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Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

nytimes.com

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Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#191

Post by ericd »

gamblor956 wrote: post #178
jerf wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harvey? The hurricane that was the first to make landfall after 12 years of no hurricanes? After we were repeatedly explicitly promised increased hurricanes because of global warming? The one that Wikipedia lists as merely a category 4 and looms large in your mind simply because of where it happened to hit? Did anyone ever admit their predictions about increased hurricanes during those 12 years were wrong? I never sa…

And I remember wildfires in California when I was a kid, too. Except now probably about 10 million people live closer to them and like to build houses in the way of them. (Oh, and let's not forget how many of those fires turn out to be less about "global warming" and more about arson. After a certain point, dry is just dry.) The problem isn't what sets the fire. It's that the heat dries out the forests, making any fi…

How much of that is also due to improved fire fighting causing more fuel buildup than is natural?

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#192

Post by tzs »

yesyesno wrote: post #33

Ouch. I read this and I am completely confused about what to do with the rest of the time I have left. Should I even bother with my current career in tech, or would it be better to quit it and do something that could have even a slight impact now? These articles are great, but preaching to the choir. What should any of us do? I'm seriously and sincerely asking. Are there any suggestions, from a personal stand point i…

If you are in the United States, participate in Republican primaries in support of Republican politicians who acknowledge that climate change is a problem that we cannot ignore and need to start seriously acting on.

There are in fact Republican politicians who support effective measures to address climate change that are compatible with traditional Republican market-based, conservative principles, such as a revenue neutral carbon tax, but they are greatly outnumbered by the ones who think climate change is fake or is just natural cycles that will swing the other way on their own and that we cannot influence anyway.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#193

Post by jellicle »

currymj wrote: post #171
yesyesno wrote: post #33

Ouch. I read this and I am completely confused about what to do with the rest of the time I have left. Should I even bother with my current career in tech, or would it be better to quit it and do something that could have even a slight impact now? These articles are great, but preaching to the choir. What should any of us do? I'm seriously and sincerely asking. Are there any suggestions, from a personal stand point i…

As far as I can tell, we are reasonably certain that the effects of climate change will be very bad. It’s hard to say exactly what will happen, though. The truly apocalyptic predictions are just not very likely. We are not going to be boiled alive or turn into Venus or whatever. It’s not going to get so hot that all plant matter catches on fire.

No scientist is predicting that "all plant matter will catch on fire". In fact I've never heard anyone predict that.

If we do nothing, within the next 80 years large parts of the currently inhabited planet will be uninhabitable by humans, however. That's a sort of apocalypse. It's also the consensus view of scientists who study the global pollution epidemic.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#194

Post by jellicle »

frockington wrote: post #135
kerbalspacepro wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have reason to believe it's happening now! Besides the AGW signal in the temperature spread, there's now a AGW signal in hurricane behavior and precipitation patterns. It's happening now! That's the point of the article! Did you even read it?

We have reason to believe that ice caps will melt and NYC will be underwater by 2012. - An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth - which was released in 2006 - does not say anything like your supposed quote. Don't lie.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#195

Post by ForHackernews »

catawbasam wrote: post #104
pier25 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we are too late. Emissions affect the climate decades later, some 40 years later. So we're now only seeing the consequences of the emissions from the 70s-80s. We've emitted more CO2 since the 80s to today, than the previous 150 years.

Too late for what? Yes, there are going to be more impacts. No, it won't mean the extinction of humanity or life on Earth. There still better or worse. Choose better.

If the entire world went to zero carbon emissions tomorrow, the effects would still be serious. Given that's not going to happen, the effects are likely to be catastrophic.

You're right that it won't mean the extinction of life on earth or humanity, but it might turn out to be the end of advanced human civilization if the bad end of the predictions come to pass. If there's not enough arable land left to support the human population, things will get very ugly very quickly.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#196

Post by mikestew »

It's weird, reading that article reminds me about all of that talk in the 80s. It was a real, undebated (for the most part as far as my bubble went) thing, the question was, "what are we going to do about it?" Ideas were put forth, etc.

And then it's like we talked ourselves out of it. Then someone found an old copy of Time magazine at a yard sale, and said, "aha! See, they can't make up their minds!" No, "their minds" were kind of made up, don't let a crap article from a weekly news magazine sway you.

I haven't finished the article; I'll do that tonight, because I'm kind of curious in NYT's take on why we changed our minds.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#197

Post by rwallace »

Okay, the article claims there was a lost opportunity to do something about the problem in the eighties, but reading the actual text, the presented historical facts (which are very interesting and very well presented!), I'm not seeing it. What I'm seeing is that the world was not ready to face the problem back then.

And it seems to me the reason why not is economic. At the end of the day, people care more about the roof over their heads than they do about global problems. In the eighties, we didn't have much by way of good substitutes for fossil fuel. So the message people heard was that they would have to accept economic hardship for the sake of the environment. That was not what people wanted to hear.

The lesson to learn from this is that we need to address the economic issues alongside the environmental ones. The message needs to not be that you must accept unemployment and poverty. The message needs to be that the task of transitioning the world to renewable energy is doable but enormous - and has the potential to create millions upon millions of jobs, as well as breaking the resource curse that decoupled the interests of the rulers from those of the people. That successfully turning our hands to the new energy industries will bring more prosperity than holding onto the old ones.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#198

Post by ianai »

rwallace wrote: post #197

Okay, the article claims there was a lost opportunity to do something about the problem in the eighties, but reading the actual text, the presented historical facts (which are very interesting and very well presented!), I'm not seeing it. What I'm seeing is that the world was not ready to face the problem back then. And it seems to me the reason why not is economic. At the end of the day, people care more about the r…

I think nothing will be politically viable until people, and large amounts of them, are hurt by encroaching waters or inhospitable land.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#199

Post by rwallace »

ianai wrote: post #198
rwallace wrote: post #197

Okay, the article claims there was a lost opportunity to do something about the problem in the eighties, but reading the actual text, the presented historical facts (which are very interesting and very well presented!), I'm not seeing it. What I'm seeing is that the world was not ready to face the problem back then. And it seems to me the reason why not is economic. At the end of the day, people care more about the r…

I think nothing will be politically viable until people, and large amounts of them, are hurt by encroaching waters or inhospitable land.

Maybe. But hundreds of millions of people have already been hurt by disappearing jobs and falling real wages. To say nothing about that is to let the narrative of sacrifice stand. I think it would be worth focusing on the potential to create jobs.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#200

Post by currymj »

jellicle wrote: post #193
currymj wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, we are reasonably certain that the effects of climate change will be very bad. It’s hard to say exactly what will happen, though. The truly apocalyptic predictions are just not very likely. We are not going to be boiled alive or turn into Venus or whatever. It’s not going to get so hot that all plant matter catches on fire.

No scientist is predicting that "all plant matter will catch on fire". In fact I've never heard anyone predict that. If we do nothing, within the next 80 years large parts of the currently inhabited planet will be uninhabitable by humans, however. That's a sort of apocalypse. It's also the consensus view of scientists who study the global pollution epidemic.

I would bet you and I evaluate the problem similarly, I think there are remote but plausible scenarios that are almost intolerably bad (and these become likely if we keep polluting).

But there are left-leaning but not scientifically literate people who honestly believe most life on Earth is already doomed.

This obviously leads to despair in their political thinking and personal lives. I’ve even heard of people contemplating suicide.

I don’t think this is warranted given what we know and the uncertainties involved. Humanity still has a future worth living for even in the most frightening scenarios.

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