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

Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter

severe-weather.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 401 posts

Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter

#61

Post by parineum »

DangitBobby wrote: post #24
parineum wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We couldn't have stopped using fossil fuels heavily until nuclear power was widespread and implemented, around the late 70s or 80s. We could have traditioned our grids off of fossil fuels but we also depend on them for fertilizer to feed the world and for transportation which, until very recently, didn't have a viable alternative.

Nuclear was also kneecapped by FUD and astroturfing, and we didn't properly fund renewables because Republican administrations were in the pockets of big oil. Did you know GM made a fully viable electric car that people loved back in the 90s? Setback after setback, all self-inflicted, people pretending we have these insurmountable hurdles all over the place. Pathetic for an empire that prides itself as a champion of…

> Did you know GM made a fully viable electric car that people loved back in the 90s?

105m range on nimh which rapidly degrades isn't a fully viable car and a maximum of 1000 people "loved" it considering that's all they made.

GM is in business to make money. They didn't cancel a car that was a viable product.

Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter

#62

Post by DangitBobby »

defrost wrote: post #59
DangitBobby wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely true. But you see the blame placed on the public fearing nuclear from these events. There was some fear, but also astroturfing to make sure nuclear stayed dead.

> a bunch of people spreading lies about it for 100 years or so. To be fair to past humans the deliberate lies and misinformation didn't really start until the 1970s, the oil crisis of that decade, the coming together of the UN to recognise the issue following the geophysics papers of the 1960s that nailed the CO2 problem against oil consumption, etc. That's the period in which Koch money started flowing to think tan…

You right. 50 years or so. I was trying going back far enough to include the discovery of man-made climate change and not necessarily starting right at the plugging our ears portion of the timeline.

Regarding the nuclear FUD, I'm not backing down. We'll never know how much the fear of nuclear was grassroots and how much was turf, but we can know for sure that someone didn't want Americans to have energy independence.

Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter

#63

Post by quadrifoliate »

anon7000 wrote: post #27
gottorf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People dying from extreme heatwaves, weather, and famines due to climate change has been predicted for decades at this point; and this is exactly the sort of climatic setup that will enable this to happen. The rhetoric is all well and good, but if you look at the numbers according to the WMO[0], deaths from climate-related hazards have been dropping steadily in the 50-year period from 1970 to 2019, even as atmosphe…

Look, I think you made some good points, but at the same time, humans have become better at handling the climate because we’ve been able to predict it and have found solutions to certain known issues. What happens when it gets less predictable, like when certain regions get much less water for an extended period, is very much unknown. Your last claim makes no sense. Is there actually a widespread political effort to…

> I think energy production would be much more abundant and directly in control of the people if governments stopped...

Lots of people pat themselves on the back for (correctly) believing that climate change is real. Why is it so hard for people to also believe that regulatory capture and oligarchy are real, and directly responsible for the lack of action against climate change?

Think of all the for-profit power utility companies in the US. Why are they for-profit? For that matter, why are ISPs for-profit and not run as non-profits with heavy government assistance? Answer, basically: Because the existing people that make lots of money off them have been lobbying heavily to make it so. Similarly, it is no coincidence the current leadership in the US is actively against renewable energy.

A lot of the existing wealth, especially in North America and Europe was built on top of fossil fuels directly or indirectly (cars, power plants, industries, maintaining diplomatic relations with oil-rich nations). That dependence is hard to unwind and is going to take 50 years or more unless the US electorate can start electing people that believe in climate change. And for this reason, actually addressing climate change is going to come from unintuitive social actions, like making smaller housing more fashionable, moving to urban areas, possibly cracking down heavily on crime in those areas, and financially rewarding the use of public transport and bikes.

Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter

#64

Post by defrost »

DangitBobby wrote: post #62
defrost wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a bunch of people spreading lies about it for 100 years or so. To be fair to past humans the deliberate lies and misinformation didn't really start until the 1970s, the oil crisis of that decade, the coming together of the UN to recognise the issue following the geophysics papers of the 1960s that nailed the CO2 problem against oil consumption, etc. That's the period in which Koch money started flowing to think tan…

You right. 50 years or so. I was trying going back far enough to include the discovery of man-made climate change and not necessarily starting right at the plugging our ears portion of the timeline. Regarding the nuclear FUD, I'm not backing down. We'll never know how much the fear of nuclear was grassroots and how much was turf, but we can know for sure that someone didn't want Americans to have energy independence.

Fear of nuclear weapons was backed in as part of the Cold War Mutually Assured Destruction stand off doctrine - rather hard to achieve when pushing the Atoms For Peace warm fuzzy alternative.

Didn't help that nukes didn't make good civil engineering tools or help conquer space by farting out tiny bombs.

Even Carl Sagan was pushing the nuclear should not be used primal back brain reaction by over hyping (?) nuclear winter for a disarmament argument.

Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter

#65

Post by timr »

lukeify wrote: post #12
Noaidi wrote: post #6

People really don’t appreciate yet. How really bad this situation is and will be. They’re talking about 1.76°C higher temperatures next year because of this El Niño. Those are climate change temperatures that are not supposed to be around until 2035. So it’ll give us a sneak peek into our future. But the biggest effect and this is noted by many insurance companies now is going to be in places like India. But this is…

It was inevitable we'd get to the point where climate change began substantially disrupting ecology and human livelihoods. Looks like we're ahead of schedule. People dying from extreme heatwaves, weather, and famines due to climate change has been predicted for decades at this point; and this is exactly the sort of climatic setup that will enable this to happen.

[flagged]

Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter

#68

Post by dluan »

fHr wrote: post #52
bamboozled wrote: post #10

All we needed to do was stop burning fossil fuels we really are fucking dense.

If only China and US could get their shit together....

China is the only country that is seriously doing anything about anything. They've single handedly built more renewable energy capacity than every other country combined, they've pulled millions of diesel and gasoline cars off roads, reforested one of the world's biggest deserts, this year they've finally reduced coal usage, and next year the long awaited Tokamak is set to fire for the first time.

The US is busy sending warships across the planet to blow up oil refineries which will be rebuilt. It's not bad enough we are busy grinding sand, but we are actively making things worse.

Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter

#69

Post by squigz »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #63
anon7000 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I think you made some good points, but at the same time, humans have become better at handling the climate because we’ve been able to predict it and have found solutions to certain known issues. What happens when it gets less predictable, like when certain regions get much less water for an extended period, is very much unknown. Your last claim makes no sense. Is there actually a widespread political effort to…

> I think energy production would be much more abundant and directly in control of the people if governments stopped... Lots of people pat themselves on the back for (correctly) believing that climate change is real. Why is it so hard for people to also believe that regulatory capture and oligarchy are real, and directly responsible for the lack of action against climate change ? Think of all the for-profit power uti…

I'm pretty sure that GP agrees with you on this point? You just cut off the rest of their quote where they point that out.

Re: Super El Niño Keeps Growing as New Forecasts Reach Record Territory Ahead Winter

#70

Post by defrost »

timr wrote: post #65
lukeify wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was inevitable we'd get to the point where climate change began substantially disrupting ecology and human livelihoods. Looks like we're ahead of schedule. People dying from extreme heatwaves, weather, and famines due to climate change has been predicted for decades at this point; and this is exactly the sort of climatic setup that will enable this to happen.

[flagged]

Your linked figure confirms that 2018 was cooler than things are today.

The chapter 11 temperature over view is concerning for the consequences:

  The frequency and intensity of hot extremes will continue to increase and those of cold extremes will continue to decrease, at global and continental scales and in nearly all inhabited regions with increasing global warming levels.

  This will be the case even if global warming is stabilized at 1.5°C.

  Relative to present-day conditions, changes in the intensity of extremes would be at least double at 2°C, and quadruple at 3°C of global warming, compared to changes at 1.5°C of global warming.
...

  The frequency of hot temperature extreme events will very likely increase nonlinearly with increasing global warming, with larger percentage increases for rarer events.
It's the harder to precisely predict potential tipping point changes that should really concern and motivate global changes to emissions.
Post reply on HN