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The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

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41–50 of 84 posts

Re: The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

#41
post #22
post #15

It's going to take out the fringes of many coastal cities. The US probably loses much of New Orleans and Miami. Some of the hotter spots on the planet will become unlivable. Those things have already happened. India and parts of Africa have the worst problems. As do some Asian cities with heavily populated river delta areas. On the other hand, the northern tier of US states become more habitable. We get an ice-free N…

> India and parts of Africa have the worst problems. So much so that Africa's population is projected to increase by 1 billion, doubling in the next 30 years. Any environmentalist would like to elucidate us on the consequences of this? Those who are worried about the impact of climate change on water availability or conflicts might want to have a word about the consequences of adding 1 billion people in 30 years in t…

Per-capita pollution in America is the highest in the world.

1 American produces 16.5 tons of CO2 on average, 40 times of that of Uganda, Rwanda, Chad & Somalia combined

America has about 330 million people. Convert that into a population normalized for polluting capacity, it's population will be Billions.

It's time developed countries take responsibility and lead in tackling climate change. Because they are responsible for the bulk of it in the past 10 decades.

Edit : Per-Capita pollution from India is 1.7.

Normalizing Indian population for polluting capacity, it is just about 120 Million.

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/10296/economics/top-co2-p...

edit 2: To clarify a bit, the per-capita pollution for whole of sub-saharan Africa is about 0.834. Thus on average, normalizing Americas population to match Africas per-capita pollution levels, population of America will be 6 BILLION.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...

Re: The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

#42
post #28
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're missing in my opinion is how profitable drumming up existential fears about climate change in the population has been over the decades.

You're literate, you can form complete sentences, most of you have a post secondary education. It's not news, you've had your whole life to figure this out. The debate was over a long time ago. The party is over, the balloons are all either popped or up in the ceiling. Time to put away your gazoo, and wash the make-up off. This is no time to be a clown.

The HN hive mind figured out how they wanted to the world to be when they were 13 and they haven't updated it since.

Climate Change. Renewable energy vs nuclear power. No we aren't all going to travel to other planets. You will never be a heroic figure. Women have their own opinions of things. Pandemic upends the daily routine. Car culture sucks and isn't sustainable.

None of those was part of The Plan and so the hive mind hates it.

Re: The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

#43
post #21

I keep reading of a "climate crisis", and yet cannot see first hand any actual manifestation of it outside of the newspaper headlines. There is a covid crisis going on, and I can see that well, affects me personally, affects the economy, affects the country. A climate crisis? Absolutely not. There are climate-connected adverse events here and there in the world, some with higher frequency than in the past, but do the…

The climate is changing, and it seems to be primarily caused by human activity. With change comes unpredictability and unpredictability results in perceived (and potentially actual ) instability of systems that have been in place for millennia.

If you're lucky you won't experience any crisis first-hand but for the ones experiencing things like random famines, water-shortages, poverty and conflict, all due to "climate-connected adverse effects here and there in the world", it will be life-altering.

It's not going to be the end of the World, and while the climate changes may be very long-term, life will adapt and overcome. That doesn't mean that humanity won't have a very rough ride going forward.

Re: The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

#44
post #2

I can imagine a lot of things, but what the science is saying and what this article is saying don't seem to line up. It reminds me of this tweet from Senator Ed Markey: https://twitter.com/SenMarkey/status/1101234939058683904?s=2... > Climate change is literally destroying the planet. According to the Trump admin's National Climate Assessment, with no action, climate change will result in 10% GDP loss by 2090. That 1…

You're witness to mass hysteria driven by a whole lot of profit motive, career posturing, and social signaling, with a touch of "some kinda/pretty bad stuff is gonna happen." When I was younger—before the internet was in every home—I read articles about how the "information superhighway" was going to bring the whole world closer together. To my mind, that was analogous to a major city gone amok: unprecedented competi…

This is a brilliant text. It joined pieces of knowledge I had into one unibody that sort of illuminated a whole new pathway! Thanks for this!

Perhaps you may have seen this? Will Schoder on the Attention Economy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50R21mblLb0

Re: The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

#45
This guy remembers me about the golden rule in product management: If a lot of customers complain about something, they are almost always right. If they tell you how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. Outdoor toilet? OMG, please!

It annoys me to no end that with the current environmental catastrophes, almost nobody approaches this with a quantitative engineering mindset, especially the ones who care most: Progressives (of which I consider myself one).

It‘s mindblowing how I can‘t buy a plastic wrapped cucumber in the organic shop even though it reduces waste from damage by 30%.

In a country where we recycle or cleanly incinerate 99% of plastic.

When 70% of the oceans‘ plastic comes from 4 rivers, none of them in Europe.

And they feel great about it, as if they‘re actually doing something.

Repeat after me: Large scale change will not come from individualized action. It just doesn‘t scale. The only working solution is to make the ecological choice economical.

The first way is the Elon Musk way. Just make the alternative better than the original. Best, but needs an extremely long breath with flawless vision and execution.

The second is large scale regulation. As much as I hate a lot about the EU bureaucracy, they did exactly the right things with incandescent lamps. Flat out banned them over a period of 10 years.

The same people who whined in the beginning about how mean the state is towards their free choice are now sitting in LED illuminated rooms with lower watts, better long life and almost equal CRI. All catalyzed by a removal of alternatives on the horizon.

I believe the just started CO2 tax can do the same.

Re: The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

#46

Every month I go into The Who Is Hiring thread and Ctrl-F for “climate,” “energy,” and “carbon” and almost never turn anything up. I’ve been part of this community for something like ten years and I know many people on here to be extremely shrewd and intelligent, and yet, over and over again, I see people who don’t understand the scale of climate change at all, nor the scale of the opportunity involved in transitioni…

I don't know if it is a question of intelligence or understanding, but rather evidence that there is currently very little demand for climate solutions (because everyone can externalize these costs for free). The lack of jobs on HN in this area is really a symptom of the problem. But also true that their are jobs in this area (solar) they just don't overlap with the typical HN skillset.

There is a large and growing demand for both clean energy and climate solutions. Because climate change is an unavoidable physical fact, that demand is likely to grow. It is already not free to externalize the cost of carbon, and a great deal of money and engineering talent will be needed for adaptation in the coming decades. It’s also not likely to remain cost-free to externalize the cost of carbon either. And even in the event of a breakthrough technology like nuclear fusion, there’s still the task of decarbonizing infrastructure and electrifying everything. All of this will need software. All of this will require a staggeringly large deployment of capital. And you would think that with so many smart people here, more of them would want a piece of that!

Re: The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

#47
post #21

I keep reading of a "climate crisis", and yet cannot see first hand any actual manifestation of it outside of the newspaper headlines. There is a covid crisis going on, and I can see that well, affects me personally, affects the economy, affects the country. A climate crisis? Absolutely not. There are climate-connected adverse events here and there in the world, some with higher frequency than in the past, but do the…

You missed all those wildfires then?

Re: The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

#48
post #40

Every month I go into The Who Is Hiring thread and Ctrl-F for “climate,” “energy,” and “carbon” and almost never turn anything up. I’ve been part of this community for something like ten years and I know many people on here to be extremely shrewd and intelligent, and yet, over and over again, I see people who don’t understand the scale of climate change at all, nor the scale of the opportunity involved in transitioni…

As for your search: there's climate.careers - a site with jobs based around climate change.

Yes! They’re called climatebase now, and I landed at my current job through them. Very smart folks running that organization, highly recommended!

Re: The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

#49
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually don't get frisky on this site because I prefer productive discussion, but the snotty hubris you've just demonstrated is nauseating. You're telling me that I shouldn't ask certain questions? Tell me then. Tell me, what should I be concerned about. What sort of discussion should I he engaged in? What should my opinions be? How can I be as right as you?

What is your expectation for the response to 100M refugees pouring across the border?

Show me where that's happening because of climate change. Oh, I know, its gonna happen soon™.

You can sell me doom by showing me. Again I ask, risking asking the wrong question, where's your support for your "estimate" that society will collapse globally by 2030 due to climate change?

Re: The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try

#50
post #19
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are entirely the wrong questions to be asking.

1. Why? 2. What are the right questions? Anyone can be a doomsayer.

The right questions never seem to be the ones that ask the ideologue to explain his totally correct position.
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