Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#91

Post by NumberCruncher » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:22 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #76

yequalsx wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only viable, realistic solution is for people to stop having as many children as they currently do. The population of the planet is beyond carrying capacity at current levels of consumption.

That is too slow. We have a little more than twenty years at current production levels to stop producing GHGs [1]. Reducing the population (to 0?) takes a lot longer. [1] http://www.trillionthtonne.org/

>> Reducing the population takes a lot longer.

There are also involuntary reduction methods...

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#92

Post by guard-of-terra » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:23 PM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #13

cconcepts wrote: post #9

I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…

If I said that apples were the cause of global warming and that to avoid catastrophe you had to avoid eating apples it wouldn't worry you nearly as much, would it? I mean apples are delicious, but they aren't worth the misery that extreme weather will inflict on us. There are also a lot of people who depend on apple production to make a living. We would have to find some way for them to transition to something else f…

"misery that extreme weather will inflict on us"

This misery will be very unevenly distributed. Most people will trade one weather for another. Some will definitely benefit. A good portion will probably see their current place uninhabitable.

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#93

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:25 PM UTC

mnw21cam wrote: post #5

pluma wrote: post #2

IOW climate change is even worse than scientists anticipated.

You cannot make any conclusions about climate change from the temperature over such a short time span. Only a couple of years ago, people were saying that this climate change fad was a load of rubbish because the temperature had stabilised for a year or two. That's not how it works. Hot years and cool years will always exist. What climate scientists are very sure of now is that the long term average trend is upwards.…

[deleted]

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#94

Post by Scarblac » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:26 PM UTC

secult wrote: post #43

It's hot in summer, who would expect that?

14 consecutive, global hottest months ever (1)

So june last year, which was as much summer as this one was, was hotter than all previous junes, all of which were in summer. And this june was hotter.

1: in modern times, I assume

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#95

Post by CWuestefeld » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

Brakenshire wrote: post #77

gst wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the problem is that most sides in the discussion don't propose any viable solutions: On one side there are the climate change deniers (and the people who don't care about it). They are fine to continue business as usual. On the other side there are the people who are concerned about climate change. But instead of agreeing to effective solutions (compromises) that allow us to somewhat mitigate global warming (such…

I don't think the two sides you describe are correct, at least globally. In the UK, 70-80% of people agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening, and the Green party (who have the kind of position you're describing) only get 5% of the vote. You're presenting everyone who thinks that action needs to be taken as part of a much smaller, unrepresentative group. Also, I agree that flat blocking of nuclear is unre…

flat blocking of nuclear is unreasonable. But in my opinion disagreement on the issue is a relatively marginal issue in the general sweep of tackling climate change.

The new DNC platform coming out of the convention this week doesn't seem to agree with you. It focuses solely on renewable sources, sweeping nuclear under the carpet.

70-80% of people agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening

I don't understand why those concerned about climate change continue to insist on putting the word "anthropogenic" in there. It's mostly irrelevant to the conversation, and comes off as little more than finger-pointing. If there's a problem that needs to be addressed, whether it's caused by humans or not isn't really the issue. If there were an asteroid heading toward the earth, we wouldn't say "we didn't throw that rock at ourselves, so we'll ignore it". Likewise, the discussion over climate change should be on the climate change; trying to make the cause of the problem part of its name just creates additional contention.

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#96

Post by Noseshine » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:28 PM UTC

nathan_f77 wrote: post #70

Noseshine wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really answer the question though. You merely named a proxy - what you can do is support that other guy . It doesn't say what that other guy - the NGO - is supposed to do, it merely presupposes that the NGOs know what they are doing, without saying anything about what that is in concrete terms. I don't consider anything along the lines of "raising awareness" an answer, so just increasing the size of the…

Raising awareness of climate change is probably one of the most important things we can do right now. An incredibly large percentage of the world's population simply doesn't believe that climate change is a real problem, and then they vote for leaders who are also climate change deniers (or leaders who call it a Chinese conspiracy). It's a real problem.

Your answer is based on the assumption that numbers (of people) matter. However, it is the decisions of some very few people (compared to the overall population) that has orders of magnitude higher influence compared to the decisions of everybody else, so making the rest "aware" of whatever issue has next to zero influence.

That is simply the outcome of human society's organization for scalability and nothing nefarious.

An equivalent in the brain is that even thousands of synaptic connections to a neuron a few matter orders of magnitude more than all others, a handful of those can together trigger an action potential but if they don't contribute a graded potential it takes hundreds or even thousands of the others. In addition, the (much less numerous) inhibitory neurons have far greater weight than the excitatory ones, similarly in a human network key players have a much easier time blocking something than getting something to be done. In a network some nodes matter much more than others. You are better off identifying who actually matters instead of yelling into the forest. That approach also has the disadvantage of leading to disillusionment and in the end disengagement of those trying it because the results are meager.

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#97

Post by DennisP » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:36 PM UTC

ralfd wrote: post #25

madaxe_again wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't wish to sound defeatist, but I fear that we've already passed the point of no return for avoiding Very Serious consequences. We have fed massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere over the past decade, more than any decade in the past, and our rate of emission continues to increase. Admittedly the double delta (the rate of change of the rate of change) has now gone negative, but the fact remains that an en…

> more than any decade in the past, > Humans have survived ice ages - civilisations and societies have not, to our knowledge - humans will likely survive this - but this civilisation - who knows. From a historic perspective the CO2 were vastly higher for hundred of millions of years. Climate change will be a challenge (sea level rise for Calcutta, New York etc) but I doubt it will be a doomsday scenario.

Yes but when the CO2 was vastly higher, solar output was lower.

The last major CO2-related warming cycle was about 50 million years ago. Most life on the planet died off, with what survived mainly near the poles. Crocodiles swam in the Arctic.

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#98

Post by r_smart » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #82

r_smart wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to hold an opinion of hippies similar to yours. Then 1. I watched the documentary on Woodstock and saw the disaster they made out of that place and 2. Spent a lot of time around my cousin and her friends when she was in art school. My conclusion was that hippies aren't any better or worse than other people. They suffer the same flaws as everyone else. The downside is that they seem to put forward this air of h…

There are hippies and there are trend following hedonists. You are talking about the latter.

No true hippy?

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#99

Post by CWuestefeld » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

yequalsx wrote: post #63

gst wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the problem is that most sides in the discussion don't propose any viable solutions: On one side there are the climate change deniers (and the people who don't care about it). They are fine to continue business as usual. On the other side there are the people who are concerned about climate change. But instead of agreeing to effective solutions (compromises) that allow us to somewhat mitigate global warming (such…

The only viable, realistic solution is for people to stop having as many children as they currently do. The population of the planet is beyond carrying capacity at current levels of consumption.

The Malthusian argument is threadbare and false.

Humanity has always been on the brink of demise. We've always been barely able to feed our people. This took us from hunter-gatherers to the development of agriculture, on to irrigation, fertilization, terraced farming, crop rotation, selective breeding, genetic manipulation.

In terms of energy, as we depleted the forests of wood for burning, we've gone through similar transformations, learning to harness other means of light and heat like wax, whale oil, and so on.

It turns out that the greatest resource we have is not vegetable or mineral, it's the human mind. Intentionally shutting off the creation of new minds - the engines that are going to find the means of solving all the other problems - is counterproductive.

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#100

Post by vkou » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 1:42 PM UTC

s917 wrote: post #51

cconcepts wrote: post #9

I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…

How much stuff do we in the west consume that originates in China, where they don't seem to give a damn about environmental controls? And exactly how much CO2 and other chemicals are belched out by these giant container ships we use to get it all to us? We can buy all the solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars and energy efficient washing machines we want, but until China (and probably others) starts playing ball…

Almost all of it. We used to make it with little regard for the environment - now China does.

If you want to fix that problem, institute a carbon tax, and import tarrifs on countries that don't have carbon taxes.

Practically, with things like the TPP, that's not the way the world is going.