Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 1001 posts

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#231

Post by holografix »

I have this overwhelming feeling that it’s over.

Are there publications and articles or studies etc about how the rich are preparing for the impact of climate change?

Are there large swaths of Alaska being bought up? Farms in California being sold cheap? Mega security mansions popping up in New Zealand? Fresh water supply chains suddenly being consolidated under the same biz? Is this part of the reason why China is getting half of Africa in debt? To secure a food bowl and have a legitimate reason to deploy force when needed?

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#232

Post by shadowfaxRodeo »

rob_c wrote: post #212
shadowfaxRodeo wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if every person on the planet did what you reasonably expect of yourself, we would still not even be close to reducing CO2 production. By all means do those things. But if you want to make a real difference you need to look beyond your own activities. Change your community, your company, your industry. What can you do that changes the defaults for everyone else? Try and find low-hanging fruit. Join your local cl…

Not sure what solutions that group is supposed to be espoucing but they're mostly just a political lobbying group. Frankly until the shouting and arguing stops and someone who can make a difference comes to the table I'm out. There is was too much posturing which makes no difference and is bad on both sides from plastic signs complaining about pollution to politicians who travel from ecological disaster to ecological…

350.org have done a bunch of stuff — as for plastic signs complaining about pollution. Yes that's annoying, (it annoys me that 350.org's website is incredibly bad for environment https://www.websitecarbon.com/website/350-org/)

If you want to make a difference, do something local. That's where the biggest shifts are happening — and you're unlikely to encounter any real arguments. People tend to only have those arguments when they have an audience, e.g. Twitter, TV

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#233

Post by ygjb »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #209
Joeri wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual action won’t solve this problem. We need to leave the fossil fuels in the ground, which means switching energy sources, which is not something individuals have much influence on. Reducing energy use at the individual level is good, but insufficient if the energy used comes from fossil fuels. I’m not sure we need to switch lifestyles that much, but we will need to radically change energy production. There h…

You can't transition from dinosaurs to sun in a day, so you need both. And if you need both, you need individuals to make the switch too. And for individuals to make the switch, you need to allow it.

This argument is the problem. If we stopped producing fossil fuels right now, there would be an economic collapse, and starvation, and probably a few wars.

In 50-75 years we will probably be looking back in horror at the missed opportunity to avoid the ongoing economic collapse, the massive famine, starvation, and plagues that will follow on COVID, and the continuous wars as refugees flood from the front lines of climate collapse to places where the impacts aren't as severe and immediate.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#234

Post by danparsonson »

ggm wrote: post #196
baxtr wrote: post #153

The world's population was at around 5.3 bn in 1990 and is now approaching 7.7 bn. This ain't a popular opinion on HN, but I think a key factor to getting climate change under control (whatever that means), is to reduce the growth and to stabilize the population.

It's stabilising. Look at the curve. Increasing wealth in Africa and Asia correlates strongly to a drop in birthrate. The problem isn't unconstrained population growth, it's the energy budget inherent in the population we have already, as standards of living rise worldwide. 30y and we didn't double. We probably won't hit 10b

10b would be just over 25% more people - therefore even if we manage to reduce per-capita environmental impact by 25% (which is evidently no mean feat), we'd still just be treading water.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#235

Post by gspr »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #161
gspr wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As usual the elephant in the room is the global population. No. Thankfully, the global population is more or less levelling off. We know the recipe by now: lift people out of abject poverty (wherein children are the only ones providing for you at old age), combat child mortality (under which people have far more children to be sure that at least some grow up), and give women control of their own bodies and educatio…

Levelling off at 8-9 billions is unsustainable if poverty is eradicated and probably even if it isn't. The demand on resources is simply too great. Global population is a key problem for humanity.

I don't think that's true. We know how to produce all the energy we need with almost no GHG emissions. Do that, and put greenhouses everywhere, switch everyone to a purely plant-based diet.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#236

Post by ugjka »

nosianu wrote: post #201
rich_sasha wrote: post #170

It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc). For that if for no other reason, I’d rather if consumer prices included an explicit CO2 tax. The here can be a rebate for poorer people, or personal allowance, whatever, but there would be a fixed yardstic…

> It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production Not really. For some reason the actually quite simple problem is needlessly complicated in the discussions. Stop digging up ANY carbon from below ground where it was safely buried. Any carbon above ground is part of the cycle that includes atmospheric CO2. You need huge effort to change how much of it is in CO2 form at any time while still ha…

It is too late for everything, there are cascading effects that are completely out of control like the permafrost melting and releasing methane. What are you going to do about that?

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#239

Post by shadowfaxRodeo »

rich_sasha wrote: post #219
shadowfaxRodeo wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if every person on the planet did what you reasonably expect of yourself, we would still not even be close to reducing CO2 production. By all means do those things. But if you want to make a real difference you need to look beyond your own activities. Change your community, your company, your industry. What can you do that changes the defaults for everyone else? Try and find low-hanging fruit. Join your local cl…

It's a start though. It makes the CO2 use visible and transparent . I reckon so many people would care a lot about carbon in electricity if their itemised power bill included a fat slice of 'carbon'. Suddenly there would be pressure to decarbonise etc. Large companies could optimise their (significant at scale) bill for carbon use. Do the PCs really have to run 24/7 for example? It's the old 'you cannot improve what…

Totally. For me it's a matter of credibility. Nobody wants to listen to the climate activist who flies around in a private jet.
Post reply on HN