Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast • Hacker News Board

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#71

Post by seren » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 3:34 PM UTC

alkibiades wrote: post #46

what if i don’t care? many of these worries are alarmist. from the IPCC report it seems like some coral will die and the temperature will raise a few degrees. which is bad, sure, but not apocalyptic. i doubt my children’s life will change unless i buy ocean front property and refuse to move for 100 years

I think you might lack some imagination on how things could go bad quickly. (but maybe I am on the paranoid side of things)

Last week, there were reports on water shortage in India because too much ground water is used. At the same time, Himalayan glaciers are melting, so all in all, at some point less water flowing. Global warming will increase droughts and torrential rains (that could further damage crops).

Do you think that 1 billion people will sit tight until they die from thirst or starvation ?

If there is no mass migration, there is also a real danger of war. And India is a nuclear power, as are Pakistan and China. So it could get ugly very fast with repercussions on the whole world, even if your part of the world still feels safe.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#72

Post by mywittyname » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 3:36 PM UTC

alkibiades wrote: post #46

what if i don’t care? many of these worries are alarmist. from the IPCC report it seems like some coral will die and the temperature will raise a few degrees. which is bad, sure, but not apocalyptic. i doubt my children’s life will change unless i buy ocean front property and refuse to move for 100 years

You're life is already changing.

Billions of dollars in tax payer relief efforts need to be deployed to clean up the devastation caused by an increasing number of extreme weather events due to climate change.

Crop yields in the US have been on the decline since 2012. Numerous crop failures across the world have accelerated the pace of civil strife all over the world as famines become more severe and common. The result of this strife has led to mass migrations from affected areas and this has directly influenced US policies.

You are not immune, regardless of whether you continue pretending these events are not the result of climate change. You may have the luxury of insulating yourself from the near-term implications, but the world cares nothing of your ignorance and will eventually punish you all the same.

It will be a death of a thousand cuts. Food gets more expensive, perhaps items disappear from grocery shelves more often. Gas and electricity shortages happen occasionally. Migration happens as people can't rebuild because insurance won't cover the repeated damage to their housing. Year by year life will get a little more miserable for most people.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#73

Post by mturmon » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 3:39 PM UTC

alkibiades wrote: post #67

fzeroracer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you live in an area with no AC because for hundreds of years the weather has been consistent enough to not need it? Or what if you start experiencing massive wildfires because the seasons get dryer and dryer? How about if you care about eating Salmon or any number of seafood dying off as a result of a warming ocean and massive overfishing?

it’s not like this happens overnight. you can buy an AC sometimes in the next 100 years hopefully and sure salmon thing is bad but doesn’t mean the world is ending in 12 years. which is what the activists pretend. i just want a real conversation about solutions but neither side is reasonable

If you want a real conversation, you don't start off with your original comment. The original comment was mocking the scale of the changes we face in a completely un-informed way.

So, you might want to consider what kind of discussion you really want?

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#74

Post by wongarsu » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

api wrote: post #35

MiroF wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has a substantially higher population than you are implying. Also, you give those in power far too much credit. If they had actually concluded the situation was hopeless, we would be seeing large geoengineering investments right now

Re: Russia's population: it's aging, and relative to China? China could field an army larger than the entire population of Russia if they were sufficiently motivated. Are there any geoengineering projects that would really work? What if we are on the precipice of a methane-driven feedback loop and military/intelligence secretly knows this? In any case perhaps that's not how they think. The powerful nations of the wor…

>Are there any geoengineering projects that would really work?

For cooling earth dispersing sulfate particles in the upper atmosphere is generally believed to be economically and technologically viable [1]. For more predictable and controllable results we can deploy sun shades made of thin foil into orbit.

Alternatively we can develop the tech to be self sufficient in reasonable luxury on Mars or the Moon. Great for anyone with enough money to go there, and for the slightly less wealthy the tech will be applicable to make your mansion on earth more comfortable

I'll just mention how all three of those plans would benefit from cheap access to space. So if I had a few million from selling my start up and I was worrying about climate change I might start a rocket company. Or maybe produce electric cars to help turn this ship around instead. Maybe both.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_inject...

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#75

Post by wickedsickeune » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

drharby wrote: post #28

rohan1024 wrote: post #10

There's already a news on front page at the moment which says bird population is declining in North America. The comments section mention that it's not just North America but also Britain, France and also that it could be due to declining insect population. We rarely get this kind of data from developing countries, which means these studies are rarely or not at all performed simply because they don't have resources t…

Act how? I'm being pragmatica here. How and to what end is this statement and the aggregation of headlines on hacker news hoping to persuade the hn reader? Donate all money to causes? Starve ourselves to death? Go retreat from our lives to invest in reforestation efforts, managing beehives, and growing pesticide free sustenance farms while microcurating our own little corner of the Earth? Or is it simply to strike un…

I like how the answers to your very legitimate question are either:

1) make a decision as a leader of a country / major player in the global economy

2) do small stuff that are very hard to quantify in effectiveness (eg call legislative representative, or go vegan)

3) dramatically change lifestyle

I fail to see how any of those are realistic. Especially 3 has never been shown to be implemented willingly by people, given that if not coordinated, will result in social isolation.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#76

Post by wickedsickeune » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 3:41 PM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #27

anonuser123456 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you propose people do?

start using nuclear, solar, and wind power asap and quit burning fossil fuels asap and start having only 1 or 0 children for a while.

How can I, as a citizen, decide to use eg solar power? If my power provider burns coal, how can I affect that?

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#77

Post by arbitrary_name » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

alkibiades wrote: post #67

fzeroracer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you live in an area with no AC because for hundreds of years the weather has been consistent enough to not need it? Or what if you start experiencing massive wildfires because the seasons get dryer and dryer? How about if you care about eating Salmon or any number of seafood dying off as a result of a warming ocean and massive overfishing?

it’s not like this happens overnight. you can buy an AC sometimes in the next 100 years hopefully and sure salmon thing is bad but doesn’t mean the world is ending in 12 years. which is what the activists pretend. i just want a real conversation about solutions but neither side is reasonable

very few people are pretending the world is ending in 12 years. However, many people are talking about the fact that the world as we know it (fish stocks, stability of weather patterns for growing crops, intensity of storms, lack of snowmelt to irrigate crops in summer, and many many more) will change significantly. That includes you.

If you live in the US, you are suffering the political side effects of climate change indirectly as thousands of central American coffee farmers leave their lands and look to the north for opportunity. If you live in Europe, you are suffering the political side effects of increasing instability and resource scarcity in north and east africa, the levant and other locales.

Picture that but with millions more people; your rich country will have to divert more and more resources to either building walls or integrating the poor, all while food prices increase, natural resources are depleted, etc.

If you think living in the Bay Area, London, NY, or anywhere like that is going to insulate you from the consequences, you are really sadly mistaken.

I live in a wealthy city in Australia; we face flooding which is driving up property and insurance costs, fire which is wiping out farming land and causing air quality issues, while depleting fish stocks increase the cost of other food sources. Storm intensity is also on the rise which is causing more flooding and damaging arable land.

We can handle it, but it's more and more a cost and deadweight effect on our lives.

I urge you to isolate "what you want to happen" from "what will actually happen given the science being presented".

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#78

Post by transreal » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #65

mywittyname wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime Oh, they are feeling the personal costs of climate change. It's just the political machines are trying their best to hide this fact. Example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-northcarolina/north-c... I think a generation of people are so brainwashed that they can never be convinced of the harms that climate ch…

Well, I'm in Alberta, Canada, and I guarantee 95% of voters here would choose increasing oil production vs. any sort of climate action. We just had a pretty bad recession, our unemployment is still above typical levels, and we just had an unseasonably cold summer after a pretty cold winter. It's not an issue of being brainwashed, people really do prefer having jobs and homes over climate targets to fix a problem that…

This is why I really like Andrew Yang for 2020. He wants to give everyone in the US $1000/month so people don't constantly have "the economic boot on their neck". You can't worry about climate change when you are worried about paying bills and feeding your kids.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#79

Post by ramphastidae » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #65

mywittyname wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime Oh, they are feeling the personal costs of climate change. It's just the political machines are trying their best to hide this fact. Example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-northcarolina/north-c... I think a generation of people are so brainwashed that they can never be convinced of the harms that climate ch…

Well, I'm in Alberta, Canada, and I guarantee 95% of voters here would choose increasing oil production vs. any sort of climate action. We just had a pretty bad recession, our unemployment is still above typical levels, and we just had an unseasonably cold summer after a pretty cold winter. It's not an issue of being brainwashed, people really do prefer having jobs and homes over climate targets to fix a problem that…

> people really do prefer having jobs and homes over climate targets to fix a problem that isn't readily apparent

That's a false equivalency. Jobs and homes exist in other places than Alberta and in other industries than oil extraction. Sure it will be painful to change for these Albertans but to argue that they have no choice but to vote for increasing oil production is just plain wrong.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#80

Post by Frondo » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

ThemalSpan wrote: post #38

drharby wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Act how? I'm being pragmatica here. How and to what end is this statement and the aggregation of headlines on hacker news hoping to persuade the hn reader? Donate all money to causes? Starve ourselves to death? Go retreat from our lives to invest in reforestation efforts, managing beehives, and growing pesticide free sustenance farms while microcurating our own little corner of the Earth? Or is it simply to strike un…

Make big changes now, or be forced to make them later. Stop supporting the meat industry. Take public transit or bicycle if possible. Avoid flying, driving by yourself. Avoid excessive consumption of disposable products. There is no sustainable future where we get to keep our current lifestyles.

In addition to doing all those things on a personal level, each of them has a societal-level adjustment to pair with it:

* Stop supporting meat -- transfer those subsidies to carbon-friendlier foods and farming

* Make public transit free and much more widespread, fund it with taxes on pollution externalities from private transport

Transfer subsidies on fossil fuel power (and tax them) to wind and solar projects, too.

Doing this at a societal level would create a new set of winners and losers in the profit-making sense, of course; those would-be losers are the ones fighting these sorts of changes.