Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

e360.yale.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–248 of 248 posts

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#241

Post by raven12345 »

spwa4 wrote: post #239
runarberg wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

China and India need to stop with coal how about USA?

CO2 emissions per capita, global ranking, 2023

9 United States 13.088

19 China 7.89

97 India 1.922

https://www.iea.org/countries/china/emissions

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#242

Post by 9rx »

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.

> Sometimes, the outcome of a scenario will be unambiguously tragic for humanity.

Whether or not it is tragic depends on the beholder. Some people are quite happy to watch the demise of humanity. Science is only interested in what is. How you feel about it is up to you. Certainly scientists are going to have their personal feelings about the science. They are but simple humans, after all. But those feelings are no more useful than your arbitrary feelings.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#243

Post by runarberg »

spwa4 wrote: post #239
runarberg wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

These reductions are not like the ones we observed during the Pandemic where the emissions took a dip because of the decreased consumption during lockdown. These reductions are because both China and (to a lesser degree) India have invested in the infrastructure to decrease their dependence on fossil fuel. This in combination to the fact that the economics are heavily in favor of renewable energy. Experts are pretty much in agreement that these reductions are here to stay, and are very likely to speed up in fact.

I hate to say it, but what is probably happening is the economics are causing this, not the Iran war. Renewable energy is simply becoming this much cheaper, that even the capitalist idealogs in the Chinese and the Indian governments are rolling out renewable infrastructure. In other words, capitalism is finally reducing emissions, 20 years too late and 90% too slow.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#244

Post by idiotsecant »

senordevnyc wrote: post #235
idiotsecant wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 basical…

All collective action problems are impossible to solve until they become impossible not to solve

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#245

Post by 9rx »

ordu wrote: post #151
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.

Theoretically speaking, yes. But practically science is very interested with good and bad, because the goal of science is to bring as much good and to avert as many bad as possible. There is abstract science, there is fundamental science, which are studying things far from our everyday concerns, but even they are not free from "good and bad": ITER has all its funding, because we believe that fusion can bring a lot of…

> it starts with an argument that the results presented in the article are useful

Except here the appeal to emotion suggests that it isn't useful. The results would be useful on their own without having to fabricate additional information to make it useful otherwise.

It is understandable why scientists are getting wrapped up in their emotions, but anyone in science is intended to learn how to separate logic and emotion. That is what the education system is for. That breakdown we're seeing leads to complex communication issues.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#246

Post by esseph »

spwa4 wrote: post #196
jmward01 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are not..it has peaked. Coal firing plants are slowing down and renewable generation is outpacing non-renewable. Emissions are dropping as of 2024-2025. They look to have plateaued.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#247

Post by 13415 »

9rx wrote: post #231
13415 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

I don't disagree with much you've said, the only thing that bothered me after having worked for 20 years at university is the lack of realism of your views about scientific practice. Scientists have to deal with politics a lot, and if it's just with fundraising schemes that often explicitly demand social relevance of the research. That's particularly the reality of disciplines that are extremely relevant for society such as climate science. Of course, they need to assess to some extent whether the consequences of climate change are good or bad for society. This is a no-brainer, if you'd bother to stop and think about how they would structure and organize their research and get funding for it.

> A random scientist's warning holds no more weight than a hobo on the street's warning

You must be joking, and I wish people would do that less often when talking about serious topics.

Re: Scientists warn Atlantic current at risk of shutting down

#248

Post by 13415 »

joquarky wrote: post #200
13415 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The biggest and maybe only relevant difference is that one of them works evidence-based and the other one doesn't.
Post reply on HN