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

A graph that should be front-page news

lyrebirddreaming.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 469 posts

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#451

Post by drumttocs8 »

_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 had to assume there must be ads displayed before the "payoff"- luckily, wouldn't know

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#452

Post by kortilla »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #254
kortilla wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the earth doesn’t care about a per capita denominator.

When the per capita number applies to a billion people it sure makes a huge difference, or would it not matter to the earth if china doubled their per capita carbon numbers to be more like America? I'm not a climate scientist but I would bet my entire net worth it matters quite a bit if China doubles their carbon output per capita.

I don’t think you understand. It doesn’t matter if there exists a per capita that is higher. What warms the earth is total CO2. US emitting more per capita than China is not an excuse for China to emit more total and it’s definitely not an excuse to catch up on per capita.

The only framework that makes sense in is one that allows global warming as long as we all do it equally.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#453

Post by kortilla »

triceratops wrote: post #361
kortilla wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the earth doesn’t care about a per capita denominator.

Then it doesn't matter if the US reduces emissions or China does. They all count. The US has more money to spend on reducing emissions. Ergo it makes sense for the US to go first.

There is no “go first”. You either care and aggressively cut and pressure the worst emitting countries in whatever way possible or you’re just accepting severe warming with one country taking a penalty.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#454

Post by kortilla »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #382
kortilla wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> although they are on the cusp of peaking their use That’s a really nice way of saying “their usage is currently at an all time high and will go up further”. They don’t get to take credit for a potential future action.

Their carbon emissions in 2025 were lower than 2024. The peak was years ago. Same is true of coal usage. So no, their usage is not at an all time high. It is below the high and on trend to continue falling. They can take credit for past and current actions that are part of a long term plan that includes future action.

Their coal as a source is still on the way up in total tons burned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China

Carbon declining from car usage switching to electric and moving to more efficient fuel plants is the decrease you’re thinking of.

Coal is still growing there, but the upside is it’s growing slightly slower than renewables so at least as a percentage it’s declining.

Unfortunately that just means their demand increased YoY so they had to build both dirty and clean energy.

This view makes it obvious because coal is at the bottom of the stack: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:China-electricity-pr...

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#455

Post by kortilla »

triceratops wrote: post #362
kortilla wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> although they are on the cusp of peaking their use That’s a really nice way of saying “their usage is currently at an all time high and will go up further”. They don’t get to take credit for a potential future action.

I think you've made up your mind regardless of facts or data.

I was the only one who provided any in this thread. You should read up on it!

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#456

Post by globalnode »

mrkeen wrote: post #310
globalnode wrote: post #207

not really understanding why the SD graph for the year drops below zero at some points.

It needs to by mathematical definition. Half of everything is below average. (Ignoring the complaints of others that they didn't calculate the mean from the whole graph).

bit of a late reply, but yeah it makes sense if its z scores and not standard deviations

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#457

Post by Lomlioto »

tomhow wrote: post #449
Lomlioto wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in this particular case its true and the fundamental issue we have? "Ignorance is the fundamental lack of knowledge, information, or awareness about a particular subject." Its not even an evaluation of my side. I'm fine with accepting that people have to work, are busy with other things, struggle in live etc. But the sentence in itself is not bad? And it directly references op.

If it's true “in this particular case”, it's true of every other case too, and thus it's not really a substantive assertion. It's just a fact of life that affects everything, and pointing it out in this particular instance reeks of “shouting into the void”. Sure it might be cathartic but it doesn't move us any closer to a solution, and serves only to make us more miserable. In HN guidelines terms it can be seen as fu…

I have spend so much time and energy in the last 6 years talking about it, trying to do stuff, isn't it sometimes valid to just respond like this to at least have a short outlet?

After all i didn't create an original comment, i leveraged a response instead.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#458

Post by anakaine »

RecycledEle wrote: post #424
anakaine wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others have corrected your confusion between prediction and observation. Lets instead show what we have already seen, today, that was previously predicted. Kiribati and Tuvalu have measurable loss of land due to rising sea levels that is impacting people today. About 80% of the Maldives Islands will likely be uninhabitable within the next 25 years. The Marshall Islands have lost 18 out of their average 200cm above me…

Please check back in 5 years.

A decade or two is a far better measure as it helps us understand the signal vs the noise from annual seasonality and phenomena such as el nino, la Nina, etc.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#459

Post by dghlsakjg »

kortilla wrote: post #454
dghlsakjg wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their carbon emissions in 2025 were lower than 2024. The peak was years ago. Same is true of coal usage. So no, their usage is not at an all time high. It is below the high and on trend to continue falling. They can take credit for past and current actions that are part of a long term plan that includes future action.

Their coal as a source is still on the way up in total tons burned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China Carbon declining from car usage switching to electric and moving to more efficient fuel plants is the decrease you’re thinking of. Coal is still growing there, but the upside is it’s growing slightly slower than renewables so at least as a percentage it’s declining. Unfortunately that just means their deman…

Read your own source, it directly refutes what you are saying:

"In 2025, China's coal-fired power generation dropped by 1.9%, the first decrease since 2015, despite its energy demands has increased by 5% during that same year. According to Wood Mackenzie, the drop was attributed to a rapid increase in new non-fossil generation that has "finally outpaced demand growth", while coal plants had been operating at lower utilisation rates and being used more for grid flexibility and peak demand rather than baseload generation."

The graph you linked to conveniently ends right at peak coal consumption. If you go find the data for the last two years that are missing from that graph, coal consumption has been reduced.

You are all over this thread shitting on China unconditionally. We get it, you don't like China. But when your own sources disprove the point you are trying to make, it might be time to re-evaluate your position and probably the news sources that dictated that position to you. What was correct a decade ago, is very much false today, and the trend line is accelerating away from your feelings.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#460

Post by recitedropper »

defterGoose wrote: post #367
recitedropper wrote: post #255

Don't worry, just a few more months until we get AGI and all of our problems magically disappear as the singularity changes everything forever. Why care for current iterations of nature, when we will all get to experience infinite varities of it as immortal digital consciousnesses?

Forgot the /s tag

There is a very real contingent of people driving AI who genuinely believe this. And it is this belief that allows them to avoid their cognitive dissonance around the negative externalities of their work. For the environment, and really for the future of humanity too.

The /s tag weakens the post. Glad to see I got downvotes--hopefully a few of these incredibly wealthy people in positions of power had to, for even a brief moment, consider their beliefs.

Post reply on HN