Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US • Hacker News Board

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#231

Post by mhb » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

TomSwirly wrote: post #196

mhb wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a problem and need to find the best way to fix it. Understanding the cause in order to find one possible fix is an obvious thing to do. So is looking for any other possible solutions. It is an unnecessary constraint that we need to solve the problem only by reversing its cause. If the cause of the problem was a brighter sun but we could save the planet by internalizing the cost of our emissions, it seems like…

I can just imagine you as a doctor. "We don't need to know what's causing the disease - we'll just give you medicine, that has to work!"

The suggestion that we don't currently use medicines for which we don't know the mechanism made me smile. Thanks.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#232

Post by MrAlex94 » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

ghthor wrote: post #220

Balgair wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the sky was orange and the sun never came out. The ice just keeps melting when it shouldn't. The hurricanes are getting worse. The years just get hotter. It's happening , present tense. The data is in, you can see it with your own eyes. It's clear as day (pun intended).

Yep, that's great. It's also happened many times in the past when no documented industrial civilization existed. There is a long term correlation with solar activity(CME's,Sunspots,Solar flares) that can attest for large climatic swings of the past. The science is not clear as day, and if you stopped searching for the truth of the matter you've stopped do science.

> Do scientists agree on climate change? > > Yes, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change.

https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/

Climate Change: How Do We Know? https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#233

Post by jfengel » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

EarthIsHome wrote: post #160

jfengel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The single most effective thing you can do for climate change, by far, is vote. The climate is one of those tragedy-of-the-commons problems that can only be solved when everybody consents to work on it together. It takes only a relatively small proportion to prevent any progress from being made. We certainly to have enough resources to intervene, but doing "something -- no matter how trivial" fails to minimize the de…

I don't know where you live, but on my ballot, "the environment" isn't listed. Instead of goals or policies, what's listed are politicians. An honest question: The west coast is represented by Democrats. Who am I supposed to vote for? We've known about climate change, and we've voted. We've had both Republican and Democratic regimes over the past half century, but what has changed for the better? Just recently, House…

We are in big trouble. I'll be blunt that even the best conceivable case is very bad.

As you say, we've had both "regimes", but never for very long, especially given that it takes an overwhelming effort to accomplish anything legislatively. A party in favor of the status quo can stop all change if it runs either house of the legislative or the executive branch -- and it needs only a 41 vote minority in the Senate.

The only way for change to happen is to vote for it over and over, consistently. The party that comes closer to your view on the environment has won two elections in a row exactly once in my lifetime. Even after they get into power they have to actually govern a large, fractious country, including genuine differences of opinion within themselves.

So you can make a perfectly consistent case for giving the fuck up as impossible. Even if your party wins in November, I can practically guarantee that they'll lose two years from now. I stresssed voting in the gp post because you need to do it every goddamned time if you want anything to change. I do think it is the only thing we can do, and yeah, we're in big trouble.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#234

Post by daveslash » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

jnurmine wrote: post #200

daveslash wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If our ecology really is collapsing, this is going to get worse. As resources become more and more scarce, powerful first-world countries are not going to want to regress in their standards of living, which I speculate is going to lead to increased global conflict.

Are you familiar with Jem Bendell's "Deep Adaptation"? Its premise is that near-term (climate-induced) ecological-societal collapse is inevitable and unavoidable, and the way forward is to adapt to this, as there is no longer a way to mitigate it.

No, I'm not familiar. I'll look it up. Thank you.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#235

Post by rkuykendall-com » Sun, Sep 20, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

ghthor wrote: post #220

Balgair wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the sky was orange and the sun never came out. The ice just keeps melting when it shouldn't. The hurricanes are getting worse. The years just get hotter. It's happening , present tense. The data is in, you can see it with your own eyes. It's clear as day (pun intended).

Yep, that's great. It's also happened many times in the past when no documented industrial civilization existed. There is a long term correlation with solar activity(CME's,Sunspots,Solar flares) that can attest for large climatic swings of the past. The science is not clear as day, and if you stopped searching for the truth of the matter you've stopped do science.

> that can attest for large climatic swings of the past

Large swings of the past aren't as quick as you think they are, or as we are experiencing today:

https://xkcd.com/1732/

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#236

Post by heresie-dabord » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 4:06 PM UTC

MiroF wrote: post #102

heresie-dabord wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in a way that would be totally socially unacceptable if you were talking about targeted killings or genocide It is neither "cavalier" nor incompassionate to refer to the age of the planet and the history of life (e.g. humans). It's a scientific fact that we haven't existed for very long in geological time and that we could become extinct by our own doing... or by a suitably large cosmic impactor (among other causes…

You're being uncharitable with your interpretation of my comment. > Indeed. Squeamish about the truth, comfortable in delusion. I'm taking issue with the extinction of humanity being framed as a good thing or a solution to the problem. > we could become extinct by our own doing Yes, and that would be horrible! That would be more horrible than any action taken by the tobacco industry, the war industry, or the inevitab…

Let me say that I have thought about your position.

It is not a "solution" for humanity to exterminate itself through its own idiocy. But you can see that it is a hard problem that might well "solve itself", as the thread-OP said. As a humanist, I prefer to make an effort.

Although extinction through our own idiocy would be horrible, it would be of a piece with the other plagues that I mentioned. Albeit on a different scale.

Extinction because of a major catastrophic event not of our causing would be tragic because there isn't much intelligent life in the neighbourhood, much less under our "own roof".