Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978 • Hacker News Board

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#201

Post by soulofmischief » Thu, May 23, 2019, 1:11 PM UTC

the_duke wrote: post #197

soulofmischief wrote: post #189

I made a choice-based game a few months ago about dealing with the political realities of climate change, inspired by Sara Teasdale and Ray Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains . You can play it online here: https://tinyurl.com/43softrains-v1-1 I have been considering pursuing funding for making similar choice-based games like this one and integrating them with classroom curriculums.

This is very cool! Is the code open source? I would love to have a translated version of this and encourage the younger members of my family to play it.

Glad you liked it. Here you go: https://github.com/bad-software/there-will-come-soft-rains

What languages are you interested in seeing?

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#202

Post by ThomPete » Thu, May 23, 2019, 1:15 PM UTC

ljcn wrote: post #190

ThomPete wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really once you realize how much of the fearmongering is completely baseless. There is literally no scientifically demonstrated consequence of climate change that we don't know how to deal with today let alone in 10-40-100 years from now.

This is obviously not true. How would you stop runaway methane release from permafrost for example?

Where is that scientifically demonstrated to happen (not just speculated) and keep in mind Methane has a "half life"

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#203

Post by ThomPete » Thu, May 23, 2019, 1:25 PM UTC

esailija wrote: post #187

ThomPete wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that consensus is trivial. Probably 100% agree that the climate is changing which is the question people agreed on. Even so-called skeptics agree on that. It's all the other questions that have much more uncertainty and less consensus. The use of that number is the kind of outright political manipulation that's so prevalent in this debate. Keep in mind we aren't even talking about scientifically demonstrated…

The scientific consensus is that climate change is happening and that it is human caused. Being "skeptic" about this is like being a flat earther. Baseless skepticism is not any better than blind faith.

Not that's not the scientific consensus but thanks for proving my point by arguing in blind faith.

The scientific consensus which EVERYONE agrees about even the so-called skeptics is that the climate is changing.

There is no consensus that it's human-caused, there are some indications that humans have an effect but you won't find any actual scientific proof of how much.

So the real question here is why you blindly believe something that you haven't even understood. You are literally just repeating the media not actually science which is a much more subtle discussion.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#204

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 23, 2019, 1:25 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #22

It's terrible to think that maybe if Exxon and others didn't invest in lobbying and disinformation campaigns against climate change maybe humanity would have started acting 30 years earlier. It's 2019 and humanity is barely starting to think about acting. Global CO2 emissions keep growing as if we were in "business as usual". Humanity needs to realize the magnitude of the problem. Climate change is, by far, the bigge…

[deleted]

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#205

Post by imtringued » Thu, May 23, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

perfunctory wrote: post #97

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #19

No surprises there. I don't understand why it took so long to uncover the truth. Even today, they are just playing the long game using the same tactics that the tobacco industry used and deny, deny and deny some more. Hopefully this company one day will be prosecuted.

It's not hard to imagine that in the future there will be some kind of Nuremberg trials against people involved in deliberate climate disinformation campaigns.

The strategy is that you die before the pitchforks arrive.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#206

Post by perfunctory » Thu, May 23, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

scroot wrote: post #196

FrojoS wrote: post #193

Slightly tangential, but I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the political way forward for big countries: 1. Have a single CO2 budget for the whole country, with an aggressive, Hard to change roadmap of yearly reduction of said budget down to zero in the not too long future. 2. Estimate the CO2 footprint of every single product, incl. imports by one or several neutral organizations. This doesn’t have to be perfe…

Could this result in moving to countries that don't have such policies, thereby allowing for increasing emissions (ie carbon tax havens)

Would have to tax imports from those countries as well

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#207

Post by jefflombardjr » Thu, May 23, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

ptah wrote: post #118

sosborn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think humans will have much trouble adapting. Cities will move to accommodate the rising sea, we will move on to other food sources as the need arises, and life for us will go on. It's the other species – the ones that had no hand in this – that I worry and feel regret about.

once the bees are gone, there will be no food for anyone of any kind

People discount the economic value of nature. The bees are a perfect example of this.

Yes we could come up with some automated polinator machine, but treating it like an engineering problem is insane! Nature has had 10000s of years to adapt to specific functions. The notion that a team of starry-eyed engineers can do a better job is egotistical and dangerous.

There is an excellent documentary from the 90s that lays this out in no uncertain terms: https://www.nfb.ca/film/whos_counting/

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#208

Post by josho » Thu, May 23, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

anthuman wrote: post #158

adrianN wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you literally don't believe the raw numbers coming from sensors all over the world there is no room for doubting that the climate is changing. There can, and has been, plenty of discussion as to the reasons, but for at least thirty years now the consensus has been that human activity is responsible for the vast majority of the effects we've seen.

The climate has always been changing. That's the problem. We have been in a "long trend" global warming period for at least 20,000 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum Much of the world was under ice 20K years ago. And the earth has generally warmed since then and melted much of the ice ( with occasional refreezes ). And the "consensus" that human activity is responsible is utter nonsense. Feel f…

Your comment seems completely rational but ignores that we have science refuting your opinion. Not only that, the research on this comes from different branches of science that all converge on the same conclusions.

I suggest you do a little more reading on the topic. Storms of My GrandChildren is an easy place to start.

And as always if you have a good source that disputes climate science I would really appreciate a reference.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#209

Post by ramblerman » Thu, May 23, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

frittig wrote: post #104

thunderrabbit wrote: post #69

This "entertains" me in a perverse way. I knew fossil fuels were harming the environment in 1978, and I was only a kid at the time. Exhaust stank, looked dirty. Doesn't take much to figure it out.

Vaccines hurt, vegetables taste bad and taking drugs feels good. Your ideology is flawed.

Well, if you don't trust your senses at all, perhaps yours is too.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#210

Post by jefflombardjr » Thu, May 23, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #35

Remember this the next time someone tries to tell you that oil companies are just giving customers what they demand and that the companies themselves aren’t at fault.

Relevant to your comment: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/15263800131...

The individualization of environmental problems is a serious obstacle. "We need to stop buying and using plastic water bottles" needs to become "Pepsico and Coke need to stop producing trash."