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

Why North America's killer heat scares me

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 193 posts

Re: Why North America's killer heat scares me

#171

Post by mnowicki »

jrmg wrote: post #116
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| Climate Change is always my #1 priority when voting in elections If every climate change candidate you favored for won in the US and Canada the impact on climate would be near zero. Why? Because China, Vietnam, India and Indonesia are now the majority contributors to emissions and they don't care about your agenda. Such are the unintended consequences of progressive agendas. We regulated 'dirty' businesses out of e…

We regulated 'dirty' businesses out of existence (mostly) in North America and in so doing gave up our influence over how those industries operate. Thats a bit hyperbolic, but presuming it’s true, What influence do you believe we would’ve had if we hadn’t done that?

if we hadn't done that already, then we'd have the opportunity to regulate the out of existence in the future - it's much different

Re: Why North America's killer heat scares me

#172

Post by howmayiannoyyou »

jrmg wrote: post #116
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| Climate Change is always my #1 priority when voting in elections If every climate change candidate you favored for won in the US and Canada the impact on climate would be near zero. Why? Because China, Vietnam, India and Indonesia are now the majority contributors to emissions and they don't care about your agenda. Such are the unintended consequences of progressive agendas. We regulated 'dirty' businesses out of e…

We regulated 'dirty' businesses out of existence (mostly) in North America and in so doing gave up our influence over how those industries operate. Thats a bit hyperbolic, but presuming it’s true, What influence do you believe we would’ve had if we hadn’t done that?

The pandemic proved the premise (not hyperbolic), with particular reference to drugs & PPE.

Had industries like refining, chemicals & primary materials manufacturing (as just 3 of many examples) remained centric to North America we would now be in a position apply the "Green New Deal" ethos and its vast expenditures to industries that provide offsetting jobs, tax revenues and secondary income flows at home. Instead, we must now direct the progressive agenda to things like real-estate, power grids, power generation, transportation & farming. These industries are either comparatively small employers or soon-to-be so due to automation; and several are reliant on inputs from China that simply transfer even more wealth from the US abroad.

Re: Why North America's killer heat scares me

#173

Post by firestarter223 »

ZoomerCretin wrote: post #147
firestarter223 wrote: post #81

If you point out recent coldness records, you will be lectured about the difference between weather and climate. I think the real issue may be the human delusion that things staying the same is normal (perhaps because of the short life span of humans), and more recently in scientific terms, that averages are normal. About this article I find it odd that it cites Thatcher, of all people. Surely the information she use…

Both events are caused by the jet stream changing its usual patterns due to climate change. Your strawman is a poor one.

I guess no matter what happens, it is always due to climate change.

In general I think local records are to be expected, because of variance. Maybe they become more frequent because of changing jet streams or whatever, but you can not go in the other direction and claim every record is because of climate change.

Re: Why North America's killer heat scares me

#174

Post by firestarter223 »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #135
firestarter223 wrote: post #81

If you point out recent coldness records, you will be lectured about the difference between weather and climate. I think the real issue may be the human delusion that things staying the same is normal (perhaps because of the short life span of humans), and more recently in scientific terms, that averages are normal. About this article I find it odd that it cites Thatcher, of all people. Surely the information she use…

Localized coldness records that are the result of the polar vortex breaking apart over the arctic and sending masses of cold air south. They are accompanied by heat waves and records in the arctic. The 80s information and forecasts were actually pretty decent in terms of the observed warming levels so far. What is a shame is that they were not pessimistic enough regarding the feedback loops we are now aware of.

Especially if you can pick just the forecasts that are not already wrong, and forget about the rest.

According to this article in nature, there is rather a tendency to use worst case scenarios that are no longer probable.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3

Re: Why North America's killer heat scares me

#175

Post by Wowfunhappy »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #23
throwaway284534 wrote: post #6

Respectfully, I’m getting fatigued from hearing about climate changes. Not because I don’t care, but because I feel powerless to do anything major about it. For all the recycling I’ve done, a single factory can undo in just a day. Being defeatist isn’t exactly productive, but hearing that calamities are happening on a daily basis doesn’t help much either. I really do think the only way this’ll get better is after som…

I sympathize with and share your exhaustion, but I force myself to pay attention to these stories. They remind me why Climate Change is always my #1 priority when voting in elections, and when thinking about the world writ large. There was an editorial in The Atlantic a couple of years ago—which I now can’t seem to find—titled something like “We should be covering climate change like it’s the only story that matters”…

Finally found the article. I'd kept searching in The Atlantic, when it was actually from The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-isnt-the-media-c...

Re: Why North America's killer heat scares me

#176

Post by anonAndOn »

lamontcg wrote: post #169
anonAndOn wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID is an evolutionary filter for the anti-vax movement. If freedom loving Americans want to roll the dice on survival, let 'em.

Even if it worked that way, its a poor filter since the IFR is only 1% and it mostly kills people that are very old anyway. Plus ideologies aren't genetic. And even with genetics the whole "evolutionary filter" concept fails due to reversion to the mean. Plus it is a fundamentally right wing political concept. "Evolutionary filters" are about as scientific as the antivax movement.

It doesn't need to be perfect nor does it need to kill to be effective. You can negatively impact the fertility rate just by diminishing the quality of life.

Re: Why North America's killer heat scares me

#177

Post by partiallypro »

generj wrote: post #143
partiallypro wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think the US, etc should have to pay for the second largest economy (by a huge margin) in the world to go green? Your argument doesn't even really hold water. Coal etc was used because it had no real alternative at the time, now there is an alternative.

China isn’t the best example of my point. I’m talking about the developing world broadly - we should absolutely foot some of the bill for other countries to go green or pay for geoengineering so they have a longer timeframe to do so. Coal is still cheap and can be much easier to operate than alternatives - unless someone helps make the alternatives easier to install and operate. How much of China’s energy goes toward…

If the argument currently is that solar, etc is cheaper than coal, then why would we need to subsidize this when the obvious financial choice for poorer countries is green energy? Why would the poor country use coal, etc when it costs more? The argument doesn't make sense. It's one or the other.

As far as the per-capita argument the US has been falling heavily while China is still accelerating. How much of US consumption goes the the rest of the world? That's not a solid argument for some sort of global warming reparations. The US gives tons of money in foreign aid to other countries, while other wealthy countries do nothing at all. Why is this all the US's responsibility? Why are people so hesitant to hold heavy polluters like China/India/etc responsible?

Re: Why North America's killer heat scares me

#178

Post by timeon »

firestarter223 wrote: post #81

If you point out recent coldness records, you will be lectured about the difference between weather and climate. I think the real issue may be the human delusion that things staying the same is normal (perhaps because of the short life span of humans), and more recently in scientific terms, that averages are normal. About this article I find it odd that it cites Thatcher, of all people. Surely the information she use…

Well obviously things generally are not static. However I'm afraid you have forget to include scale there.

Re: Why North America's killer heat scares me

#180

Post by blooalien »

Retric wrote: post #92
mtrn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not own a car, I do not fly, I buy clothes used or new just once a year. My newest smartphone I bought five years ago (and I just bought a new battery for $10, so I can use it for five more years). My utility company stats says my energy consumption is overall very low. I eat meat once a month. I try to own as few things as possible. I try to write and deploy code in energy efficient languages (Go, Rust, C, ...)…

I am not saying anything negative about your lifestyle and I make similar choices. But, the perception is you need to be that extreme when the reality is different. People really don’t need to suffer to make a difference, which is critical as most people aren’t willing to suffer if they can avoid it. For example rather than turning the heat down, buying a solar hot water heater let’s you save money, take long hot sho…

> "People really don’t need to suffer to make a difference"…

You are 110% correct about that, and yet the most common arguments I hear from folks who argue against every proposed solution to climate change that they hear all make it sound like they actually think they're gonna have to live like cavemen if we try to do anything to fix the problem. :(

Post reply on HN