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

Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 179 posts

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#61

Post by ageofwant »

guscost wrote: post #44
ocschwar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to wallow in ignorance about how and why "the climate constantly changes" and what that means for our civilization, that is your prerogative. But don't expect to be treated with respect. You're making a pitiful excuse to dismiss trends that threaten trillions of dollars of inherited infrastructure investment that is at risk of being made useless, and that threaten the comfort and safety of billions of peo…

> trends that ... threaten the comfort and safety of billions of people Again I don't agree that the threat indicated by these trends is as grave as you claim. I agree there is strong evidence of a grave threat to this coral ecosystem, and Australian coastal tourism.

And what are the consequences of you being wrong ?

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#62

Post by mjklin »

agumonkey wrote: post #4

At this point I welcome catastrophe. Nobody listens anyway so a clear message from nature is the only way.

Your attitude reminds me of The Onion:

http://www.theonion.com/article/nations-experts-give-up-682

and

http://www.theonion.com/article/experts-say-best-option-now-...

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#63

Post by cableshaft »

beachy wrote: post #53
agumonkey wrote: post #4

At this point I welcome catastrophe. Nobody listens anyway so a clear message from nature is the only way.

At some stage, people may welcome a man-made catastrophe, such as a nuclear holocaust that removes a percentage of humanity such that the remaining percentage may survive. (I live in the southern hemisphere, so for selfish reasons I'd prefer this apocalypse to take place in the northern hemisphere).

Just critiqued someone's short story recently which had an A.I. deciding to do exactly that. Nuke most of mankind to save it, so a small percentage of it would survive and wouldn't be totally fucked by things like climate change.

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#64

Post by fche »

ageofwant wrote: post #52
fche wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cowspiracy's points on GHG emission and water consumption are simply illiterate. They don't recognize the concept of a net flow. (e.g.: carbon that comes out of a cow first went into a cow - via its food - which got apprx. all its carbon from the air)

Fertilisers and fuel did not come from the air. There are hundreds of millions of cows (and other livestock) that did not exist before. Landscapes have been sterilised to support them with a massive resulting freeing of previously captured carbon, or carbon trapped in a slow cycle. Methane from ruminants are a significant source of CO2 and are not easily recaptured, not to mention a potent greenhouse gas.

"Fertilisers and fuel did not come from the air."

True, and they are probably at least a small net flow into the atmosphere. But:

"There are hundreds of millions of cows (and other livestock) that did not exist before."

... that part doesn't matter: agriculture is by nature carbon-neutral (except if you count mechanization aspects like fertilizers + fuel).

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#66

Post by [deleted] »

appleflaxen wrote: post #3

There is a whole lot of climate change evidence coming out that is terrifying. At what point does this become so scary that something happens to increase the taxes on fossil fuels so that consumption will go down? Falling renewable prices are not enough, and use-based taxes are the single best way to let individuals make their own decisions about what/how much to use. Carbon credits are a good market-based solution t…

[deleted]

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#68

Post by ocschwar »

guscost wrote: post #44
ocschwar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to wallow in ignorance about how and why "the climate constantly changes" and what that means for our civilization, that is your prerogative. But don't expect to be treated with respect. You're making a pitiful excuse to dismiss trends that threaten trillions of dollars of inherited infrastructure investment that is at risk of being made useless, and that threaten the comfort and safety of billions of peo…

> trends that ... threaten the comfort and safety of billions of people Again I don't agree that the threat indicated by these trends is as grave as you claim. I agree there is strong evidence of a grave threat to this coral ecosystem, and Australian coastal tourism.

We're talking about the need to relocate entire cities at this point. Those bleached corals don't just close shipping lanes near Queensland. They protect islands comprising entire nation states that now have to relocate. In the Pacific atolls, entire islands have had to give up conventional agriculture because of sea water intrusion.

It takes willful blindness to "not agree" at this point.

Re: Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists

#69

Post by ra1n85 »

appleflaxen wrote: post #3

There is a whole lot of climate change evidence coming out that is terrifying. At what point does this become so scary that something happens to increase the taxes on fossil fuels so that consumption will go down? Falling renewable prices are not enough, and use-based taxes are the single best way to let individuals make their own decisions about what/how much to use. Carbon credits are a good market-based solution t…

>At what point does this become so scary that something happens to increase the taxes on fossil fuels so that consumption will go down?

You're jumping to conclusions on the actual solution to the problem.

I suggest unpacking this problem a bit more. Given the time scales, and potential delay between addition of CO2 into the atmosphere and consequence, I imagine that we should also be thinking "How do we adjust to our new climate?". "Taxes, now" is short sighted.

Post reply on HN