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

#551

Post by bjoli » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 2:20 PM UTC

whall6 wrote: post #479

bjoli wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-5/

> projected a 1–29% cereal price increase in 2050 I agree that everything in this article could and probably will happen. However, how could even a 29% increase in cereal prices lead to a societal collapse? I didn’t see anything that would lead to societal collapse. Humans adapt. They always have. Is it not possible that we could perhaps be made better as a species because of climate change?

30% is not much for us, but for countries where agriculture is 60% of GDP amore capricious weather might devestate the economy. For those people climate change is a threat multiplier. Everything gets worse and more insecure in those regions.

Big climate in short times has historically been very bad for the ecosystem in the short term. Something like the Triassic-jurassic climate shift (due to, presumably, volcanic activity) led to one of the larger extinction events in the history of the planet, killing something like 75% of all species. I am notnsaying that is where we are heading, but even something remotely close to that will most certainly be devestating for society as we know it.

If there is something that will make humanity better it is overcoming this. Not hoping that whoever makes it through will be a part of a better species.

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

#552

Post by api » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

lmilcin wrote: post #76

jacquesm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why listen to the politicians in the first place, instead of to the scientists who have been as united about this as they have ever been about any major subject? There is some fringe but the consensus is extremely clear.

And wouldn't it be reasonable to assume, if entire scientific community was involved in some kind conspiracy, that somebody somewhere would find some kind of smoking gun? And who would exactly benefit from peddling that kind of conspiracy?

I never suspected a conspiracy. I suspected ideological bias and groupthink, neither of which requires any explicit conspiracy.

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

#553

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 3:28 PM UTC

cthaeh wrote: post #405

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…

Disclaimer, I'm all for stopping climate change and think it's the biggest issue facing our generation. But nothing indicates non runaway climate change is an existential level event for humanity. Nothing. By comparing it to asteroids, and then 10, 20, 30 years in the future, when what happens is nowhere near to the complete eradication of all humans on earth that you are predicting with this comparison, why are you…

What about the fact that Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2? And with climbing average temperatures more and more of it will be released all over the Arctic due to thawing permafrost. Where 'Arctic' means Sibira, Alaska, Canada, not only north-pole.

Some say this is a feedback loop.

For some others this is an abstraction which has no concrete meaning.

Why?

Haven't you ever experienced an acoustic feedback loop, where the setup began to screech and howl because the microphone amplification was too strong and/or the speakers too loud?

I think now is the time where we begin to hear the first upswings of that, and it will get louder and louder.

Deafening.

Until we pull the plug.

Considering the inertia of the systems involved it's already too late.

So our plug will be pulled instead, sooner or later.

Except by sucking all that shit out of the air with excess electricty by whichever means, and turning it into something which makes it stay out of the air.

That may make it bearable, maybe.

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

#554

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 3:44 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…

Apocalypse WOW!

I have a slightly different view. Not the end of the world, but the end of it as we (have) know(n) it! In the literal meaning of the word, as in lifting the veil which occludes reality.

The reality of our existence as species on a world with limits exploding right back into our faces, shattering our illusions.

No demons, holy spirits, or such.

Those emerge out of our own weaknesses.

Because of bad signal to noise ratio due to SPAM of bullshitters since ancient times.

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

#555

Post by eloff » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

noobly wrote: post #539

eloff wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the consensus view. If you want to present evidence to support your contrarian argument, I'll discuss with you.

The key phrase in the question was 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. I'm not versed in atmospheric physics, so of course I can't present an educated counter arguement to the consensus, but it's complexity alone makes me skeptical of any consensus that's reached. It was only so long ago that an ice age was eminent, right? If you have any quality sources (books, videos, etc) I'd be interested in reading up more, it's an int…

> It was only so long ago that an ice age was eminent, right?

Yeah, we go through ice age cycles. We've disrupted that now, and that might actually be a good thing on a long enough timescale.

I think your hang up is that you think it's all based on climate simulations. There's lots of evidence apart from simulations, which I'm also skeptical of.

Some reading material to get an overview of what we know and don't know and how we know it:

https://www.nytimes.com/article/climate-change-global-warmin...

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

This one specifically addresses your question about how much is attributable to humans vs natural factors:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-scientists-think-10...

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

#556

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:04 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.

Well. Maybe we do live in some sort of simulation. That would imply there is some code running on some substrate of whatever nature. Code has errors, and bitrot on storage media is universal. So deviations from that plan resulting from bugs and bitrot could be the free will :-)

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

#557

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #256

SigmundA wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Atheism is just another 'ersatz-belief'. You can't prove nor disprove the existence of some entity or entities on other levels and timescales. That would be like a virus infecting a cell trying to understand its host body and the world it lives in. Or an ant in front of chip-factory, crawling over the tracks while a train comes rushing by, or something like that.

Fractal.

Try:

[∞] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

[↕] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_above,_so_below

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

#558

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

orf wrote: post #37

gruez wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as this is (anti?) virtue-signaling, it's not really a contributor to global warming. Idling the engine for a minute or two probably causes more co2 emissions. The main concern is the particulate emissions.

It’s not the act itself, it’s the fact that there is a segment of the population that will spend thousands of dollars to modify their cars to pollute more, so that they can try and humiliate people driving hybrid and electric cars. That’s a symptom of a much, much deeper problem.

Does it matter? Don't you have guns? Shoot them off the road, FFS!

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

#559

Post by noobly » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #555

noobly wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key phrase in the question was 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. I'm not versed in atmospheric physics, so of course I can't present an educated counter arguement to the consensus, but it's complexity alone makes me skeptical of any consensus that's reached. It was only so long ago that an ice age was eminent, right? If you have any quality sources (books, videos, etc) I'd be interested in reading up more, it's an int…

> It was only so long ago that an ice age was eminent, right? Yeah, we go through ice age cycles. We've disrupted that now, and that might actually be a good thing on a long enough timescale. I think your hang up is that you think it's all based on climate simulations. There's lots of evidence apart from simulations, which I'm also skeptical of. Some reading material to get an overview of what we know and don't know…

>I think your hang up is that you think it's all based on climate simulations

Yeah, models are known to fail and I was under the impression this contributes to consensus heavily. Thanks for the links, I'll read these tonight!

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

#560

Post by eloff » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 6:37 PM UTC

noobly wrote: post #559

eloff wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was only so long ago that an ice age was eminent, right? Yeah, we go through ice age cycles. We've disrupted that now, and that might actually be a good thing on a long enough timescale. I think your hang up is that you think it's all based on climate simulations. There's lots of evidence apart from simulations, which I'm also skeptical of. Some reading material to get an overview of what we know and don't know…

>I think your hang up is that you think it's all based on climate simulations Yeah, models are known to fail and I was under the impression this contributes to consensus heavily. Thanks for the links, I'll read these tonight!

This is one of those rare few times where I feel I did not waste my time disagreeing with someone on HN. I like your attitude towards things you don't understand.