Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 147 posts

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#41

Post by wbsss4412 »

seiferteric wrote: post #26
wbsss4412 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unrealistic and magic aren’t synonymous. In one case you are betting on something that is at best hopefully possible, while in the second case, it is quite clearly possible, it’s just not likely to happen.

I was thinking more along the lines of "magical thinking"

Perhaps it is magical thinking.

At the same time, physical reality doesn’t seem to care much about our opinions, thoughts and feelings about any of this subject. We can continue to live our lives with the hope of technology coming to our rescue, we can go on living the way we do without considering making changes, and the natural world around us will continue down the path that it’s on, utterly unconcerned with our desires.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#42

Post by AlwaysRock »

seiferteric wrote: post #14
blurker wrote: post #7

One of my concerns as someone who is part of the tech community is the innovation delusion. Many of us are focused on "magic pill" technology solutions to get us out of this. Things like fusion, carbon capture, electric cars, etc... As someone with an engineering background, I've been guilty of this type of thinking too. Whenever I encounter a problem I think about how I could apply technology to solve it. However, I…

I've come to believe the opposite. Expecting the whole world to give stuff up is more of a "magic" solution than developing new technology it seems.

I agree. Telling the world to consume less while the population continues to grow doesnt work. Especially when the majority of pollution comes from corporations who have a financial incentive to continuing operating the same way.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#43

Post by CJefferson »

luxuryballs wrote: post #16

Quoted post unavailable.

I'm not sure what you mean by "not alarming".

I mean, the world itself will be fine. On the other hand, 11,000 years ago half of the UK was under a permement ice sheet. If we end up at a similar extreme to 11,000 years ago compared to now (probably in the other direction) large amounts of the world will become uninhabitable.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#44

Post by throwaway5752 »

rglover wrote: post #38
throwaway5752 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://sourcewatch.org/index.php/Roger_Pielke_Jr . Dr. Pielke's work on climate change effects has been criticized by Dr. Stephen Schneider, who said that with Pielke "one consistent pattern emerges-he is a self-aggrandizer who sets up straw men, knocks them down, and takes credit for being the honest broker to explain the mess-and in fact usually adds little new social science to his analysis" Source: http://www.hi…

Read what he (Pielke) actually said and backs up with citations. The character-attack-as-argument defense just makes you look unintelligent.

"makes you look unintelligent"

I will have to live with that, I'm sorry you are disappointed. I can't vet every source and if someone is a known bad source, there are usually many, many alternatives to invest my limited time reading.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#45

Post by diordiderot »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #21
apocalypstyx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one distinction between your list and the present situation: there is a difference between the opinions of an individual scientist and scientific consensus.

Can you provide a falsifiable definition of "scientific consensus"?

That doesn't make sense linguistically.

Can you provide a falsifiable definition of "turtles"?

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#47

Post by barbacoa »

slg wrote: post #23
luxuryballs wrote: post #16

Quoted post unavailable.

The description on that episode: >Steven E. Koonin is a theoretical physicist, professor, former Chief Scientist for the BP petroleum company, and former Under Secretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy under the Obama administration. He's also the author of "Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters." I'm not sure "former Chief Scientist for the BP petroleum company" i…

>I'm not sure "former Chief Scientist for the BP petroleum company" is the person I would go to for "a balanced take" on climate change.

The IPCC is funded and promoted by the UN because their conclusions align with the UN's agenda. It's very hard to distinguish the legitimate environmental concerns from political and ideological ulterior motivations.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#48

Post by bandyaboot »

rglover wrote: post #9
mistrial9 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I echo this -- since when does "cautious, high-training writers timidly announce massive change" become worse than "cynical, manipulative industry experts conceal worst outcomes" or "distracted, low-skill readers dismiss unpopular warning" ?

The IPCC report—again, just like last year—put a major emphasis on implausible scenarios throughout the report over more likely, realistic scenarios. https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/1498317086157774866 Similar to last year, too, the media takes that emphasis, reports it as absolute reality, and then starts the campaign of fear ("red alert") on the public, arguably, to whittle down their critical thinking ski…

Orwellian theories are fun and all, but the media emphasizes the most extreme scenarios because those headlines and stories get the most clicks.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#49

Post by twofornone »

>The report also references for the first time “historical and ongoing patterns of inequity such as colonialism” that contribute to many regions’ vulnerability to climate change.

Because I'm sure these people would somehow be worse off without the exposure to modern technology and civilization from colonialism...

This research should really stick to climate, harder to take it seriously when it comes with a side of woke propaganda.

Re: Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought

#50

Post by qgin »

blurker wrote: post #7

One of my concerns as someone who is part of the tech community is the innovation delusion. Many of us are focused on "magic pill" technology solutions to get us out of this. Things like fusion, carbon capture, electric cars, etc... As someone with an engineering background, I've been guilty of this type of thinking too. Whenever I encounter a problem I think about how I could apply technology to solve it. However, I…

You’re not wrong, but hoping people will choose anything other than the default thing is going to result in failure. If you lay out cities for cars, people will use cars. If you build massive urban areas in places that stay in the 90s with high humidity, people are going to blast the AC. If disposable things are cheaper than longer lasting things because there’s no cost to throwing it away, people are going to do it.

People just follow the path of least resistance in a given environment and only an extreme minority are ever going to be persuadable to consciously go against that at all. If we want different behavior, we’d need to bulldoze most of America and start over.

Post reply on HN