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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

#321

Post by nanis »

tfehring wrote: post #66
nanis wrote: post #12

What exactly is "the" "right" climate?

The fact that climate change is a problem doesn't imply that there's a "right" climate. The rapid rate of change itself is the problem - and particularly the fact that that rate of change is faster than organisms and systems can adequately adapt to. Atmospheric CO2 levels have previously, naturally, been higher than they are today. The most recent time that they were that high, the land on which most of our populatio…

> The rapid rate of change itself is the problem

What is the right rate of change? The answer does not have to be very precise. An estimate within an order of magnitude is OK.

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

#322

Post by dagw »

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…

I do not know what the "wet bulb" equivalent of that is

40 deg c at 60% relative humidity is about 31 degrees "wet bulb".

35 deg c wet bulb is around 40 deg c at 95% relative humidity, or 45 deg c at 60% relative humidity.

At 20% relative humidity a wet bulb temperature of 35 would mean an air temperature of almost 60.

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

#323

Post by sremani »

eej71 wrote: post #96
sremani wrote: post #59

Today Paul Graham has tweeted about coal consumption of the world from 2000, it paints a good picture where to look if you are focused on green house gases. 150 years ago, there are billion of us. Now we are 7 billion going up to 9 billion.. 150 years from now, if we are going to be a billion.. I am fine with it.

A population of 1b would be devastating setback. There’s a reason why some of us view environmentalists as misanthropes.

I am not an environmentalist -- I am more commenting on the uncommon time we are living.

We shot up from 1 Billion to 7 billion in span of 150 years, and reversion to mean can happen, it is happening as lowering sperm count, and falling birth rates, climate change, global pandemics, war etc.

Read my comment as glass 1/7th full, at least there is some water left.

edit: As far as coal consumption from year 2000 goes, China has built massive coal consumption capacity and if China does not sign up to any of those Climate Change agreement, the rest is inconsequential since they are the workshop of the world now. You can tinker energy policy in US and Europe, but that means nothing if China is not on board.

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

#324

Post by throwaway0a5e »

mc32 wrote: post #92
toomuchtodo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax carbon. Use cross border tariffs to prevent offshoring emissions. People will then make the economically rational decision to use public transportation, buy EVs, put solar on the roof, insulate their homes, buy heat pumps, and eat less meat.

Carbon taxes look like a useful tool; I wonder what the unforeseen drawbacks and consequences might be. Will people redefine what carbon is; who will suffer, how many people will lose jobs due to electrification of many industries (auto MFG for one, the UFW, is concerned). What happens to the third world where they use charcoal for cooking? I think there is much more to be thought out.

>Will people redefine what carbon is;

Yes. It will become a political football because of its immense power to economically marginalize wide swaths of society.

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

#325

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

over_bridge wrote: post #272
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like people use this as an excuse to avoid making any inconvenient changes in their lifestyle, or rather to avoid considering making inconvenient changes to their lifestyle. The problem with this is that it means not only are they not doing anything to help, they're much less likely to vote for people who would too because they're unwilling to accept inconveniences. Instead they'll vote for people who's polici…

There's only so much you can do as an individual. Yes we can do something but so much of the emissions we see are just cranked out as 'externalities' by global systems built over the last century. If I want a house made of sustainable materials, that's irrelevant if no builders near me are using them (or in the last 50 years when the houses were built). If I want an appliance that lasts for 50 years, who is selling t…

> There's not really any way around legislating or directly subsidising alternatives if its going to make a difference.

I don't disagree. What I'm saying is that this narrative of no one's individual choices mattering in the grand scheme leads people to just stop doing anything, not only personally, but also on a political level.

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

#326

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

leeoniya wrote: post #299
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like people use this as an excuse to avoid making any inconvenient changes in their lifestyle, or rather to avoid considering making inconvenient changes to their lifestyle. The problem with this is that it means not only are they not doing anything to help, they're much less likely to vote for people who would too because they're unwilling to accept inconveniences. Instead they'll vote for people who's polici…

> I feel like people use this as an excuse to avoid making any inconvenient changes in their lifestyle, or rather to avoid considering making inconvenient changes to their lifestyle. i would be happy to only use glass bottles and no more plastic even if it means i have to wash them before taking them to get refilled. except there is nowhere i can do this. all i have the option of doing is buying and landfilling more…

> the "individual action makes a difference" is fairy tale. for every 1 person who tries individual action, 999 will discard 3000 plastic containers that cost them ~$0 to acquire but made the container mfg $3,000 profit.

Unless of course all 1000 of them decided to do something. Can't you see how this narrative is self-fulfilling?

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

#327

Post by beervirus »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #153
beervirus wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out it’s easy to make cheap solar cells if you have access to unlimited free labor from Chinese prison camps.

Assuming the people are there justly for committing a crime and not being convicted just to provide free labor doesn't it make sense to have these people do something instead of sitting all day in a cage?

Crimes like saying something unflattering about the communist party? Or crimes like being an Uyghur?

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

#328

Post by rufus_foreman »

aosmond wrote: post #144

I am always amazed at the level of denial among the people. I speak of the comments to this article, not the young people in question. The IPCC reports are quite conservative. The reason the 2021 reports were so dire is because they began including some of the feedback loop modeling the scientists preparing the report have become more confident in. More is in the pipeline. Somewhere along the line, it got political.…

>> The people are selfish, more concerned with their property values and if their neighbour mows their bylaw required lawn, than if the next generation will be able to have a similar quality of life. Why wouldn't you be cynical if you were young?

The IPCC reports say that if we do little to ameliorate the effects of global warming, in 2100 future generations will have a GDP per capita several times higher than today's, but lower than it would be if actions are taken. That's not an apocalypse. I would worry about other things if I were you.

You are asking old people now to lower their standard of living so that future generations will have a standard of living that goes from "much higher than yours" to "much higher than yours plus x%", while calling them selfish.

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

#329

Post by ceejayoz »

toolz wrote: post #100
ceejayoz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now let's look at the source for their graphic and look back further at earlier dates from the same source. [3] - kind of paints a different picture, no? Yes, but not in the way you're portraying it. The big shift downwards comes in a major shift in strategy in dealing with forest fires in the early to mid 1900s; it doesn't tell you much about the climate at the time. https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-f…

I'm curious in how you interpret my comment here - in what way am I portraying this issue? What I mean to show is that forest fires have gotten immensely better, likely because of technology over the years. Which is exactly what I hear many climate change skeptics suggest - that technology will solve the problems, like we appear to be seeing here.

> What I mean to show is that forest fires have gotten immensely better, likely because of technology over the years.

I'm saying they haven't gotten better.

The drop in the 1930s-1950s shown in the wider chart has nothing to do with climate, and little to do with technology. It reflects a misguided change in fire management strategy (put out every fire ASAP), one that is now understood as a bad approach, because it causes build ups of unburnt brush that cause more dangerous, more intense fires.

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

#330

Post by UncleMeat »

plandis wrote: post #220
UncleMeat wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it'd be better to read the opinions of relevant faculty instead. I know at least one climate science faculty who has publicly referred to Shellenberger as a "professional asshole" after being treated so poorly by Shellenberger. Shellenberger is just next in the long list of industry shills who peddle the same misinformation and then complain when researchers get mad at him, claiming endless victimhood.

As hominem attacks are not a good way to discredit an argument though.

Shellenberger's arguments have been discredited for decades. At some point, it is just a denial of service attack against researchers with better things to do with their time when he says "fight me fight me fight me fight me" over and over. It is the same rhetorical trick. At some point, you just get frustrated and call somebody an asshole and move on.

Yes, it isn't sound logical thinking to say "tons of relevant experts in this field think this guy is an idiot." But it definitely is a strong bayesian update.

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