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Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

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Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#101

Post by intuitionist »

lisper wrote: post #4

It's not just young people. I'm 56 and I'm going through a pretty serious personal existential crisis w.r.t. climate change. I think even the people who are worried about it don't realize quite how serious the situation is. I used to feel pretty confident that all of the really bad shit would not happen until after I was dead. I'm not nearly so confident any more. I now think there is a significant chance that I coul…

The near-term collapse of technological civilization has the silver lining that wild things will have a chance to recolonize the planet. The alternative—a world of ever increasing control and declining standard of living for almost everybody on behalf of a tiny few—is far more terrifying to me.

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#102

Post by [deleted] »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #83
lisper wrote: post #4

It's not just young people. I'm 56 and I'm going through a pretty serious personal existential crisis w.r.t. climate change. I think even the people who are worried about it don't realize quite how serious the situation is. I used to feel pretty confident that all of the really bad shit would not happen until after I was dead. I'm not nearly so confident any more. I now think there is a significant chance that I coul…

When I was in elementary school (early 90's) we were taught that half of New York would be underwater by 2020. Obviously didn't happen. Stop reading the news, they're fear-mongers and outlandish predictions have been happening for decades.

[deleted]

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#103

Post by nimih »

mc32 wrote: post #22

I'm sure people are frustrated, but I wonder what the consensus, if you could fine one, would be. What exactly are they expecting governments to change? Policy, power generation, transportation, what? And will they accept the necessary or resultant policies and changes? The above are "easy" if you have a totalitarian regime where what the autocrats say go, goes: China, Saudi Arabia, etc., most other countries are mor…

> I'm sure people are frustrated, but I wonder what the consensus, if you could fine one, would be.

Probably despair that they've been failed by my generation, my parent's generation and (since they're to a large extent the ones still in power, at least in the US), my grandparent's generation. Since, as you point out, change takes time in democracies, and even longer internationally, it was our collective jobs to avoid even being in this situation, and we sort of screwed the pooch.

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#104

Post by ClumsyPilot »

throwawaysea wrote: post #65
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What propagates anxiety in young people is that they can't vote untill they are 18, their voting block is tiny and no-one represents their concerns in the system. Meanwhile folks in charge are dense as lead and vote for one party their whole life, but deride 'millennials'.

The voting age should probably be raised, not lowered. The fact that those polled here cannot function normally day to day in large numbers due to climate anxiety (per this article) suggests those in this age group are far too immature emotionally and mentally to make good choices. Obviously I am speculating, but I bet many of those polled would answer differently ten years from now, or if they were working, or had a…

I am sick of younger generations being derided and given no credit. It was students who protested the Vietnam war, climate change and brought the piece movement. It was older voters that supported Tump, Brexit and Iraq war. It was the young people that were drafted into the army to die half a world away.

Can you point to a single issue where young people were the problem?

Older voters are more likely to be partisan, closed minded and (yes, ghasp) sexist or racist. We have older folks that voted for the same party their entire life. If you grow old, senile and longer function mentally, you can still vote. We teach 17 year olds general relativity and differential equations but don't trust them to vote, when they will have to live with the consequences.

PS. I am, myself, bordering on the 3rd decade now, but I can see this toxic attitude for what it is. Like classism and other ism's, ageism persists.

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#105

Post by larzang »

tuatoru wrote: post #74
tppiotrowski wrote: post #42

The economics of solar are good news. Hopefully we've hit an inflection point where coal power is no longer economical [1] [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90583426/the-price-of-solar-elec...

Coal hasn't been economical for at least two years, in the sense that the capital cost of new PV is less than the operating cost of existing coal. The problem is that developing countries like China and India are so desperately short of electricity (growth in demand is so high) that any new builds just add to existing production rather than replacing it. - Governments will prop up uneconomic generators to maintain to…

Peak Chinese coal consumption was 2013, it's still substantial but total usage has been falling along with percentage of total output for a while now.

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#106

Post by simonsarris »

toolz wrote: post #61

I'm probably overly calm about climate change. I can't trust that science isn't trying to sensationalize the problem so much so that I end up discounting everything I read. Take this [1] paper for example I just happened upon. Look at this scary graphic they provide to convince the reader that wildfires are getting worse [2]. The paper goes on painting a terrible picture about the rising trend of wildfires in the U.S…

Fires specifically is an annoying one. Politicians have huge incentive to point the blame at anything except poor management.

See:

> Approximately 1.8 million ha burned annually in California prehistorically (pre 1800). Our estimate of prehistoric annual area burned in California is 88% of the total annual wildfire area in the entire US during a decade (1994–2004) characterized as ‘‘extreme’’ regarding wildfires. The idea that US wildfire area of approximately two million ha annually is extreme is certainly a 20th or 21st century perspective. Skies were likely smoky much of the summer and fall in California during the prehistoric period.

from: Prehistoric fire area and emissions from California’s forests, woodlands, shrublands, and grasslands (2007)

https://www.sierraforestlegacy.org/Resources/Conservation/Fi...

And:

> Many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem [...] however, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends.

from: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#107

Post by tppiotrowski »

tuatoru wrote: post #74
tppiotrowski wrote: post #42

The economics of solar are good news. Hopefully we've hit an inflection point where coal power is no longer economical [1] [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90583426/the-price-of-solar-elec...

Coal hasn't been economical for at least two years, in the sense that the capital cost of new PV is less than the operating cost of existing coal. The problem is that developing countries like China and India are so desperately short of electricity (growth in demand is so high) that any new builds just add to existing production rather than replacing it. - Governments will prop up uneconomic generators to maintain to…

Looks like China is bringing online 40GW coal per year. Around the same amount the US/EU are retiring. According to figure 1 [1]

[1] https://globalenergymonitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/C...

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#108

Post by tppiotrowski »

larzang wrote: post #105
tuatoru wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal hasn't been economical for at least two years, in the sense that the capital cost of new PV is less than the operating cost of existing coal. The problem is that developing countries like China and India are so desperately short of electricity (growth in demand is so high) that any new builds just add to existing production rather than replacing it. - Governments will prop up uneconomic generators to maintain to…

Peak Chinese coal consumption was 2013, it's still substantial but total usage has been falling along with percentage of total output for a while now.

Can you provide a citation?

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#109

Post by ceejayoz »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #69
mc32 wrote: post #22

I'm sure people are frustrated, but I wonder what the consensus, if you could fine one, would be. What exactly are they expecting governments to change? Policy, power generation, transportation, what? And will they accept the necessary or resultant policies and changes? The above are "easy" if you have a totalitarian regime where what the autocrats say go, goes: China, Saudi Arabia, etc., most other countries are mor…

Government might not be the solution here. I look at electric cars and soon they will require less maintenance, less money for fuel and be cheaper than their ICE counterparts. If you build something that emits less CO2 and it is BETTER and CHEAPER than the competition it's game over. No one but hobbyists will look at ICE again. This to me aligns with economic theory in practice more accurately than a carbon tax.

> Government might not be the solution here. I look at electric cars...

Governments took quite a few measures in the last few decades to subsidize and encourage the electric car market.

Re: Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

#110

Post by s5300 »

nanis wrote: post #67
ceejayoz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defining "the one single right climate" is hard. Defining "this change is bad" is substantially easier. Wet bulb temperatures of 35 degrees C in areas with billions of people and poor power infrastructure to run AC is bad, for example.

> Wet bulb temperatures of 35 degrees C in areas with billions of people I had to look up what that meant ... With this kind of nonsense being pushed around and with more than two decades of constant scary tales, no wonder the kids are nervous. I grew up without any air conditioning at all. Ever. In any building. Summer temperatures between 35 - 40 C with high humidity. I do not know what the "wet bulb" equivalent of…

Are you essentially saying that wet bulb is fake news because of your personal experience in which you didn't deal with wet bulb, especially on an extended timeframe?

Do you believe that billions of people with poor infrastructure and no air conditioning are magically going to have infrastructure and air conditioning appear?

There is a lot of strange posting going on in this thread for HN...

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