Global warming has accelerated significantly • Hacker News Board

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#611

Post by lunias » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

crims0n wrote: post #480

lunias wrote: post #375

It's my understanding that if you look at a large enough historical time window, although warming has accelerated recently (and we are in part to blame); the Earth is still relatively cool compared to historical averages.

I don't know why you are getting downvoted, you are absolutely correct: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/09/1...

People like to get worked up about this topic haha. All I'm sayin' is, it might get a lot hotter. Or maybe it will get cooler? I think it's important to put things in context because it's not some monotonically increasing function even if there is a local trend. I'm pro doing what we can to correct our impact on the environment; I'm even pro going beyond and attempting to control for other non-human externalities. My point is actually that nature doesn't care, but I think we should. Although, even if we try our hardest, we still might not like the outcome.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#612

Post by myrmidon » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #598

exceptione wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't do the AC thing, it is a stupid trope under blogfluencers. There are no restrictions (besides positioning the outer unit in such a way that you cause your neighbors to lose sleep). As the summers get more extreme in Europe, more residents decide getting one is starting to pay off, so you see more AC's, but many people think they are doing fine without.

I can easily google restrictions and share them, and I have in other comments but let me throw it back at you. Why do 90% of Americans have AC while only 20% of Europeans do? Why does US have ~4 heat related deaths per million while Europe has ~235 per million? Do you think it's just stupidity (Europeans don't know the relationship between heat and AC)? Or poverty? Any other explanation? https://news.un.org/en/story/…

> Why do 90% of Americans have AC while only 20% of Europeans do?

Maybe because the majority of Europe is closer to Canada, latitude-wise, than to Phoenix, AZ, and there is simply less demand? Less wealth is certainly a factor, too, especially considering how the warmest nations in Europe all tend to be weaker economically.

> Why does US have ~4 heat related deaths per million while Europe has ~235 per million?

Maybe its just the higher life expectancy increasing susceptibility? Everyone has to die of something at some point.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#613

Post by sofixa » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:33 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

Where in Europe are ACs restricted because of carbon emissions? Even in France with very strong building codes (you can't just plop an AC on your own, you need approvals), ACs are the standard in the south where they are needed for long periods of the year.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#614

Post by sofixa » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #598

exceptione wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't do the AC thing, it is a stupid trope under blogfluencers. There are no restrictions (besides positioning the outer unit in such a way that you cause your neighbors to lose sleep). As the summers get more extreme in Europe, more residents decide getting one is starting to pay off, so you see more AC's, but many people think they are doing fine without.

I can easily google restrictions and share them, and I have in other comments but let me throw it back at you. Why do 90% of Americans have AC while only 20% of Europeans do? Why does US have ~4 heat related deaths per million while Europe has ~235 per million? Do you think it's just stupidity (Europeans don't know the relationship between heat and AC)? Or poverty? Any other explanation? https://news.un.org/en/story/…

Most of Europe simply doesn't need an AC. Spain, south of Italy, south of France, parts of the Balkans. But in countries like UK, the Nordics, Germany, etc. you'd need something more than "open windows" for mere days of the year, if that. The people who live in the places that need AC usually have AC. It's actually pretty damn simple.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#615

Post by reducesuffering » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

mbgerring wrote: post #544

The only extant “X-risk” is, and always has been, climate change. “AGI” is science fiction, and actually-existing AI is making climate change harder to deal with, by increasing electricity demand on our fossil-fuel-powered grid with no attendant increase in clean generation. Serious engineers need to stop whatever they’re doing and work on this problem. Also, if you’re hiring: I’m an expert on the U.S. regulated util…

The only extant “X-risk” is, and always has been, economic collapse due to loss of energy. “Climate Change” is science fiction.

/s

It amazes me climate change X-riskers scoff at denialists and then do the exact same denialism with AGI. How many leading AI scientists (like climate science) would it take to convince you?

"Our great religion, their primitive superstition"[0]

[0] https://imgur.com/EELDM6m

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#616

Post by crystal_revenge » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:37 PM UTC

Liftyee wrote: post #605

crystal_revenge wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it's clear we will never do anything to slow the progression of climate change. By far the most effective an immediate solution to limiting the damage of climate change is to simply to keep fossil fuels in the ground . People talk about the economic pain of doing this, but that economic pain is nothing compared to the impact of unmitigated climate change. Even though this would be painful, it is also by f…

The economic pain is current. The impact of unmitigated climate change will happen in the future. Thus, the ingrained short-term thinking of the markets and politicians makes this sort of planning ahead difficult. It seems like the whole economic system runs on a quarterly time scale - just look at all the times negligent maintenance to improve profits in the short term have caused disasters in the long term. Not sur…

> the ingrained short-term thinking of the markets and politicians

Honestly, if we made even a step towards the changes necessary to limit the current damage most of HN readership, especially the "green" ones that don't seem to understand global energy usage, would be revolting as well.

The pandemic was a great example of what this would look like as a first step. If we even cared a tiny bit about slowing climate change, there would have been at least some amount of people voicing that we should actually continue to follow early pandemic economic restrictions since it did impact global oil usage.

I pointed this out pretty frequently at the time and was nearly always down voted for it. People want "green" to mean "buying the right thing", they don't want "green" to mean "slicing my annual pay to 1/3, never using Amazon or large retail company to purchase thing, no fruit in the winter, and expensive locally woven clothes".

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#617

Post by cubefox » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:39 PM UTC

luxuryballs wrote: post #137

afandian wrote: post #2

This is open access. No need to post a researchgate link. Here's the original: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6079807/v1

I’m out of the loop on researchgate, when you say “No need” is it like an archive.is? Why is it less desirable or, if I’m reading your tone correctly, a “backup option”?

The researchgate link has for me a deceptive ad at the bottom: it has a PDF logo and says "download now", suggesting that this will download the paper. It then links to a download page which in the fine print says it will actually download some kind of ebook collection which costs 30 bucks per month. That's a scam.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#618

Post by sofixa » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:39 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #542

HappyPanacea wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Several EU countries have mandatory temperature limits for air conditioning in public buildings. Spain, Italy, and Greece have all announced that A/C in public buildings cannot be set lower than 27C (80F) in summer Some exceptions allow up to 25C like restaurants and some work places. The EU's F-Gas Regulation creates significant restrictions on refrigerants used in air conditioning There's significant red tape when…

Are you claiming there are restrictions on installing ACs, or there are restrictions on how those installed are used? The two are quite different arguments.

And 27C is a completely normal temperature. When it's 35C outside, you're better off with a minimised thermal shock with a small difference, instead of going at it the US South or Dubai style where inside it's 18C, so all everyone does is move from one air conditioned place to another (home to car to office to car to mall to home).

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#619

Post by AnthonyMouse » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

myrmidon wrote: post #573

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…

> It's all China, but I guess it's cool to blame things on developed countries. This is just a naive take. You'd obviously expect chinese emissions to be higher (than the US) assuming similar industrialization, because you are counting emissions for like triple the amount of people. What you conveniently fail to mention: US citizens still emit over 50% more CO2 each, and China basically just caught up to emission lev…

> US citizens still emit over 50% more CO2 each

The problem the US has per-capita is lower population density. The majority of the US population lives in suburban or rural areas without mass transit and changing that on the relevant timescale is not feasible. It also has major population centers in areas that experience winter and thereby have higher energy costs for heating, exacerbated by the lower population density (more square feet of indoor space to heat per capita), with the same infeasible timescale for changing that.

As a result, the only way to fix it is to switch to other forms of energy rather than having any real hope of significantly reducing consumption in terms of GWh. Use more electric cars and hybrids, generate electricity using solar, wind and nuclear, switch from fossil fuels to electric heat pumps for heating, etc. But that's largely what's happening. The percentage of hybrid vehicles goes up, despite Trump's posturing nobody actually wants coal, ~100% of net new generation capacity in recent years is solar and wind and even when new natural gas plants are built, they're displacing old coal fired ones, which results in a net reduction in CO2. It would be nice if this would happen faster, but at least the number is going in the right direction.

The problem China has is that they've been building brand new coal fired power plants at scale. WTF.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#620

Post by reitzensteinm » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #436

gzread wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I thought the world and civilization would collapse because of carbon emissions. It's either serious or it's not. If it's serious then it doesn't really matter right? It's like you're on a boat that sprung a leak and everyone grabs a bucket. But a few people choose to not help because it's not fair for whatever reason.

Nah, the analogy for your argument is:

Two Americans and ten Chinese are on a lifeboat. The Americans are each eating two sandwiches a day and the Chinese are eating one. Supplies are low. You do the math and note that the Chinese sure are eating a lot of sandwiches.