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

Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 70 posts

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#11

Post by b2hdx »

onion2k wrote: post #10
codeshaman wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The results end up overhyped, overblown, and for soundbites like press releases and Nature papers. This just misinforms people. I understand the scientist's desire for rigour, but ... Most people won't bother reading the article at all. If it's up-voted or liked enough, the title is the truth. We all do it. We all accept a sentence as truth if we trust the source enough, without checking the facts. It's impossible…

It doesn't matter what the truth is, it matters what you believe the truth to be. The truth doesn't matter, nor does what you believe. The only thing that actually matters is how you act. You could happily say that there's only a 0.0001% chance that humanity is affecting climate change, but if that's enough to get you to stop doing things that might harm the planet just in case then that's brilliant. The most importa…

That's a very naive worldview. I'll skip the first part of what you said and focus on this though:

>The most important thing to remember with climate change is that there's no downside to being less wasteful.

It doesn't matter if you shower less or use the AC less or use an electric car, all that pales in comparison to you not existing in the first place. So the easiest way to solve the entire issue is not having more children. I feel like this is such a big choice with huge downsides for most people that it doesn't even get talked about that often.

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#12

Post by restalis »

What's interesting is that beyond that "record coldest" spot in the Northern Atlantic, there are still "record warmest" places in the Arctic Ocean, north of Europe. If the temperature in those places was supposed to be dependent on the warm current from Caribbean, how come they were warmer than usual after the current slowed down?

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#13

Post by zzkt »

restalis wrote: post #12

What's interesting is that beyond that "record coldest" spot in the Northern Atlantic, there are still "record warmest" places in the Arctic Ocean, north of Europe. If the temperature in those places was supposed to be dependent on the warm current from Caribbean, how come they were warmer than usual after the current slowed down?

For some more detail about the dynamics, have a look at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/03/whats-...

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#14

Post by zurn »

b2hdx wrote: post #11
onion2k wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter what the truth is, it matters what you believe the truth to be. The truth doesn't matter, nor does what you believe. The only thing that actually matters is how you act. You could happily say that there's only a 0.0001% chance that humanity is affecting climate change, but if that's enough to get you to stop doing things that might harm the planet just in case then that's brilliant. The most importa…

That's a very naive worldview. I'll skip the first part of what you said and focus on this though: >The most important thing to remember with climate change is that there's no downside to being less wasteful. It doesn't matter if you shower less or use the AC less or use an electric car, all that pales in comparison to you not existing in the first place. So the easiest way to solve the entire issue is not having mor…

Actually the average western/US CO2 footprint is so big, that it's very doable to fit yourself and a child in after you cut down on luxuries. Of course "use AC less" and "use electric cars" are not the kinds of changes that will get you there. More like no meat, no car, no flights, no grid powered AC etc.

Offsetting your baby's lifetime CO2 footprint is actually very affordable even with the average US figure. For a more hands on alternative you could strive to raise them to a line of work that would cause them to have a net negative climate footprint.

But yes, have a good hard think about these things when considering getting children.

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#15

Post by 7952 »

briandear wrote: post #9
facepalm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why the assumption that your actions could have an impact on the world is ridiculous?

It's a matter of degree. Pissing in the ocean changes the PH, however the question would be, to what degree? The question isn't if humans impact climate, it's how much do they impact the climate. The answer to that is far from 'settled science.'

What about 7 billion people pissing in the sea? Of course the implications of that are not compltely predictable. But it is not just a matter of academic interest but an engineering/managment problem. How do we interact with the environment in an optimal way?

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#16

Post by nashashmi »

I like to think of these and other effects from global warming as the planet's system of healing. The warmer the climate gets, the more ways it tries to heals, and the more damage happens as a result.

If I were to apply that theory here, how is this "slow-down" part of that process?

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#17

Post by [deleted] »

zurn wrote: post #14
b2hdx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very naive worldview. I'll skip the first part of what you said and focus on this though: >The most important thing to remember with climate change is that there's no downside to being less wasteful. It doesn't matter if you shower less or use the AC less or use an electric car, all that pales in comparison to you not existing in the first place. So the easiest way to solve the entire issue is not having mor…

Actually the average western/US CO2 footprint is so big, that it's very doable to fit yourself and a child in after you cut down on luxuries. Of course "use AC less" and "use electric cars" are not the kinds of changes that will get you there. More like no meat, no car, no flights, no grid powered AC etc. Offsetting your baby's lifetime CO2 footprint is actually very affordable even with the average US figure. For a…

[deleted]

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#18

Post by lugg »

zurn wrote: post #14
b2hdx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very naive worldview. I'll skip the first part of what you said and focus on this though: >The most important thing to remember with climate change is that there's no downside to being less wasteful. It doesn't matter if you shower less or use the AC less or use an electric car, all that pales in comparison to you not existing in the first place. So the easiest way to solve the entire issue is not having mor…

Actually the average western/US CO2 footprint is so big, that it's very doable to fit yourself and a child in after you cut down on luxuries. Of course "use AC less" and "use electric cars" are not the kinds of changes that will get you there. More like no meat, no car, no flights, no grid powered AC etc. Offsetting your baby's lifetime CO2 footprint is actually very affordable even with the average US figure. For a…

One decent flight is more than pretty much everything else combined, people forget this far too much. Most of the people that try to offset their footprint are the same damn people that feel the need to fly around the world every couple of years.

For lack of a more credible source,

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/sep/09/carb...

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#19

Post by padobson »

I've never been fully convinced of anthropomorphic climate change. There's just too much politics involved for me to be convinced of such relatively recent studies.

That said, I'll convert all of my energy sources to PV cells tomorrow if someone gives me a way to do it without mortgaging the next ten years of my life.

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#20

Post by facepalm »

briandear wrote: post #9
facepalm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why the assumption that your actions could have an impact on the world is ridiculous?

It's a matter of degree. Pissing in the ocean changes the PH, however the question would be, to what degree? The question isn't if humans impact climate, it's how much do they impact the climate. The answer to that is far from 'settled science.'

I'm sure there are aspects of it are not settled, but that is not the same as not knowing anything. We can not predict accurately if it will rain 10 days from now, but we still know it rains every now and then.

There are deserts on earth that have been created by humans (Iceland for example, and the "Karst", victims to wooden ship building), and large lakes that are almost gone because of human actions.

It also seems obvious that humans pollute water bodies around us to a degree that makes swimming in them or drinking from it impossible, to take up your pissing example.

Post reply on HN