobsenscott 8mo agoYC has always been about cashing in on the latest grift, and nothing more.
- ahnick 8mo agoYet here you are.
- mrguyorama 8mo agoI miss the days when the Republican party openly asserted that Climate Change was a serious problem that we needed to do something about. It was a short, short moment of time, but it existed.
- j0ba 8mo agoIf only there was a clean, nearly limitless source of energy, where the waste for hundreds of years of energy could be stored in less than a square kilometer. If such a thing existed, we could be sure that environmentalists and leftists would have openly embraced it, rather than nip it at the bud 50 years ago. Because they are Good People™. And we should definitely listen to them now because they Follow The Science™.
- wiz21c 8mo agoCO2 seems very threatening but loss of biodiversity is also a problem, and it has nothing to do with energy... We're in deep s*t
- pyrale 8mo ago> If such a thing existed, we could be sure that environmentalists and leftists would have openly embraced it, rather than nip it at the bud 50 years ago. Because they are Good People™. And we should definitely listen to them now because they Follow The Science™. The issue with current politics wrt environment is environmentalists and leftists? This feels like a smoker blaming their smoking habit on anti-drug associations not being good enough rather than big tobacco.
- irishloop 8mo agoSurely nothing has ever done wrong with this limitless source of clean energy to give people pause? There's no uninhabitable areas of the Earth due to this?
- Moldoteck 8mo agoi'm not sure there are, from a science point of view... From political point of view there are probably only 2 locations in one country... vs a gigantic energy output on planetary scale...
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- logicprog 8mo ago
- Teever 8mo agoWhat's fascinating and dismaying to me is that it's obvious that there exists sufficient capital and capability in the west to fix this. I always wondered if we just lacked the ability to mobilize to solve big problems anymore but now I look at this 7% US GDP being allocated to AI datacentres and I realize that it isn't a lack of ability, it's a lack of desire. Imagine if we had ram shortages because all the silicon was being diverted towards making solar panels. Imagine if we had copper shortages because it was going to the windings on wind mills. Imagine if all these economic disruptions were just temporary and for a better cause or eliminating carbon emissions and eventually moving to sequestration of carbon. Instead we get chatbots. And funny picture makers.
- FarmerPotato 8mo agoNot the same silicon. Wafer fabs make pure crystals. Photovoltaics use polysilicon. Obviously you mean purified silicon, but, remember silicon is what the Earth has in abundance (yeah I know it’s energy intensive, and there exist such profession as sand prospector.)
- rienbdj 8mo ago[flagged]
- trilogic 8mo agoNo worries ladies and gentleman, AI will solve it, insert coin, or better throw another trillion at it and all will be solved. AGI is here
- cindyllm 8mo ago[dead]
- AndrewKemendo 8mo agoMeanwhile all these other AI threads everybody’s worried about losing their jobs Not realizing we’re gonna go extinct here in the next thousand years unless something solves it Since humans are incapable of doing this there’s only one possible option: To create something smarter than us and give it the power to solve it because we cannot
- blibble 8mo ago> Meanwhile all these other AI threads everybody’s worried about losing their jobs don't worry AI will cause both losing your job AND climate change
- schiffern 8mo ago>Despite decades of research and sophisticated computational climate modeling, the magnitude and pace of these events have surprised scientists, raising questions about how well current climate projections capture risk. "Yet again, worse than we predicted." When this always-revise-in-one-direction phenomenon happened with the electron charge, it was considered a priori "proof" that scientists were fudging their data to match expectations. The Millikan Oil Drop Experiment is still studied in fundamentals of science class.[0] If climate scientists are constantly revising their predictions upward, then this is equally "proof" that climate scientists are under pressure to revise their estimates downward. Far from being "alarmist," such terms are actually cudgels used to discourage climate scientists from making their data look too bad. The result is the predictable fudging of climate data to look better than it really is. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment#Millikan's_experiment_as_an_example_of_psychological_effects_in_scientific_methodology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment#Millikan's...
- SV_BubbleTime 8mo agoWhat about the possibility that the models so far have always been wrong and if they wrong in the wrong direction you would never hear about them?
- schiffern 8mo agoPrecisely, it's just a selection effect. There's always uncertainty, and scientists are heavily incentivized to "prune" models that show large effect sizes. The result is the observed systematic underestimations, punctuated by (suspiciously monotonic) upward revisions any time the new data comes out.
- lifis 8mo agoAt least considering only temperature, it seems changes are never going to be irreversible since both stratospheric aerosol injection and intentional nuclear winter should always be able to cool down global temperatures
- 1attice 8mo agoWe can stop saying "risk" at this point. Just "the hothouse Earth's trajectory" is fine
- kunley 8mo agoOne of the solutions is to stop the ai hype, as the excessive electrical needs it creates are obviously not helping with the climate.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 8mo agoCarbon tax. Stop subsidizing fossil fuels.
- daverol 8mo agoWhen I want to motivate myself I look at this https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/the-scariest-climate-plot-in-the https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/the-scariest-climate-plot-...
- profsummergig 8mo ago> During the mid-to-late Pleistocene (∼1.2 million to 11,700 years before present) ... with temperatures ranging roughly between −6°C and +2°C relative to the pre-industrial mean of ∼14°C Does this mean during mid-to-late Pleistocene it used to be -6C to +2C, or does it mean it used to be 8C to 16C? (If the former, then how did early humanoids, and many other animals, survive such cold?)
- Ensorceled 8mo agoThe later, "−6°C and +2°C relative to" is relative to the mean of 14.
- david-gpu 8mo agoThe latter. I suggest reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology#Reconstructing_ancient_climates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology#Reconstructin...
- jdmoreira 8mo agoJust price in the externalities and it probably solves itself
- an-allen 8mo ago[flagged]
- codeulike 8mo agoThe sun expands and gets hotter Yes, in approx 4 billion years. I agree that is a concern but I think we should also pay some attention to some of the problems we will be facing in a timescale somewhat shorter than billions of years.
- betaby 8mo agoLet's compare two countries at the same level of development. Canada has 14 tonnes carbon footprint per person. Canada is a cold country. France has 8 tonnes carbon footprint per person. Climate is way warmer. We can't continue adding population and the wondering what is going on.
- kieranmaine 8mo agoThe bull case is solar and batteries are only going to get cheaper so the speed of the transition will increase. * Australia's renewables generation increased from 13.7% in 2015 to 42.9% in 2025 [1] * EIA: 99%+ of new US capacity in 2026 will be solar, wind + storage [2] * Wind and solar overtake fossil power in the EU for the first time in 2025 [3] 1. https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=all&interval=1y&view=discrete-time&group=Simplified https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=all... 2. https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/eia-99-of-new-us-capacity-in-2026-will-be-solar-wind-storage/ https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/eia-99-of-new-us-capacity-in-... 3. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/european-electricity-review-2026/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/european-electricit...
- Animats 8mo agoThe CO2 graph over decades is painfully clear.[1] From 321ppm in 1970 to 428ppm in mid-2005, measured in Hawaii atop Mauna Loa, far from any major CO2 sources. Everything else is noisy and statistical, but the CO2 measurement increases very steadily. [1] https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
- krashidov 8mo agoYes, and the scary thing is that soon the atmospheric carbon PPM will be high enough to start affecting how we think, act, and feel on a day to day basis.
- Animats 8mo agoSurprisingly, no. Humans adapt to higher CO2 concentrations over a period of days to weeks. Submarines run as high as 5000ppm, which is way above normal atmospheric concentration.[1] Many indoor environments are above 1000ppm. This seems to be like high altitude adaptation. It's going back and forth between concentrations that causes problems at moderate concentrations. The adaptation doesn't happen. [1] https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/11170/chapter/5#51 https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/11170/chapter/5#51
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- _kulang 8mo agoI think the answer to this is ultimately economic, and that people will only change their habits when it comes down to what costs them money. Naturally this is because culturally, we have defined our life in this way, and those who value money benefit from the existing culture. People who treat money as the only resource they need to navigate life stand to lose when things get expensive, but stand to lose even more when other forms of resource (energy, family connections, community) are needed. As an extension of this I think extreme wealth inequality won’t ever be solved by a more equal distribution of money, and only can be solved by a devaluing of money as compared to other resources and thus a reduction in the power that money has. It’s not surprising then that billionaires end up spending their money on what gives them more control rather than what is a sensible monetary decision, like Musk purchasing Twitter.
- josefritzishere 8mo agoMaybe putting sociopaths in charge of the government and the world economy was a bad idea.
- tim333 8mo agoPlaying devil's advocate, if you look at the temperature graphs up to now, ignoring the future projections, the temperature has regularly fluctuated to hotter than we have it now (~2C more) and then fallen back (6 less). There must be some stabilizing factors that cause it to do that. Maybe that'll kick in again?
- mitthrowaway2 8mo agoSometimes this process involves killing off a good portion of the multicellular life on Earth, but sure, maybe that'll kick in again.
- acuozzo 8mo agoAt -4C Boston was under literally 1 mile high of ice compared to the current skyline.
- GMoromisato 8mo agoThis is 100% uninformed opinion (sorry, HN) but allowing climate action to become a political issue (and a losing political issue at that) was the core mistake the environmental movement made in the 90s and beyond. If we had created a broad-based constituency for climate action, say, working with industry to build nuclear power or supporting natural gas to displace coal or even funding more conservative think tanks, then we'd be in better shape. A microcosm of this was local and federal politicians driving Elon Musk to the Republicans. Labor issues and regulatory roadblocks took precedence over supporting Tesla, forcing Musk to seek Trump as an ally. This immediately poisoned Tesla's reputation with liberals and probably set back adoption of EVs in the West. If climate change is really an existential issue, then we should be willing to compromise on non-existential issues to build a broader coalition. But no one is in the mood for that.
- scoofy 8mo ago> but allowing climate action to become a political issue What the hell are you talking about? What?!? This entire issue was a solved problem with a simple carbon tax (which is a conservative leaning policy) and then one party decided their strategy was going to be deny, then delay, then pose it as a fait accompli. I was pretty damn conservative on a lot of issues when I started college... as it became more and more clear to me -- from taking earth science classes -- that climate change was very obviously happening and that we've known about it since the 1960s and that no serious person trying to suggest that it's not being made worse by human activity, that's when I started to thing that the Republicans were not going to take this issue seriously, ever. Any centrist or conservative person who takes the issues seriously has no idea what to do because on party just decided to just say "lol, who cares." How in the hell is that environmental movement's fault!?! You look at the UK and environmentalism is not a partisan issue. Here, we have idiots holding snowballs in congress trying to score cheap political points.
- GMoromisato 8mo agoI think what you're saying is conservatives should have support climate action (like a carbon tax). Obviously, they did not, however. The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support? The problem wasn't getting liberals to support action, it was getting conservatives to support it. Therefore, we needed to do something to appeal to conservatives.
- phkahler 8mo agoI dont understand this line of reasoning at all. The holocene looks like the most recent in a cycle of short warming periods that has been going on for over 1M years. There is little reason to think its stable. One could argue that we should push warming to prevent the coming glaciation. I rather suspect that would hasten it instead, but the runaway hot house thing is not supported by the historic record. Perhaps the collapse of the AMOC is what tips it. Either way, saying its the most whatever in 125K years is irrelevant since we should be aiming for conditions from before the ice age. If you frame it in the longer history briefly mentioned in the article it looks quite different.
- jaco6 8mo ago[dead]
- TrackerFF 8mo agoOne massive mistake scientists made, was to market it as "global warming". Every climate-denier I've ever met, has pulled out the "If the earth is getting warmer, why are our winters still so cold? Check mate" card. I live in a colder climate area, and every. single. time. we get some cold weather, these people will come crawling out of the woodwork to point out that "global warming is hoax!" And, unfortunately, due to the extreme rise of populism the past 10 years, the "climate change is a hoax" mentality has been allowed to prosper.
- padjo 8mo agoYes scientists made a mistake by calling something what it us. Definitely not the morons who don't understand the difference between weather and climate.
- prohobo 8mo agoIn this thread people talking about a civilization-scale collective action problem that we've never come close to solving, and telling us to use paper straws or regulate the oil industry. The only even theoretical solutions are: - A magically effective totalitarian state that watches everyone inside a panopticon. - Magically undo the damage with a technological breakthrough. - Immediately leave Earth.