Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

edition.cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 124 posts

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#31

Post by ajmurmann »

avar wrote: post #8
akuji1993 wrote: post #2

I'm absolutely certain with governments moving this slow right now, making small goals for 2050, getting courted by lobbies to not push through massive restrictions, probably most of these very dark predictions will come true. I, as a concerned citizen can do nothing against the corporations ruling our society, overruling politicians or outright controlling them directly. We are probably beyond any point of return. T…

You as a concerned citizen can do plenty on your own. Most people could cut down their emissions and other environmental impacts by 50% easily if they really cared. The problem is that most people don't really care that much when push comes to shove, and in aggregate this is the reason for why we're moving so slowly on climate change.

It's the tragedy of the commons though. If I stop driving my car and go vegan, we won't see any measurable difference in climate change. The only measurable thing that happens is my quality of life going down. If enough people do it and we actually get a benefit I could even see Republicans arguing for more deregulation and balancing out all the sacrifice we made. The only practical solution is collective action. In fact I'd argue that non action of countries should be the number one reason for sanctions and if necessary military force. Our entire future is at risk here.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#32

Post by glhaynes »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #25
_juu5 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education would be a good start. Guess who can decide about what we are taught? Governments.

People know their personal largest impact is cars and meat. But personal convenience has always beaten doing the right thing.

The vast majority of people I know (Texas) couldn't live a productive life without a car. Some people certainly could but not most. Meat, though, they could definitely do without—and for most of them it'd be healthier.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#33

Post by sk5t »

Shoh3pif wrote: post #3
akuji1993 wrote: post #2

I'm absolutely certain with governments moving this slow right now, making small goals for 2050, getting courted by lobbies to not push through massive restrictions, probably most of these very dark predictions will come true. I, as a concerned citizen can do nothing against the corporations ruling our society, overruling politicians or outright controlling them directly. We are probably beyond any point of return. T…

> I, as a concerned citizen can do nothing against the corporations ruling our society Defenestrations, torches and pitchforks have been traditional solutions to rulers not acting in the interest of the populace. Of course more peaceful means are preferable but the option needs to be kept on the table to remember why we have and want democratic solutions in the first place.

It seems unlikely that the proletariat will overthrow the government because that government has not curtailed their own ability to buy plastic goods, drive a car, or set the air conditioning at 65F.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#34

Post by Sharlin »

martythemaniak wrote: post #14
akuji1993 wrote: post #2

I'm absolutely certain with governments moving this slow right now, making small goals for 2050, getting courted by lobbies to not push through massive restrictions, probably most of these very dark predictions will come true. I, as a concerned citizen can do nothing against the corporations ruling our society, overruling politicians or outright controlling them directly. We are probably beyond any point of return. T…

People blaming governments and corporations are merely using faceless scapegoats because the truth is too terrible to behold. Normal every day people don't really believe in climate change, don't really want to do anything and in fact don't have the dimmest clue as to what needs to be done, nor how to do that. I think dealing with the above fact is too much for people, so instead we simplify using familiar models and…

Eh. This is a coordination problem, probably the most difficult one humanity has encountered. Governments were basically invented to help solve coordination problems. 7.5 billion people don’t just start caring about the problem by themselves.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#35

Post by fallingfrog »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #29

I have been hearing this since the mid 1980s. I wouldn't have heard of it before, because before then scientists were telling us that the climate was going to get a lot cooler...

The "global cooling" thing is just throwing sand in our eyes- and you know it.

Everything you've heard about global warming has been true the whole time, and you haven't been listening. I keep trying to wrap my head around the worldview of someone whose commitment to ideology is so powerful that they are willing to condemn their grandchildren to such suffering. It has to be some kind of religious thing.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#36

Post by skywhopper »

avar wrote: post #8
akuji1993 wrote: post #2

I'm absolutely certain with governments moving this slow right now, making small goals for 2050, getting courted by lobbies to not push through massive restrictions, probably most of these very dark predictions will come true. I, as a concerned citizen can do nothing against the corporations ruling our society, overruling politicians or outright controlling them directly. We are probably beyond any point of return. T…

You as a concerned citizen can do plenty on your own. Most people could cut down their emissions and other environmental impacts by 50% easily if they really cared. The problem is that most people don't really care that much when push comes to shove, and in aggregate this is the reason for why we're moving so slowly on climate change.

There are limits to what individuals can do. Take automobile fuel efficiency. Cars these days are way more efficient and cleaner than they were fifty years ago, and they perform far better. Consumer choice would never have made this happen in response to market forces. You couldn't buy an efficient, high-performance car in the late 60s even if you wanted to. Companies needed an incentive to invest for the long-long term in technologies to improve the efficiency of their products. Short term price shocks weren't going to make that happen. Only multi-decade, ratcheting fuel-efficiency regulations that applied across the board and eliminated the risk to automakers for pursuing efficiency achieved our current state where we even _have_ the choice of buying cars that can achieve 50mpg or more with adequate performance.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#37

Post by jacobsheehy »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #25
_juu5 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education would be a good start. Guess who can decide about what we are taught? Governments.

People know their personal largest impact is cars and meat. But personal convenience has always beaten doing the right thing.

This is absolutely not true. People don't know that. Ask 2000 people on the street in a southern red state what their contribution to climate change is. I bet you get 0s back. "Taht fake thing isn't real" - "My car doesn't pollute you schmuck" - "the Earth is here for us to pollute it, that's what god said", etc.

People do not know that their largest personal impact is cars and meat. They just don't know that at all because 1) they don't know that climate change is real thanks to Fox and Exxon, and 2) they don't think that their habits matter. Your assumption that they do is dangerous and wrong.

Remember that Exxon Mobil has spent 40 years knowing about the dangers of climate change, but "educating" Americans through TV that it isn't a real threat. The primary education Americans get about this topic is from the megacorporations and mega rich people who are selling us polluting products with no alternatives, and is not a real education at all.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#38

Post by jihadjihad »

I really wish the more popular phrase were "global climate change" rather than "global warming." The delta in the mean might not appear to be huge (a few degrees C over a span of a century or two, perhaps), but the key concept is the variance or volatility of climate patterns.

As man-made climate change progresses, the average recorded temperature will likely continue to climb, sure--but the change in variance is far more significant in terms of the extreme events that will occur with increasing regularity.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#39

Post by malvosenior »

_juu5 wrote: post #20
martythemaniak wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People blaming governments and corporations are merely using faceless scapegoats because the truth is too terrible to behold. Normal every day people don't really believe in climate change, don't really want to do anything and in fact don't have the dimmest clue as to what needs to be done, nor how to do that. I think dealing with the above fact is too much for people, so instead we simplify using familiar models and…

Education would be a good start. Guess who can decide about what we are taught? Governments.

The most educated people I know take regular intercontinental flights and have huge carbon footprints. They also "hate" global warming but seem totally ignorant of their out sized role in producing it.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#40

Post by [deleted] »

0xfaded wrote: post #12
rntz wrote: post #6

> "hothouse" temperatures could stabilize 4°C to 5°C (39 to 41 Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial levels. A change of 4-5°C is a change of 7-9 degrees Fahrenheit, not 39-41.

Lol, looks like the Google result of "convert 4C to Fahrenheit". In the authors defence, it isn't their fault the Americans still use Fahrenheit.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN