Global warming has accelerated significantly • Hacker News Board

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#521

Post by peab » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

gzread wrote: post #417

bko wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions based on a peak in 2007 and continue to do so. Not reduced as a percentage of GDP or adjusted for population growth, but reduced in absolute levels. It's all China, but I guess it's cool to blame things on developed countries. There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented…

China is some years behind our industrial development then undevelopment, and is building an entire USA of solar panels every year or whatever - can we expect them to quickly reduce emissions soon?

they continue to build more solar, more wind, but also more coal power plants.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#522

Post by HappyPanacea » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #409

jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions based on a peak in 2007 and continue to do so. Not reduced as a percentage of GDP or adjusted for population growth, but reduced in absolute levels. It's all China, but I guess it's cool to blame things on developed countries. There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented…

> There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented if they lifted restrictions on AC so that they can feel good about making a negligible effect on carbon emissions.

What restrictions are there on AC?

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#523

Post by _aavaa_ » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

PowerElectronix wrote: post #514

And yet the minimum extension of artic ice ever recorded was in 2014. I think there are more effects to account for when extrapolating measured temperatures, mostly made on the ground with cataclismic effects. After all, all the carbon being emitted nowadays was in the biosphere back in the days. Why couldn't it return back to it without the earth becoming inhabitable?

The argument isn’t that the whole earth becomes inhospitable. But that certain regions do, and the rest will have their climate differ drastically.

If you live on the coast and the water level rises, your home is inhospitable, even if someone 100mi inland is fine.

If you live in a region that usually was 90F in the summer and is now >110F regularly, that’s going to cause problem.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#524

Post by deaux » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

asib wrote: post #287

jcfrei wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a different take: Things will change once a big part of the electorate no longer feels like climate change policies will hurt their pocket. A lot of the opposition to the policies are from people who aren't in the richer percentiles and probably work in a field that's related to fossil fuels (like heating engineers, car mechanics, etc.). They fear job losses and that their commute and heating bills go up.

Not responding to climate change is hurting everyone's pocket. Home insurance premiums are obscene in some places. Energy insecurity due to reliance on fossil fuels sourced from overseas (particularly relevant right now with the US war on Iran and Russian war on Ukraine). Extreme temperatures mean we either spend more money on heating/cooling our homes or, if you're not wealthy enough to pay, you pay by having to end…

> Not responding to climate change is hurting everyone's pocket

No it's not. There's a large group of people whose pockets are being lined by it. A large group of billionaires.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#525

Post by auntienomen » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 5:38 PM UTC

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #380

sulam wrote: post #295

FWIW my personal assessment is that this acceleration is both real and largely out of our control. Models in the past did not attempt to account for non-anthropogenic carbon emissions, but as we experience further warming, most especially in the Arctic, feedback loops and tipping points mean that this (carbon emissions caused by “natural” processes) are becoming more evident. This is especially sensitive because a la…

Relying on DAC is putting our fate in the hands of a technology we've never deployed beyond some pitifully small pilot projects, and expecting that we're going to be able to deploy that at a larger scale than we've deployed any technology since electricity itself. We're going to have to resort to geoengineering alright, but it's gonna likely be stratospheric sulfate injection given how cheaply that can be done. Is it…

It's going to have to be a mixture of approaches. Stratospheric injection buys time for more holistic solutions.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#526

Post by realo » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 5:38 PM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #192

jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

The initial pain will be diffuse and not obviously caused by global warming. For example, destabilization of equatorial countries due to wet bulb temperatures, through multiple causal paths: worse education outcomes (many days off school during hot months), worse economy (can't work outside), worse life satisfaction -> more autocracies, more water scarcity. Then you get more emigration to the colder north, more confl…

"Migration to the colder north..."

Maybe that's why the Trump regime wants so badly to invade Canada and the Groenland?

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#527

Post by bojan » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

NicuCalcea wrote: post #205

bojan wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they have to be a magic bullet? Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than switching from personal cars to... bicycles?

Why not encourage people who can reasonably cycle to do so? It's not a magic bullet either, but it's no less magic than EVs.

Why not both? Encourage cycling when possible, and when not, an EV.

Looking at American commute distances however, cycling, even with an e-bike, is likely not a reasonable option.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#528

Post by ToucanLoucan » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

abustamam wrote: post #516

jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

> The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. I'd argue that many lower and middle class folks already feel the effects of GW, even if they may not be able to articulate it. The flip side is that developed rich countries will hurt because of this but the people in power won't care because it probably only (visibly) affects the lower class, and they can always take their jets and rockets to countries (and eventual…

> (and eventually planets!)

This particular point is remarkably optimistic on the part of our ruling elites who genuinely seem to think they'll be abandoning Earth like the Titanic and running off to Mars or whatever. I wonder if it's just wishful thinking or if they genuinely believe living off-terra would be a luxury experience, and not what it far more likely would be, which is hurtling through a void separated from instant death by nothing more than sheet metal, and after months of that, living inside a specially pressurized biosphere on an alien world that is, at all times, trying to kill them. And is almost guaranteed to succeed if nothing else by attrition.

I wonder if any will think as they prepare to die whichever death comes to them first that maybe just paying taxes and not having a private jet wasn't that steep of an ask after all.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#529

Post by gcanyon » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt.

There are two clear parallel points to this:

   1. Over the time frames we're discussing (even the next 50 years) how many "poor" countries will there be left? We're seeing substantial progress on economic, educational, and other fronts over the past 50 years.
   2. Will there ever be a time when the change occurring is direct and over a short enough time frame to matter to "rich" countries? Yes, it will suck if most of Florida is underwater, but this process has already started, and has been going on for 20, 30, 50 years? And most people care very little. If it takes a century for the state to completely submerge, that apathy will continue.

Disclaimer: none of the above is saying we should or shouldn't take a particular course of action about warming, just to speak to the way people deal with very slow-moving issues.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#530

Post by crystal_revenge » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #409

jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions based on a peak in 2007 and continue to do so. Not reduced as a percentage of GDP or adjusted for population growth, but reduced in absolute levels. It's all China, but I guess it's cool to blame things on developed countries. There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented…

> Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions based on a peak in 2007 and continue to do so.

Our economies are built on oil burning somewhere else in the world. You can try to point the blame at China, but the wealth generated in the middle east selling them oil is a major part of the reason why US stock markets keep going up.

If you forced China to use less fossil fuels you would personally feel a much larger hit to your quality of life.

We in the developed world love to outsource the violence and environmental damage we cause. It's one thing to wash your hands, but quite another to then try to point the finger.