Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says • Hacker News Board

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#141

Post by ViewTrick1002 » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 3:40 PM UTC

mrob wrote: post #45

Schiendelman wrote: post #4

There hasn't been a question about this in a decade or more. There was no path, even theoretically, to stopping our CO2 emissions without dramatically lowering quality of life for maybe a couple billion people. We won't slow climate change. We can build resilience to the effects, and we have good incentives to do so. But we'll keep burning fossil fuels for a very long time.

There was an obvious path that the environmentalists mostly opposed. A decade is plenty of time for massive scale buildout of nuclear power. If we'd started that a decade ago we'd be in a good position now.

The problem is that we attempted to build nuclear power. It just didn’t deliver. There was massive state support behind it.

It is hard looking at Vogtle, Virgil C. Summer, Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville 3, Hinkley Point C, Hanhikivi and the countless cancelled projects and think: ”That’s what I want some more of!!”

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#142

Post by tito » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 3:41 PM UTC

Want to do something about this?

El Niño this year is going to be especially crazy, worst in human history by a large margin looks like. I'm putting together El Niño Climate Week to work on averting the worst impacts. It's a good opportunity to move the conversation forward about how our climate is changing very quickly.

https://elninoclimateweek.com

My projects tend to be pretty good schelling points for people that like to take action, in case you're finding the comments here frustrating ("I'm not surprised", "we just need to X", "we're doomed", "it will be fine", etc etc etc)

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#143

Post by hectdev » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 3:41 PM UTC

mym1990 wrote: post #129

radu_floricica wrote: post #113

I'm mostly stopped feeling autistic since adolescence, but climate change is one of those times. It's obviously real, and it's also obvious that shuffling chairs in developing countries is rounding to zero effect. We're converting to cleaner energy anyways because of pollution and better economics, so the push for decarbonization in itself is... what do you call a rounding error when it's already rounding to zero? An…

I'm not going to lie, and this is not meant as an insult, but I could not comprehend what a single sentence here is trying to say.

They're saying "I can see logical ways we can deal with this but the common folk are afraid of technology and change"

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#144

Post by mr_toad » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 3:41 PM UTC

psadri wrote: post #96

multiplegeorges wrote: post #2

Not much of a surprise. Government action has been anemic at best. Industry action (overall) has been net negative. The only hope now is exponential growth of (solar and wind)+batteries making other sources uneconomic. This seems to be slowly happening, so I hope we hit the exponential curve soon and we're there quicker than we expect. This only stops it. Then, to fix it, we'll need a massive Direct Air Capture indus…

I have been wondering: more solar means we are making Earth less reflective. Solar energy that might have been reflected back to space is now absorbed by the PV to make electricity. But that delta has to go somewhere? Where does it go in terms of Earth’s temperature. Same with more nuclear… we’d be pumping more energy into the system. Don’t take this as an argument against these technologies. It’s a huge win to not b…

Current levels of solar panel coverage on Earth are approximately 0%. If we ran the entire Earth on Solar power we’d need ~ half a million square kilometres, around 0.1 percent of the Earth’s surface.

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#145

Post by chuckadams » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 3:42 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #121

chuckadams wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and in meat space an odd place to be a hotbed of vegan advocacy.

Hah! https://terrybisson.com/theyre-made-out-of-meat-2/ Many vegans I know were in fact motivated to that choice by realizing that meetings of humans were in fact "meat space."

https://yellow5.com/pokey/archive/index312.html

MY LUNGS ARE ADAPTING! I'VE INHALED A ROAST

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#146

Post by margalabargala » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 3:43 PM UTC

mym1990 wrote: post #129

radu_floricica wrote: post #113

I'm mostly stopped feeling autistic since adolescence, but climate change is one of those times. It's obviously real, and it's also obvious that shuffling chairs in developing countries is rounding to zero effect. We're converting to cleaner energy anyways because of pollution and better economics, so the push for decarbonization in itself is... what do you call a rounding error when it's already rounding to zero? An…

I'm not going to lie, and this is not meant as an insult, but I could not comprehend what a single sentence here is trying to say.

I didn't find it particularly inaccessible, and I do agree with most of the points made.

Maybe try giving it a second pass?

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#147

Post by r_lee » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 3:43 PM UTC

mrob wrote: post #45

Schiendelman wrote: post #4

There hasn't been a question about this in a decade or more. There was no path, even theoretically, to stopping our CO2 emissions without dramatically lowering quality of life for maybe a couple billion people. We won't slow climate change. We can build resilience to the effects, and we have good incentives to do so. But we'll keep burning fossil fuels for a very long time.

There was an obvious path that the environmentalists mostly opposed. A decade is plenty of time for massive scale buildout of nuclear power. If we'd started that a decade ago we'd be in a good position now.

yup.

I remember seeing just a few years back, a Greenpeace postlet moaning about dangerous nuclear energy

I think it's pretty clear that nothing meaningful will be done because there's no shock value to entertain the "empaths" like there is with war and other stuff

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#148

Post by mr_toad » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 3:44 PM UTC

hypfer wrote: post #137

From my understanding, the West never truly committed to that goal. It just said so as a PR thing, so that the much more affected countries quiet down, because "hey hey we said 1.5°". "Oops, sorry, we tried". The West knows that it will manage even with more than that, but it also knows that not everyone will. Jury's still out on whether the neglect is just due to apathy or because it might be beneficial. Only time w…

It was a New Year’s resolution that was broken by the next morning.

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#149

Post by mym1990 » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

Modern economies are addicted to growth, and asset prices are pinned to showing continued growth more than ever. As soon as any global power proposes to take a beat and re-evaluate the trajectory of innovation, they will be left behind. Global leadership is also effectively non-existent and aside from trade, no one seems to be able to really make inroads on big ticket issues. In a time where we need more collaboration that ever, governments seem to be skewing more nationalistic than ever.

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#150

Post by hocuspocus » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

p-e-w wrote: post #80

amazingamazing wrote: post #41

When will the rich, say top 10% of planet decrease their emissions?

The top 10% of the planet aren’t “the rich”, what a gross and incendiary misuse of the term.

If you live in better material conditions than 90% of the world population, you're rich, by definition. This is nearly half the global CO2 footprint.