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

Oceans hit highest temperature on record

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 696 posts

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#371

Post by lovich »

0xy wrote: post #326
lovich wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have agreed with you on giving credit but we did an about face in the last 2 years and now are spending billions of dollars to pay off companies that were already building renewables because we failed when trying to just illegally cancel them[1] We’re not letting the market handle it and we’re going in a backwards direction. Can’t really crow about our accomplishments given that. [1] https://www.theguardian.c…

Completely false and epic revisionism. 96.6% of all new energy sources in the US from 2024 to 2026 were green. Nuclear, batteries, solar, wind, hydro. You know people can just look this stuff up right?

But the government is still paying billions of dollars to end renewable projects because they dont like said contracts, right?

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#372

Post by ColdStream »

locallost wrote: post #40
ang_cire wrote: post #9

As someone who works in risk management, I think I have a hard time understanding how anyone can be so blase about climate change. Like, it truly takes a level of willful ignorance to have something so dire happening, and just choosing to either ignore it, or ignore the evidence for it. Like, even if you think the science isn't that accurate, the impacts , the massive potential harms, should outweigh the choice to ju…

I don't want to criticize you, but a question: what are you doing in practice to change something? Is your carbon footprint below what is sustainable? Let's look at me: I don't own a car, live in a smaller town, move around mostly on foot, take public transportation, long distance mostly train. I have two kids and for years my electricity total was 1500kwh a year. Last year it was 1100kwh (heating is gas though, that…

> My point is: my carbon footprint is pretty low, and I try to be mindful about not wasting resources.

While it might be low by western standards, it is probably still very high by global averages. For instance it is estimated that roughly 80% of people have never flowing in a plane, and that 10% of the remaining have never flown more than once. Flown 4 times last year puts you right near the top.

This isn't saying "You are a terrible person!", it is saying that we all have a habit of normalizing the world around us even if it is wildy unsustainable.

And even then, the planet doesn't care about were you sit in terms of other people, it just cares about your impacts.

Statistically, the homeless in my country (Australia) have a carbon foot print 3 times greater than the average African. What looks horrible here, resource wise, is far ahead of many in this world.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#373

Post by DoctorOetker »

evil-olive wrote: post #366
DoctorOetker wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That BBC documentary shows or exposes very shallow thinking skills at this timestamp 6m42s: https://youtu.be/_xZCh8eDZFc?si=AHyDPgoDucsCRllS&t=402 They claim the panama canal is continuously fed by freshwater for the canal locks (which segment the canal into sections with different water levels, and which enable ships to be raised or lowered to the next water level during travel along the canal). It's 2026, why are h…

> The operation as currently described is so inefficient, even for the 1960's! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal Construction began: 1 January 1881 Date completed: 15 August 1914 > The energy released when lowering can be stored either in gravitational energy of a mass, or be used to power a second parallel lock operated in counter phase (so while one lock is lowering ships say eastwards, the energy is used…

Its not that difficult to do it while in use, you just construct a parallel lock next to the existing ones that can remain in use.

It's even possible to upgrade a lock while in use, you just add new inlets and outlets for the new archimedes screw system, an unused archimedes screw or inlet/outlet is just a differently shaped boundary wall...

Even in 1881 all the necessary physics was already known, but I'm less surprised less informed people could rise to the top that easily back then.

I'm more surprised by the post-war 60's when physics and engineering became a lot more democratized, less elite...

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#374

Post by Zambyte »

infinitezest wrote: post #183
Zambyte wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. People fuss over LLM energy consumption, but I did the math on my rig, and if I were to use my machine at full tilt for all of my waking hours, I would use roughly 1/10th the amount of energy the average American uses driving. By the way, I highly recommend the Priority 600 :-)

I think OP is talking about datacenters which likely use a little more power than your home rig.

And I use SOTA models that are hosted on hardware I don't have access to a handful of times a month at this point, and most of the people I talk to regarding LLM usage are either in the same boat, or are asking about hosting things themselves. The diminishing returns for using the best of the best models just aren't worth it for most things anymore.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#375

Post by croes »

YZF wrote: post #141
cdrnsf wrote: post #7

Meanwhile governments are electing to either do nothing or actively make the problem worse (particularly in the case of the US — expanding fossil fuel extraction, pushing data center build out and attacking renewables like wind).

Solar energy is the fastest growing source of energy in the US. That's because it's also the cheapest source of energy. So markets are working. https://abcnews.com/US/solar-generates-energy-coal-us-1st-ti... "Solar and storage provided 90% of all new power added in the U.S." is mind blowing. How about we give the US credit for this? Fossil fuel extraction is not the problem. The problem is fossil fuel usage. Given th…

> Also consider the US has just removed a sh~tload of fossil fuels from the world economy.

Do you mean the war with Iran that released in the initial weeks over 5 million metric tons of CO₂?

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#376

Post by sublinear »

nostrebored wrote: post #322
pfisch wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, we need a global consensus for geoengineering. Why? Does china or the us need a consensus before taking existential risks like making ai? Or detonating a nuke that had a tiny chance of setting the atmosphere on fire? Or attacking random countries with almost no rationale or plan? This kind of thinking is why the EU is screwed. No other major power cares that much because they aren't at the same level of ris…

There’s something odd about the concentration of true believers in ai xrisk and climate change catastrophism. They are both technopessimist in a way that is seen as progressive. Stopping progress in AI would make people’s lives immeasurably worse, while stopping fossil fuel consumption would kill billions of people. But it seems like a particular kind of risk aversion that is blind to upside. I’m curious why this cal…

> Stopping progress in AI would make people’s lives immeasurably worse

This is such a weaselly statement without your definition of "AI". If you specifically mean LLMs or image generation, you're way out of touch and flat out wrong. If you mean machine learning in general, sure, but progress there was never under any threat or question.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#377

Post by macintux »

nostrebored wrote: post #322
pfisch wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, we need a global consensus for geoengineering. Why? Does china or the us need a consensus before taking existential risks like making ai? Or detonating a nuke that had a tiny chance of setting the atmosphere on fire? Or attacking random countries with almost no rationale or plan? This kind of thinking is why the EU is screwed. No other major power cares that much because they aren't at the same level of ris…

There’s something odd about the concentration of true believers in ai xrisk and climate change catastrophism. They are both technopessimist in a way that is seen as progressive. Stopping progress in AI would make people’s lives immeasurably worse, while stopping fossil fuel consumption would kill billions of people. But it seems like a particular kind of risk aversion that is blind to upside. I’m curious why this cal…

> Stopping progress in AI would make people’s lives immeasurably worse

I’d really like to hear your reasoning for this.

Were it used to make it practical for people to reduce or stop working while maintaining a comparable standard of living, sure.

It seems far more likely it’s going to wipe out jobs on a massive scale, consolidate wealth, and leave millions or billions struggling to eke out a living.

And it certainly hasn’t made anyone’s life dramatically better. It’s made my job easier, but how much longer will I have it?

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#378

Post by ColdStream »

pfisch wrote: post #312
ColdStream wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that unless there is a consensus or at least a large majority in favor of it, nothing will be done. Lets say the EU does geoengineering and then there are crop failures in India the next year. Their fault or not, they are going to get blamed for it and actions taken. The EU would become the scapegoat for any kind of weather/climate issues in future. This is the trolley problem done at a global scale.

>Lets say the EU does geoengineering and then there are crop failures in India the next year. Who cares? Tell them to go pound sand or stop burning so much coal. Countries are already water seeding. This kind of worry that someone might complain about the eu trying to save itself is so low on the list of things that matter. Let them complain, and the eu can complain about all the other countries geoengineering by bur…

Alas, that kind of bravado doesn't go far.

Also what if that complaint comes back in the form of a Nuke as they see it as an act of war?

When things become existential, a lot of things that seems unlikely end up on the table as moral corruption sets in. "Either they go or we do!"

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#379

Post by croes »

api wrote: post #228
HumblyTossed wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the US and _I_ don't want us to get credit. Even the worst of people do something good every now and then. But if you reward that, they won't change.

> Even the worst of people do something good every now and then. But if you reward that, they won't change. Scratching my head on that one. I mean... is something not better than nothing? Or do you only get rewarded if it's 100% perfect? If so then by that metric nobody should be rewarded here. There's nobody in the world who has done enough, certainly none of the major economic powers.

Because it’s different entities. The market creates more solar power despite the actions of the government

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#380

Post by croes »

socalgal2 wrote: post #327
lovich wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have agreed with you on giving credit but we did an about face in the last 2 years and now are spending billions of dollars to pay off companies that were already building renewables because we failed when trying to just illegally cancel them[1] We’re not letting the market handle it and we’re going in a backwards direction. Can’t really crow about our accomplishments given that. [1] https://www.theguardian.c…

Cancelling those contracts *IS* letting the market decide The RWE paid 1.26 billion to acquire the lease on offshore wind. Payment is a refund. Further, offshore wind is expensive in terms of maintenance. Stopping the project now is protecting billions in expenses in the future.

Making an offer they can’t refuse isn’t really a market decision

Edit: typo, changed is to isn’t

Post reply on HN