Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#191

Post by jlawson » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:44 AM UTC

cthulha wrote: post #35

xupybd wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe trying to win over republicans would be better? The culture wars don’t help this issue.

What would win over republicans? I mean, if the survival of human civilisation isn't enough, what can you propose?

Stop crying wolf (about this issue at least) for a start.

1. Guardian: "President Obama has four years to save the Earth" (2009)

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/18/jim-hans...

Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added.

2. The Independent: "Snowfalls are now a thing of the past" (2000)

According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.

“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/12/one-of-the-longest-ru...

You can read more about the endlessly repeated warnings about "tipping points" that never come in this fairly partisan but well-researched blog article: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/08/the-ever-receding-cli...

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#192

Post by sien » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:45 AM UTC

marmaduke wrote: post #125

otabdeveloper2 wrote: post #60

> We have 12 years to prevent a climate catastrophe I don't know how old you are, but those of us over 20 remember that we had '12 years' 20 years ago. Somehow the prophesied catastrophe never arrives and the date gets perpetually pushed into the future. Looks like a secular Seventh Day Adventists.

any citation for that? I'm not saying you're wrong, but IPCC scientists aren't some sort youtube doomsday clan.

The IPCC hasn't said it in an official report. But Jim Hansen has said:

"Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/18/jim-hans...

The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, an engineer and economist from India, acknowledged the new trajectory. "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late," Pachauri said. "What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

from:

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/world/europe/18iht-climat...

There are a few lists around the place of people saying similar things. Those are just I could find easily without too much bother.

Edited to put the Hansen statement in.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#193

Post by marmaduke » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:46 AM UTC

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #132

We are past the point where we we can fix this with discussions & civil discourse. Not to say that we shouldn't try. But a leaflet campaigns and discussions aren't going to reduce emissions. The best solution would be not to have kids (too late for me) and adopt instead if you must, not to own a car, try to own as little as you can (it will make you happier too). Plant stuff, pick up gardening, go offline and go outs…

from the Joy article,

> Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control.

doesn't that describe our financial markets already?

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#194

Post by Carpetsmoker » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:52 AM UTC

buro9 wrote: post #45

netjiro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Earth has also been a lot warmer than it is now Key here is rate of change, and what humans can survive. We are changing the climate many many times faster than ever before. Nature does not have the time to adapt. And the wars, famines and mass displacements coming from ecosystem collapse is like nothing we've seen in human history. Think we have a problem with a few million migrants? Try a billion or two! P-T…

Earth will be fine. Life on Earth will be fine, but that life will be different to the life we have today. The only thing not fine is whether humans survive what they/we ultimately have brought about. But in there is a kind of beautiful justice that the universe has in it's self-correcting algorithm... if you create imbalance, the imbalance will correct in time but perhaps to do so it kills you. If we care about the…

> The only thing not fine is whether humans survive what they/we ultimately have brought about.

Humans will be fine, as a species. But the human and economic costs will be large.

Compare it to the Hurricane Katrina: most people in New Orleans weathered it fine (i.e. by evacuating the city). The city itself also survived mostly okay (it's still there). But the economic cost of cleanup was huge; and while most people survived without injury, many did not for various reasons.

The choice of "spend a bit of money now, save a Katrina later" versus "save money now, have a Katrina later" is pretty clear. Unfortunately in the case of Katrina we didn't have much of a choice, but for climate change we do. If we invest resources now we can save a lot of problems later on. Or we can spend our resources on other things now, and pay a huge price later.

Alarming "zomg we might all die" stuff isn't really all that helpful or likely to convince politicians or businesses to actually do something. It also invites the "meh, the earth has been warmer" counter-argument, which is missing the point. I think more level-headed risk analysis which lists potential costs/benefits is more useful.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#195

Post by marmaduke » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:54 AM UTC

sien wrote: post #192

marmaduke wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

any citation for that? I'm not saying you're wrong, but IPCC scientists aren't some sort youtube doomsday clan.

The IPCC hasn't said it in an official report. But Jim Hansen has said: "Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration,…

the first link doesn't make any statements just that the changes are alarming.

The second quote is more specific, but it doesn't say that inaction before 2012 will cause the world to end by 2018. If you've seen what IPCC suggests is required to stay at 1.5C, then that quote from 2007 reads as an understatement.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#196

Post by interfixus » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:56 AM UTC

seren wrote: post #187

interfixus wrote: post #181

I read 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was 11. That would have been 1971. The Moon shuttle, the space station, and the elctronic wizardry were okay by me. Even the monolith, though things did turn too weird for my taste towards the end (and I still agree with my younger self here). But one fundamental premise completely toppled my suspension of disbelief: That humanity would still seriously be here by the turn of the ce…

I understand your sentiment, but it boils down to : past catastrophic predictions were wrong so future catastrophic predictions are also going to be wrong. That does not reassure me one bit. Let's that the doomsday future is 100 millions people living in the Arctic circle. Maybe it is not that bad for people living in 2500, with AI, agricultural drones, floating cities. They might even have fusion and a moon base. Bu…

Not so much past catastrofic predictions were wrong as my past catastrofic fantasies were wrong. I see frequent commenting here on HN in the tone of the world is ending, we're all gonna die. They are no more and no less credible than my boyhood musings on 2001.

My comment wasn't meant to reassure. I take it for granted (my musings again!) that this century will bring terrible upheavals, unprecedented warfare, and probably a sharp decline in world population. It won't be peaceful, it won't be pretty. It will be history, business as usual, no matter if the planet grows hotter or colder. I'm far too old for optimism.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#197

Post by pimterry » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:56 AM UTC

kebman wrote: post #156

josho wrote: post #3

> Maybe corporations are the ones who can be pressured to take the lead. Yes. They absolutely will. But only after they have the right incentives. Those incentives can be created over night by having governments put in place a carbon tax. It gets even worse. If a large group of people reduced their energy consumption to help climate change it has the consequence of reducing demand and therefore energy costs will come…

Haha, sure! :D Carbon tax. Sounds legit! Here's what's gonna happen: Corporations just jack up prices accross the board according to the tax, and then everybody else gets to pay. And then nothing changes. It'll be like the sugar tax in Norway. Do you really think people are buying less sugar over here because of it? Get real! :D We're well past incentives. The change has to be law, and the law has to be protected wit…

> It'll be like the sugar tax in Norway. Do you really think people are buying less sugar over here because of it? Get real!

I can't speak for Norway, but in the UK the sugar tax has had a huge impact - a _majority_ of soft drink manufacturers have significantly reduced sugar in their products, to avoid them becoming unaffordable, and it's had a very noticeable effect.

The UK tax is still pretty new so it's difficult to get hard numbers on that, but sugar taxes in general are fairly well studied and have been very effective worldwide. https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2018.603 has a good summary, some highlights:

* "Overall 21.6% decrease in the monthly purchased volume of the higher taxed, sugary soft drinks"

* "People living in Philadelphia were 40% less likely to report consuming sugary drinks every day after the tax policy"

* "Mexico's 10% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages implemented in January 2014 is said to have led to a 5.5% drop in sugary drinks purchases by the end of that year and a further 9.7% fall in sales in 2015, yielding an average reduction of 7.6% over the study two-year period"

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#198

Post by clabauterman » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:56 AM UTC

marmaduke wrote: post #153

Related question: where could one find jobs related to climate change efforts? beyond walking, eating less meat, etc I might want to put my working hours in as well, but no idea who/what to look for.

That's actually something I want to know as well. I would like to work as a Developer to do good in the sense of avoiding climate change or saving nature. That's hard to find!

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#199

Post by titzer » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:57 AM UTC

buro9 wrote: post #45

netjiro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Earth has also been a lot warmer than it is now Key here is rate of change, and what humans can survive. We are changing the climate many many times faster than ever before. Nature does not have the time to adapt. And the wars, famines and mass displacements coming from ecosystem collapse is like nothing we've seen in human history. Think we have a problem with a few million migrants? Try a billion or two! P-T…

Earth will be fine. Life on Earth will be fine, but that life will be different to the life we have today. The only thing not fine is whether humans survive what they/we ultimately have brought about. But in there is a kind of beautiful justice that the universe has in it's self-correcting algorithm... if you create imbalance, the imbalance will correct in time but perhaps to do so it kills you. If we care about the…

> Earth will be fine. Life on Earth will be fine...

TBH statements like these really grate on me. Yes, Earth will be fine in the same sense that you'd be fine if you surgically removed your arms, legs, eyeballs, ears, and tongue and then were fed intravenously and your waste disposed of for you. You might live a long life and have lots of nice dreams.

The reality is that we are in early stages of kicking off a cascade of effects that could wipe out the majority of the food web on Earth--let's say, everything larger than your finger. Yeah sure, insects and microbes will reboot it all--in a hundred millions years, if ever. Wonderful!

To make such flippant remarks about so profoundly annihilating the bioversity of this very special planet is not helpful in the dialogue.

Let's please work on this problem seriously.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#200

Post by crc32 » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 9:59 AM UTC

If it's up to us, it's up to us:

- Invest in (or even set up, if you've got the skills) crowd funded solar projects like http://www.burnhamandwestonenergy.co.uk/ - as a charity or "community interest company"

- Donate/contribute to charities supporting reforestation - for example https://onetreeplanted.org/ or buy land, something like this: http://www.buybrazilland.com/rainforest-property-for-sale/

So there are existing organisations which offer these kinds of services; but there's no reason why a "charity startup" couldn't form to provide these kinds of services in a different way; more focussed on the climate change issue and with more of a social/viral element; to try and build the scale that would be necessary. If every twitter user contributed $10...