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If we don’t do something about this, I fear future generations will not view us in a positive light.
by cebert 3mo ago
If we don’t do something about this, I fear future generations will not view us in a positive light.
- Arubis 3mo agoWe _are_ doing something about this. We’re locating concentrated millions of years of trapped fossil energy and moving it into our atmosphere as fast as we possibly can. To a first approximation, that is the world economy. Or did you mean to do something differently?
- dunWithIt 3mo agoWe have to do less There has been a lot of debate over AC use. Everyone chiming in only discusses runtime energy use. The biggest issue is mining and manufacturing, and the moving of all the materials, parts, and such. Every AC has sheathed wires and circuit boards. Every airplane, car, phone, network router, refrigerator... same expansive mess creation. Gamers complaining about disc less games despite that problem pipeline and waste. Complaining about RAM prices despite the problem pipeline. No one is focused on the lag effects, externalities, of billions using up an endless supply of technologies and dumping airplane smog in the atmosphere. Etc, etc, etc Thermodynamics makes it pretty clear that energy is not gone just hanging out in the atmosphere. Thermodynamics means we may be fucked even if we slow down; that energy in the atmosphere can only go from atmosphere into oceans, glaciers, and permafrost. There's a lot of potential energy in the Earth to release as it absorbs the heat already in the atmosphere
- kennywinker 3mo ago> Gamers complaining about disc less games despite that problem pipeline and waste. Tbf the issue is the user-hostile parameters of buying a diskless game. Most people would be happy to download their games if they could back them up to a thumb drive and never get locked out of them and sell the game when they’re done with it. Seems deeply tangential, but it’s not. Blaming people for wanting a physical thing because the alternative is being further abused by a corporation - that’s a miss. Be mad at game platforms for not offering real ownership in whatever the most climate-friendly way possible. Be mad at governments for not forcing companies to cost in the negative externalities of their business.
- cherrycherry98 3mo agoIf you want less of something, tax it. Support consumption based taxes like the FairTax in the US which would tax new goods at a high rate while used goods would be tax free. This encourages keeping items for longer, repairing rather than replacing, and purchasing used goods over new ones.
- dunWithIt 3mo agoOh well ok I will get right on raising taxes. So simple I should have done it sooner. FairTax is regressive and does nothing to stop a trillionaire from launching dick rockets to nowhere. Each rocket and launch using more resources than a poor person will their entire life.
- cherrycherry98 3mo agoNot sure why the snarky response, obviously most people have very little direct influence over these things. So you oppose green tax policy on the grounds that it isn't punitive enough against rich people? A rich person living a miserly life would pay little in taxes, I see no problem with that. I assume that you are alluding to someone specific with the rocket launching trillionaire quip. That would be the same person who helped make electric vehicles viable and also helped develop reusable rockets, far greener than one time use ones, no?
- Alpha3031 3mo agoI don't think having rich people pay more taxes relative to their income should be considered punitive. Progressive taxation has a long history going back to the first modern income taxes in the 18th or 19th centuries on the basis that low income people have a more reduced capacity to pay (due to non-discretionary spending on necessities being a higher portion of income when it is lower) and I think it's reasonable to expect it out of taxes. Though, I do recognise that having one regressive tax wouldn't necessarily make the entire tax-and-transfers system regressive (or even more regressive, if that tax money is spent).
- dunWithIt 3mo ago
- florakel 3mo agoI totally agree with you that our unhinged consumption behavior is the core problem. And with AI we stepped on the accelerator again. But regarding your second statement. The actual problem is the greenhouse effect of CO2 and Methane in the atmosphere which traps the suns energy in our atmosphere heating up oceans, ice and landmass. The heat we produce is negligible compared to the energy the sun sends every day. The greenhouse gases are the problem. And you are right, pulling away that blanket so that more heat can dissipate into space will take a looong time (growing trees) or cost an insane amount of (clean) energy, reversing the chemical processes of burning oil, gas and coal.
- dunWithIt 3mo agoRight; I already covered that explaining the runtime energy use of tech is not the real issue. It's the endless production.
- gpt5 3mo agoBoth Europe and US's emissions are significantly (18%-30%) below their peak (which was 20 years ago. The rest of the world is also moving towards renewables.
- hn_throwaway_99 3mo agoHow much of that is just outsourcing much of our industry to Asia/etc.?
- enraged_camel 3mo agoYes, this is the right question to ask. A lot of the decrease in emissions in Western nations is the equivalent of dumping your trash in a lot across town. Sure it's "gone", but only in a technical sense.
- gpt5 3mo agoAsia is also moving towards renewables.
- tonyedgecombe 3mo agoNot as much as people would have you believe.
- karmakurtisaani 3mo agoWhat a terrible answer.
- tonyedgecombe 3mo agoUS imports represent approximately 14% of GDP, exports is about 11%. So net imports represents about 3% of GDP. Assuming emissions are roughly proportional to spending the US is exporting 3% of its emissions.
- hn_throwaway_99 3mo ago
- alephnerd 3mo ago> If we don’t do something about this... We can't. We're too late. China (13 GT), the US (4.6 GT), and India (3 GT) alone represent 51% of global carbon emissions - and at least in India's case, it is growing at a rate of 5%. Throw in other large polluters like Russia (2 GT), Indonesia (0.8 GT), Iran (0.8 GT), KSA (0.6 GT), Brazil (0.5 GT), and Vietnam (0.5 GT) whose rate of carbon emissions is growing in the 5-10% range and you see there is no path forward. Any amount of de-carbonization that China or the collective West does is automatically negated by the other countries I listed. At best global carbon emissions stagnate - which by default is going to lead to a 2-3 °C increase in temperatures.
- cute_boi 3mo agoDespite all the pollution, 24% of Indians live below the lower-middle-income poverty line of $4.20 per day...
- alephnerd 3mo agoYes, and? That's why nothing will happen. Developing countries like India, Indonesia, and Vietnam are continuing to expand their emissions as they industrialize. All are expected to have an GDP growth rate in the 6-8% range over the next decade, as will their peers across Asia, so the carbon footprint globally will only increase. Even China's emissions rate aren't decreasing - they're stagnant, which is a good shift, but not enough to turn the tide given how large China's existing carbon footprint is. Edit: can't reply > but they're not going to expand by taking on coal and fossil fuels... India [0], Vietnam [1], and other large industrializing nation in Asia have all doubled down on expanding coal usage over the last 6 months. And that's ignoring increased usage of NatGas and Oil. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-will-use-more-coal-over-next-25-years-report-says-2026-02-10/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-will-use-more-... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/vietnam-looks-more-coal-power-plants-iran-war-complicates-lng-plans-2026-07-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/vietnam-looks-more-c...
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- cute_boi 3mo agoI have already accepted that there is nothing plebs can do about climate change. I can try hard by using public transport, using less plastic, and using less air conditioning, but all of those efforts are rendered useless by rich people going on vacation in yachts or private planes. And if you talk about reducing meat consumption, Americans will go mad, lol. Ordinary plebs trying to prevent climate change is like subtracting $100 from a billion dollars - it does not make any meaningful difference.
- reed1234 3mo agoBut 800B dollars would matter. And you can vote.
- myaccountonhn 3mo agoThey're not rendered useless. Do you argue the same way about voting too? Ultimately consumption is 2/3s of all emissions, and the majority of it is not billionaires.
- defrost 3mo agoAre you saying that no billionaire profits from the consumption of others? And, if some do, do they not maximise that profit by seeking to maximise the consumption of others?
- myaccountonhn 3mo agoI say no such thing.
- therealdrag0 3mo agoAre you saying no pleb wants to consume? Are you saying no pleb demands more product? Are you saying no pleb wants their polluting employer to continue so they have a job? Are you saying no pleb chooses to lower cost but more polluting options at every turn?
- plqbfbv 3mo ago> Ordinary plebs trying to prevent climate change is like subtracting $100 from a billion dollars - it does not make any meaningful difference. It stops making any difference if everyone stops trying. You compare this to subtracting $100 from a billion, but a billion dollars is composed of 10 million $100, and there's only a few rich people in those 10 million.
- JumpCrisscross 3mo agoYou may enjoy Ian McEwan's What We Can Know: "Civilization as we know it ends. A pair of scholars in 2120, risking death from roving predatory gangs, travel across what’s left of England in search of a long-lost, epoch-making poem titled 'A Corona for Vivien.' They are the last, it seems, historians alive" [1]. (It's less apocalyptic than this makes it seem, at least relative to the modern apocalyptic genre à la Mad Max.) [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/books/review/ian-mcewan-what-we-can-know.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/books/review/ian-mcewan-w...
- crystal_revenge 3mo agoOn the path we're on I don't think we'll have to worry too much about future generations. The EU has already seeing 10,000 excess deaths from climate changed caused heat waves and this is a minuscule taste of what's to come. A very large percentage of mass extinction events have their roots in increased atmospheric CO2, but all of them on dramatically increased time scales. The closest thing in the history of the planet to what's happening to day was PETM [0] and that was only a lessor extinction event because the Earth was already quite warm (for example, there was already no polar ice at the time). 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_thermal_maximum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_therm...
- therealdrag0 3mo agoHow many excess deaths from cold?
- goatlover 3mo agoHow many die from cold in the summer?
- apothegm 3mo agoSince climate change is making extremes worse, not just causing warming… likely more than baseline.
- therealdrag0 3mo agoHere’s some real data. https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/heat-cold-deaths https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/heat-cold-deaths
- antisthenes 3mo agoThe excess deaths from heat/cold are a rounding error compared to the demographic crisis in developed countries. People aren't getting together and having children at even replacement rate (2.1) The OECD developed countries population basically peaked a few years ago, even including migration. After the peak, they're on track to lose 300-350 million people in the following 40-50 years.
- elchief 3mo agoThey'll be too dumb from CO2 poisoning to understand the problem!
- weregiraffe 3mo agoYou shouldn't care about how imaginary people view you.
- solumunus 3mo agoCurrent generations don’t view us in a positive light.
- FranzFerdiNaN 3mo agoI’m already do not view our own and the previous generations in a positive light.
- AlecSchueler 3mo agoAt this point I'll be happy if there are future generations with the capacity to look back and understand what happened.
- insane_dreamer 3mo ago> If we don’t do something about this we were sorta going to do something about it, but then we invented LLMs and now nobody cares because $$$ and AI is shiny > I fear future generations will not view us in a positive light. you can be sure that they already will curse us