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

A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 429 posts

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#181

Post by monkpit »

CalRobert wrote: post #68
camgunz wrote: post #4

I really think people are sleeping on the AMOC. The first season there isn't European wine/cheese/olives because of climate change is the first season European farmers probably literally declare war on their governments, to say nothing of the fact that almost no European homes can handle this level of cold. And for some perspective, this is only one of many other huge changes that huge populations will react violentl…

The farmers have generally opposed policies meant to address this.

> 'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs farmer who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#182

Post by sph »

RajT88 wrote: post #136
yoyohello13 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fo…

> anyone claiming “coal” or whatever is the future is simply a conman or a clown. I've seen people on social media seriously claiming that coal plants are cleaner than wind energy or solar energy. It's aggravating. Never mind that it's easy to show that for the same amount of energy output, you get a similar amount of tons of coal ash yearly to the amount of materials it went into building a wind or solar plant... I…

People are stupid. I almost had a fight with a friend I have seen in a long time, a usually smart person, that wanted to convince me that solar power is more polluting than non-renewable alternatives. He’a not a shill, he is a farmer and like many just believes the propaganda and the skepticism. One of the biggest flaws of human rationality is wanting to believe that ‘the man’ is lying to you and the stupid conspiracy meme on Facebook has a valid point. We all have seen the American public completely implode with the COVID and mask and antivax idiocy.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#183

Post by vladms »

Loquebantur wrote: post #160
graeme wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The crazy thing is that we have basically everything we need right now. Have you travelled? This doesn't describe most of the world. Most of the world would need to increase carbon emissions to live the way you're describing. You aren't describing a zero carbon lifestyle, you're describing a lower carbon lifestyle. And we still use carbon in building the things in your scenario: the building, the car, etc. Lower car…

The idea of average individuals being the relevant actors in global carbon emissions is pure misdirection. They're not, it's systemic with industry being the main culprit and the rich being the ones who benefit from that socialization of pollution costs. The AMOC shutdown isn't merely "possible" and due "this century" either. The math of the dynamics of complex systems shows the current behavior to be signs of a phas…

> They're not, it's systemic with industry being the main culprit and the rich being the ones who benefit from that socialization of pollution costs.

You two might agree if we consider that when you say "rich" you might describe the average individual on this website (if we consider all people alive).

I do believe that 90% of the people would not want to actually destroy the planet the way it seems to be happening, but I also believe that 90% of the people can't refrain themselves from bad health habits either. So, to fix the root cause I would discuss more about people's bad emotional/impulse control, otherwise we will just change one issue (climate) to any of the others (violence, unhappiness, etc.)

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#184

Post by lostlogin »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #141
anonym29 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So, exactly what is the source of skepticism? We should define climate skepticism, to avoid indicting a strawman. I'd start with my definition, as someone with unorthodox views on climate that often place me at odds with progressives. It may be easier to start with the elements we agree on. Is the climate changing? Yes, obviously, visibly, measurably. Do human activities, including burning of coal and hydrocarbons,…

You seem to be completely ignoring the biggest problem. How do you propose the rich countries in the temperature zones deal with the billion climate refugees fleeing the inhospitable tropical areas of the planet?

> How do you propose the rich countries in the temperature zones deal with the billion climate refugees fleeing the inhospitable tropical areas of the planet?

We have the answer to this on the front page of our news sites.

We try to impose a population cap. We recruit gangs of unidentifiable thugs to beat, imprison and deport them and we have race riots.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#185

Post by zzgo »

ramon156 wrote: post #140

Has anyone seen the news in India (that the Indian media for some reason is not covering) It was 48 C this week in some cities. The power grid was not ready for the amount of AC power needed, and it turned into blackouts. You're sitting in a dark cube that has been cooking for 12 hours, hoping something might happen. A healthy 25 year old would die in 6 hours. Even if you do not want to accept climate change is a thi…

> Even if you do not want to accept climate change is a thing, you can accept the current state of the world is affecting people

Or you could choose option three: do neither and go on Twitter to do some political point scoring: "The Democrat Party is going to use this three day Indian heatwave (they have one every summer) and their climate hoax to open our borders back up to illegal immigration! We must stop them! Vote against the Demonrats this November! MAGA!"

No point in letting a good crisis go to waste.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#186

Post by sph »

satvikpendem wrote: post #156
margalabargala wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. There are plenty of Western entities that think in centuries (e.g. the Catholic Church) and plenty of.Chinese entities that are chasing the next moment (all the companies who cut standards on product because "to them it is the same"). This is true about the instantaneous state of the governments of the US and China rather than some intrinsic permanent cultural quality.

Yes, I meant current governments not culture itself.

It is sad to admit it to our Western selves, but authoritarians plan across decades, democracies across electoral terms at best.

No king wants to rule over a failed state.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#187

Post by lumost »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #42
hliyan wrote: post #32

I recently finished rewatching The Three Body Problem in which (spoilers follow) the world panics and goes into overdrive because an alien invasion is due in... 400 years. If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real. Granted I was a climate change skeptic myself until about 10 yea…

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fo…

I really think the environmental movements were a red herring. It was always impossible to make a meaningful dent in your personal emissions while still existing in your location. There was never any reduction proposal which could mitigate this.

Government mandates for e.g. large nuclear construction, geo-engineering, BEV adoption, or other similar proposals would have had an impact. These all exposed the real tradeoffs which would need to be accepted of cost, hardship, or whatever the opposition to nuclear was.

The environmental movements of the last 60 years focused on impossible goals which were easy to rally behind.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#188

Post by lostlogin »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #133
no_wizard wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steady state nuclear power plus wind and solar would. In today’s world, make the grid more reliable and greener than ever. Nuclear should not be off the table. It’s safe, it’s well understood, it’s reliable and is a very cheap way to create base load capacity that renewables like solos and wind can build out on top of

I'm not sure where nuclear is very cheap, but it sure isn't in the US. Of course, given the seeming inability of the US to do any kind of large projects any more, small and decentralized is probably the only thing that will work.

> I'm not sure where nuclear is very cheap

It’s always cheap and easy when mentioned here.

I live in New Zealand where we have lots of wind, rain and sun and people occasionally suggest it for here too.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#189

Post by yongjik »

tialaramex wrote: post #101
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that a producer is at fault and not also the consumer paying them to do that is strange to me.

Blaming the consumer is a time-honoured way to ensure nothing is done. The consumer can't pick options which don't exist, so the producer says oh well, you can either burn coal or you can go without light - there's no mention that the producer doesn't have to burn coal to make electricity, just straight to blaming you for wanting light.

It's a two-sided sword. When you are the consumer, blame the producer. When you are the producer, blame the consumer. In this way everybody can blame someone else and ensure that nothing is done.

For example, more people buying EVs can meaningfully reduce CO2 consumption, but you can easily find millions of people ideologically opposed to that.

Or just look at how reliably people reject any policy that vaguely looks like a carbon tax scheme. "Fix the earth somehow, now, but I'm not paying a cent, because that wasn't my fault!" is everyone's rallying cry.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#190

Post by sph »

zzgo wrote: post #185
ramon156 wrote: post #140

Has anyone seen the news in India (that the Indian media for some reason is not covering) It was 48 C this week in some cities. The power grid was not ready for the amount of AC power needed, and it turned into blackouts. You're sitting in a dark cube that has been cooking for 12 hours, hoping something might happen. A healthy 25 year old would die in 6 hours. Even if you do not want to accept climate change is a thi…

> Even if you do not want to accept climate change is a thing, you can accept the current state of the world is affecting people Or you could choose option three: do neither and go on Twitter to do some political point scoring: "The Democrat Party is going to use this three day Indian heatwave (they have one every summer) and their climate hoax to open our borders back up to illegal immigration! We must stop them! Vo…

And the Twitter campaign will find even more suckers to convince, and they will vote yet another Trump if not worse.

The Internet was a mistake because it expected every person to become a paradigm of rationality, yet we are at the end of the day stupid hairless monkeys that can be easily swayed for the promise of a banana.

Post reply on HN