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

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

#51

Post by roryisok »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #40
jandrese wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the scary part about climate change is the sheer scale of the problem. We burn something like 4.4 billion tons of oil each year. Eventually we have to basically un-burn all of that oil. That's a staggeringly huge amount of work and we have barely begun to stop digging ourselves deeper into the hole.

Walk more. Eat less meat. And pee on a tree. Do that every day. Track it if you need to. Spread the word if you like, though leading by example is more powerful than trying to lecture people. We are all just dust in the wind anyway. But you can choose what your little speck gets up to, at least to some degree.

What is this thing about peeing on trees

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

#52

Post by philipkglass »

xupybd wrote: post #34
tobr wrote: post #19

Fundamentally it is a political problem, not a technological problem. We need high carbon taxes, we need to end fossil fuel subsidies, and we probably need to change our economic system to something that addresses the tragedy of the commons. But we’ve seen in recent years how technology can influence politics. I’d quote a tweet from Tristan Harris from the other day [1]: > In an hypothetical world, if Facebook were r…

If we can get renewables cheaper than fossil fuels and get reasonable energy storage politics won’t be a problem.

I thought that all we had to do was develop non-combustion energy sources cheaper than fossil fuels, and everything else would fall into place. I think that's still mostly correct. But I underestimated how long people who are economically dependent on fossil fuel industries, and their political allies, could delay the transition. I think that those sorts of delay-and-obstruct tactics are going to ensure we far overshoot CO2 targets before (hopefully) beginning to correct them. That's even while the technologies of low-carbon energy continue to advance at a rapid clip.

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

#53

Post by roryisok »

odessacubbage wrote: post #47

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.

> suicide is an an increasingly pragmatic and attractive option.

Don't think that way. Climate despair is real. People get seriously depressed about it and a lot of people probably consider suicide. Messages like this are irresponsible and can push people over the edge. If you feel that urge, talk to someone. Reach out. Get better. If you're this worried about climate change then THE WORLD NEEDS YOU.

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

#54

Post by ru999gol »

To have any meaningful impact on global warming there would need to be a massive rapid global economic shift, we would also would need to reduce world population otherwise anything we do will just be nullified by increases in population. I think to even suggest that the people in power (politicians and capitalist corporations) will actually be willing and able to solve this problem is incredibly naive and I have no idea where anyone gets this optimism from?

No in reality we will see a slow increase in extreme natural disasters, island states and all coastlines becoming uninhabitable, permanent drought in most parts of the world, drinking water crisis, famine, massive unprepared forced migration, global economic collapse, permanent wars about remaining resources. I actually don't think humanity has any realistic chance to survive beyond 2080 and that number is actually quite conservative given the research.

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

#55

Post by DoreenMichele »

roryisok wrote: post #51
DoreenMichele wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walk more. Eat less meat. And pee on a tree. Do that every day. Track it if you need to. Spread the word if you like, though leading by example is more powerful than trying to lecture people. We are all just dust in the wind anyway. But you can choose what your little speck gets up to, at least to some degree.

What is this thing about peeing on trees

I wrote a comment about it on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12656045

And then I spontaneously created a little website, which failed to go viral or save the world with potty humor. And I took it offline. I recently put it back online in hopes of repurposing it and removed all pages.

Just for you, I have restored the main landing page:

https://peeonatree.blogspot.com/2018/09/pee-on-tree.html

Our next wars could be fought over water. You can fight that while helping grow bigger, healthier trees.

It's a silly theory by someone who likely has delusions of grandeur.

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

#56

Post by shard972 »

Latteland wrote: post #49
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…

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…

> 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.

Thats actually just wrong and shows how closed minded people are to how science works. Even if they were paid by big oil, shouldn't their evidence stand on it's own merits? Just like the claims made by scientists?

And no, I don't buy your false equivalence because the earth being round or gravity existing is empirically proved. Climate science has not and probably will not be ever proved on that level. If we could, then weather forecasts would also be perfect because we would be able to perfectly model exactly how the climate works but we don't, we strive every day to try and model the future better.

Just to give you a recent example: https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/30277-c...

Can you show me how much hes being paid by big oil to do this? Or how all of the issues he found are just BS? Or maybe it's not exactly true that all researchers are all on the exact same page the media is typically on?

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

#57

Post by [deleted] »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #26

"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." Y2K was supposed to be a global catastrophe. It got quietly fixed. No one (but me) wakes up today and goes "Oh. Thank. God. We aren't living in the Y2K post apocalypse!" In fact, I have been told that most people laugh at the idea that we ever worried about it because it turned out fine, so we must not have been in real danger. The Kuwait oil wells were supp…

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by roryisok »

We're all tired of hearing "eat less meat" etc. But honestly these things would make a difference. We need to switch everyone who drives a fossil fuel car to electric, or no car at all. So make the switch. Buy an EV. Nissan leaf is affordable. Work remote if you can. Switch your home heating from oil or gas to solar or a heat pump. It's not just about people making little changes anymore. Every household needs to get rid of their oil burning machines, be they the home heating or vehicle kind. We can't do anything directly about trucking companies etc but they will follow. Recharging costs pittance next to refuelling and range goes up every year. The EV you buy now will save you money. The next one you buy will run rings around your old gas guzzler.

The best, least depressing and least defeatist way to think about it is that the world is changing in the next 12 years and we're the early adopters. And if you don't offload that gas car now it'll be unsellable in 6 years

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

#59

Post by c0nducktr »

shard972 wrote: post #56
Latteland wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Thats actually just wrong and shows how closed minded people are to how science works. Even if they were paid by big oil, shouldn't their evidence stand on it's own merits? Just like the claims made by scientists? And no, I don't buy your false equivalence becau…

It's actually not wrong.

https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

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

#60

Post by otabdeveloper2 »

> We have 12 years to prevent a climate catastrophe

I don't know how old you are, but those of us over 20 remember that we had '12 years' 20 years ago.

Somehow the prophesied catastrophe never arrives and the date gets perpetually pushed into the future. Looks like a secular Seventh Day Adventists.

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