Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#41

Post by Radim » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 5:33 AM UTC

fallingfrog wrote: post #4

To solve this crisis in 12 years would require overthrowing the government of every country with an industrial base and replacing them with much more progressive people. You can try if you want but I don't see it happening. As far as actually convincing people of global warming, the older generation will absolutely never believe it no matter how much evidence you present. They are truly lost. Change will only be poss…

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Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#42

Post by shard972 » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 5:35 AM UTC

emilsedgh wrote: post #13

shard972 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if the media managed to actually present the issue in a balanced way we wouldn't be here. Maybe if every dire prediction wasn't presented as fact and every criticism labeled as conspiracy theory and vica versa for a-lot of other outlets. Maybe if solutions like geo-engineering were at least discussed instead of the chorus of the media/politicians telling people that taxes and fees are THE ONLY SOLUTION to the c…

It seems that people really prefer to vote extreme people who take hard instance against situations instead of level-headed ones. We now have hundreds of years of experience regarding politicians. Maybe we have to teach politics in schools: On the methods the politicians have used to manipulate people and how to call them out. On the way we should measure politicians and what makes a good decision makes vs. a poor on…

Not really, it's just that the nature of democracy leads power to concentrate within two power centres. Just look at Australia over the last decade and you can see how even politicians who are in favour of carbon taxes will campaign against them one year and fight for them another based on the current political solution.

Hell for another issue, gay marriage. It was quite the sight to see the Deputy leader of the labor party who is openly gay vote against gay marriage legislation because the party had decided that wasn't the way they wanted to do it.

In any case, that doesn't account for the media which we don't vote for in any way.

Also just because we have centuries of experience with politics, it's about as developed as many of the other social sciences, which is to say very underdeveloped and at times heading backwards in it's understanding of the subject's truth.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#43

Post by cthulha » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 5:36 AM UTC

cletus wrote: post #11

So I'm honestly not as concerned about this as I once was. Don't get me wrong: the climate is going to change, arguably we're in a mass extinction event already and people aren't going to suddenly start acting in the collective long term welfare of humanity. One of the things I like about futurism is the levelheaded optimism and pragmatism you tend to get. And I'll call out Isaac Arthur as a well-known example of thi…

This seems like a psychological defence against anxiety/depression rather than an actual foundation for real action.

You're looking at big, broad patterns and assuming they will work out on the huge scales necessary for civilisation to continue. Other people are looking at the big broad patterns and assuming that cascading failures will make problems accelerate.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#44

Post by roryisok » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 5:36 AM UTC

cthulha wrote: post #35

xupybd wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe trying to win over republicans would be better? The culture wars don’t help this issue.

What would win over republicans? I mean, if the survival of human civilisation isn't enough, what can you propose?

Republicans (and the equivalent rich conservatives in other countries) believe that climate change is happening anyway, and that anyone who doesn't try to make money off it is an idiot. They don't buy the survival of the human civilization bit - they think it'll affect only poor people, and that the rich will be safe. And honestly, they're right, at least for what we'll see in their lifetimes. Poor people are going to die in their millions in the coming decades, and rather than seeing themselves as the cause of this they see themselves as protecting themselves and their friends and families against it by insulating themselves with money.

That's my theory anyway.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#45

Post by buro9 » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 5:40 AM UTC

netjiro wrote: post #21

cletus wrote: post #11

So I'm honestly not as concerned about this as I once was. Don't get me wrong: the climate is going to change, arguably we're in a mass extinction event already and people aren't going to suddenly start acting in the collective long term welfare of humanity. One of the things I like about futurism is the levelheaded optimism and pragmatism you tend to get. And I'll call out Isaac Arthur as a well-known example of thi…

> The Earth has also been a lot warmer than it is now Key here is rate of change, and what humans can survive. We are changing the climate many many times faster than ever before. Nature does not have the time to adapt. And the wars, famines and mass displacements coming from ecosystem collapse is like nothing we've seen in human history. Think we have a problem with a few million migrants? Try a billion or two! P-T…

Earth will be fine.

Life on Earth will be fine, but that life will be different to the life we have today.

The only thing not fine is whether humans survive what they/we ultimately have brought about.

But in there is a kind of beautiful justice that the universe has in it's self-correcting algorithm... if you create imbalance, the imbalance will correct in time but perhaps to do so it kills you.

If we care about the human race, it means to care about the whole ecosystem and all other life on Earth. But the evidence of behaviour by people and governments is that they only care for themselves as individuals and not the wider human race, and other life on Earth.

I no longer see hope for significant change in the behaviour of humans, and I've shifted my view to believing that what is needed to provide massively long-term stability in the ecosystem for life on Earth is another mass extinction that includes humans.

Which sounds depressing, but doesn't feel it. I'm positive about life on Earth, just not about humans.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#46

Post by baddox » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 5:40 AM UTC

cletus wrote: post #11

So I'm honestly not as concerned about this as I once was. Don't get me wrong: the climate is going to change, arguably we're in a mass extinction event already and people aren't going to suddenly start acting in the collective long term welfare of humanity. One of the things I like about futurism is the levelheaded optimism and pragmatism you tend to get. And I'll call out Isaac Arthur as a well-known example of thi…

I think the biggest counter to that optimism is that while those necessary technologies are being developed, civilization will perhaps be going through major disruption that causes lots of suffering and death. Humans will almost certainly not go extinct, and may even get some great technological advancements out of the ordeal, but at the scale of human lives there will be a lot of suffering.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#47

Post by odessacubbage » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 5:42 AM UTC

anything that dramatically reduces the population or renders our post-industrial revolution economy inert. there's still plenty of time for a solar storm, a massive pandemic or a particularly violent nuclear war. barring that, suicide is an an increasingly pragmatic and attractive option.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#48

Post by T-1000 » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 5:43 AM UTC

I believe that a small minority could turn things around. If about 3 % of the population in the rich world would donate $100 per month, we could use that money to force the other to change. How? One example is to remove all coal power plants (which are responsible for 25 % of the greenhouse gas emissions) by building wind farms. This would drive the price of electricity down and make coal unprofitable.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#49

Post by Latteland » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 5:45 AM UTC

shard972 wrote: post #10

verroq wrote: post #5

Can’t see it happening when a large portion of the population insists that climate change isn’t real.

Maybe if the media managed to actually present the issue in a balanced way we wouldn't be here. Maybe if every dire prediction wasn't presented as fact and every criticism labeled as conspiracy theory and vica versa for a-lot of other outlets. Maybe if solutions like geo-engineering were at least discussed instead of the chorus of the media/politicians telling people that taxes and fees are THE ONLY SOLUTION to the c…

Those responses seem like something from the people who don't believe there's an actual problem. Scientists are pretty much universally convinced, the only ones who aren't are paid by big oil and the Koch brothers - that means they are lying for money. We don't debate whether the earth is the center of the universe or is the earth flat, because debating that would be a false equivalence of equal chance, but one side of those debates is absurd. We are basically at that point on the question of does human activities increase global warming (yes), will this be really really bad (yes), can we do something about it (yes, but its hard to decide). Let's not waste time arguing about whether the earth is flat, let's move on to figuring what to do about it.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#50

Post by roryisok » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 5:49 AM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #33

Is this 12 year timeline correct. What degree of catastrophe are we looking at?

It's generally accepted that if we don't zero our carbon emissions in 12 years we'll see 2 degrees warming minimum.

Best case scenario is drought, heatwaves, forest fires, lose half the wildlife in the world, all the coral reefs, most of the fish, reduced crop yield, flooding, storms, sea level rise, and parts of the world are inhospitable, and the populations of those regions migrate north. BEST case. WORST case is runaway warming when all the methane in the arctic is released and the forests that soak up our carbon burn down and the ocean stops absorbing it, and the earth gets so hot that humans literally just drop dead from hyperthermia.

I refuse to believe in the worst case, because the majority of scientists are not going that far, and because it could make a person crazy just thinking about it. Besides, the best case is bad enough already.