Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists • Hacker News Board

Re: Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists

#31

Post by IanDrake » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 1:08 PM UTC

melonkidney wrote: post #17

One thing I find encouraging is how many people (particularly young people) are now understanding the seriousness of the climate situation. I would really like to see a public pledge from companies, universities, etc that people who risk their education/career by pushing for real change will not be disadvantaged. If anyone is interested in helping to make this a reality, shoot me an email at together@highestsupport.c…

Young people are less on board than you think. They're just young and, frankly, haven't thought their proposition through.

Once they realize they won't be shuffled back and forth to Europe on multi-million dollar yachts like their leader, they'll change their tune.

In fact, once they realize most proposals require them to become serfs living in unheated hovels while the Lords live in mansions and fly private jets everywhere, they'll probably start to see through the ploy.

Re: Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists

#32

Post by orbifold » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

ppf wrote: post #14

softwarelimits wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I humbly ask: What are your qualifications that enable you to come to this conclusion? I would be very interested in studying your publications - where can I find your analysis? Also it would be really very appreciated if you would like to publish the datasets that lead you to this conclusion - would you like to give us a public repo with the data, so we can check your results? Thank you very much!

That's not very humble. His assertions are quite basic, and don't need research-grade qualifications to consider. The earth has certainly prehistorically been much warmer, so nature handled it just fine, and it is an interesting question to consider how much more arable land a warmer earth would have.

The details make it a very hard problem. There is scientific consensus that a too rapidly changing climate leads to mass extinction of species (plants, animals, etc.), because suddenly species are not adapted to the climate they find themselves in and can't migrate quickly enough. This loss of biodiversity should be of great concern, because it is irrecoverable. There are tons of other non-obvious problems that are not commonly understood.

Re: Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists

#33

Post by gorpovitch » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 1:11 PM UTC

ppf wrote: post #24

softwarelimits wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please like to add data and evidence to add some substance to your words? It is not enough to just "say something" on the internet - you need to provide evidence if you want to be taken seriously.

The only assertion I made is that the earth has been much warmer pre-historically, which is a well-known fact and can easily be verified. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record

It is true that the earth has already been warmer. We're reaching points that humans are never seen, though.

Second, the problem here is not only the total temperature variation but the speed at which the temperature is changing.

Think of the difference between a car going from 130 km/h to 0 km/h in 8 seconds, and a car going from 130 km/h to 0 km/h in 0.3 seconds. Not really endearing.

Re: Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists

#34

Post by ppf » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

orbifold wrote: post #32

ppf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not very humble. His assertions are quite basic, and don't need research-grade qualifications to consider. The earth has certainly prehistorically been much warmer, so nature handled it just fine, and it is an interesting question to consider how much more arable land a warmer earth would have.

The details make it a very hard problem. There is scientific consensus that a too rapidly changing climate leads to mass extinction of species (plants, animals, etc.), because suddenly species are not adapted to the climate they find themselves in and can't migrate quickly enough. This loss of biodiversity should be of great concern, because it is irrecoverable. There are tons of other non-obvious problems that are n…

It is a very hard problem, which is why I personally hate to see so many issues conflated under one slogan. Your point about species adaption is a fair one, however if we are going to consider absolute effects on biodiversity, direct human activity has already had a significantly worse effect.

Re: Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists

#35

Post by wayoutthere » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

ElonMuskrat wrote: post #16

travisoneill1 wrote: post #9

It seems like they are always saying we are on the brink of some "tipping point." Is there an example of any we have already passed?

Pretty hard to take climate change reporting seriously. The media is an amplifier that only publishes the most alarmist scientific findings, always blanketed in paragraphs of the editors own apocalyptic interpretation. Climate science is complex. There's a broad spectrum of findings, many are not world-ending, and sometimes disagree on the details.

If anything, the media understates the threat by mixing in a lot of debunked misinformation. It's hard to take most journalism seriously with the sensationalism bias, but we're already seeing serious negative effects from climate change in the most vulnerable countries.

The planet will be a very different place in 50 years.

Re: Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists

#36

Post by perfunctory » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

IanDrake wrote: post #31

melonkidney wrote: post #17

One thing I find encouraging is how many people (particularly young people) are now understanding the seriousness of the climate situation. I would really like to see a public pledge from companies, universities, etc that people who risk their education/career by pushing for real change will not be disadvantaged. If anyone is interested in helping to make this a reality, shoot me an email at together@highestsupport.c…

Young people are less on board than you think. They're just young and, frankly, haven't thought their proposition through. Once they realize they won't be shuffled back and forth to Europe on multi-million dollar yachts like their leader, they'll change their tune. In fact, once they realize most proposals require them to become serfs living in unheated hovels while the Lords live in mansions and fly private jets eve…

> they'll change their tune

Like this guy for example, right?

[My hunger strike could be deadly. But I am willing to risk that for climate action] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/27/hunger...

Re: Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists

#37

Post by ppf » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

gorpovitch wrote: post #33

ppf wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only assertion I made is that the earth has been much warmer pre-historically, which is a well-known fact and can easily be verified. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record

It is true that the earth has already been warmer. We're reaching points that humans are never seen, though. Second, the problem here is not only the total temperature variation but the speed at which the temperature is changing. Think of the difference between a car going from 130 km/h to 0 km/h in 8 seconds, and a car going from 130 km/h to 0 km/h in 0.3 seconds. Not really endearing.

Understood, although we have no way to know if there have ever been similar events, as the geologic record is something of a low-pass filter.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say you find yourself in a car in the second scenario, with no known way to stop it. What would you do? I say this as a pragmatist - if we take the headlines at face value, and we only have ~10 years to avert a catastrophe, then the only realistic way to avert it is if 90% of the world's population spends that 10 years planting trees before killing themselves.

Re: Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists

#38

Post by spodek » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

perfunctory wrote: post #11

The scariest thing about climate change is not climate deniers. The scariest thing is people who believe in climate emergency and sit on their butt and do nothing.

I challenged myself to avoid flying for a year, anticipating a year of missing out, losing money, missing family, and all sorts of deprivation and sacrifice. Within a few months I found it one of my best decisions so kept going. I'm now over 4.5 years and may never fly again.

But when I talk to people about not flying, or avoiding packaged food, they tell me it's impossible.

It's not only possible, it will improve your life as much as dropping sugar or any other addiction. Nobody gets it. They think I'm suffering or privileged when it's the opposite. I explain more in my second TEDx talk http://joshuaspodek.com/my-second-tedx-talk-what-everyone-ge....

Come to think of it, maybe I should stop posting about the joys of not flying since it almost always leads to people responding with thoughtless misunderstandings like: one person's actions don't matter or they need to for work and family. We have to get past these knee-jerk misunderstandings.

Re: Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists

#39

Post by Sharlin » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

ppf wrote: post #27

Sharlin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earth has not been considerably warmer prehistorically (a term that, technically speaking, refers to the period between the appearance of tool-using hominins and the invention of written history). If you mean paleontological periods before the appearance of genus Homo , yes, but that's not very relevant given how the GP talked about the human civilization (which, incidentally, did not exist in the prehistoric era eit…

Ok, I used the wrong word. I was also referring to OP's point that "nature was just fine" - the earth has been up to 12degC warmer than present, before humans could make any impact. My point is that, taken in isolation, a warmer earth is not fundamentally bad, nor new. As for his point about humans preferring warmer temperatures - hopefully that is self-evident. >As far as we know, the loss of arable land caused by t…

And the "hothouse" Earths were drastically different from Earth today. Given time, life adapts, but the point is that there's no time. There have been sudden, drastic global climate changes in Earth's history before. It's just that they have been accompanied by massive extinction events. Whatever we do, we probably won't destroy the whole ecosystem. But that's a rather ridiculously low bar to clear!

Re: Nine climate tipping points now 'active,' warn scientists

#40

Post by NeedMoreTea » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

ppf wrote: post #27

Sharlin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earth has not been considerably warmer prehistorically (a term that, technically speaking, refers to the period between the appearance of tool-using hominins and the invention of written history). If you mean paleontological periods before the appearance of genus Homo , yes, but that's not very relevant given how the GP talked about the human civilization (which, incidentally, did not exist in the prehistoric era eit…

Ok, I used the wrong word. I was also referring to OP's point that "nature was just fine" - the earth has been up to 12degC warmer than present, before humans could make any impact. My point is that, taken in isolation, a warmer earth is not fundamentally bad, nor new. As for his point about humans preferring warmer temperatures - hopefully that is self-evident. >As far as we know, the loss of arable land caused by t…

A warmer earth with humans on it is fundamentally new, as we've not been around that long. Even forerunner species like Homo habilis only go back three million years. An eye blink in the geologic record, and long, long after the five mass extinctions.

12C warmer would put vast amounts of the land area of the planet outside habitable conditions for humanity. We'd probably be restricted to former arctic regions, and not much else. So no, I don't think it's self evident at all. It won't take many degrees rise to rule us out of equatorial regions, then tropical...