Global warming has accelerated significantly • Hacker News Board

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#171

Post by Frogeman » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

The majority of pollution is caused by 3rd world/ eastern countries.

Do you want to go to war with China to enforce an environmentalist agenda?

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#172

Post by abound » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

I've been mentally tabulating a list of reasons rich (and/or older) people should care about climate change, even if you're only looking out for your own interests:

- Your children and younger family members will have to deal with this

- Climate change is causing increasingly worse turbulence for airplanes

- It will disproportionately affect your favorite vacation spots

- Probably something about stock markets and pensions - a world constantly wracked with increasingly severe natural disasters isn't the most economically productive one

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#173

Post by nDRDY » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

bojan wrote: post #109

_heimdall wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars aren't a magic bullet. We need to drive less, not scrap ICE vehicles and buy new electric vehicles made on the other side of the planet with globally sourced materials and shipped to the US.

Do they have to be a magic bullet? Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than switching from personal cars to... bicycles?

With a correspondingly smaller decrease in CO2 output. We're in a Climate Catastrophe on the edge of Global Tipping Points, remember!

Sarcasm aside, I think this is why people have generally stopped caring as much. What we are being asked to do (buy new shiny things for some estimated small percentage decrease in lifecycle CO2 output) does not match the messaging.

FWIW I cycle almost everywhere.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#174

Post by WarmWash » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

ecshafer wrote: post #134

The issue with any significant steps to curbing the climate or environmental impacts with laws or treaties is always: But the economy. It creates an incentive where someone doesn't follow the laws, burn everything they can to accelerate their economy, and take industry from other countries. My proposal is thus: create a supranational treaty organization with a EPA like authority(or whatever the European equivalent is…

The real problem is that everyone has to sacrifice, but half the people think there is no problem and then other half thinks only corporations need to sacrifice (and are unwilling to sacrifice themselves).

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#175

Post by microtonal » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 3:46 PM UTC

ecshafer wrote: post #134

The issue with any significant steps to curbing the climate or environmental impacts with laws or treaties is always: But the economy. It creates an incentive where someone doesn't follow the laws, burn everything they can to accelerate their economy, and take industry from other countries. My proposal is thus: create a supranational treaty organization with a EPA like authority(or whatever the European equivalent is…

The issue with any significant steps to curbing the climate or environmental impacts with laws or treaties is always: But the economy. It creates an incentive where someone doesn't follow the laws, burn everything they can to accelerate their economy, and take industry from other countries.

Or quickly develop to the point where solar, wind, and hydro is cheaper than getting dead fossils out of the ground and processing them.

I am not familiar enough with the economics of this to know whether we are close to that point, but I can imagine once we cross it, combustible fuel burners will be at a disadvantage if they haven't invested in infrastructure needed for renewables.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#176

Post by asib » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 3:46 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

Developed rich countries are hurting. See the wildfires across North America, massive amounts of flooding across Europe, etc.

Nothing will change until many of the global electorate stop burying their heads in the sand. These people don't change their minds until things affect them specifically. Then they change their mind, and all their former fellows tell them they're brainwashed.

This doesn't change until nearly everyone is affected, and by then we're so far into the catastrophe that the consequences don't even bear thinking about.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#177

Post by hackeraccount » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 3:46 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #145

unglaublich wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is nothing compared to automobiles and heating, construction and shipping. It uses a bunch of energy, but not so much compared to moving yourself around in a car of plane.

> AI is nothing compared to automobiles and heating, construction and shipping. When the oil in your frying pan is smoking, adding a tiny bit more heat may be unwise.

Yeah that assumes that AI is an absolute negative. What if it impacts positively? I mean you gotta spend money to make money.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#178

Post by topaz0 » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 3:46 PM UTC

azan_ wrote: post #67

pluc wrote: post #51

Yeah but now you can ask a question instead of providing a search term!

It's not a great idea to blame AI, which is small addition to the global emissions. I suggest focusing on what's really important, not what's currently trendy.

This is like saying in 1910 "cars are a tiny fraction of our emissions, you should be focusing on the steam train and the woodstove"

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#179

Post by jpadkins » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 3:47 PM UTC

lambdaone wrote: post #157

jpadkins wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Amazing hyperbole, and a deflection from the real issues. You can fight against wrongdoing without actually advocating people being killed. Right now, climate change is an undeniable fact, its causes well-known, and the evidence for it now part of everyday life. If anything, its effects have been underestimated to date, and 'non-believers' in it are either fools or acting based on morally repugnant principles.

hostis humani generis is latin for "enemies of mankind". It is not hyperbole, it is not deflection. The GP is advocating that everyone is compelled to attack or persecute anyone who is "fighting against stopping or reducing global warming".

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#180

Post by bobson381 » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 3:48 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #130

ck2 wrote: post #6

Basically the oceans are way way way too hot which is melting even the most ancient ice and that can never be undone in our lifetimes (well maybe from a nuclear winter) USA is about to have another El Nino summer which will be scorching from overheating oceans But don't worry, USA is solving the problem by Biden banning cheap electric cars and Trump ending electric subsidies entirely, forcing coal plants to restart

>But don't worry, USA is solving the problem by Biden banning cheap electric cars and Trump ending electric subsidies entirely, forcing coal plants to restart People really think if they just buy the right products we'll solve this problem. People are really fundamentally unable to solve global warming issues. There are a few fundamental problems: - Broad, collective action is not possible in just any direction. Peop…

So I've been on a journey of discovering basically this - limits to growth - for the last few years. It's been .... an emotional roller coaster as someone living in the developed world. I'm following the work of Nate Hagens and others in the space, but The Dread still ebbs and flows.

How do you hold this dispassionately? How do you get to a point of wanting to reproduce, or even wanting to continue, as an act of radical hope? Absurdism? Pure interest in watching it all unfold? I'm pretty aware that we are going to have constraints forced on us as like, a thermodynamic function, but ... how to cope? Go back to the tragedy?

-confused, interested, fascinatedly dreading