On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare • Hacker News Board

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#31

Post by timmytokyo » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:17 PM UTC

czzr wrote: post #18

pmiller2 wrote: post #4

Is there even a shred of credible evidence for any of the following: > Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction” > The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world” > Climate change is not making natural disasters worse > Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003 > The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska > The build-up of wood…

This is the key point - even if all these claims are true, they don’t add up to any coherent argument about the substance of climate change. At best they seem to be arguing against some cultural sub-trends, such as those who argue for “organic farming” or are “anti-nuclear”, or those who make some mistakes such as overestimating the contribution of the Amazon to global oxygen production. Perhaps some of the more brea…

The very article makes it clear that one thing he's trying to achieve is to sell his book.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#32

Post by Gibbon1 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:29 PM UTC

mcphage wrote: post #17

mulmen wrote: post #12

> Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels. Can someone help me with this? I just moved and have both a fireplace and natural gas furnace. I had intended to supplement the furnace with wood heat in the winter. In what ways is wood worse than natural gas? I can imagine a few but I’m not sure they are right: Wood disadvantages: Local air quality Removal of trees Wood advantages: Renewable Neutra…

My understanding is that the particulates caused by wood fires are terrible for our lungs, especially inside houses: https://samharris.org/the-fireplace-delusion/

Anecdote from my grandmother. She said the local doctor back in the 20's had a story about med school. Helped out on an autopsy of an old Chinese sailor who spent most of his life on sailing ships. His professor pointed out that the mans lungs were pinkish and asked the students what condition might have caused that unusual condition. Ans: Man hadn't spent his life breathing smoke.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#33

Post by gHosts » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:33 PM UTC

kick wrote: post #7

This is a really misleading piece, by the way. This person has been speaking against environmentalism for over a decade now; he literally wrote a book about it sixteen years ago that attracted an amount of controversy. He doesn't deserve to speak for environmentalists; his actions for the past decade are pro-capital, any pro-environment effect was secondary. He's an economist, not an environmentalist, and he's trying…

I tried to find the source for the AOC quote.... I want (as always, whether Trump or AOC, to see the exact quote in context) and encountered a interesting new form of obfuscation... Proof by reference to a 4 hours long video!

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#34

Post by mulmen » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:44 PM UTC

tsherr wrote: post #30

mulmen wrote: post #12

> Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels. Can someone help me with this? I just moved and have both a fireplace and natural gas furnace. I had intended to supplement the furnace with wood heat in the winter. In what ways is wood worse than natural gas? I can imagine a few but I’m not sure they are right: Wood disadvantages: Local air quality Removal of trees Wood advantages: Renewable Neutra…

Renewable isn't really accurate for wood, at least not in human time scales. A maple takes about 25 years to mature. It's about three maple trees to a cord. Assuming 5 cords per winter, we're talking 375 trees before the first tree cut can be reharvested (assuming it was replanted immediately). That doesn't into account soil depletion and carbon release.

Thanks, this is something else I have always wondered about.

Quick quack suggests 400-800 trees per acre is possible. That actually seems pretty sustainable in a forested area.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#35

Post by pintxo » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:45 PM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #6

It always seemed to me like the greatest hedge we could have is having human colonies on other planets. Because global disasters of so many kinds could sum up to extinction. While I realize that could be many decades away, it does seem like prioritizing it would make it happen much faster. > The most important thing for reducing air pollution and carbon emissions is moving from wood to coal to petroleum to natural ga…

> Greenpeace didn’t save the whales, switching from whale oil to petroleum and palm oil did

According to [1]: The depletion of some whale species to near extinction led to the banning of whaling in many countries by 1969, and to a worldwide cessation of whaling as an industry in the late 1980s.

This does sound more like Greenpeace (founded 1971) being the reason than switching to petroleum (no reason to expect much use for whale oil past WW2) to me. But surely Greenpeace is not the only reason.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#36

Post by iamstupidsimple » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 11:09 PM UTC

smohare wrote: post #8

iamstupidsimple wrote: post #2

Climate alarm-ism has honestly set back the whole movement in my opinion. For decades, we've only been 10 years away from extinction and it gave conservatives all the ammo needed to write climate change off as fake. Heck, even The Simpsons mocked this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epKaBv6ALcI

Except that’s entirely the denialist straw man. It’s not we’re going to face a cosmic ray style annihilation in 10 years, but rather that we’re cavalierly approaching tipping points that will likely have repercussions for 10,000 years.

But it's a fact the situation, while serious, was massively overblown and became politicised. We may all be killed by climate change one day, and we need to act now, but we aren't going to die in ten years if nothing changes.

Making the situation out to be the end of the world, short term, is how you lose the support of the general public.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#37

Post by iamstupidsimple » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

aquova wrote: post #14

pmiller2 wrote: post #4

Is there even a shred of credible evidence for any of the following: > Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction” > The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world” > Climate change is not making natural disasters worse > Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003 > The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska > The build-up of wood…

I get the impression that this guy is primarily out to sell his book, which he spends quite a bit of time talking about how great it is. As for the points he mentions, some are clearly false. > The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska With global population trends, even if average meat consumption is starting to decrease, the amount of li…

Developed nations are shrinking. Why won't global population do the same, long term?

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#38

Post by pmiller2 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

boogies wrote: post #19

pmiller2 wrote: post #4

Is there even a shred of credible evidence for any of the following: > Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction” > The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world” > Climate change is not making natural disasters worse > Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003 > The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska > The build-up of wood…

I believe there's a "broad scientific consensus" that the climate isn't staying exactly the same and human's effect on it is existent, but could someone please cite a source claiming there's "broad scientific consensus" that it "would have massive impacts on human civilization"? Edit: Here's an oldish article: "Climate Scientists Agree on Warming, Disagree on Dangers, and Don’t Trust the Media’s Coverage of Climate C…

What would you accept as evidence of a "broad scientific consensus" that climate change "would have massive effects on human civilization"? It's not 84% like the number you cite who believe humans contribute, but the 41% figure you cite does tell me that roughly 1 in 2 climate scientists think we're doomed if we do nothing. I would call that a broad consensus, given that a huge majority believe there will be at least a "moderate" effect on human civilization.

Incidentally, why are the choices "catastrophic effect," "moderate effect," "relatively little danger," and "humans aren't contributing to climate change, anyway?" Why is there nothing in between "moderate" and "catastrophic" effect? That seems a little suspect to me.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#39

Post by jhanschoo » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 1:56 AM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #6

It always seemed to me like the greatest hedge we could have is having human colonies on other planets. Because global disasters of so many kinds could sum up to extinction. While I realize that could be many decades away, it does seem like prioritizing it would make it happen much faster. > The most important thing for reducing air pollution and carbon emissions is moving from wood to coal to petroleum to natural ga…

> It always seemed to me like the greatest hedge we could have is having human colonies on other planets. Because global disasters of so many kinds could sum up to extinction. While I realize that could be many decades away, it does seem like prioritizing it would make it happen much faster.

I don't understand how setting up a colony on Mars, space, or the moon can be cheaper or more sustainable than the equivalent infrastructure on Earth, delusions of public figures aside. I also find it alarming that these aspirations are so frequently repeated by others without any critical evaluation.

Even in the face of catastrophe like another that caused the Great Extinction Event.

Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare

#40

Post by jjk166 » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 2:22 AM UTC

jhanschoo wrote: post #39

wyldfire wrote: post #6

It always seemed to me like the greatest hedge we could have is having human colonies on other planets. Because global disasters of so many kinds could sum up to extinction. While I realize that could be many decades away, it does seem like prioritizing it would make it happen much faster. > The most important thing for reducing air pollution and carbon emissions is moving from wood to coal to petroleum to natural ga…

> It always seemed to me like the greatest hedge we could have is having human colonies on other planets. Because global disasters of so many kinds could sum up to extinction. While I realize that could be many decades away, it does seem like prioritizing it would make it happen much faster. I don't understand how setting up a colony on Mars, space, or the moon can be cheaper or more sustainable than the equivalent i…

If you put it on earth, it has to survive whatever renders the earth uninhabitable. Given the very large number of potential bad things that could happen, something that can confidently survive all of them would be very difficult to make.

If it's on another world, it is obviously already in a pretty inhospitable environment that is expensive to access, but that environment is unlikely to get catastrophically worse at the same time as the earth, and the costs of building it can be reasonably estimated.

If you take out a 500k life insurance policy, if you take into account the time value of money it will on average cost you more over the course of your life than the policy actually pays out. You are technically losing money by having the insurance. However in exchange you put a known upper bound on the amount that you lose as opposed to the person who makes the rational choice to forego the policy and assumes unlimited risk. Likewise beefing up the one basket we keep all our eggs in is almost certainly more economical than getting another basket, but it is inevitably still a single point of failure.