2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record • Hacker News Board

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#211

Post by rodgerd » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 12:52 AM UTC

tahssa wrote: post #77

My 3 wishes.... 1. Every person on the planet should have a carbon consumption rating and have exponential taxes applied accordingly. 2. Automobiles should be banned from cities, roads should be turned into parks maybe with some commuter trains. 3. The top 62 richest people on the planet should give their money over to make wish number 1 and 2 come true. ;)

> 2. Automobiles should be banned from cities, roads should be turned into parks maybe with some more with commuter trains.

I hope you don't mind not making it to hospital in a medical emergency.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#212

Post by mikeash » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 12:54 AM UTC

DasIch wrote: post #169

jupiter90000 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go [1]. If you don't want to read the whole thing, a relevant part: "News media is tightly entwined with the attention economy. Newspapers try to capture people’s attentions through headlines. TV and radio stations try to entice people to not change the channel. And, indeed, there is a long history of news media leveraging fear to grab attention, often with a reputational cost." [1] http://www.poynter.org/20…

This argument ignores the overwhelming scientific evidence. There is no one who deserves to be taken seriously arguing that climate change doesn't exist or isn't caused by humans.

This really should not be downvoted. It's absolutely true. Yes, there are good reasons politicians and news organizations would want to peddle fear. But in this particular case, the origin of the fear is the work of thousands of smart people who have made it their life's work to study this stuff, and they almost all come up with the same answers over and over and over again.

The media wants to scare us? Sure. Politicians? No doubt. But tell me why (and how!) all these climate scientists would want to predict disaster when there isn't any.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#213

Post by mikeash » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 1:02 AM UTC

sago wrote: post #64

So next year, when there's a modest decrease in global temperature (as per regression to the mean, even if the mean is monotonically increasing), the climate skeptics will be out in force with their 'I told you so - it goes up and down'. Such a huge record seems like good news for climate change deniers, just deferred.

Maybe 2015 was the regressing to the (increasing) mean after slower increases before, rather than 2015 being an unusual spike.

Certainly what you describe seems to have happened after the record hot year of 1998, though. It sure would be nice if we could all stop trying to play silly "gotcha" games and get on with the serious business of figuring out 1) what's happening and 2) what to do about it.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#214

Post by tahssa » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 1:02 AM UTC

rodgerd wrote: post #211

tahssa wrote: post #77

My 3 wishes.... 1. Every person on the planet should have a carbon consumption rating and have exponential taxes applied accordingly. 2. Automobiles should be banned from cities, roads should be turned into parks maybe with some commuter trains. 3. The top 62 richest people on the planet should give their money over to make wish number 1 and 2 come true. ;)

> 2. Automobiles should be banned from cities, roads should be turned into parks maybe with some more with commuter trains. I hope you don't mind not making it to hospital in a medical emergency.

Where there's the will there's a way.

If you can't bring me to the hospital then bring the hospital to me. We would just need many more doctors and better/bigger electric drones.

Amazon can figure it out - I'm sure of it.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#215

Post by nikdaheratik » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 1:04 AM UTC

flubert wrote: post #159

orf wrote: post #17

It sounds bad but I'm very unoptomistic about our chances of stopping this. There is just too much pollution and too little meaningful global cooperation. Just imagine if Trump did get into office as well...

I don't know if anyone else is like this, but I can't help but be slightly amused, when in the same thread that some people are thinking that this is a lost cause, other's are claiming the the exponential growth of solar and wind power will ensure nuclear's niche status (and which seems to imply that the problem is essentially already solved, we just have to wait a decade or two, "global cooperation" or not).

The problem of us using fossil fuels is essentially solved over a long enough timeline (60-100 years). The issue with global warming is that the amount of warming that can happen before it triggers certain irreversible events is on a shorter timeline than this (25-40 years).

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#216

Post by pdkl95 » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 1:05 AM UTC

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #194

ps4fanboy wrote: post #32

Nuclear Power, until those who care about the environment accept that the only clean at scale power solution for base load is nuclear power we will get no where. "Renewables" are great and should be in the mix but they are not an at scale solution. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/source... By going mostly electric for our transportation and nuclear for power generation we could really make a den…

> nuclear power bla bla global warming bla bla Chernobyl? Fukushima? The technology has the potential of destroying huge areas for good. Do we want that? A complex system that is attacked on multiple threat vectors is likely to fail - no matter how many redundandancies are put into safety. I can tell you that from looking at CS/network security. A complete failure/breach of a big reactor is very costly.

> destroying huge areas for good

Even Chernobyl isn't destroyed for good, though it's still an expensive mess to clean up. Fortunately, nobody builds reactors with such an idiotic design (a positive void coefficient[1]).

The actual site at Fukushima Daiichi is going to to be a long, expensive cleanup, but that's about the extent of the damage. Concerns about the surrounding area is just radiophobia and an extreme overreaction by the Japanese government. With how incredibly destructive the tsunami was, Fukushima Daini (which was also badly damage by the tsunami) showed us how incredibly safe nuclear power can be.

> can tell you that from looking at CS

More CS people need to study the lesson of incidents like therac-25[2]. It's very important to learn what fail safe means, which is very possible to implement, usually by avoiding as much of that "complex system". I trust the inherent and engineered safety systems of a nuclear reactor much more than I would trust any software project - including my own.

> A complete failure/breach of a big reactor is very costly.

So are fly ash slurry spills. You're holding coal to the same standards, right?

[1] http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/chernobyl.html

[2] http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#217

Post by brc » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 1:10 AM UTC

orf wrote: post #201

brc wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part? Are you saying the roman or medieval warm periods dont exist?

The "It was warm 1000 years ago, so climate change is a lie" bit. Choice quote from the link: > "Even if the world were incontrovertibly warmer 1,000 years ago, it would not change the fact that the recent rapid rise in CO2 explains the current episode of warming more credibly than any natural factor does—and that no natural factor seems poised to offset further warming in the years ahead."

I didn't write any of that. You have inserted words into my argument and then gone on to debate something I didn't say.

There is no scientific argument about the fact that the roman and medieval periods were as warm or warmer than today, because there is a lot of evidence. Even the linked article acknowledged this fact.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#218

Post by MichaelMoser123 » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 1:18 AM UTC

pdkl95 wrote: post #216

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear power bla bla global warming bla bla Chernobyl? Fukushima? The technology has the potential of destroying huge areas for good. Do we want that? A complex system that is attacked on multiple threat vectors is likely to fail - no matter how many redundandancies are put into safety. I can tell you that from looking at CS/network security. A complete failure/breach of a big reactor is very costly.

> destroying huge areas for good Even Chernobyl isn't destroyed for good, though it's still an expensive mess to clean up. Fortunately, nobody builds reactors with such an idiotic design (a positive void coefficient[1]). The actual site at Fukushima Daiichi is going to to be a long, expensive cleanup, but that's about the extent of the damage. Concerns about the surrounding area is just radiophobia and an extreme ove…

Caesium 137 has a fucking halflife of 30.7 years. There is still a lot of that material in Ukraine and Belorussia. The economy and agriculture of both countries sustained severe damage as a result http://www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl/l-3/5-social-economic...

now were just very lucky that there was no full meltdown of the reactor core. Can you claim without flinching that this will never ever happen? I doubt it.

Just look up 'heroes of Chernobyl' - we were very close http://knowledgenuts.com/2014/04/13/when-three-divers-swam-i...

The fact that an accident of similar magnitude happened after Chernobyl sort of invalidates the point that it was all exclusively due to faulty reactor design.

In Germany this assessment led to a full shutdown of all nuclear power plants.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#219

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 1:18 AM UTC

pdkl95 wrote: post #216

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear power bla bla global warming bla bla Chernobyl? Fukushima? The technology has the potential of destroying huge areas for good. Do we want that? A complex system that is attacked on multiple threat vectors is likely to fail - no matter how many redundandancies are put into safety. I can tell you that from looking at CS/network security. A complete failure/breach of a big reactor is very costly.

> destroying huge areas for good Even Chernobyl isn't destroyed for good, though it's still an expensive mess to clean up. Fortunately, nobody builds reactors with such an idiotic design (a positive void coefficient[1]). The actual site at Fukushima Daiichi is going to to be a long, expensive cleanup, but that's about the extent of the damage. Concerns about the surrounding area is just radiophobia and an extreme ove…

[deleted]

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#220

Post by InclinedPlane » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 1:18 AM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #76

InclinedPlane wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total CO2 emissions by countries, 2014: US 5.3 Gt China 10.5 Gt India 2.3 Gt Yeah, China and India are totally relevant to global CO2 emissions. The global climate doesn't give a damn about how many people are responsible for a given quantity of emissions, it's completely and utterly uncaring.

This isn't how math works. Averages matter. What the world doesn't give a damn about is country borders. Also, enough with the blame game. All three countries have to put in all possible efforts.

> Also, enough with the blame game. All three countries have to put in all possible efforts.

That's the point. Some people seem to think that shouldn't be the point. But it has to be. There's only one biosphere, nobody gets a free pass for carbon emissions just because some other country had higher per capita emissions in 2015, that's not how that works.