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Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

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Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#191

Post by joquarky »

idiotsecant wrote: post #150
Izkata wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like the climate people never heard the fable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". It's exactly that.

Who are 'The climate people' you seem to think are doing this? Do you think there is a club where the climate people president takes a vote from the climate people council on how many news stories hacknews user Izkata should read? If you lived under a big precarious rock and people always talked about the big rock falling on you would you ignore the big rock because the big rock people keep crying wolf? This is hones…

Yes, this is what most people do. If you don't know people like this, then try visiting a large church.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#192

Post by joquarky »

postflopclarity wrote: post #166
Izkata wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like the climate people never heard the fable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". It's exactly that.

except that every time the boy cried wolf, there actually was a wolf and it ate some people, but then the people it didn't eat were like "idk what you're talking about, I'm doing just fine" and then plugged their ears.

Anyone who doesn't get this must have lived under a rock during COVID-19.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#193

Post by joquarky »

bastawhiz wrote: post #104
grey-area wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risk was 5% and is now above 50% according to experts in the field. Given the significant consequences this is worth paying attention to.

The GP didn't say not to pay attention to it. Clearly people are. The point is that it's unactionable. The people who care could all pour their life savings into climate action and commit suicide to cancel all future carbon footprint and it still wouldn't move the needle. Even if the Democrats in the US took over both branches of Congress, the white house, and the supreme court, they wouldn't move the needle. There i…

Those with the ability to do something about it have the means to avoid it long enough to not matter to them.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#194

Post by conception »

cassepipe wrote: post #60
zurfer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Techno optimist here who expects the following to make a big contribution to reducing human made future climate change: better batteries+solar/wind, nuclear fusion, self driving cars (we'll need to manufacture less cars for the same amount of miles humanity drives), AI helping with better resource allocation in general (hopefully). The answer can't be, let's just consume 10x less. We have to engineer our way out of i…

> The answer can't be, let's just consume 10x less. We have to engineer our way out of it. We will have to do both I am afraid

We will eventually do both but it won’t be willing. It’ll be through tragedy.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#195

Post by conception »

hashmap wrote: post #81
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The forest where the community hikes has no value unless the trees are turned into paper. All to say, Capital at large seeks out the profit. Until climate change effects the profit considerably, mitigation will be the path less traveled. The only real way to approach this problem is to reduce consumption across the board which as you might guess, isn't profitable.

reducing consumption across the board isnt just unprofitable, it would mean everyone agreeing to overcome our biological gradients. i do not think it is possible for us to do, and evolution has not equipped us to do that as far as i can tell. my semi-superstitious take is that the race to achieve ai is grounded in needing something that knows whats going on and is able to make decisions aligned to generational time h…

I think it’s grounded with the thinking that whoever gets WOPR first wins.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#196

Post by spwa4 »

jmward01 wrote: post #132
spwa4 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big consequence here is for the EU. And the only way to deal with this is for the EU to force US, India and China to seriously reduce energy use, and with that, their economy. This is not going to happen. The EU can't even convince itself to stop buying from China.

I don't think China needs convincing. They have likely already hit peak emissions and will start dropping, potentially rapidly, going forward. Europe is big. It just needs to move forward with purpose and things will happen. Getting that purpose is the hard part because world leaders have consistently said 'it will destroy our economy' and never actually tried. China, again, is showing that this isn't true. You can h…

I don't get what's with all the China fanboys here. China is increasing it's CO2 output quite a bit. And for completeness, so is India. For both countries the CO2 output is bad enough that it's not just adding to global warming, but this coal plant smoke what's causing the famous smog in Beijing and New Delhi. It's causing breathing problems, cancer, ... in their population.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#197

Post by joquarky »

munksbeer wrote: post #181
ordu wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is easier said than done. Politicians do not like to be disturbed by some pesky experts. Mentor Pilot discusses 2025 D.C mid-air collision[1], and finds the most disturbing reason for it: experts tried to escalate issues with too much traffic for years, but they were repeatedly told that it was "too political", so, in other words "just shut up and deal with the traffic, don't bother congressmen and congresswomen,…

> but we can't make politicians to listen to the reason. You're stopping too early. Politicians exist for one reason only, to get elected. If they don't get elected, they're not a politician, so everything they do is is selected with that as their fitness function. So why won't they listen about climate change? Because the public doesn't want to be told they have to make their lives slightly worse. There are "politic…

> Because the public doesn't want to be told they have to make their lives slightly worse.

Especially right now when everything seems to already be declining.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#198

Post by joquarky »

stouset wrote: post #168
9rx wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to ask the one who raised concern with this in the first place. What is apparent, though, is that "good or bad" is contrary to science. Science seeks to understand what is, not how you might feel about it. It is interesting that things went there.

This has serious “your dad and I are for the jobs the comet will provide” energy. Sometimes, the outcome of a scenario will be unambiguously tragic for humanity. The collapse of the AMOC would be one such event.

Everything is tragic right now. What's one more thing on the heap?

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#199

Post by joquarky »

13415 wrote: post #142
9rx wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So medicine is not a science because it's concerned with what's "good" and what's "bad" for someone's health? It is concerned with understanding health. It is unable to decide what is "good" or "bad" as that is in the eye of the beholder. That is why medicine presents the options gleaned from the gained understanding, leaving the individual to decide for themselves what is "good" amid all the different tradeoffs. T…

You're nitpicking. Medicine is concerned with what's good and bad for someone's health. Medical doctors literally advise their patients on that and evaluate the effects of actions with respect to what's good and what's bad for their health. What's good and bad for someone's health is simply one form of instrumental goodness. Other sciences evaluate in similar ways, though they are perhaps concerned with other aspects…

You're talking in ideals, not reality.

In reality, medicine wants your money and that's all that matters to them.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#200

Post by joquarky »

13415 wrote: post #171
9rx wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Medical doctors literally advise their patients on that and evaluate the effects of actions with respect to what's good and what's bad for their health. You're talking about a consultant now. Yes, consultants take scientific understanding and help translate it into what the customer wants to hear: doing their best to interpret what the other person is likely to think is "good" or "bad". Which, I will add, is not ab…

I really don't get you stance. Of course, you can make more fine-grained distinctions and that's fine. You can claim that medical doctors act as medical scientists when they conduct studies and as doctors (consultants) in their practice with patients. But that doesn't mean the value judgments aren't part of the science. If a seismologist has evidence that an earthquake is likely to occur in a certain area, should the…

What delineates a scientist from a crackpot?

The Internet gives equal voice to both, but the latter will drown out the former until people stop listening altogether.

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