Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says • Hacker News Board

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#391

Post by Schiendelman » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 3:38 PM UTC

ako wrote: post #13

Schiendelman wrote: post #4

There hasn't been a question about this in a decade or more. There was no path, even theoretically, to stopping our CO2 emissions without dramatically lowering quality of life for maybe a couple billion people. We won't slow climate change. We can build resilience to the effects, and we have good incentives to do so. But we'll keep burning fossil fuels for a very long time.

Quality of life will be dramatically lower for many because we did not take action

Same reason we have Social Security. People can't plan on a long horizon.

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#392

Post by Schiendelman » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 3:40 PM UTC

benfortuna wrote: post #7

Schiendelman wrote: post #4

There hasn't been a question about this in a decade or more. There was no path, even theoretically, to stopping our CO2 emissions without dramatically lowering quality of life for maybe a couple billion people. We won't slow climate change. We can build resilience to the effects, and we have good incentives to do so. But we'll keep burning fossil fuels for a very long time.

> We can build resilience to the effects Oh yeah, would love to see the resilience that would have prevented the Nepalese disaster

Resilience isn't prevention. Resilience is the systems to clean up after those events. To be able to build new housing for the people who survive, to route around problems.

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#393

Post by myaccountonhn » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 4:32 PM UTC

nkohari wrote: post #384

myaccountonhn wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the IPCC report, 2/3rds of all global emissions are directly tied to consumption.

Well, yeah. Corporations aren't just nefarious evil entities, dumping carbon into the atmosphere for no reason. They're doing it to sell goods. The problem is that a lot of the environmental costs for the manufacture and transport of those goods are externalized and go unpaid. It's difficult to put the blame for that on the consumer, who has no visibility into manufacturing or logistics, and who has vanishingly-small…

I think pinning the blame on them is the wrong way to look at it. Its more a very complex system where each actor's behaviour affect the behavior of other actors. So politicians doing more is super important, consumers doing more is important, companies doing more is important. Everyone's collective effort pushes the flywheel in a different direction.

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#394

Post by tstrimple » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 7:40 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #369

tstrimple wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given who the president of the United States is. They are at least a plurality.

I think that’sa harmful oversimplification. You should avoid arguing against a boogeyman version of your political opponents. People vote for crazy candidates for a multitude of reasons. Most people have fairly average opinions on the majority of topics but can only vote for candidates that partially represent their preferences. I for example have fairly radical preferences when it comes to environmental policy but a…

Stop being so fucking patronizing. I was raised by these people. Most of my family are still these people. I’ve experienced their bullshit for over 40 years. Your high minded nonsense in no way applies. I see what they cheer for.

Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

#395

Post by koe123 » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 8:31 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #187

koe123 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your own values are coming through pretty clearly. Understandably, telling a parent they shouldnt have had kids is bound to strike a nerve. Having kids is great. Having kids is also the worst single thing you can do for the environment. Both can be true, and having kids definitely doesn't make someone bad. However putting kids on a pedestal is silly. If we push our civilization above earths sustainable carryi…

> Having kids is also the worst single thing you can do for the environment. No, just no. You can't show that. You don't understand environmentalism. You're just a Malthusian. It's an assertion that human existence is incompatible with the environment, and that's a completely unacceptable proposition, because it defines "environmentalism" as "extinction." Reducing the population by half will, at best, reduce emission…

Given you’re using big words without explaining them and decorating your argument with patronizing language like “no, just no”, perhaps I should just yield. Even if you turn out to make a convincing argument later, if you really care about convincing people I implore you to think about how condescending your style is…

But if I may explain my thinking essentially from a responsibility perspective your choice is downstream to a whole life of pollution, and of their kids etc. Depending on how many kids the average person has how polluting the average person is, that seems like a significant contribution.

Despite that you attribute to me some sort of strange degrowth philosophy where I am advocating for extinction, all I am saying is that there is a huge impact to overpopulation if we don’t change our habits. If it is sustainable to have more humans later on due to improvements in conduct, by all means I think thats great.