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

Average Global Temperatures since 1850

kyso.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 125 posts

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#11

Post by wallace_f »

lubonay wrote: post #9
wrong_variable wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that is too little too late. If I get sick, I cant just solve my problem with some ibuprofen. Solving climate change requires a major overhaul in culture, lifestyle, expectation, technology and politics. We did it before, mostly in War situations, I do not understand why this is different.

Greed seems to be the primary engine driving humanity as a whole. IMO the most viable path forward is to find some overlap between our desire to obtain and consume more, and the pressing need to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Maybe if we find a way to make carbon capture super lucrative or something?

It's really easy to implement a carbon tax. And it solves the problem. But what politicians want is more power grabs, not solutions. All of our wars on poverty, drugs, terror etc are intended this way. They are wars on people. This is the same. These people dont give a fuck about you. That's rarely ever been the case.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#12

Post by pimmen »

lubonay wrote: post #8

I think humans are generally bad at prevention of and good at reaction to catastrophes. The next 50 years are going to be interesting... let's hope we leave the world in a manageable state for future generations.

Yes, pretty much. And the investments we make into long term stability are more fragile than we think, because our will to maintain it is unreliable. Whether it's an independent judicial system, freeways, water reservoirs for drought, public housing projects, bank capital, political alliances or whatever our underestimation of how much trouble we were in before the systems were in place or the desire to appease voters by "saving" their tax money compels us to rather quickly neglect and tear down what was deemed an absolute necessity in times of crisis.

It's the same thing with the planet, I'm afraid. We just don't understand how important a stable climate is for the stability of our civilization and thus we don't really have the will to maintain it. Once the crisis has developed into something that's completely unsustainable for the ones with influence and power a reaction will come.

I've had multiple talks with managers about the need to invest time and resources in our tech infrastructure after long periods of user and feature growth, only to be turned down because it's not as important as more features. Once a nasty situation rolls around time and resources to make sure this never happens again magically pops up.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#13

Post by ptah »

PhilWright wrote: post #3
helenakyso wrote: post #2

The increasing of the global temperature is really dangerous and humanity seems to do nothing. It is like a human body if its temperature changes a few Celsius degree from its normal temperature, it is the fever. If the person has a fever and it increases a few degrees, it might mean the death of the person. We are killing The Planet, it is a Climate Crisis.

It is obviously not the case that 'humanity seems to do nothing'. The United Nations have the IPCC working on the issue and their reports influence national policy in many countries. There are the Kyoto and Paris agreements that are based on the details from the IPCC reports. Is the world doing enough? No, I don't think countries are doing enough, but to say humanity seems to do nothing is patently ridiculous.

all of those things are pure talk, no action

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#14

Post by NeedMoreTea »

PhilWright wrote: post #3
helenakyso wrote: post #2

The increasing of the global temperature is really dangerous and humanity seems to do nothing. It is like a human body if its temperature changes a few Celsius degree from its normal temperature, it is the fever. If the person has a fever and it increases a few degrees, it might mean the death of the person. We are killing The Planet, it is a Climate Crisis.

It is obviously not the case that 'humanity seems to do nothing'. The United Nations have the IPCC working on the issue and their reports influence national policy in many countries. There are the Kyoto and Paris agreements that are based on the details from the IPCC reports. Is the world doing enough? No, I don't think countries are doing enough, but to say humanity seems to do nothing is patently ridiculous.

I don't think any nation, not one, will meet Paris commitments. Paris was broadly thought to be far from enough at the time it was signed, and science has moved on markedly since then. IPCC reports are the most optimistic interpretation as necessarily they take a most conservative view on every study. IPCC are all government appointed after all. G20 fossil subsidies just went up, again. Why does fossil need any subsidy, anywhere in the world, given how much profit has come from fossil fuel for a century or two?

That seems pretty near to nothing to me. Let's say "nothing substantive" then.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#15

Post by baxtr »

lubonay wrote: post #8

I think humans are generally bad at prevention of and good at reaction to catastrophes. The next 50 years are going to be interesting... let's hope we leave the world in a manageable state for future generations.

Yes indeed, it feels like we behave like bacteria in a Petri dish...

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#16

Post by johnsea »

wallace_f wrote: post #11
lubonay wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greed seems to be the primary engine driving humanity as a whole. IMO the most viable path forward is to find some overlap between our desire to obtain and consume more, and the pressing need to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Maybe if we find a way to make carbon capture super lucrative or something?

It's really easy to implement a carbon tax. And it solves the problem. But what politicians want is more power grabs, not solutions. All of our wars on poverty, drugs, terror etc are intended this way. They are wars on people. This is the same. These people dont give a fuck about you. That's rarely ever been the case.

No politician who would implement _real_ (very intrusive) carbon tax would be elected. Not easy at all.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#18

Post by disordinary »

helenakyso wrote: post #17

Any ideas of What, WE, the individuals can do to make politician and countries change?

Just a ground swell at the local level, cities all around the world are calling climate emergencies including all the main cities in New Zealand. The NZ government will have to follow suit.

Bigger cities are following too including New York and Sydney today.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#19

Post by roenxi »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #6
wrong_variable wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that is too little too late. If I get sick, I cant just solve my problem with some ibuprofen. Solving climate change requires a major overhaul in culture, lifestyle, expectation, technology and politics. We did it before, mostly in War situations, I do not understand why this is different.

People on HN hate it when you say we have to change our whole society to deal with this problem. I agree with you though. I don’t think we’re willing to do what is necessary to avoid serious catastrophe. We’ve done a good job demonstrating that for 50+ years so far.

> People on HN hate it when you say we have to change our whole society to deal with this problem.

We obviously don't have to change our whole society to deal with that problem.

1) I've been told that renewable are now grid competitive in cost and the power system is switching over to them naturally.

2) At any point we could go nuclear - even the most pessimistic anti-nuclear activist would have to admit that the risks from nuclear power are localised and that the raw volume of pollution rounds to 0 compared to what we do now.

It would take a couple of breakthroughs in battery technology to solve the transport problem and the whole thing might get solved in the background without much more serious effort. Most people wouldn't even notice.

Post reply on HN