Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio • Hacker News Board

Re: Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio

#21

Post by jstanley » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:03 AM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #12

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact, local temperature records over several decades seems to be flat in pretty much every place I've looked up. The first place I looked up was England - the Met Office graph seems to indicate a rise. [1] Have you got any examples of flat graphs? [1] https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/

Examples (I just picked two random places and dates for temperature records for the month of December at least 20 years apart): Miami Florida December 2000 (peak day-average is 77.08): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMI... Miami Florida December 2020 (peak day-average is 76.69): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMI... --- Honolulu, Hawaii December 1995 (peak day-avera…

I don't know if average temperatures in December in Miami are particularly representative of anything, but I went to the trouble of plotting a graph of average December temperatures from the Miami link you gave, from 1990 to 2020, and I would say there does appear to be a slight upwards trend over time: https://img.incoherency.co.uk/3145

Picking 2 dates at random is not a good way to expose long-term trends, as evidenced by your observation that there can be several degrees of variation from one year to the next.

Re: Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio

#22

Post by jpfr » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:04 AM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #12

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact, local temperature records over several decades seems to be flat in pretty much every place I've looked up. The first place I looked up was England - the Met Office graph seems to indicate a rise. [1] Have you got any examples of flat graphs? [1] https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/

Examples (I just picked two random places and dates for temperature records for the month of December at least 20 years apart): Miami Florida December 2000 (peak day-average is 77.08): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMI... Miami Florida December 2020 (peak day-average is 76.69): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMI... --- Honolulu, Hawaii December 1995 (peak day-avera…

Looking at a small number of weather stations is "evidence by anecdote" and completely unsound.

You introduce bias by your selection of measurements. Plus a large portion of the earth is scantly inhabited with no weather stations in place. Like the poles or international waters.

Instead you should look at satellite measurements of the temperature across the entire planet. These are widely available. The scientific discourse and the available evidence is much more advanced than "hey it became colder in those 20 places".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurem...

Re: Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio

#23

Post by thedufer » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:06 AM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #12

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact, local temperature records over several decades seems to be flat in pretty much every place I've looked up. The first place I looked up was England - the Met Office graph seems to indicate a rise. [1] Have you got any examples of flat graphs? [1] https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/

Examples (I just picked two random places and dates for temperature records for the month of December at least 20 years apart): Miami Florida December 2000 (peak day-average is 77.08): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMI... Miami Florida December 2020 (peak day-average is 76.69): https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/fl/miami/KMI... --- Honolulu, Hawaii December 1995 (peak day-avera…

Your data seems obviously cherry-picked. Why 2000/2020 in one case and 1995/2020 in the other? In fact, your last link actually goes to 2000, not 2020, which makes it look an awful lot like you looked at that year and didn't quote it because it doesn't fit your narrative.

For the Miami case, it is probably worth noting that Miami is cooler during El Nino events and warmer during La Nina. Of course, 2000 was in the middle of the latter and 2020 the former. In fact, if you look at more than 2 datapoints the trend over the past twenty years is the opposite of what you're saying.

Re: Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio

#24

Post by loraa » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:23 AM UTC

When I was a kid we were all going to die in the 90s from acid rain and holes in the ozone layer.

Re: Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio

#25

Post by ojhughes » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 12:24 PM UTC

freebear wrote: post #10

pmx wrote: post #3

> “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction The pandemic has taught me that humans will roundly ignore even the most glaring evidence to avoid accepting bad things are happening. I can't see how we're ever going to be able to avert climate disaster when we can't even get everyone to take basic precautions again…

Are you saying that the ones who take this pandemic serious also take the "ghastly future of mass extinction" serious? I oppose this 100%, I take the "ghastly future of mass extinction" very serious and my solution would be to introduce a close to zero birthrate of the extremely overpopulated species of Homo Sapiens. I do not however take this pandemic serious at all and it is NOTHING compared to what is and will hap…

Zero population growth would be a terrifying dystopia. Have you read /watched the Handmaid's Tale or Children of Men?

Re: Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio

#26

Post by jokethrowaway » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 1:00 PM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #5

Over the last 20 years and having traveled back and forth all over the world, I have not noticed any changes in temperature at all. In fact, local temperature records over several decades seems to be flat in pretty much every place I've looked up. On the other hand, I have observed widespread deception within professional environments and scientific communities... I was a climate believer for a long time, but these d…

You're mistaken, we've recordings and the temperatures increased, albeit not as much as predicted by models.

Re: Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio

#27

Post by jhanschoo » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

freebear wrote: post #10

pmx wrote: post #3

> “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction The pandemic has taught me that humans will roundly ignore even the most glaring evidence to avoid accepting bad things are happening. I can't see how we're ever going to be able to avert climate disaster when we can't even get everyone to take basic precautions again…

Are you saying that the ones who take this pandemic serious also take the "ghastly future of mass extinction" serious? I oppose this 100%, I take the "ghastly future of mass extinction" very serious and my solution would be to introduce a close to zero birthrate of the extremely overpopulated species of Homo Sapiens. I do not however take this pandemic serious at all and it is NOTHING compared to what is and will hap…

Zero fertility would introduce an aging crisis.

Re: Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio

#28

Post by toomuchtodo » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

jhanschoo wrote: post #27

freebear wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that the ones who take this pandemic serious also take the "ghastly future of mass extinction" serious? I oppose this 100%, I take the "ghastly future of mass extinction" very serious and my solution would be to introduce a close to zero birthrate of the extremely overpopulated species of Homo Sapiens. I do not however take this pandemic serious at all and it is NOTHING compared to what is and will hap…

Zero fertility would introduce an aging crisis.

Which is preferable to a resource exhaustion crisis. Can’t kick the can forever.

Most of the world is at or below a total fertility rate replacement rate (2.1). The trend simply needs to continue for ~10-15 years to lock in the population decline.

Re: Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio

#29

Post by listenallyall » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

pmx wrote: post #3

> “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction The pandemic has taught me that humans will roundly ignore even the most glaring evidence to avoid accepting bad things are happening. I can't see how we're ever going to be able to avert climate disaster when we can't even get everyone to take basic precautions again…

> the most glaring evidence

what evidence? "in 1968, Ehrlich warned of imminent population explosion and hundreds of millions of people starving to death"

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Food has never been more abundant, plentiful and inexpensive https://www.wfdd.org/story/food-growing-more-plentiful-so-wh...

Pardon me for ignoring what this fear monger and crackpot has to say.

Re: Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio

#30

Post by gmuslera » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #19

pmx wrote: post #3

> “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction The pandemic has taught me that humans will roundly ignore even the most glaring evidence to avoid accepting bad things are happening. I can't see how we're ever going to be able to avert climate disaster when we can't even get everyone to take basic precautions again…

It's a culture thing. Some cultures, as it turns out, are better than others at dealing with stresses like this. Changing culture is a big project. We can try though because we don't actually have any other option.

Changing culture runs on money, and the most efficient use for it is to put a feedback loop: you put money, and you get even more money in the short term to put even more on it.

And in this you are competing with a few donations without a feedback loop against the oil industry that have plenty of money and that kind of feedback loops, for just one culture that need to be changed.

And to make things even more unfair, they can use all the dirty tricks they want (plain lies, exploiting bias, pushing disinformation, bribing politicians, etc), while you can only use the, sometimes hard to get for the uneducated, truth.