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

#391

Post by rekwah » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

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…

This makes me of Melancholia[0] although the outcome may or may not be different (#nospoilers)

[0]https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1527186/

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

#392

Post by baron_harkonnen » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

edgyquant wrote: post #60

imoverclocked wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the plethora of scientists claiming that it was an issue not factor in at all?

To be frank the science is way less apocalyptic in nature than certain politicians and people tend to be rhetorically speaking. Climate change isn’t going to wipe out humanity or all life on Earth and I’ve never seen a legit paper even come close to suggesting this. Yet I hear it from Joe blow all the time.

Have you read anything by Peter Ward? He's a fairly well respected paleontologist who has argued convincingly in both papers and popular books (most notably "Under a Green Sky"), that sudden rises in CO2 have been linked to the majority of major (and many minor) mass extinctions throughout history.

He's not alone in scientists out there who believe that rapid climate change is a serious existential risk to humans and many species on Earth. We are already likely in the 6th largest extinction event. If you relax from "extinction" to "collapse of industrial civilization" the number of people who have studied and argued this academically grows quite a bit.

I agree that no one seriously believes the extinction of "all life on Earth" is possible, quite a bit survived the End Permian. But existential risk to humans an much life on Earth is not out of the question based on geological evidence.

Additionally scientists are humans too, and it is hard for any of us to seriously consider existential threats as realistic. If there's been a bias in past IPCC reports it's been for optimism, frequently ignoring feedback while assuming large scale carbon capture and storage.

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

#393

Post by iammisc » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

actually_a_dog wrote: post #368

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing with covid. "The China Virus is sent from China so we shouldn't have to deal with it because it's not our fault". Oh, had the virus arisen naturally in the US, we could fight it, but because it's (supposedly) an act of Chinese biological warfare, we should just take it lying down? I don't get people.

People were actually saying we shouldn't have to deal with covid because it came from China? In what world does that make the tiniest lick of sense?

I've never heard this argument and I'm around a lot of people who believe it came from China. This feels like a strawman.

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

#394

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #370

jacquesm wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is extremely hard for people who are working on facts based stuff to get their heads wrapped around people who are religious, let alone those who are religious and who are working on facts based stuff at the same time (there are plenty of those). Suffice to say that it is very well possible to have different 'modes' of operations, where one moment you are fact based and the next you are belief based. So when you a…

> It is extremely hard for people who are working on facts based stuff to get their heads wrapped around people who are religious, let alone those who are religious and who are working on facts based stuff at the same time (there are plenty of those). It is also hard for religious people to wrap their heads around facts and certainty. Before I was atheist I would debate Christians on the merits of theistic evolution…

> It is also hard for religious people to wrap their heads around facts and certainty.

I know some very good hard science scientists who have absolutely no problem with this and I suspect that goes for the bulk of them. Religious people come from all walks of life and have all kinds of professions, some of them dealing with facts, others less so.

I also know plenty of atheists that have a problem with accepting facts and dealing with probability (which is another way of saying certainty).

So I don't think that by itself says much. It's when the two are in conflict that things get interesting: what if your facts say 'a' and your belief says 'b'. In some cases this leads to people renouncing their belief, in others it causes psychological issues, and in the majority it is just absorbed without any apparent conflict or discomfort.

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

#395

Post by polote » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

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…

I doubt something like that can happen actually.

Global warming is less obvious risk than an asteroid and still today most of the big economies start transitioning to greener energy. Not at a fast pace, but still a lot of work is being done.

It doesn't mean enough effort is being done to not destroy humankind but there are things happening

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

#396

Post by sparrish » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

4ec0755f5522 wrote: post #171

bwship wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call myself a denier. But a hot July doesn't sound that scary. Next thing that will happen is February will be the coldest month ever recorded, and then people will really lose their shit.

Where I have lived my entire life, the hottest I'd ever seen in my is 33C. That would be an unusual year. The hottest summer days might hit 30C. This is 100 years, historically: over 30 is possibly, but unusual. Years where 29C is the hottest day is completely typical. End of June (June! Not even July/August!) we had a heat wave. What would you expect to find in such an event? Maybe 34? That sounds pretty hot. 35? 36…

Anecdotal... let's do it.

Where I live, we've had the mildest July in many years. It only hit 90+ for a day or two. That's unusual. We've had more rain and cooler temps than I can remember in a decade.

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

#397

Post by nradov » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

SigmundA wrote: post #220

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 have never been able to get my head around the religious paradox of God has a plan and free will. Can we make choices that effect the outcome of things or is it all part of Gods plan? It can't be both right? Did God create everything including free will or does it exist outside of his control? I don't blame my program when it does something wrong, I mean I wrote the code that tells it how to behave.

The Catholic religion has a comprehensive theology of free will. We might not agree with them, but they've thought it through and see no paradox.

https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/free-will

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

#398

Post by iammisc » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

dotcommand wrote: post #345

lmilcin wrote: post #8

Who still believes global warming does not exist? I am currently listening to audiobook of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (1998). It has a paragraph on global warming and trying to convince POTUS it is real. And POTUS not wanting to act on it because it would be too large economic drag on US. This book is almost quarter of century old.

> Who still believes global warming does not exist? Nobody is denying that the weather has been warming. It's all the political hysterics and nonsense that a lot of people have issues with. And of course the "world-is-ending" chicken little craziness. > I am currently listening to audiobook of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (1998). It has a paragraph on global warming and trying to convince POTUS it is real. And POTUS not…

This is my position. I mostly believe that humans are causing climate change, I just don't buy into the hysterics, but i broadly support green tech, less consumption, etc, and invest appropriately in companies seeking this future. I'm just not going to sit here and live in fear. I feel the same way about almost every claim of apocalypse, whether it's global warming or covid.

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

#399

Post by jdavis703 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

adam_arthur wrote: post #367

Any policy should be evaluated on the basis of costs and benefits. Too much of the conversation on global warming is either broadly dismissive or exasperatingly alarmist. Fundamentally policy changes to curb global warming will have economic consequence, those of which will be borne disproportionately by the poor. E.g. efforts to curb oil and coal extraction will naturally result in the price of energy going up. I ca…

This is a fairly western centric view of “the poor.” The poor in the global south are absolutely going to be disproportionately impacted by climate change. If anything it’s the rich who are least impacted by global warming. The rich can afford to buy AC, move to areas that aren’t at risk of fires and floods and famines won’t cause us to go hungry.

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

#400

Post by UncleOxidant » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #304

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…

> There is a severely underestimated group of religious people who think that only God controls the weather There are also millions of ultra-fundamentalists who believe that we are presently living in the "end times" and in some cases doing things to attempt to bring about the end of civilization and final parts of the book of Revelations as quickly as possible. Or they simply don't care about environmental matters b…

Yes, the vast majority of American Evangelicals (the largest sect of Christianity in the US) hold to an apocalyptic view. Their attitude is basically "God's going to burn everything down anyway, so why should we care about the earth?" - of course, other branches of Christianity would very much disagree with this assessment of the Book of Revelation, in fact, the Evangelical view is a fairly recent one emerging with Darby in the 1830s or so, and while he didn't find much of an audience for it in his native England or Ireland, he found a very receptive audience for his ideas when he came to America to preach them.

If you have a time machine and want to have a big impact on history, stop Darby from arriving in America in the 1860s.