Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is that an asteroid is an existential threat to humanity while climate change is just short of that. The rich and powerful are always going to be protected from experiencing the worst aspects of climate change. They won't be the ones working outside when the air quality is dangerous from wildfires. They aren't going to be the ones who can't sleep because it is 90 degrees in their home. They won't be st…
> The difference is that an asteroid is an existential threat to humanity while climate change is just short of that. This is a valid point. To clarify, though, I don't think climate change is likely to make humans extinct, but I believe it has a non-trivial chance of destroying our civilization. If/when the climate gets really bad, human irrationality will go into overdrive, and we'll be a massive danger to ourselve…
It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
541–550 of 578 posts
Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
#5422065, 4 plus Celsius projected by the ipcc. And usually they are very very Conservative to not be labelled alarmists. So.. It's likely going to be 5 or 6.
Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
#543Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like many pigouvian taxes, most carbon tax proposals make an attempt to offset its regressiveness by distributing some sort of dividend or rebate. The idea isn't to punish the poor for driving to work. Rather, it's an attempt to charge the major carbon-emitters for their pollution of the commons (the atmosphere), then compensate the public with that money.
If there's a direct redistribution of sorts, then the poor can be protected from costs. But any policy without an explicit redistribution scheme will raise the cost of business, and thus, raise the cost to consumers (as businesses pass these on). e.g. for demonstration, imagine you sell apples for a 10 cent profit. Government enacts a 10 cent tax on apples. Now you must raise your price to consumers by at least 10 ce…
By raising the price of apples, some people might just choose to eat pears instead, and still collect their rebate from the apple tax.
(People can buy electric cars, hybrid cars, take public transit, ride their bike, etc)
Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
#544Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here you go: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/ It’s the report from 2014, the updated one will come next year. It’s a few thousand pages, but still just a summary of thousands of academic studies. You can go to each individual paper if you want exact confidence interval for each study. Climate change is already impacting the average American with wildfires, drought, more hurricanes and floods. Costs of insurance in…
Exactly as I said, studies have been done. So where is that bubbling into discourse? Saying wildfires and floods, in a hand-wavey sense, makes you sound quite uninformed and doesn't inspire much call to action. You have to connect the direct costs and benefits to the individual if you ever want to persuade somebody. So can you explain to the voter in Michigan why raising gas by 50 cents is worth policy X? Just as an…
Took me all 20 seconds to find.
I’m sorry that we in advance can’t tell you exactly how many orphans will die in the fire and how many will be saved. Most of us thinks it is a good idea to try to extinguish the fire before the exact outcome is known. We know enough about fires.
And maybe this is what you just don’t get (because you don’t even bother to look at the links that are sent to you): We are facing a catastrophe of gargantuan scale, not more or less inconvenience. And you are counting beans.
Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
#545Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
#546Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had to explain this to a relative who started in with the “the earth has always had climate change” jibberish. They tried to tell me no-one knows how the last Ice Age happened. So I explained, but because they didn’t understand any of the concepts involved they thought I was just making it up. It’s a good reminder never to assume malice when plain old stupidity is on the table.
You may win the arguments but you will lose the war. Please, as someone who understands the problem, do the planet a favor and learn about psychology too. Arguing with people is counter productive, as is shading the truth. Lastly, have the wisdom to know that you will not be able to change everyone’s thinking. There are people who think iPhones are secure and no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise. Don’t…
Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
#547Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is that an asteroid is an existential threat to humanity while climate change is just short of that. The rich and powerful are always going to be protected from experiencing the worst aspects of climate change. They won't be the ones working outside when the air quality is dangerous from wildfires. They aren't going to be the ones who can't sleep because it is 90 degrees in their home. They won't be st…
> The difference is that an asteroid is an existential threat to humanity while climate change is just short of that. And you can see an asteroid heading straight for you, anyone skeptical could just get, or borrow, a scope. I don't think an asteroid collision would induce a politicized disinfo campaign personally, it's too concrete.
People commiting suicide because of their bullying isn't concrete enough, an asteroid might not be either.
Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
#548Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because its audience seems to be a bit worried that we will cook ourselves taking a look to some statistics, which therefore means (luckily in my opinion) the audience trust statistics
Repeatedly showing stats won’t make things better or make people more aware of the problem, in the end people will still use their cars while they wait for others to make a change. Hypocrisy at its best, that’s what I see
If you don't want to
Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
#549Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's hard to know. I would have thought the earth being round was "too concrete" to dispute, but here we are.
Well, to be fair, you can't see curvature with your own eyes like you can an asteroid, at least not feasibly/easily. Your ancestors lived in a world where thinking it was round was stupid..
Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
#550Earlier quoted context omitted.
Politicians were also saying "there's nothing to worry about." Shouldn't you be at least equally skeptical whenever someone in power promotes maintaining the status quo? Seems like a rather useless razor, since politicians often both say pro- and against- arguments for things. But here especially, "politicians" or "the media" trying to scare you about it is a bit of a red herring. E.g., the media was talking about it…
Unfortunately its not that politicians were warning people about it, its that the politicians of the other side were. So many of us automatically discount the opinions of anyone in power if they have the wrong letter next to their name.
It was because someone in power was saying it was a looming catastrophe that could only be solved by doing radical things. That makes me think it’s a cynical power grab.
Sort of like how we had incontrovertible proof there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Green ideology also triggered my skepticism since ideology blinds people to reality. Like the political party, the ideology doesn’t matter. Any time a bunch of believers in an ideology are harping on something that others are not I get real skeptical.
These days it’s hard for me to believe anything unless I see the same information coming from multiple sources with different biases. If it’s all coming from the same sources with one consistent bias it’s probably bullshit.