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A graph that should be front-page news

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Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#341

Post by mempko »

pdonis wrote: post #264

"Earth is moving beyond the range within which modern human civilisation developed." Way, way, way, way overstated. The graph shows a comparison to an average over a few decades. Human civilization is thousands of years old. Does anyone have a graph of what all the El Ninos since the last Ice Age ended have looked like? Of course not. Nobody has that kind of temperature data.

You are an engineer or programmer? Why are you working in this industry if you can't take the time to learn about how this system works. We are supposed to be systems thinkers with a scientific mindset. How can you make a statement like "Nobody has that kind of temperature data" without researching first?

I'm embarrassed for my industry. I'm shocked how many climate denialists there are among engineers and programmers.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#343

Post by Quarrelsome »

Ntrails wrote: post #324
Quarrelsome wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to scrap unpopular things like ulez How is ulez unpopular? Its geographical, age or class axis. In some places: like the cities, its extremely popular and extremely unpopular in other places: just outside the cities, especially for people who can't afford electric vehicles. Just cos some people vandalise the cameras, don't make it inherently popular or not. Its just that a very few _really_ don't like it, to the ex…

> How is ulez unpopular? As a rule most people with a ~10 year old car which runs fine at low cost are going to be frustrated at an extra tax on their vehicle. (It is not like the manufacture of a new electric car is green.) Ordinary People always were going to have to suffer to migrate off fossil fuels. Expecting them to like it is somewhat hopeful!

sure, but air quality is noticeably better in cities, so I can't let it stand that its just inherently unpopular. Some people like the benefits and enjoy them, those who don't like the downsides express that loudly.

It's not just a talking point (see ded comment below), every time we try to publicly survey to implement traffic calming ideas in our city (UK) its a stalemate between in towners and out of towners. Usually the crowds turn up to alternating ballots which is fun. Only thing that upsets me is out of towners talking like literally nobody wants it, which clearly isn't true.

I mean if your commitment to climate change or air quality in cities ends at charging people with vehicles that pollute more to enter the city: then did you have any in the first place?

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#344

Post by mmooss »

mcherm wrote: post #303
tancop wrote: post #245

the problem with this kind of article is half of them push a doom angle and the other half talk about carbon footprint. both of them have the same effect making people give up or do useless lifestyle changes that do nothing for the environment. we should be pushing for backend changes that are invisible but actually make things better. that means massive subsidies to build out clean power and electrify everything. po…

Or -- hear me out on this one -- we could ban wind energy, raise costs for electric vehicles, and use government resources to promote increased use of coal and oil. That would have a bunch of advantages such as sounding familiar to leaders whose heyday was in the 1970s, of not making us feel bad about the state of the world, and occasionally giving financial kickbacks to government leaders. Or... if you don't like th…

> That would have a bunch of advantages such as sounding familiar to leaders whose heyday was in the 1970s, of not making us feel bad about the state of the world, and occasionally giving financial kickbacks to government leaders.

Besides 'kickbacks' I don't think those reasons have much to do with it. The policy benefits the fossil fuel industries' investors / owners, and follows the rent-seeking, anti-free market theory and practice of many current capitalists (specifically, that's not about capitalism but a current powerful group of capitalists). Those capitalists strongly influence government.

The other effects you mention persuade the public.

EDIT: We might ask, if the above theory is true, why the same rent-seeking capitalists do use that strategy for renewable energy? Maybe those industries, dominated by many non-American companies, are hard to monopolize? But I'm wandering far into speculation.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#345

Post by krupan »

imperio59 wrote: post #252
tancop wrote: post #245

the problem with this kind of article is half of them push a doom angle and the other half talk about carbon footprint. both of them have the same effect making people give up or do useless lifestyle changes that do nothing for the environment. we should be pushing for backend changes that are invisible but actually make things better. that means massive subsidies to build out clean power and electrify everything. po…

The word you're looking for is nuclear. Everywhere.

And we should have started at least 30 years ago. But better late than never?

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#346

Post by eth0up »

pests wrote: post #214
eth0up wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just left a comment on this elsewhere, but are you using cloudflare or nextdns? They seem to block archive sites, especially archive.today (archive.is, etc)

Yes because they were running a DDOS attack off their CAPTCHA page.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48894441

The NextDNS (and others) blocking of archive.today goes back far beyond 2026 and this specific DDOS event. Perhaps that contributed to the hostility behind it, I don't know. But citing that event for other examples does not apply well.

Please do not misinterpret this as an excuse or pardon of anything. I love archive.today and all their subdomains. I use it regularly and have been having problems for years, especially with NextDNS. I am seriously disappointed to learn of the DDOS event, but there remain other angles on the topic in general. I am still struggling to process WTF they would do what you reported -- how could they think that would be worth the consequences, accomplish anything? Almost seems suspicious in itself.

Thanks for the info. But ever a shill for archive.is

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#348

Post by inigyou »

jstanley wrote: post #219
eth0up wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just left a comment on this elsewhere, but are you using cloudflare or nextdns? They seem to block archive sites, especially archive.today (archive.is, etc)

It's because I live in the UK

You should immediately switch your internet provider to Andrews & Arnold https://aa.net.uk/ - every HN reader from the UK should. I'm certain they won't censor you any more than required by law.

Disclaimer: I'm not sponsored by them, nor am I their customer. They just seem cool.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#349

Post by _alternator_ »

smallerize wrote: post #331
_alternator_ wrote: post #326

With a headline like that the graph should be at the beginning. Usually you'd put it up front and then talk about the graph, not put it at the bottom and talk about how people aren't talking about it. Anyway, I scrolled down to the graph and skipped the text. We are currently 4 std deviations above the mean with respect to El Niño temperature. But there's also a historical line -4 std deviations from the mean. Was th…

I didn't find the source URL unreadable. It's here: https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/?dm_id=nino3.4 The lowest ones were 1988 and 1989.

Fair, I had to click into the full size (I pinch zoomed on my phone). But now the fact that 1988/1989 are outliers raise a few more questions about the variance calculation. In particular, the title suggests that those weren't included in the variance calculation.

A 3.5-sigma event is a 1-in-1000 chance. Yet we have 2 of them in our data set that goes back only 40ish years? Something is suspect. Maybe I'm not accounting for the likelihood of a random walk excursion probability, but if a 3.5 sigma event isn't a 1-in-1000 event I have difficulty interpreting.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#350

Post by quantummagic »

_alternator_ wrote: post #326

With a headline like that the graph should be at the beginning. Usually you'd put it up front and then talk about the graph, not put it at the bottom and talk about how people aren't talking about it. Anyway, I scrolled down to the graph and skipped the text. We are currently 4 std deviations above the mean with respect to El Niño temperature. But there's also a historical line -4 std deviations from the mean. Was th…

The graph represents 44 years of statistics, and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. But you can not determine how these stats relate to longer term time frames such as a 100 years or more. Obviously the article wants you to believe the absolute worst about how these modern indicators compare back even further than the data shows, but how much of that is confirmation bias, and how much is actual science?
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