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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

#331

Post by ceejayoz »

nanis wrote: post #320
s5300 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> Are you essentially saying that wet bulb is fake news No. The comment I am responding to said: >> Wet bulb temperatures of 35 degrees C in areas with billions of people and poor power infrastructure to run AC is bad, for example The claim that something that has hitherto only been observed in extremely few circumstances for extremely brief periods of time will become commonplace requires strong proof.

> The claim that something that has hitherto only been observed in extremely few circumstances for extremely brief periods of time will become commonplace requires strong proof.

1. Wikipedia gives examples of wet bulb temperatures already approaching the 35 degree threshold in the current climate.

2. Climate scientists believe the global average temperature will (continue to) rise.

The logical conclusion is that we're more likely to exceed wet bulb temperatures of 35 degrees as temperatures climb. Some of the areas already prone to high heat and high humidity are densely populated, and some of those areas don't have the infrastructure to support AC for everyone.

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

#332

Post by ceejayoz »

gorwell wrote: post #277
ceejayoz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An unprecedented global economic shutdown dropped emissions by 7%. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00090-3 It's not the way out, nor has it been proposed by anyone serious to be.

I agree. But this is the ruling class we have. They thought it was a good idea to occupy Afghanistan for 20 years, and then botched the exit to top it off. Think they'll handle climate change more competently? That wouldn't follow the pattern we've seen for decades.

I certainly think it's likely they'll poorly handle climate change; that's already happened for decades.

Your assertion that they'll try handling it with lockdowns is what I'm contesting, and recent history sides with me, IMO. Said ruling class in most countries couldn't even politically sustain lockdowns for a global pandemic, let alone on a longer, more widespread term for a more abstract threat.

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

#333

Post by nanis »

ceejayoz wrote: post #128
nanis wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 had to look up what that meant... ... and immediately had to reflexively reject it so it wouldn't sink in. > I do not know what the "wet bulb" equivalent of that is, but it was warm, for sure. It's fairly unlikely to have hit 35 a bunch, given that Wikipedia's table of places that've measured that temperature thus far has only ten places on it, and then "albeit too briefly and in too small a locality to cause fat…

> ... and immediately had to reflexively reject it so it wouldn't sink in.

I am not convinced by the apocalyptic prophesy that billions of people will be living in 35 C wet bulb temperature soon ...

If I were to be convinced that such a scenario is likely, you'd have to also convince me that creating a global system of central planning is the right thing to do which is what these NPR types want.

Even carbon pricing and carbon markets, the least intrusive measure on the table, require some central authority to decide the right amount of CO2 to be emitted. Since anything and everything useful we do requires emitting CO2, that ties all our futures to central planning.

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

#334

Post by EForEndeavour »

Manuel_D wrote: post #273
EForEndeavour wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please link to the source for your claim? In 2018, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization reported that climate change is one of the leading drivers of global hunger [1]. "Overall, the number of hungry people grew for the third year in row in 2017, reaching a total of 821 million worldwide. The paper warns that this number will continue to rise if countries fail to tackle climate change and to build resi…

Rates of global hunger have fallen by about a third since 2000: https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment Key chart: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-undernourished-regi...

That omits the second half of the trend analysis by Our World In Data. The decades-long drop in global hunger has in fact reversed in recent years, and it's misleading just to cite the preceding decades of progress without any mention of its recent reversal:

However, over the last few years, the total number increased to around 663 million in 2017. This increase in hunger levels are largely a result of increases in Sub-Saharan Africa (where rates have risen by several percentage points in recent years) and small increases in the Middle East & North Africa. The UN FAO have linked this increase in undernourishment in particular to the rising extent of conflict-affected countries (which is often a leading cause of famine), and compounded by climate-related factors such as the El Niño phenomenon (which can inflict both drought and flood conditions).

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

#335

Post by NortySpock »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #328
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'…

How bad will the famines be in 2100? How many people will be refugees? Is a cushy job indoors worth it if it's too hot to work infrastructure jobs outside? Is GDP meaningful if citizens cannot afford food?

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

#336

Post by ceejayoz »

nanis wrote: post #333
ceejayoz wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had to look up what that meant... ... and immediately had to reflexively reject it so it wouldn't sink in. > I do not know what the "wet bulb" equivalent of that is, but it was warm, for sure. It's fairly unlikely to have hit 35 a bunch, given that Wikipedia's table of places that've measured that temperature thus far has only ten places on it, and then "albeit too briefly and in too small a locality to cause fat…

> ... and immediately had to reflexively reject it so it wouldn't sink in. I am not convinced by the apocalyptic prophesy that billions of people will be living in 35 C wet bulb temperature soon ... If I were to be convinced that such a scenario is likely, you'd have to also convince me that creating a global system of central planning is the right thing to do which is what these NPR types want. Even carbon pricing a…

> I am not convinced by the apocalyptic prophesy that billions of people will be living in 35 C wet bulb temperature soon...

You didn't even know what it was 12 hours ago. "I had to look up what that meant..."

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

#337

Post by Aerroon »

endisneigh wrote: post #199
Aerroon wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people on the "lower rungs of humanity" emit an order of magnitude less carbon than everyone else, and should be the last to cut. I see this argument frequently and it annoys me. Poor people emit less carbon because they are poor . Do you want them to stay poor?!? I want a future where everyone can at least live a life as wealthy as mine. But my carbon emissions are much higher than that of the global poor. If…

You ever consider maybe modern civilization is inherently unsustainable?

No. Maybe if our population wasn't leveling off I'd take it seriously, but it is. And even then a larger population isn't bad, because more people = more engineering and technological advancement. And some of that will help us solve this problem.

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

#338

Post by Aerroon »

ericd wrote: post #204
Aerroon wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people on the "lower rungs of humanity" emit an order of magnitude less carbon than everyone else, and should be the last to cut. I see this argument frequently and it annoys me. Poor people emit less carbon because they are poor . Do you want them to stay poor?!? I want a future where everyone can at least live a life as wealthy as mine. But my carbon emissions are much higher than that of the global poor. If…

What engineering solutions are you envisioning solving this? Short of a deus ex machina like fusion coming out of the wings and decreasing the cost of clean energy by a huge degree, this seems like it's going to be the hardest thing humanity has had to deal with in recorded history, and make the misery of extreme poverty in China seem nice in comparison.

Carbon capture.

>this seems like it's going to be the hardest thing humanity has had to deal with in recorded history, and make the misery of extreme poverty in China seem nice in comparison.

I don't see how. There aren't going to be major effects for most people for a very long time. This gives us plenty of time to try various things like carbon capture, putting a shade into space etc.

On carbon capture that we can do today: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-08/inside-th...

At $600 per ton of CO2 it's not insurmountable. We emit about 36 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Napkin math:

36 billion * $600 = $21.6 trillion

Global GDP is at around $84 trillion, which means that this carbon capture technology is within our reach. Obviously an enormous amount of work would need to be done, but it's at least in the right ballpark.

The US emits about 4.8 billion tons of CO2. That would cost $2.88 trillion. Considering the US GDP is $21 trillion that's even more reasonable.

Technological advancement is likely going to cut this cost further. However, I'm also sure that there are some emissions that haven't been factored in here, but we would still be at numbers where society can work.

Also, "extreme poverty" is subsistence farming. About $2-3 worth of goods per day of work.

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

#339

Post by pier25 »

doublepg23 wrote: post #287
pier25 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. And what's even more frustrating is that we've known about these feedbacks for 15-20? years. I've been reading about climate change and feedbacks for the past decade and I'm jus…

Oil companies knew about climate change in the _1980s_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_cont...

Climate change was well known before that.

There's actually a report to Lyndon Johnson in 1965 about the dangers of climate change.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...

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

#340

Post by JeremyNT »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #328
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'…

Assuming this to be true, how can GDP possibly be the best metric here?

Maybe we should consider that you can't buy back the things we'll lose, barring some unexpected developments in large scale geoengineering. How much "GDP" would you trade to live in a world that isn't racked by increasingly powerful storms, unprecedented droughts, loss of unique habitats, mass extinction of various species, and the other dramatic effects of rapid climate shift?

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