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

611–620 of 693 posts

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#611

Post by RugnirViking »

lmz wrote: post #593
RugnirViking wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the mafia boss tells his sons that they should avoid a life of crime, that doing it makes things worse for society and ones self, is he a hypocrite? should the boys follow his advice? my read is yes and yes are you suggesting it should instead be yes and no? that because the sons want to be rich they are morally in the right for going into a life of crime, even knowing the consequences?

The countries are competitive with each other, not in a father/son relationship. At least the father has a natural lifespan and the ill gotten riches would go to the son(s). Can we say the same thing about the riches of say, the USA? If China does nothing then they will inherit all of it? Or will the US just keep its fortune gained through whatever means, and just tell other up and coming countries to suck rocks and…

Do you really think that the reason the boys shouldn't do crime is because it's their father telling them this?

Or because they will inherit money? Do you really believe what you are saying?

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#612

Post by wing-_-nuts »

Yizahi wrote: post #548
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen estimates of the cost of sulfide injection to be about 2-3B / yr / 1C. That's not outside of the capability of a country like India, much less China

I saw those too. They look wildly optimistic, on top of being based on a wildly optimistic efficiency of the aerosols themselves, compounding the issue. But even assuming that - I read that multiple tens of megatons of aerosols need to be dispersed each year, on a regular basis. That alone doesn't look like a 2-3 measly billion job. Just a small fleet of 10 old narrowbody jets would cost at least 1 billion per year t…

'Termination shock' will be a very real threat, and lets not pretend that injecting sulfides into the atmosphere is going to improve air quality or help the ozone layer. Best option is to rapidly cut emissions, but I think we can already see that we're not going to chose the best option here. Hopefully SAI can give us the time we need to decarbonize, but I'm sick that we're gonna have to geoengineer at all.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#613

Post by pfisch »

jurgenburgen wrote: post #609
pfisch wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The eu is stupid for not engaging in active climate engineering right now. They are the most at risk and should take decisive action before they end up living in a glacier. All the downvotes are just showing why no action is being taken even though right now we are literally terraforming the planet with no plan, and it is going to stop the transatlantic currents that keep Europe from becoming arctic. But sure, just d…

If we can’t even switch away from fossils then where do we get the magical political will to build a massive, untested system that needs constant maintenance indefinitely to keep our environment stable? Our governments don’t seem to even be able to sustain consensus for a single election cycle, active geoengineering projects would require committing to keep doing it for decades, centuries or however long it takes to…

Switching away from fossil fuels is a gigantic ask compared to having some planes release a ton of reflective particles into the atmosphere. It isn't even expensive. 15-30 billion per year would be enough to cause 1 degree Celsius of cooling by having planes put SO2 into the atmosphere. Double that for 2 degrees.

That is way less than the EU has given to Ukraine.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#614

Post by wat10000 »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #603
wat10000 wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is fresh water, but that's not what's interesting about it. If the canal wasn't there, then the river would flow straight into the ocean instead. It's not like they're pulling from an aquifer to feed these locks. You're looking at some infrastructure limitations and acting like it's an environmental problem.

Thats false, the rainwater never fell to the ground and teleported to the ocean. Just consider the nearest rivers near you, now imagine someone diverting the river upstream to form an artificial lake (let's ignore the other environmental impacts of that for the sake of argument), to enable formation of something akin to the Panama Canal. I'm sure you'd have certain reservations and complaints about the local loss of…

Is Panama actually desalinating to make up for water they could have been getting from Chagres River if not for the canal? Panama is a tropical country that gets a lot of rain and I couldn't find any mention of this. The article you posted doesn't say anything like that.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#615

Post by pfisch »

ColdStream wrote: post #378
pfisch wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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!"

They won't do that because it makes no sense. They will just complain about it and maybe refuse to trade or do some cyber attacks.

No one would take this as an act of war just like no one takes cyber attacks as an act of war.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#616

Post by pfisch »

autoexec wrote: post #580
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.

Geoengineering is just a gamble corporations want the world to take on their behalf. There's a chance that doing it would fuck things up way worse than they are now, but there's also a chance that it makes things a little better and if that happens it will reduce the pressure on those corporations to make the changes we already know with 100% certainty would improve things, but which would also directly eat into thei…

We are already geoengineering every single day. There is no version of this that has no risk.

We can continue to do it aimlessly, or we can act with purpose.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#617

Post by pfisch »

fchicken wrote: post #400
pfisch wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The eu is stupid for not engaging in active climate engineering right now. They are the most at risk and should take decisive action before they end up living in a glacier. All the downvotes are just showing why no action is being taken even though right now we are literally terraforming the planet with no plan, and it is going to stop the transatlantic currents that keep Europe from becoming arctic. But sure, just d…

Spoken as if climate engineering were an established science with no potential pitfalls or downsides...

We are ALREADY doing it. It is already going poorly because we are doing it without any goals.

So we can just continue geoengineering with no aim, or we can act with purpose. There is no third option that is realistic.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#618

Post by pfisch »

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…

I didn't say I was against AI or a true believer that AI will kill us all. I said it represents an existential risk. It could be fine. Just like dropping the first atom bomb was an existential risk.

Pretending like there is no possibility of AI going wrong is ridiculous.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#619

Post by pfisch »

consumer451 wrote: post #320
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…

> Why? Well, let's say we use sulfur. For the sake of argument, let's say it's not the EU, but some private SV-funded org. So, what is the legal/geopolitical liability for that? What if >99% scientific consensus says that that org's upper atmo sulfur injection led to the most insane monsoon/desertification half-century in 1 billion's people area, in known history? What then? What if the EU's geoengineering dropped Ru…

> What if the EU's geoengineering dropped Russian temps by -2C on average?

Then Russia makes some empty threats and the EU negotiates with Russia about what to do next.

You are really just suggesting paralysis even if you don't realize that is what you are doing.

Post reply on HN