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?

#451

Post by explainplease » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #417

berkoab wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experts? That's exactly his point. They're far from being experts. What I meant by balanced was as a balance to all the views being expressed here. I probably misused that word.

I'd describe people with PhDs in atmospheric science who have published papers on climate change or other climate modeling as experts. These people largely disagree with Lindzen.

From the paper:

> Richard S. Lindzen was Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology until his retirement in 2013. He is the author of over 200 papers on meteorology and climatology and is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and of the Academic Advisory Council of GWPF.

Does meteorology count as "atmospheric science"?

Does climatology count as "climate change" or "climate modeling"?

Does 200 papers count as "published papers"?

Does being a professor at MIT count?

By your own criteria, he is an expert.

Therefore, by what reasoning do you dismiss him?

Religion.

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

#452

Post by jonstewart » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 6:25 PM UTC

lolsal wrote: post #411

jonstewart wrote: post #16

Give money to Democratic candidates challenging Republican incumbents, right now. If we believe in evidence-based science, then all evidence points to Republicans being anti-science. You don't have to be a committed lifelong Democrat to see that the current Republican party is fighting climate change efforts at every turn and needs to be displaced in order for political progress on the issue to happen.

> If we believe in evidence-based science, then all evidence points to Republicans being anti-science. I am conservative and tend to lean-republican. I am not anti-science. Please stop generalizing.

I should definitely have specified that I mean Republican elected officials. With them, I will stop generalizing when this stops generally being true. Can you point to Congressional Republicans, House or Senate, who've voted for positive legislation related to climate change and environmental protection? Have you written to your representatives encouraging them to vote as such (and in other pro-science ways)?

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

#453

Post by Comevius » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

crispinb wrote: post #365

The collapse of the dynamically stable climate on which agricultural civilisation is founded is vanishingly unlikely to be prevented at this stage - no-one has ever even outlined, let alone detailed, even one remotely plausible political route from business-as-usual to where we need to be. As others here note, it's fundamentally a problem of world politics, howevermuch a proportion of HN readership may wish to suck a…

I like this comment a lot. Got goosebumps reading it.

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

#454

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 6:47 PM UTC

thewhitetulip wrote: post #415

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to agree, but numbers don't add up. All the solar their is, amounts to 1% of energy use. Its not about mopeds, its about steel plants and oil refineries and shipping and heating and cooling. We're talking Terawatts, not Watts.

I totally understand and agree. But we can't afford to not do something. Imagine if everyone planted a tree in a pot in their homes. It isn't about the 1w electricity I used from Solar, it is a momentum. Slowly, 1million people will use solar and it'll be 1 million watt electricity! It is in the scale

Yes, but 1MW is one millionth of the problem. Its very hard to get individual effort to matter. Its the industrial infrastructure that has to change?

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

#455

Post by gmemstr » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

cailloud wrote: post #442

CodeCube wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go remote! the planet, along with your family, sanity, and happiness will thank you! Every working programmer today can stand up, walk to their boss' desk, and have the conversation about going remote, even if only part time (for now). If they say no, ask how you can work towards that in the future, and if they don't relent, find a different job (don't immediately quit, obviously; now you have leverage in knowing tha…

Stupid question; when saying 'go remote' you mean working from home right?

Essentially, but the joy of working remote is being able to work whenever you happen to be, whether it be on the road (I thought I saw an article about this but I fail to remember the author) or in your home office

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

#456

Post by monosphere » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

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…

Yes, it's a political problem. And one solution is to build nuclear power plants. We need a few thousands of these worldwide to get around 70 % of energy production from fission, then solar, wind and hydro can cover the rest. I really don't understand why we're not doing this.

25 % of emissions are from electricity [1], and 21 % from industry. Industy would quickly start using more electricity once it became cheap. Transportation (14 %) will take time to electrify, and the 24 % of emissions from agriculture and forestry is harder to remove (increase meat prices, thus lowering demand and production).

China, India, UAE and South Korea are building lots of reactors now.[2] I really hope Europe, the Americas and Africa follow.

We have a solution! Yes, it costs money, let's do it!

[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss... [2] http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and...

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

#457

Post by CodeCube » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 7:00 PM UTC

cailloud wrote: post #442

CodeCube wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go remote! the planet, along with your family, sanity, and happiness will thank you! Every working programmer today can stand up, walk to their boss' desk, and have the conversation about going remote, even if only part time (for now). If they say no, ask how you can work towards that in the future, and if they don't relent, find a different job (don't immediately quit, obviously; now you have leverage in knowing tha…

Stupid question; when saying 'go remote' you mean working from home right?

yes ... mostly :) I'll give my own example ... I work for a team/company in another state. So on most days, yes, I work from home. However, part time, I go into a local co-working space. This gives me a chance to get out of the house, socialize with other technical people IRL, etc etc. If I didn't have a co-working space available, I would probably try to band together a few folks and rent a small office somewhere to similar effect.

So, while for many people yeah it means working from home ... it doesn't necessarily have to mean working at your house :D

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

#458

Post by roryisok » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 7:02 PM UTC

kgabis wrote: post #174

roryisok wrote: post #58

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…

Wouldn't replacing every ICE car with electric one be extremely wasteful? Cars cost resources and energy to produce so it makes sense to keep driving them for as long as possible. Focusing on emissions from driving doesn't account for the whole picture. Also, in many countries majority of energy production comes from burning fossil fuels so switching to electric cars doesn't magically solve CO2 emissions problem.

Cars cost resources and energy to produce, but right now new fossil fuel cars are being produced every minute. We don't stop that process by continuing to drive a car that belches out CO2. Sure, if everyone continues driving their 10 year old Volkswagen and all car companies stop production tomorrow it might have a more immediate short term effect than changing to EV. But even in this impossible scenario, long term all those cars are still emitting CO2.

I do take your point that transportation is not the whole picture, but we can't do anything on a personal level to close a coal plant, other than write to our local representatives in government.

It's also worth pointing out that if all the power for EVs is generated from coal it's still less carbon than petrol and diesel cars on the road, because of how power plants are run at optimal efficiency, where as cars have to speed up and slow down, idle in traffic etc

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

#459

Post by CodeCube » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 7:02 PM UTC

gmemstr wrote: post #455

cailloud wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stupid question; when saying 'go remote' you mean working from home right?

Essentially, but the joy of working remote is being able to work whenever you happen to be, whether it be on the road (I thought I saw an article about this but I fail to remember the author) or in your home office

This is a great point. This summer, I took my family for a week of beaching, boating, and snorkeling. I also worked the full week ... of course my boss knew what was up, as I'm up front about everything. But it was great being able to just modify my schedule, go snorkeling in the morning, come back, work, dinner, and then work a few more hours at night. All you gotta do is make sure that the place you're staying has wifi.

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

#460

Post by flockonus » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

Livestock is responsible for a large fraction of grains (and therefore clean water) consumption, while emitting an equally large amount of CO2 and methane into atmosphere. So largely reducing animal intake would be of huge help.

This large scale habit change don't require gov. aid, it can be tackled by for profit businesses and research institutions alike.