Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers • Hacker News Board

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#131

Post by jpindar » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #76

quesera wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea is absurd to the point of lunacy. Since you have not provided any discussion on the enormous obvious objections, this is effectively a troll (can I use that word?). It's a comment bomb that would require dissenters to argue with specificities which you have declined to include, in some grossly asymmetric waste of time and energy. So I leave this response, in lieu of a downvote.

The objections are obvious, which is why I didn’t bother to include them. Anyone can think of them. People don’t bring this idea up, because it’s ridiculous on its face. But I did bring it up, because I find myself wondering lately about the objections to those objections. Assume the objections; then try to work out a world where this happens anyway. Do we live in a world that’s anything like that world? What would h…

The worldbuilding stackexchange would probably enjoy discussing this, if you posed it as the basis for a novel.

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#132

Post by rhino369 » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

KineticLensman wrote: post #79

thehappypm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly does climate change lead to a world war? I can understand that there will be many climate refugees, but refugees don’t form armies that can stand up to a standing Western army. I’ve always understood the biggest threat to be mass displacement and starvation, leading to closed off borders, and poverty and death in severely impacted countries like Bangladesh. But world war? Not so sure. The world powers wil…

> For every city abandoned by floods, inland cities will swell in population and prestige That will be poor consolation for the inhabitants of the flooded cities. Also, a lot of infrastructure (think docks and roads) is located on the coasts, often associated with the cities. This will be very expensive to replace in a carbon neutral way, especially as the sea levels continue to rise.

It's not going to all happen overnight. You won't see an internal refugee crisis inside rich nations.

The cost will be slowly added to insurance premiums and devaluation in price of real-estate that will be underwater in 30 years.

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#133

Post by 11235813213455 » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

We should have extended lockdowns for each heatwave

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#134

Post by bamboozled » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #130

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #20

While we are at it, can we change some vocabulary used for sensitising climate change from ' For the planet ' to ' Your children will die soon, your grandchildren sooner '?

People will be able to smell the bullshit. The idea that climate change will be apocalyptic (for first world nations) in your grandchildren's time frame is just as loony-toons as denying it exists at all. The scientific consensus is nowhere near that bad.

What are you basing this on?

If the heat doesn’t kill people, famine, floods, fires and wars likely will.

It might not be the apocalypse, but further rises in temperature could easily topple civilisation as we know it?

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#135

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

zez61 wrote: post #26

throwanem wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's practically slander. Honestly, I don't think Christians even deserve to complain about climate disasters, not with all the effort they put into worshiping an incredibly priggish and unbelievably prudish deity for which weather-powered slaughterfests have always been such a go-to. And I mean say what you like about Ishtar, at least she gets that people are gonna fuck.

What is the purpose of this comment? Keying off a random deity figure you’re replying to, you decided 9am on a Monday morning on Hacker News seems like a pretty good time to spout off hateful and discriminatory feelings about “they” the religious group? They don’t deserve to talk about climate change because they’re prudish in your interpretation of things? Seriously, what the shit are you talking about? Christians l…

[deleted]

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#136

Post by dang » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #11

arnvald wrote: post #5

Half-jokingly: let's give them some scary sounding, hellish names. Hurricane Benedict sounds like a friendly neighbour. Heatwave Astaroth - that's some serious stuff right here.

That's practically slander. Honestly, I don't think Christians even deserve to complain about climate disasters, not with all the effort they put into worshiping an incredibly priggish and unbelievably prudish deity for which weather-powered slaughterfests have always been such a go-to. And I mean say what you like about Ishtar, at least she gets that people are gonna fuck.

Religious flamewar is not welcome on HN. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#137

Post by finnthehuman » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #13

leetrout wrote: post #3

I am not a fan. We’re heading to naming all the major weather which happens often and is just going to desensitize people. The NOAA already doesn’t recognize winter storm names and I would expect them to use the same rationale for not naming heat waves, cold waves or any other extreme weather events that don’t bring destruction. (Not arguing against the danger of heatwaves).

That's exactly it, it's the "boy crying wolf" issue and everyone will just shrug. I found them starting to give "regular" storms already overly dramatic, or that they have started to hand out "yellow", "orange" weather alerts. Those are just not actionable for me as an average regular citizen. Mind you they probably mean that measures are being put in place for others though.

People have a bad relationship with the uncertainty of forecasts, I think it's the most inescapable example of how the media's incompetence and desire for attention should be considered malice.

The boy crying wolf effect is a result of a media that can't even inform viewers how to weigh a weather forecast. The NWS has been issuing forecasts for over 100 years, and their predictive accuracy moves at a glacial timescale compared to anything else in the news. If they can't competently communicate THAT, what the hell can they effectively inform us about?

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#138

Post by take_a_breath » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #34

take_a_breath wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn’t any form of bad news make people panic, sleep deprived, and stressed? I don’t think communicating the science or real world impacts is too hard for people to handle. If it is, we are going to have a lot more problems as the climate continues to warm. Edit: We told citizens about Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks and it caused panic, sleep depravation, and stress. Why is this risk different?

> Couldn’t any form of bad news make people panic, sleep deprived, and stressed? Yes... and that's unavoidable but the person I'm replying to is talking about deliberately inducing more panic, sleep deprivation and stress by increasing the dramatics of bad news. That seems bonkers to me. > I don’t think communicating the science or real world impacts is too hard for people to handle. I don't think giving dangerous he…

I haven't seen nearly enough action taken, so maybe sounding the alarm louder will push more action?

==I don't think giving dangerous heatwaves whimsical names is any kind of honest 'science communication.'==

We do it all the time for other weather events, specifically for communication purposes. I'm not sure people think of hurricane names as "whimsical" rather a way to understand specific details about a specific weather event.

==What you want is people taking effective action.==

And what might that "effective action" entail?

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#139

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #130

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #20

While we are at it, can we change some vocabulary used for sensitising climate change from ' For the planet ' to ' Your children will die soon, your grandchildren sooner '?

People will be able to smell the bullshit. The idea that climate change will be apocalyptic (for first world nations) in your grandchildren's time frame is just as loony-toons as denying it exists at all. The scientific consensus is nowhere near that bad.

Unfortunately, so far I have seen the opposite - people lapping it up and the "consensus" on the Internet (Reddit in particular) being that we're all doomed, with the more extreme outliers thinking about suicide because they genuinely expect the world to _inevitably_ become a literal Mad Max desert dystopia within the next few decades.

We've swung way too far from "completely ignoring the problem" to "absolute frenzy". Reminds me of Y2K.

Also, of course, if you don't agree with the hivemind (that everything is going to be much worse than actual science predicts), then you're a terrible person and need to be at least downvoted to hell, but ideally shunned and have your life ruined.

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#140

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #82

CalRobert wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stunned how even when I agree with other people about climate breakdown happening, they think "Miami flooding" and I think "my kids dying horribly in a resource war or food riot". Though people seem to be finally understanding that sea level rise is a minor concern all things considered.

> and I think "my kids dying horribly in a resource war or food riot". I still think "I'll believe it when I see it". Scientists are very good at making apocalyptic predictions based on theoretical worst case scenarios, but reality just never seems to match said predictions. In reality, stuff happens more slowly on much longer timescales. Just look at covid - back in March, the predictions were pretty dire - it was p…

A lot of it isn't even scientists, it's media picking up the most extreme opinions, distorting them to make a vague possibility sound like certainty or to make them sound worse than the actual prediction, then amplifying them for the clicks.