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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]

#421
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but are they wrong?

Not wrong the science, but on the doomerism, that was my comment. I have a few friends on this extreme-depression-due-to-climate-change and it's not helpful to their health. Think of it like this, death is unpreventable and we still live our lives. So even if the world collapse was totally unpreventable (I think we can still turn it around), it's still better to go down fighting and living life.

I'm nearly a doomer and the bullshit "it'll all be fine" or "human ingenuity will fix it!" Crowd have caused us to waste precious decades. I'm doing carbonthirteen now to try to find a way to help fix it and I encourage everyone who can to do similar. Action is the antidote to despair, but unfounded optimism and stupidity are the fuel for laziness

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

#422
Not to add more pessimism icing to the anxiety cake, but ... I have not seen any discussion on a particular Venn diagram of worries.

1. Climate change as a biological and human ecosystem catastrophe.

2. A potential ecosystem threat to humans from GAI. We might anticipate AI (and initially its wealthiest owners) would be less biosystem dependent, and more of a "Let's extract ALL the rare elements from the bottom of the ocean and not clean up the mess later", "Non-degradable plastic? Its still the future!", and "Fossil fuel reserves are a horrible thing to waste" kind of constituency.

It might be prudent to think about how different impending risks might have unfortunate "alignment".

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

#423
post #274

I was always pro-environment and pro-more-industry-regulations, since I can think. Then came Greta and the doomsayers. Realising there is really nothing more I can do--I am already walking to work and don't even own a car--I stopped supporting apocalypse-loving-movements and went back to living my life as I used to do. I was developed an aversion for the climate apocalypse movement since. I wonder, if they managed to…

Quoting myself (again) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36619271 :

- There's no climate change

- Climate change is okay and has no impact

- Climate change exists but it's due to natural causes

- Climate change exists but it's due to natural causes and its impacts are small

- Climate change exists but its impacts are good for us

- Climate change exists but we will adapt

- Climate change exists and its the activists' fault we didn't act because they scared us with their doomsday predictions - Climate change exists and we shouldn't talk about it because it's scary and scared people are not productive members of society

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

#424

@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.

Perhaps it's time for a tweak on an old classic: "It is difficult to get a person to understand the severity of climate change, when their comfort depends upon them not believing it."

I similarly am quite surprised to scroll past ten top voted comments all just saying slight variations of "I used to care, but now I don't" followed by some "whataboutism".

Almost like this whole post has been astroturfed. I'm not even sure though it is.

I think the US in particular is experiencing mental whiplash to how bad it really is and how much comfort the whole planet has to give up to prevent it.

Can we bring the planet back into equilibrium, absolutely. But I think many people over 20 have absolutely no interest in it. They want a solution that won't change their standard of living, which won't happen.

I expect the governments of the world to be toppled or redirected by the next two generations as they can clearly see how drastically everything is changing.

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

#425

I never worried particularly much about climate change, but just to hedge my bets for my kids I moved to northern Europe. For the most part it's just equated to milder (= bearable) Winters and nicer summers up here. I guess we also spend a fair bit on moving to renewables up here - Finland achieved energy self sufficiency last year thanks to a good combination of nuclear + solar + hydro. If I were an ideologue in eit…

Similar, though leaving the US had a lot to do with hedging our bets against a crumbling democracy as well.

How is Finland? It was on our list but we wanted to have good train connections to the continent so ended up in the Netherlands (but above sea level). Oulu has impressive winter cycling though.

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

#426
post #398

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…

The IPCC 6 says "It is very unlikely that gas clathrates (mostly methane) in deeper terrestrial permafrost and subsea clathrates will lead to a detectable departure from the emissions trajectory during this century". Your pessimism may be trendy but it isn't supported by the bear available evidence.

Don't misunderstand me here. I'd rather be wrong regarding my "doomism," and I no longer worry about climate change; it doesn't make sense to worry about something that can't be changed. However, I observe that people aren't scared enough to take action. They continue to dance around the issue in political euphoria. The changes to our lifestyle are happening too slowly to be effective. The gas and oil industry is doing a lot of carbon emission washing, like CSS. Many optimists argue, "We can't predict it, therefore we shouldn't be worried."

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

#427

@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.

I notice a surprising unwillingness to consider that the situation may be, in fact, terrible, and the arguments are usually "well changing lifestyles is impractical" at though the current status quo is sustainable.

How did the lyrics to that song go? And when you ask them, "How much should we give?" Hoo, they only answer, "More, more more more!"

I gave up any hope of having meaningful relationships with other people in the name of building a good career in my life because that's what my parents wanted from me. I got into pistol shooting because it was primarily a solo activity.

Then the government passed laws decreeing that handguns have no place in civilized society. So I wanted to get into motorcycles. But that's just wrong because CO2 emissions. Now I'm being told that having space for myself, for a work from home office is wrong too because we need to increase density for the sake of efficiency.

Meanwhile price my groceries has went from $60 what I paid for in 2019 to $110 for that same bag of food. A small bag of flour went from $2.50 to $5 this year. Rice has gone from $14 to $22 for a large bag. And rent has became mad in many ways; last year average rent in this city was $1450 a month. This year, it's $1700 a month.

Then you've got one side that's yelling that we need to transition cars to electric but the nearest one to what you have is $20,000 more. And you're being told that we need to be looking at a way to get rid of the terrible CO2 emitting gas furnace for something more efficient like a heat pump. But the heat pump that can handle our climate is $15,000 to install.

Then they ban single use plastics like bags because of the issue of microplastics. And it annoys you but at this point it doesn't overly matter because you can't afford to eat out as much anymore anyways. But you're lucky enough to be able to afford rent and food, because you know people that are asking food banks for anything and being told the wait times are now at least 1 to 2 weeks because of the number of people in front of them waiting for food too.

All that verbal diarrhea to say... I'm tired. I'm tired of being told that it's my fault the world is screwed up. I'm tired of seeing seeing the roads I took to whatever little stability I have now being closed behind me. Tired of it seeming like that at some point in my future, the only thing I'll have left to enjoy will be the jab of a syringe full of heroin.

Overly dramatic yeah. It doesn't make any sense but it's how I feel. Dunno if it's anyone else that feels like this way, be a little surprised if it's really just me.

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

#428

I never worried particularly much about climate change, but just to hedge my bets for my kids I moved to northern Europe. For the most part it's just equated to milder (= bearable) Winters and nicer summers up here. I guess we also spend a fair bit on moving to renewables up here - Finland achieved energy self sufficiency last year thanks to a good combination of nuclear + solar + hydro. If I were an ideologue in eit…

If shit hits the fan everywhere else but North Europe remains safe - will it be business as usual there? Won't hundreds of millions of people (or more) from India, China and Africa flee to to wherever is safe?

The plan appears to be massive gun turrets at every southern border at this rate.

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

#429

@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.

It feels orchestrated, just like every recent post on EV's.

Hmm. I think a lot of people who were silent about their positions on this topic are much more inclined to say them out loud now, even on websites like HN. Not that they are right though.

As for the reasons why I have (like anyone else) two or three ideas.

And whatever it is, it ain't making me feel optimist about what's to come.

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

#430

Some stupid hacker just deleted over 2 Peta Bytes of Russian climate research data dating back decades. Data that was collected from satellites around the world for decades for processing. This affects us all if we don't have data. We are rapidly going back to the stone age...

Here’s some new data for you: Russia is flaring over 4 mil cubic meters of natural gas per day.

By this logic, assuming you're American, one is free to do anything to your property, justifying it with calling out some bad thing the US government is doing, e.g. supplying bombs that are being dropped indiscriminately on Gaza.
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