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

Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 183 posts

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#61

Post by tito »

maxerickson wrote: post #48
tito wrote: post #13

I'm fascinated by this graph of the growth of solar as compared to International Agency Predictions. Year after year, the IEA massively underestimated the growth of solar. Last year, at a workshop with the World Bank I heard an expert in energy investments say "even just 5 years ago none of us ever thought the price of solar could go this low this fast". GRAPH: https://steinbuch.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/iea-vs-rea…

That melt isn't as unprecedented as the Forbes blagger makes it out to be. Follow the chain and you find out that it is reasonably comparable to one that happened in…2012: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/08/01/greenland-... If it ends up part of even a 2 year pattern, that's already concerning, I'm not dismissing the issue, I'm just slagging Forbes links.

Huge props. I haven't even read the link you posted, but wanted to say I admire your post.

Climate discussions often end up fighting even though they're all sort of on the same page. I'm always up for adding more curiosity, and holding everything to a higher standard. I'll check out the link and perhaps find a better reference for the above post.

EDIT: Cleaned out the Forbes links, thanks!

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#62

Post by wdn »

chris_va wrote: post #23

(disclaimer: I work in a Climate&Energy research group) I just want to remind everyone that there are solutions to climate change. We know how to produce clean energy and sequester CO2. The current free market does not make those solutions profitable for investors, though, and we will have to change that. Solving climate change can be as simple as getting a carbon price adopted. It needs to ramp up over time, allow a…

Yes, Al Gore already has a solution. All he and his buddies need is $15 trillion dollars. Just give the man the money so he can save Mother Earth.

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#63

Post by martythemaniak »

phkahler wrote: post #49
chris_va wrote: post #23

(disclaimer: I work in a Climate&Energy research group) I just want to remind everyone that there are solutions to climate change. We know how to produce clean energy and sequester CO2. The current free market does not make those solutions profitable for investors, though, and we will have to change that. Solving climate change can be as simple as getting a carbon price adopted. It needs to ramp up over time, allow a…

>> Solving climate change can be as simple as getting a carbon price adopted. It needs to ramp up over time, allow a secondary market for offsets The simple solution to this big global catastrophe is my favorite money making scam. Here, just create this market for carbon credits. It makes my guys money while doing Jack shit. Seriously, if you think CO2 is the problem, the solution is to simply tax those that either t…

So one hand you're saying GP's opinion that pricing (taxing) carbon is a scam (?) that won't work. On the other hand you're saying we need to tax carbon?

What exactly is it that you're saying?

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#64

Post by WillPostForFood »

iikoolpp wrote: post #25

Opened the article expecting it to be a more abstract cost. Turns out it's about economics. Christ alive. "Yeah, billions are gonna die, but what really matters is my house prices are gonna go down."

Remember the trending article yesterday where economists were admitting they totally got the free trade economics wrong? Well, predicting the economic effects of climate change is going to be 10x full of guesswork and mistaken assumptions and bad models. Good luck getting it right.

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#65

Post by mattmaroon »

chris_va wrote: post #23

(disclaimer: I work in a Climate&Energy research group) I just want to remind everyone that there are solutions to climate change. We know how to produce clean energy and sequester CO2. The current free market does not make those solutions profitable for investors, though, and we will have to change that. Solving climate change can be as simple as getting a carbon price adopted. It needs to ramp up over time, allow a…

Right. If solving global warming is a matter of money (which it obviously is) then the cost of global warming would be capped at that amount of money if we just managed to figure out a way to align incentives. Unfortunately right now the groups that create the problem don't bear the cost of the problem.

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#66

Post by ben_w »

Udik wrote: post #44
iikoolpp wrote: post #25

Opened the article expecting it to be a more abstract cost. Turns out it's about economics. Christ alive. "Yeah, billions are gonna die, but what really matters is my house prices are gonna go down."

Who said that billions are gonna die? Frankly, if the solution to climate change will slow economic growth, I think that the highest human cost will come from the lack of growth. To put it in clear terms: lack of growth means that a sewage system, or a hospital, don't get built. This _will_ cause victims.

Eh. While I’m optimistic that solutions will be found, in principle a shifting climate can radically alter food production. Billions could die. I don’t think they will, but in principle they could, and I lack the necessary background in agricultural science to tell what “likely” is.

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#68

Post by [deleted] »

martythemaniak wrote: post #63
phkahler wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Solving climate change can be as simple as getting a carbon price adopted. It needs to ramp up over time, allow a secondary market for offsets The simple solution to this big global catastrophe is my favorite money making scam. Here, just create this market for carbon credits. It makes my guys money while doing Jack shit. Seriously, if you think CO2 is the problem, the solution is to simply tax those that either t…

So one hand you're saying GP's opinion that pricing (taxing) carbon is a scam (?) that won't work. On the other hand you're saying we need to tax carbon? What exactly is it that you're saying?

[deleted]

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#69

Post by jokoon »

pstuart wrote: post #2

It's going to happen faster than we've been told. I expect in 10 years global panic will set in.

I think it will happen sooner than that.

Once you have a 3 days heatwave, it's bad. If they occur during summer and the next summer, and if they last for 1 week or more, several times per summer, people will not talk about it, but feel it and understand that global warming is settling in and will not go away.

The problem is that the temperature increase can be sudden and difficult to anticipate. A heatwave can also kill a lot of people (the elderly, the young, people will fragile health, and also people who don't prepare or don't listen to warnings).

You're right that in 10 years there are strong chances for a global panic, but if crops yields are bad it can also have fast consequences. It just hope the wakeup calls will make people react swiftly and as soon as possible. I'd rather have a big heatwave that gives enough political capital to act and do things, than a slow and creeping climate change where nothing is done and it becomes too late.

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#70

Post by WillPostForFood »

crb002 wrote: post #40

I still think many models are missing volcanic winters. We know they have crazy cooling effects, but they are something we don’t yet control. More $$$ money needs to go into Vulcanering. Crazy, but if we can make ash spread 20% more that’s years of cooling.

There are feasible approaches with similar effects:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_cloud_brightening

Post reply on HN