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I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

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Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#251
I used to worry about climate (80s), now I dont (20s).

Why?

1. Too many lies. In the 80s the water level was rising, but it didn't. Then acid rains would kill all, but did not. Then ...

2. I cannot change it. Using fossils (or other tech with big "environmental" impact) is a great way to scale business. The "economy God" is to important to actually go an fix the problem. That why we see no real solutions being implemented and climate agreements being ignored/ not signed.

3. The focus on CO2 is stupid. There are worse problems: fine dust, pollution, disruption of ecosystems. But we now totally focus on CO2 (or CO2-equevalents).

I do have a solution. Remove (gradually) all taxation, in favor tax on pollution and usage of particular scarce resources (e.g. land, water, fossils, radio frequencies, etc.) This way the market will solve the problem. Housing and labour (two examples of wholesome things that are currently heavily taxed) will become a lot cheaper, and polluting will become expensive.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#252
post #162

What country is going to take the hit and start the high altitude sulfur spraying? If we even could get the forcing back to what it already was in the recent past that would be a great help.

How long would that temporary measure help?

What would that do to acidic rain, global dimming, ecology and agriculture.

Masking the problem will only make it come back harder when measures don't scale up anymore. Then there'll be no time to do much more.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#253
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but are they wrong?

Yes, because it isn't so expensive to turn things around. An estimated 100-200% in global GDP is needed to reach carbon net zero by 2050. Annually we need to spend 2-6% of GDP to solve this.

We’re screwed then. The 99% can’t afford to go one to two years without an income, and the 1% simply never will because they don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#254

@dang Is it just my impression that HN is drifting rigtwards on this topic? I remember HN being more in favour of proactive action against anthropic climate change. This thread feels dominated by attitudes reflecting inaction.

> @dang Is it just my impression that HN is drifting rigtwards on this topic?

Of course it does, telling people that they have to reduce fossil fuel use directly means that they are part of the problem, people really don't like that.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#255
post #197

@dang Is it just my impression that HN is drifting rigtwards on this topic? I remember HN being more in favour of proactive action against anthropic climate change. This thread feels dominated by attitudes reflecting inaction.

Is that wrong? Is only one narrative allowed in a discussion (it's not a discussion then is it?).

You being downvoted only furthur proves your point.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone trust their survival instincts? They must be really dumb.

It's not a secret that propagandists hijack survival instincts for psychological manipulation: - emotional appeal - us/them - simplifications of complex issues - repetition and consistency - perceived threads Don't let your primitive instincts take over

[deleted]

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#257
post #196
post #46

TL;DR Climate models are showing that a parameter (ECS aka “climate sensitivity”) has been increasing since 2019. This parameter determines how much temperature increase can be expected if atmospheric CO2 doubles.

I find it very confusing that this is supposed to be new knowledge. Shouldn't the correlation bewtween CO2 concentration and greenhouse effect been researched and simulated to death by now?

it’s a complex system and you can’t experimentally test the effect of changing specific values, so everything is tremendously confounded.

and it turns out that by building in a strong preference towards the null hypothesis, science has tended to dramatically understate both the amount of emission, the amount they matter, and the feedback loops that can amplify this further.

like yea it has been simulated to death but everyone wanted to whistle past the graveyard and so those simulations had drastically optimistic assumptions built into them such that we are likely to crash through what was only a decade or two ago considered the “worst case scenario” by a decent sized multiple.

And frankly the root cause is really the people who go “I find this very confusing, don’t you have this all figured out by now? wasn’t it supposed to be global cooling in the 70s???”, the process was built around appeasing you so you didn’t dismiss the whole thing as alarmist and it turns out the process was built in a way that produced (unsurprisingly) over-optimistic results. The models missed low largely because royal-you wanted to play skeptic 30 years ago.

(And no, “global cooling” was never a thing and the idea that it was is more fossil-fuel propaganda and marketing. Even noaa is uncharacteristically blunt about this.) https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bicycle machine emits nothing and can be used pretty easily in cities.

Emits nothing only if you ignore the engine. Some studies suggest that human CO2 emissions increase eightfold while exercising.

Riding a bike for 2 miles emits roughly half as much CO2 as does walking the same distance, and a car with an ICE produces an order of magnitude more (even ignoring manufacturing).

https://www.globe.gov/explore-science/scientists-blog/archiv...

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone trust their survival instincts? They must be really dumb.

It's not a secret that propagandists hijack survival instincts for psychological manipulation: - emotional appeal - us/them - simplifications of complex issues - repetition and consistency - perceived threads Don't let your primitive instincts take over

I agree with you, but I feel that the phrasing of your original comment allows people to pick on the worst possible interpretation of it.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#260

I no longer worry. I'm extremely pessimistic about the impending climate change. I believe Sabine isn't pessimistic enough about what to anticipate. Consider the tundra methane emissions and the explosive release of methane-hydrates from the oceans, along with water vapor, a potent greenhouse gas. The disaster looming over all ecosystems (a mass extinction event) that will happen in decades and the doom-phase could l…

> We can't colonize Greenland or Antarctica due to the lack of fertile soil

Just on this example, you can physically pick soil up and move it. Enough for 9bn people? No. Enough for 100k? Yes.

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