It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#371

Post by lhorie » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #237

pessimizer wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a severely underestimated group of religious people who think that only God controls the weather, His reasons for what he does with it are not for you to evaluate, and that saying that humans can change the weather is blasphemy. It's easy to make fun of, but the most direct experience that people have of a God who controls the universe would be the weather. These people need to be approached theologically; s…

I think it's healthy and necessary to make fun of fundamentalists - I think the issue comes when people make efforts at taking them seriously and give their platform a modicum of respect at a national level. The US has a severe issue with fundamentalist entrenchment in media and government at the moment and it's going to take a while to kick them all out. Evangelism is an extremist ideology that is causing ongoing ha…

I find it amusing to compare how we treat fundamentalists vs how we treat children. They both can be extremely stubborn and say the darnest things, but with one group, people think ridicule is going to yield good results, even though with the other, that's a big no-no.

You know you're not going to get a good result from a yelling contest with your kid about who's more right, so I don't understand the reasoning that dismissing religion altogether is somehow going to "make the sheeple see the error of their ways".

Semi-ironically, I'm reminded of an episode of a kids-oriented podcast I listened to recently that talked about a different approach to conflict resolution: negotiations. The gist being to strive to meet the other party at their level and work together rather than against each other. You'd be surprised at how fundamentally you can shake some people by pointing at some relevant Bible passage that supports your position (for example, showering them w/ direct quotes from Matthew 25:35, Leviticus 19:34 and a dozen other similar passages in response to xenophobia)

For climate change specifically, there's a bunch of passages written where the gist is that God made Earth good, but humans defiled it[0]. One could probably start a dialogue by pointing at those.

[0] https://www.openbible.info/topics/climate_change

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#372

Post by titzer » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

k33n wrote: post #244

underscore_ku wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

same rednecks vote for trump...

Proudly! His policy positions resulted in us being energy independent, reformed our prisons, and ended the forever-wars. Then there's the vaccine that Democrat leadership advised their constituents not to take. The Trump haters believe that an election should be a popularity contest, and not a contest of policy and ideas.

"This site is sadly run by militant commies who are triggered by the existence of better men."

I lol'd at this part from your profile. I mean, you believe this and are literally trolling right now. This should be flagged.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#373

Post by ls612 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #348

linuxhansl wrote: post #303

Imagine an asteroid would be on trajectory to collide with earth in (say) 2025. Possible order of hypothetical events: 1. Scientist discover the asteroid. Calculate risk of collision. 2. Asteroid comes closer, probability of impact is calculated as high. 3. People will start saying that we cannot let our economy be controlled by the specter of an asteroid. 4. The asteroid becomes visible. You can see it with your bar…

Honestly, given our track record I don't understand how we've actually managed to ban fluorocarbons globally.

Because unlike the cost of mitigating climate change (or covid for that matter) the global cost of switching to other chemicals was very small, on the order of single digit billions of dollars. It turns out most people don’t want to radically upend their lives for the benefit of others who knew?

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#374

Post by sampo » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

polote wrote: post #83

Ok global warming is happening we know it for a long time. But is there a place somewhere that explain how could the world works without emitting too much co2, or any gaz which are problematic. How do we replace cars ? trucks ? how many people on earth is possible ? Can we have plane ? Boat ? How do we produce clothes, how do we have electricity at night ... I'm not asking to have a plan for everything, because this…

> But is there a place somewhere that explain how could the world works without emitting too much co2, or any gaz which are problematic.

Per capita per year CO2 emissions, in tonnes:

    US     16.06
    China   7.1
    EU-27   6.56
    France  4.97
    World   4.72
    Sweden  4.26
    India   1.91

Maybe the answer is somewhere between Sweden and India.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#375

Post by nashashmi » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #200

SigmundA wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the deniers I know have shifted from it doesn't exist to either its not man made and just a natural cycle or it may actually be a good thing because plants like CO2 and warmth...

There is a severely underestimated group of religious people who think that only God controls the weather, His reasons for what he does with it are not for you to evaluate, and that saying that humans can change the weather is blasphemy. It's easy to make fun of, but the most direct experience that people have of a God who controls the universe would be the weather. These people need to be approached theologically; s…

> These people need to be approached theologically; secular explanations are not going to hack it.

I’m one of them. I don’t think that is a silver bullet to getting them to shift. Part of their resistance is because they think it’s not possible for them to live in a ecological conscious economy. Too much disturbance.

I have used a theological approach to getting them to adjust. I call it karma. If you Waste more resource, god will punish you. And the warming of the earth now is a result of that waste. We waste far too much like it means nothing. Their is a whole lot of truth in that even for the agnostic. But the agnostic needs a different argument to change. Something along the lines of saving the fragile planet.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#376

Post by polote » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

ptkd wrote: post #306

polote wrote: post #83

Ok global warming is happening we know it for a long time. But is there a place somewhere that explain how could the world works without emitting too much co2, or any gaz which are problematic. How do we replace cars ? trucks ? how many people on earth is possible ? Can we have plane ? Boat ? How do we produce clothes, how do we have electricity at night ... I'm not asking to have a plan for everything, because this…

high level there's a two pronged path: * Clean electricity generation (solar, wind, hydro with some sort of grid storage/distribution mechanism to handle when sun isn't shining/wind isn't blowing) and * Electrification (EVs, non-gas heating) > Can we have planes Yes, at some point. Electric planes are being explored but have difficulties with battery weight. Another possibility is green hydrogen or perhaps some other…

So basically you say, let's replace most of the energy sources by solar, wind and hydro. And use battery every time we need to get off the grid.

As for storage for the grid, are we actually confident that we can transfer that quantity of energy between countries ? Because if everything becomes electricity powered. That means a lot of power over long distance.

Do we know if there are enough natural resources to produce that amount of lithium batteries also ?

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#377

Post by bena » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

imoverclocked wrote: post #101

api wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scientists seemed to have a single political leaning, which made me more skeptical. I saw it as religious apologetics for green ideology. The presence of any strong uniform ideology makes me extremely skeptical just like political interest does. I'd summarize as: I assume that strong ideological beliefs or political motives make people irrational, dishonest, and untrustworthy.

I'm not sure why you are being down-voted for voicing your position. Thanks for sharing it. I think that if we (as a society) can't find a way to communicate basic truths to all of us, we are probably doomed; There has to be a way for everyone to be able to say "1 + 1 = 2" and not have endless debate about it. Trusting the leaders that we elect is probably part of that equation... but that also means those leaders ne…

I think it's because people are skeptical of the source of his skepticism. They believe he is being disingenuous and trying to couch his position in something that will excuse his behavior.

They're also pointing out the core inconsistency in his logic. He claims his basis for climate skepticism was that politicians said it and politicians lie. But others pointed out that there were always politicians on both sides of the issue. So if politicians lie and politicians are on both sides of the issue then we have a problem. We can't use politicians as a barometer of truth, either way.

So either his reason for climate skepticism isn't "politicians said it" or his reason for climate skepticism is because "politicians who don't share a political party with me said it". And that's obviously bad. But he can't say that, because it's obviously bad.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#378

Post by noobly » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

csense wrote: post #273

Shouldn't climate change have both negative and positive effects? For example, people don't want to live in the Rust Belt because the winters are too cold. Could the region's economic viability increase if winters get milder? In some places, climate change makes things worse for growing crops, makes people need to move out, or increases the probability of disasters. Everyone is talking about this. In other places, cl…

It takes life a little bit to react to these changes though, e.g plants dying and ocean life being killed off. There's a risk of cascading effects from plant/animal network collapse. I have heard people building off of your idea though and speculating that Northern areas like Russia may be valuable in the next century as new farming land.

And I don't think people should be able to downvote a question without answering, or upvoting a response that addresses some criticism, I agree it sucks.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#379

Post by UncleOxidant » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #200

SigmundA wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the deniers I know have shifted from it doesn't exist to either its not man made and just a natural cycle or it may actually be a good thing because plants like CO2 and warmth...

There is a severely underestimated group of religious people who think that only God controls the weather, His reasons for what he does with it are not for you to evaluate, and that saying that humans can change the weather is blasphemy. It's easy to make fun of, but the most direct experience that people have of a God who controls the universe would be the weather. These people need to be approached theologically; s…

Not only that God controls the weather. I recently saw some propaganda from one of the Young Earth Creationist orgs. It was a book about how climate change can't be real. These groups are pushing hard against the idea of human induced climate change because it threatens their entire world-view. They think the earth is only 6000 year old, so when we say we're burning millions of years of accumulated fossil fuels in a very short amount of time (since the dawn of the industrial age) they go ballistic - it's a threat to their young earth creationist view in which there wasn't enough time to build up that much carbon in the ground. This is why they're fighting the idea of human induced climate change quite vigorously.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#380

Post by edgyquant » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #151

edgyquant wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ecosystem of micro-organisms that provide the majority of the planet's oxygen will collapse, Citation needed. This is the doomsaying that people see, then see legit science doesn’t suggest this, and assume it’s all as real as the book of revelations. We need to spread real information not act like the world will legitimately end because the temperature goes up to what it was 3 million years ago.

I think they might be referring to phytoplankton. Their shells are dependent on the ocean being amenable to their development, and it's becoming less so, already causing growing pockets of oxygen-poor ocean waters.[0][1] They happen to be responsible for about half our oxygen, or more.[2] 0: https://psmag.com/environment/global-warming-is-putting-phyt... 1: https://news.mit.edu/2015/ocean-acidification-phytoplankton-…

Funny. The MIT article basically proves my point about doomsaying.

>the researchers observed that as ocean acidification prompted some species to grow faster, and others slower

> By 2100, the local composition of the oceans may also look very different due to warming water: The model predicts that many phytoplankton species will move toward the poles. That means that in New England, for instance, marine communities may look very different in the next century

So basically, yes, the ecosystems will change and some species will die while others blossom and thrive. That paper says nothing about oxygen levels or phytoplankton as a group of species going extinct. As is typical, and actual scientist says something and talks about its ramifications and people turn it into an apocalyptic tale. I particularly like the beginning quote from the researcher himself

>”I’ve always been a total believer in climate change, and I try not to be an alarmist, because it’s not good for anyone,” says Dutkiewicz.