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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

#231

Post by 9rx »

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…

> I really don't get you stance.

Oh well. Its mine, not yours, so who cares?

> basically any science that involves the study of processes that might have important consequences for mankind.

Scientists seek to gain the understanding, but generally taking that understanding and turning it into what a society is concerned with is left for other disciplines (e.g. engineering). Generally, scientists don't also have the social understanding of the application of science. It is not impossible for them to. Humans can do many things. But it is generally impractical given that there is only so much time in the day. Having the beat of the social ground is a full-time job in and of itself.

I know HN leans towards DIY and struggle to think that they can't do it all, but out there in the real world there is much greater division of labour. A random scientist's warning holds no more weight than a hobo on the street's warning after said hobo has read the same research.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#232

Post by orwin »

I like like the discourse changed over my lifetime from "climate change does not exist, those scientist are catastrophists" (200X) to "climate change is not primarily anthropogenic, those scientist are catastrophists" (201X) to "Climate change is real and caused by us, but the consequence won't be as hard as predicted, those scientist are catastrophists" (202X).

Truly a wonder. It's always the same people too.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#233

Post by MSFT_Edging »

GolfPopper wrote: post #109
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.

>The only real way to approach this problem is to reduce consumption across the board which as you might guess, isn't profitable. We need a human civilization that is run for the benefit of human beings, not paper-clip maximizing overlords.

Then people cry "tyranny!" when they're not allowed to pollute a river.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#234

Post by t0bia_s »

xoa wrote: post #228
t0bia_s wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess all those goverment actions should limit freedom of individuals more and more. Excellent strategy for tyranny.

> I guess all those goverment actions should limit freedom of individuals more and more. Excellent strategy for tyranny. ... what? ? Are you ok with murder and theft as well and whine about how laws against that limit your freedom and are "tyranny"? It's a pretty basic tenet of any groups of humans that's it's fully compatible with freedom to have limits on the extent to which people can cause harm to others. As with…

No, I'm not ok with murder or theft and I don't understand why you write about it. Also I'm not sure why you compare free market, where you are free to participate against centralised governance where you must participate. I really don't understand this "totalitarian" thinking.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#235

Post by senordevnyc »

idiotsecant wrote: post #220
senordevnyc wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s perfectly actionable, why haven’t you fixed it yet?

I'm not claiming it's easy, only that it's actionable. Emotional hyperbole does nobody any good.

My point is that it’s theoretically “actionable”, but like all collective action problems (this being perhaps the most challenging example, because the scope is global, the timeline is decades to centuries, and the economic incentives are misaligned with taking action), it’s very difficult for an actual person to take any meaningful action. So pragmatically speaking, it’s not really actionable. Which is why I basically think we’re fucked in the short-term, and will really just be saved by cheap renewables changing the incentives, as they have been. We’re not going to magically solve the most intractable collective action problem of all time.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#236

Post by runarberg »

spwa4 wrote: post #226
runarberg wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They demonstrably are not. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha... https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-indias-co2-emissions-in...

First: look at the CO2 graph for China. That's not falling in any reasonable definition of a word, that's called "flat", even if it is technically less than before. Second: it's normal for graphs to fall off in their last 1-5 data points because measurements are still coming in. Third: it's using Chinese data. China has, by the way, publicly declared that they're lying about all public economic data. Please don't use…

That trend stopped last year in China and will probably stop this year in India.

Showing graphs which start in the year 2000 (when China had relatively low CO2 emissions) and ending in 2023 (a year before they peaked in 2024) is simply lying with statistics. The most resent data shows that China’s emissions are no longer rising.

Now I know we need to do better then that and emissions need to drop extremely fast if we want to stay under catastrophic 2° C warming. But the truth is that China and India are doing exactly as bad as the rest of the world (including Europe here). And considering the economic factors (that Europe can in fact afford the changes required; but still fall way short) India is doing much better then the rest of the world.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#237

Post by muwtyhg »

t0bia_s wrote: post #234
xoa wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess all those goverment actions should limit freedom of individuals more and more. Excellent strategy for tyranny. ... what? ? Are you ok with murder and theft as well and whine about how laws against that limit your freedom and are "tyranny"? It's a pretty basic tenet of any groups of humans that's it's fully compatible with freedom to have limits on the extent to which people can cause harm to others. As with…

No, I'm not ok with murder or theft and I don't understand why you write about it. Also I'm not sure why you compare free market, where you are free to participate against centralised governance where you must participate. I really don't understand this "totalitarian" thinking.

> No, I'm not ok with murder or theft and I don't understand why you write about it

Because you seem to think doing ANYTHING to limit people is tyranny, and preventing someone from being able to murder or steal would fall under "anything".

> I really don't understand this "totalitarian" thinking.

Way to avoid engaging with any of the things the poster said, instead nitpicking their first sentence.

> where you are free to participate against centralised governance where you must participate

Adding regulations to what companies can do regarding pollution is not a "centralized government" ala the USSR. All functioning societies and governments impose rules like this. The person you are responding to is mentioning that the externality of climate change is not properly factored into the free market, and we need SOME form of regulation/rules to compensate for that.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#238

Post by t0bia_s »

muwtyhg wrote: post #237
t0bia_s wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm not ok with murder or theft and I don't understand why you write about it. Also I'm not sure why you compare free market, where you are free to participate against centralised governance where you must participate. I really don't understand this "totalitarian" thinking.

> No, I'm not ok with murder or theft and I don't understand why you write about it Because you seem to think doing ANYTHING to limit people is tyranny, and preventing someone from being able to murder or steal would fall under "anything". > I really don't understand this "totalitarian" thinking. Way to avoid engaging with any of the things the poster said, instead nitpicking their first sentence. > where you are fre…

If consumers find company do more harm than good, they will not buy their products and company ends. If company ends due to regulations and decisions based on ideologies, then yes, it wis hat USSR does and pay for it till today.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#239

Post by spwa4 »

runarberg wrote: post #236
spwa4 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First: look at the CO2 graph for China. That's not falling in any reasonable definition of a word, that's called "flat", even if it is technically less than before. Second: it's normal for graphs to fall off in their last 1-5 data points because measurements are still coming in. Third: it's using Chinese data. China has, by the way, publicly declared that they're lying about all public economic data. Please don't use…

That trend stopped last year in China and will probably stop this year in India. Showing graphs which start in the year 2000 (when China had relatively low CO2 emissions) and ending in 2023 (a year before they peaked in 2024) is simply lying with statistics. The most resent data shows that China’s emissions are no longer rising. Now I know we need to do better then that and emissions need to drop extremely fast if we…

> That trend stopped last year in China and will probably stop this year in India.

Maybe. For now, for the major cities, it shows that "a rapidly expanding ecological catastrophe" is downgraded to "an expanding ecological catastrophe", and only China's own data is even showing that slowdown. And, by the way, the source of the catastrophe isn't even oil. It's almost exclusively coal. That's what China and India need to stop with. But I hope the slowdown's real.

As for the eternal "someone else must pay, they can afford it" comment. Best of luck convincing the European parliaments. I've actually tried that once. Seriously, not like those "protests". Not going to happen. Plus, frankly, it's harder now than when I tried it and got crushed.

Maybe the Iran war will accomplish what nobody could. Of course it'll probably increase coal use. And to calculate that effect, you should as a rule of thumb take the octane number, divide by 2, and that's how much worse coal is than oil. Compared to car fuel, it's about 50 times worse. So I doubt it.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#240

Post by spwa4 »

pipodeclown wrote: post #187
scoofy wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China’s greatest geopolitical weakness is lack of access to petroleum. That’s why they are going so hard on renewables. We just get the benefits for free.

Sure but that doesn't change the fact that they are charging s Ahead while the rest of us sit on our hands.

China has slowed the rate at which China is making global climate worse. That's where we currently stand. No more than that.

This is not even remotely close to helping the climate.

If your argument is that there should be a "yet" added to that sentence, sure. Let's hope so. But that's still where we currently stand.

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