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IPCC: Climate scientists consider ‘life changing’ report

bbc.com

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Re: IPCC: Climate scientists consider ‘life changing’ report

#41

Post by lazyjones »

rotw wrote: post #37
lazyjones wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don‘t like alarmism. Most of it is simply proven wrong in the long term. People are good at adapting most of the time. For example, I got myself air conditioning in a country famous for skiing. People in poor countries will probably suffer much more, but they need to tackle their population growth issues anyway. In essence, there are life-changing problems affecting us every day (who would have thought 50 years ago…

> For example, I got myself air conditioning in a country famous for skiing. AC units are massive drivers of climate change. Honestly, this is a vile and selfish attitude.

> Honestly, this is a vile and selfish attitude.

I don‘t care about your assessment. You are free to live in humility, poverty, extreme heat, whatever - if you think it will make you a superior human being. I prefer having bearable temperatures where I live, sleep and have visitors, without having to beg and wait for the whole world to stop burning fossil fuels, eating meat etc.

Re: IPCC: Climate scientists consider ‘life changing’ report

#42

Post by shoo »

claydavisss wrote: post #23
lancewiggs wrote: post #2

Nothing is more important than getting our reaction to climate change right. It’s so frustrating that so few genuinely helpful companies are emerging out of our ecosystem. We can and must do better. And quickly.

What are you doing? If I must change, why not you? The people telling me to change must also change. People think this is an adolescent response but really, it boils down to us merely sneering at each other and not doing anything. edit: totally predicted...people are reacting with a simple question about actual change by downvoting my comment into Oblivion. You need no better explanation for our fate.

another slightly more palatable way of framing this is:

i don't want to change my lifestyle to lower carbon emissions, because that ends up being a net loss for me.

i want you to change your lifestyle to lower carbon emissions, because that ends up being a net win for me. that's right, i'm talking to all n billion of you!

what can i do to get you to agree to doing that? can i coerce you, or do we end up negotiating or trading?

Re: IPCC: Climate scientists consider ‘life changing’ report

#43

Post by lazyjones »

CalRobert wrote: post #32
lazyjones wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don‘t like alarmism. Most of it is simply proven wrong in the long term. People are good at adapting most of the time. For example, I got myself air conditioning in a country famous for skiing. People in poor countries will probably suffer much more, but they need to tackle their population growth issues anyway. In essence, there are life-changing problems affecting us every day (who would have thought 50 years ago…

"who would have thought 50 years ago that we‘d need barriers againt car attacks at all major public events" To be honest, we still don't need them. Obviously it's horrible but considering that we accept ~1.25 million people a year killed on the roads (~25k in the EU, 30-40k in the US, or about one 9-eleven a month) it's probably not the best ROI. Though to be honest I think we should put massive barriers between cars…

I don‘t really want to play this game of stupid comparisons. Because then we don‘t need treatments for many uncommon diseases either. It‘s a fact that people demand these barriers for their peace of mind and cities build them.

Re: IPCC: Climate scientists consider ‘life changing’ report

#45

Post by madaxe_again »

logancg wrote: post #29
madaxe_again wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have to adjust for the fact that most of what climate scientists publish is already conservative. Get them talking one-to-one and their predictions for the next decades are dire. Me, I take a pessimistic view - I don’t think you have to have a large percentage change in, say, crop production, or storm damage rebuilding costs, for economies to feel the effect - prices rise, labour is diverted from growth to m…

I'm curious: if you think so much about climate change and its effects, and even plan your actions and location around it, have you considered directing your energy to combatting climate change with your skills on a systemic level? (For example, building sustainability companies, being part of climate activism, earning-to-donate?) I'm in a similar spot but optimistic about systemic action.

I’m doing consultancy at a CTO level for a number of medium/large environmental technology companies while I travel, comprising everything from supply chain management around hazardous materials to sustainable living systems to pipeline management - and I’ve been contributing photography and footage to documentarians as I go.

I’m not optimistic about systemic action - the people taking it seriously don’t have the power to overcome a far more dominant system: our consumption-driven way of living, and the economies built around it. Mindshare may grow sufficiently in coming decades, but by then it’ll largely be too late, and that growth will likely come from more people witnessing and enduring the effects of climate change - and if we’re at that point, it’s already too late, as systemic collapse beckons as I laid out in my previous.

The climate is a chaotic system - it finds a metastable mode for a given set of inputs, and once moved by changing those inputs (e.g. CO2 ppm) from that point of stability can wander drastically before finding that point again. As forests die, as methane is belched from the thawing permafrost, as marine ecosystems collapse (everywhere is overrun by jellies - even Antarctica), as ice caps and glaciers melt, as coastal plains flood, as grassland turns to desert, core components of the current system of stability are yet further altered, thus pushing the current mode yet further from its stable point and making that stable point harder to reattain.

Like I said, get a climatologist talking in private, and it’s grim listening. They see the bigger picture in their work, but only publish studies on specific observations. Longitudinal studies end up being conservative otherwise they sound radically alarmist and don’t get published.

Anyhow. We should keep on playing while the ship sinks.

Re: IPCC: Climate scientists consider ‘life changing’ report

#46

Post by rotw »

lazyjones wrote: post #41
rotw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, I got myself air conditioning in a country famous for skiing. AC units are massive drivers of climate change. Honestly, this is a vile and selfish attitude.

> Honestly, this is a vile and selfish attitude. I don‘t care about your assessment. You are free to live in humility, poverty, extreme heat, whatever - if you think it will make you a superior human being. I prefer having bearable temperatures where I live, sleep and have visitors, without having to beg and wait for the whole world to stop burning fossil fuels, eating meat etc.

> I prefer having bearable temperatures where I live, sleep and have visitors,

What gives you the right to all that at the direct expense of the people who can't afford it?

Re: IPCC: Climate scientists consider ‘life changing’ report

#47

Post by Simon_says »

fabricexpert wrote: post #12
Simon_says wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the worst case scenario, global warming will not annihilate the human species. AI, nanotechnology, weaponized bioweapons, nuclear war, asteroid impacts, or alien contact could all potentially wipe out humanity.

Probably unlikely that those will wipe out humanity, at least we don't have any concrete evidence or examples of them (e.g. we have't built an AI that can do much yet, we don't have nanotech that will self replicate and kill us all, aliens have yet to show up etc.). Bioweapons seems unlikely to end humanity as someone will win the war, and personally I think MAD prevents widespread use. The only thing in your list th…

> Bioweapons seems unlikely to end humanity ...

I was more thinking an infectious agent that's modified to be particularly deadly.

I believe that the second law of thermodynamics implies with high probability that humanity will not last forever, so I don't think it's that unlikely that something will wipe us out.

Re: IPCC: Climate scientists consider ‘life changing’ report

#48

Post by rotw »

lazyjones wrote: post #40
dm319 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think alarmism is a retrospective assessment. We can probably say a lot of our reporting on current Western terrorism is alarmist - numbers wise, it didn't compare to road deaths or regular shootings. But global warming will be/is unprecedented and will affect the whole world. Immediate action is unlikely to reverse this process either. Your comment about population growth issues is disgusting.

> We can probably say a lot of our reporting on current Western terrorism is alarmist - numbers wise, it didn't compare to road deaths or regular shootings Because we have adapted. But how many are affected by the terror it involves? Terrorism = terrorizing people, not just murdering them. > But global warming will be/is unprecedented Erm, no. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hotte...

> Erm, no.

Why do you bother commenting on this if you just flat-out refuse to accept scientific evidence in the original post?

Re: IPCC: Climate scientists consider ‘life changing’ report

#49

Post by oceanghost »

dm319 wrote: post #28
lazyjones wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don‘t like alarmism. Most of it is simply proven wrong in the long term. People are good at adapting most of the time. For example, I got myself air conditioning in a country famous for skiing. People in poor countries will probably suffer much more, but they need to tackle their population growth issues anyway. In essence, there are life-changing problems affecting us every day (who would have thought 50 years ago…

I think alarmism is a retrospective assessment. We can probably say a lot of our reporting on current Western terrorism is alarmist - numbers wise, it didn't compare to road deaths or regular shootings. But global warming will be/is unprecedented and will affect the whole world. Immediate action is unlikely to reverse this process either. Your comment about population growth issues is disgusting.

In any other context, an obsession with the end of the world would be evidence of mental illness.

Re: IPCC: Climate scientists consider ‘life changing’ report

#50

Post by XorNot »

garmaine wrote: post #20
chinamarriage wrote: post #17

A key factor contributing to climate change is the number of people weighted by energy consumption. Should governments in rich countries encourage people to have fewer kids or otherwise constrain their life choices in various other ways? This goes against liberal values. What do most progressives think?

That's not a causal relationship.

Also most western countries are in negative population growth sans immigration.
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