The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory • Hacker News Board

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#191

Post by rtpg » Wed, Feb 11, 2026, 9:15 PM UTC

timschmidt wrote: post #145

rtpg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While arguments can be made at the futility of individual action against a system action, it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash. There are consumers of what is being produced! Society’s choices and lifestyles are the cause of fossil fuel consumption, at a very high level. The plastic bag exists because it has users. There are quantitative arguments against many silly co…

> it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash Sure they do. You even mention one in the venerable plastic bag. Is it the best bag? No, of course not. Is it a good bag? Absolutely not. Is it the cheapest bag to produce? You betcha. Consumers are often presented the least expensive option with the worst outcomes. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

The plastic bag is sold to businesses! If every supermarket in the world decided to never buy another plastic bag then they would no longer be produced!

There can be a futility to it all in that the “ideal option” simply isn’t produced of course.

I find boots theory is often a bit too convenient in this topic though. There is unlikely to be magic structural solutions that allow every part of your life to remain as convenient. At one point our lives will have to change in structure.

EDIT: to be extra clear, I think systemic coordinated changes is needed. I just think the “it’s the corporations doing this!” narrative to obscure the needs for reorganization of daily life on top of systemic change

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#192

Post by EGreg » Wed, Feb 11, 2026, 9:15 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #92

smartmic wrote: post #18

It is important to keep reminding ourselves that climate change is a real problem for humanity and that each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. It is a problem that requires solutions, but implementing these solutions involves so much inertia that it can sometimes be painful. And let's contrast that with the AI hype. It's more the opposite, a kind of solution t…

> each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. I have to disagree here. This idea of a consumer-level personal responsibility for the fossil energy industry's externalized costs is a lot like the plastic producers shifting blame for waste by saying that it's the consumers' fault for not recycling. It's transparent blame-shifting. The fossil energy industry pulls the…

It’s actually a lot more systematic than you think: https://magarshak.com/blog/government-and-industry-distract-...

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#193

Post by goatlover » Wed, Feb 11, 2026, 9:15 PM UTC

quantified wrote: post #139

Mordisquitos wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that consumer-level personal responsibility is absolutely not the way to go. To a certain extent I try to non-dogmatically "do the right thing", but I know it's simply a cute hobby. The only solution is systemic. The incentives need to be in order for businesses and consumers to do the right thing not because it is the right thing, but because it's cheaper or more convenient. That can only be impleme…

Moving from fossil is less convenient, not more. So, we're stuck.

For how long though? Solar and wind are very competitive now, electric cars have been good enough to transition to for over a decade, other industries can be decarbonized with the right incentives and enough investment. It's not like there aren't any ideas for how to farm or produce steel cleanly. And nuclear reactors can be made safer and cheaper now.

Seems more like a lack of political will with powerful lobbying interests opposing it and misleading the public. Fossil fuel companies could have listened to their scientists in the 1970s and changed their business models for a transition to cleaner tech a lot sooner.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#194

Post by usrnm » Wed, Feb 11, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

timschmidt wrote: post #145

rtpg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While arguments can be made at the futility of individual action against a system action, it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash. There are consumers of what is being produced! Society’s choices and lifestyles are the cause of fossil fuel consumption, at a very high level. The plastic bag exists because it has users. There are quantitative arguments against many silly co…

> it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash Sure they do. You even mention one in the venerable plastic bag. Is it the best bag? No, of course not. Is it a good bag? Absolutely not. Is it the cheapest bag to produce? You betcha. Consumers are often presented the least expensive option with the worst outcomes. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

> Is it the best bag? No, of course not. Is it a good bag? Absolutely not

Plastic is absolutely the best packaging material ever created, it's so good, it feels like magic. It's light, it's cheap, it's waterproof, it's durable and doesn't just decompose, it comes in a miriad shapes and forms and so on. There is a reason it's everywhere

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#195

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Feb 11, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

bhickey wrote: post #34

chasil wrote: post #29

What is generally not understood is that our current icehouse phase is rare. 'A "greenhouse Earth" is a period during which no continental glaciers exist anywhere on the planet... Earth has been in a greenhouse state for about 85% of its history. 'Earth is now in an icehouse state, and ice sheets are present in both poles simultaneously... Earth's current icehouse state is known as the Quaternary Ice Age and began ap…

The _state_ isn't alarming, it's the rate of change. The transition is happening on a scale of human lifetimes instead of geological time.

Precisely. Humans can adapt to almost anything but we can not do it fast enough with 8 billion+ people.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#196

Post by akramachamarei » Wed, Feb 11, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

ctoth wrote: post #127

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not capital Capital, and by relation the system that centers the idea of Capital as a method for moving around resources is at the very center of this. Since Capital follows near-term incentive, if the "pollute the world" path has a greater near-term incentive, that's where the market will follow. If a single member of the system goes for long-term incentive(not cooking the earth), other near-term incentive chasers…

What you've done here is called a fully-general counterargument. You should be suspicious of these! If capital inevitably follows destructive local maxima and defectors get eaten, then no coordination problem has ever been solved, right? But we banned CFCs! We got lead out of gasoline! The Montreal Protocol exists and worked. What you're describing is the default behavior of uncoordinated markets, not a physical law.…

It's also worth distinguishing uncoordinated markets from ungoverned markets. Markets exhibit vast and sophisticated organic coordination without state prodding. I don't just mean to pick at this word "uncoordinated" but more deeply at the particular issue of near- or far-sightedness. Has it actually been established that organic economic coordination does worse at protecting "the future" than some particular alternatives?

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#197

Post by throw310822 » Wed, Feb 11, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

quantified wrote: post #137

mullingitover wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. I have to disagree here. This idea of a consumer-level personal responsibility for the fossil energy industry's externalized costs is a lot like the plastic producers shifting blame for waste by saying that it's the consumers' fault for not recycling. It's transparent blame-shifting. The fossil energy industry pulls the…

If you drive a fossil fuel vehicle, you have chosen to buy into this. If you drive it 3 blocks when you could walk, you've chosen to go the way the fuel company wants you to. That's you. Plastic is a bit different, you didn't choose the packaging. And you probably don't have the option to recycle anyway. Putting in a special bin doesn't change the fact that it's probably going to a landfill anyway. Some of it's consu…

Plastic is a fantastic material, that's why it's chosen for the packaging. I also don't see the problem sending it to a landfill as long as it stays there.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#198

Post by bayarearefugee » Wed, Feb 11, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

ctoth wrote: post #127

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not capital Capital, and by relation the system that centers the idea of Capital as a method for moving around resources is at the very center of this. Since Capital follows near-term incentive, if the "pollute the world" path has a greater near-term incentive, that's where the market will follow. If a single member of the system goes for long-term incentive(not cooking the earth), other near-term incentive chasers…

What you've done here is called a fully-general counterargument. You should be suspicious of these! If capital inevitably follows destructive local maxima and defectors get eaten, then no coordination problem has ever been solved, right? But we banned CFCs! We got lead out of gasoline! The Montreal Protocol exists and worked. What you're describing is the default behavior of uncoordinated markets, not a physical law.…

> But we banned CFCs! We got lead out of gasoline! The Montreal Protocol exists and worked.

None of these were done via capitalism, they were done in opposition to it.

And I know you weren't claiming they were, but the problem is all the power centers behind global capitalism have captured government (at least in the US) completely and are doing everything in their power to strip existing regulations and make sure the only new ones aren't in the name of the common good, but only to build moats for themselves.

It is great that we solved these problems in the past, but we are increasingly not doing that sort of thing at all anymore.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#199

Post by hackyhacky » Wed, Feb 11, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

dbdr wrote: post #147

hackyhacky wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual habits will not be decisive in fighting climate change. Telling people to follow this advice will (a) inconvenience them in the short term (b) lull them to a false sense of security that they are fighting climate change (c) set them up for disappointment when climate change happens anyway, and (d) worst of all, these suggestions let the real perpetrators off the hook. If you want to see real progress on th…

Apart from eating less beef, every single suggestion in the post your are responding to is about infrastructure and advocacy, not individual habits.

> Apart from eating less beef, every single suggestion in the post your are responding to is about infrastructure and advocacy, not individual habits.

Exactly. That's why it's ineffective to evangelize this as individual effort. If you want to live in a multifamily home, they have to be zoned, funded, and built. That requires lobbying the government, moral rectitude.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#200

Post by vaylian » Wed, Feb 11, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

rkrisztian wrote: post #21

blueflow wrote: post #2

Its not a "risk". Water vapor (clouds) is a stonger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. We already got measurably higher temperatures, so we also have higher water evaporation, and from the last 5 years it looks like it happens every year. So the runaway is already happening, until something stops it near hothouse conditions or hopefully earlier than that.

Thank you for saying this. If you want to know the answer to what causes climate problems, you need to go back to the era of dinosaurs, where CO2 levels were multiple times higher than today. Trees could thrive because they could breathe in a lot of CO2. Dinosaurs got so big because there were plenty of food. How could dinosaurs happily live with such high CO2 levels? The key is that there were plenty of forests. Pet…

The climate system in those prehistoric times was in a different stable state. The world that we live in has different ecosystems that are well-adapted to the current stable state and we will likely face a mass-extinction event once the ecological scales tip over.

The problem is also the speed in which the CO2 levels are rising. Such a massive change in such a short geological time is very unusual.