Live data from Hacker News

A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

cnn.com

311–320 of 429 posts

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#311
post #29

Meh who cares? Let it all burn and flood. Earth gets a fresh start, and hopefully whatever "intelligent" species evolves to be dominant in the next 5-10 million years is a better custodian. Rinse and repeat until that's the case. Heck, who knows if this is actually the 1st or 100th iteration...

The rich, who have disproportionately contributed to the current crisis can buy and relocate to safety, while the poor will be hit the hardest.

if that happens someone should form an extremist group dedicated to hunting them down and effecting justice

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but they still make choices that reveal their preferences.

Which is why it's a coordination problem that requires a motivated leader like the government instead of throwing our hands up and saying "gee it sure sucks that everyone has revealed they like will buy the products on the shelves".

First we have to convince people that they will be better off if they have to pay a lot more for their toy trucks. That is the step 0 that nobody seems to know how to solve. Hollering about how the oil company CEOs are evil is not going to be the thing. It's already been tried. People will nod right along until you get to, "and that's why your gasoline needs to cost $7/gallon."

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#313
post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalist economy. Economies can exist in many different ways. At its core it is just a way to describe how we move resources between ourselves and that can be done in many, many ways.

What are the other ways that are proven to work over the long term at scale?

How do you mean that capitalist economies are proven to work?

Like what does "work" constitute?

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#314
post #87

I don't know if it's too late to stop the worst case scenarios of global warming yet or if there's still time, but it doesn't seem to be happening anyway. The world can't deal with something that requires global concentrated efforts. However, I do think we have time to prepare for the worst case scenarios, and individual countries and states can do that efficiently on their own. Improve evacuation routines in floodab…

We've already stopped the "Worst case scenarios" by rapidly replacing Carbon-intensive energy with other sources over the past decade: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/climate/emissions-worst-c... Still work to be done, and also plenty of reasons for optimism. Batteries, motors, and carbon free generation only get better.

Fossil fuels use continues to increase and shows no signs of slowing down: https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels

Instead of trying to push with a string (coming up with new non fossil energy sources) we need to ramp down fossils production using regulation, international agreements, emissions trading etc. Otherwise we'll just keep using both fossil and new energy sources.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#315
post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalist economy. Economies can exist in many different ways. At its core it is just a way to describe how we move resources between ourselves and that can be done in many, many ways.

What are the other ways that are proven to work over the long term at scale?

Wrong question if you actually like capitalism or value keeping it going. The question should be how to make the necessary reforms to capitalism to not have people try to attempt "the other ways" you're going to try to debate. The problem, it seems, is that Capitalists can't fathom a world where they might be prevented from doing maximum extraction.

I know what I'd be using those billions for!! To virtue signal like hell that I was the most nature conservationist billionaire in existence. Not "how can I say this is conservation and monetize it", real conservation with true stewardship of the land. But also that thinking is probably why I'm not a billionaire.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crazy thing is that we have basically everything we need right now. You can live in a well-insulated fully electric home powered by renewable energy and have most things you need within a walk, bike, or public transport ride away, _OR_ use an electric car for the things that aren't. If you combine that with a mostly-plant based diet (or at _least_ swapping chicken for most of your beef and lamb) and have 2 kids o…

> You can live in a well-insulated fully electric home powered by renewable energy and have most things you need within a walk, bike, or public transport ride away, _OR_ use an electric car for the things that aren't. If you combine that with a mostly-plant based diet (or at _least_ swapping chicken for most of your beef and lamb) and have 2 kids or fewer you're... basically there. 'political' is true but it covers s…

Yeah, it's absurd that you can be 500 feet from a grocery story and still have to drive because otherwise you're risking death to get there.

As far as charging - I favour car-share, personally (I use mywheels.nl). Usually if you don't need a car every day (so you don't commute somewhere inaccessible via transit or bike) it makes more sense economically.

Even where I live, in a place some people describe as a bicycle Eden, there's plenty of complaining about not having "enough" car parking.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#318
post #87

I don't know if it's too late to stop the worst case scenarios of global warming yet or if there's still time, but it doesn't seem to be happening anyway. The world can't deal with something that requires global concentrated efforts. However, I do think we have time to prepare for the worst case scenarios, and individual countries and states can do that efficiently on their own. Improve evacuation routines in floodab…

> world can't deal with something that requires global concentrated efforts

Saddest part is that it used to

The Ozone layer problem was exactly this: coordinated global concentrated effort.

I doubt we can do that again though.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#319
post #260
post #51

The sad thing about humans is that under capitalism, capital consumes public goods like nature. Then, when those public goods degrade and harm the human species, the capital class that actively consumed those public goods refuses to help restore them and instead cries that it's all a lie

Under socialism ecology did do much better. Maybe it’s not the ism that’s at play here.

did not do much better

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fo…

I'm not as negative about this, but with the benefit of hindsight, it's easy why the current initiatives didn't go anywhere. It's not that people are not willing to make sacrifices. We repeatedly did this in times of famine or war. Europe during WWII is a perfect example. Another good example of a major cultural shift in response to a new threat was the AIDS epidemic. The entire sexual revolution went out the window…

> The entire sexual revolution went out the window and we're now in a world where young people have a lot less sex than ever before.

Source?

Not withstanding that people are not willing to make sacrifices, my impression is that the last decades young women gained the freedom of enjoying sex as much as they like not restricted by religious or other norms. Sleeping with several different partners a week is not frowned upon but encouraged by friends & family ’Good for you, enjoy!’.

And related to the discussion: safe sex with contraception imho is among the most environmental friendly activities as long as one travels by foot or bike.

Post reply on HN