Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia • Hacker News Board

Re: Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

#11

Post by BLKNSLVR » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 8:50 AM UTC

throwaway3CC9 wrote: post #6

seanwilson wrote: post #2

If you live in Australia, what is this doing in terms of changing what people think and do about climate change? Is it motivating personal changes in diet, traveling and election voting choices? If this nightmare scenario isn't enough to push people into taking action, what will?

Nothing. A fire is not evidence of climate change any more than an absence of fire is evidence against.

(my opinion, obviously)

That's as true as it is misleading. The changing climate definitely has an effect on the scale and intensity, but not the existence. Rating the scale is an essentially impossible task because the factors go back years (length and scale of drought, climate effects on that).

Re: Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

#12

Post by kilroy_jones » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 8:50 AM UTC

throwaway3CC9 wrote: post #6

seanwilson wrote: post #2

If you live in Australia, what is this doing in terms of changing what people think and do about climate change? Is it motivating personal changes in diet, traveling and election voting choices? If this nightmare scenario isn't enough to push people into taking action, what will?

Nothing. A fire is not evidence of climate change any more than an absence of fire is evidence against.

And yet the severity and timing of them can be evidence.

Re: Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

#13

Post by taneq » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 8:55 AM UTC

throwaway3CC9 wrote: post #6

seanwilson wrote: post #2

If you live in Australia, what is this doing in terms of changing what people think and do about climate change? Is it motivating personal changes in diet, traveling and election voting choices? If this nightmare scenario isn't enough to push people into taking action, what will?

Nothing. A fire is not evidence of climate change any more than an absence of fire is evidence against.

Large areas have burned in the Queensland fires which are rainforests and usually too wet to burn. A combination of unprecedented drought and record high temperatures over the past few years have dried these areas out sufficiently to sustain huge fires.

But that’s just local observation and means nothing in terms of climate change, right?

Edit: Clearly unrelated. https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-02/2019-was-australia...

Re: Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

#14

Post by edflsafoiewq » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 8:57 AM UTC

seanwilson wrote: post #2

If you live in Australia, what is this doing in terms of changing what people think and do about climate change? Is it motivating personal changes in diet, traveling and election voting choices? If this nightmare scenario isn't enough to push people into taking action, what will?

What do you expect them to actually do? The entire CO2 output of Australia could drop to zero with negligible effect on climate change.

Re: Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

#15

Post by endorphone » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 9:00 AM UTC

emrehan wrote: post #3

Let’s see how is this going to influence Australia’s opinion on their coal powered cheap electricity.

It won't do much, I suspect, because the reasoning will be "yeah, climate change is real and is a significant danger...but look at how small Australia's contribution is compared to China". Which is effectively where it is at in Canada -- every discussion circles back to relative contribution, which is a classic tragedy of the commons (in this case being the air).

If we had rational worldwide leadership we could conceivably work greenhouse gases into the WTO and other trade agreements. If China needs to be tamed for everyone else to take part, factor it in.

Re: Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

#16

Post by perfunctory » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 9:00 AM UTC

seanwilson wrote: post #2

If you live in Australia, what is this doing in terms of changing what people think and do about climate change? Is it motivating personal changes in diet, traveling and election voting choices? If this nightmare scenario isn't enough to push people into taking action, what will?

> election voting choices

Unfortunately, I don't believe voting one way or another will make much difference. One party might be slightly better than another, but ultimately none will dare to implement sufficient measures. Climate problem will have to be solved outside of party politics. We need something akin to civil rights movement. On the global scale.

Re: Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

#17

Post by eeh » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 9:08 AM UTC

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #14

seanwilson wrote: post #2

If you live in Australia, what is this doing in terms of changing what people think and do about climate change? Is it motivating personal changes in diet, traveling and election voting choices? If this nightmare scenario isn't enough to push people into taking action, what will?

What do you expect them to actually do? The entire CO2 output of Australia could drop to zero with negligible effect on climate change.

If every country acted that way, we'd make no progress.

Every country needs to do its fair share, and Australia is not: http://theconversation.com/australia-hit-its-kyoto-target-bu...

Re: Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

#18

Post by adventured » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 9:09 AM UTC

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #14

seanwilson wrote: post #2

If you live in Australia, what is this doing in terms of changing what people think and do about climate change? Is it motivating personal changes in diet, traveling and election voting choices? If this nightmare scenario isn't enough to push people into taking action, what will?

What do you expect them to actually do? The entire CO2 output of Australia could drop to zero with negligible effect on climate change.

> The entire CO2 output of Australia could drop to zero with negligible effect on climate change

That's not quite true. You're not including Australia's extraction economy in that equation, only their local emissions. A similar miscalculation happens when people pretend Norway is a low CO2 output & impact nation by ignoring its extreme fossil fuel extraction per capita.

The obvious answer is to stop feeding China's emissions engine, which is dramatically larger than anybody else when it comes to CO2 emissions (and they're building a very large number of new coal plants). Unfortunately that probably wouldn't help much for very long, as China is de facto occupying Africa for resource extraction purposes.

Re: Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

#19

Post by arcticbull » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 9:09 AM UTC

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #14

seanwilson wrote: post #2

If you live in Australia, what is this doing in terms of changing what people think and do about climate change? Is it motivating personal changes in diet, traveling and election voting choices? If this nightmare scenario isn't enough to push people into taking action, what will?

What do you expect them to actually do? The entire CO2 output of Australia could drop to zero with negligible effect on climate change.

No definitely, the same is true of every single region on earth. But by our powers combined...

Re: Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

#20

Post by taneq » Thu, Jan 02, 2020, 9:09 AM UTC

duk3luk3 wrote: post #7

emrehan wrote: post #3

Let’s see how is this going to influence Australia’s opinion on their coal powered cheap electricity.

What are you comparing Australia's electricity to to call it cheap?

Our wholesale power prices are actually quite low. Residential power is expensive because rooftop solar is putting the economics of maintaining the grid into a death spiral.