Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think • Hacker News Board

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#91

Post by anm89 » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #55

chris_va wrote: post #23

(disclaimer: I work in a Climate&Energy research group) I just want to remind everyone that there are solutions to climate change. We know how to produce clean energy and sequester CO2. The current free market does not make those solutions profitable for investors, though, and we will have to change that. Solving climate change can be as simple as getting a carbon price adopted. It needs to ramp up over time, allow a…

One simple thing we can all do is never vote for a candidate if they are not for aggressive and immediate measures to combat global warming. If the roughly 60-75% of Americans who believe human activity is causing climate change were to stop voting for individuals who don't believe this, we'd have meaningful change coming from the federal government within 2 years.

"if we all just..." is the ultimate fallacy.

Not everyone's priorities are yours and even if they were its difficult to coordinate action.

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#92

Post by lumberjack » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #34

Without criticizing the article at all, I want to point out that headlines like this go viral and make money, while the opposite ones would go nowhere. In other words, the news you see is selected by virality, not by how well they describe the real world. I have no cure or even complaint for this. I just think it's a very important thing to keep in mind.

This is not just news. It is an academic article published by reputable institutions. If they had published the opposite article it would be even more noteworthy, being that it would be more revolutionary. Your comment would be true of opinion pieces written by wackos without reputation, that we only read because they validate our intuitions. Academic articles are a different matter.

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#93

Post by chrisco255 » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

chris_va wrote: post #23

(disclaimer: I work in a Climate&Energy research group) I just want to remind everyone that there are solutions to climate change. We know how to produce clean energy and sequester CO2. The current free market does not make those solutions profitable for investors, though, and we will have to change that. Solving climate change can be as simple as getting a carbon price adopted. It needs to ramp up over time, allow a…

Before any tax is issued, I'd like to know the exact percentage breakdown between man-made climate change and natural climate cycles? Can anyone break the percentage down for me, between man-made CO2 and natural CO2 being outgassed by oceans, and then breakdown the difference between CO2 induced warming and variations in the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the cosmic ray flux and it's impact on cloud cover as a result of variations in solar magnetic cycles, volcanic activity, and the El Nino Southern Oscillation? Can anyone break that down by percentages for me?

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#94

Post by aiphex » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

tito wrote: post #29

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you keep copy and pasting the same post? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21324768 > Find every machine that eats fossil fuels and electrify it. As I replied last time... you’re starting a free lunch fallacy, and it isn’t getting much better from there. Every “replacement” tech you list has massive downsides - replace fiber with inescapable high latency satellites, much higher cost, a crazy carbon footprin…

Climate change is the biggest opportunity civilization has ever seen, and I'm happy to share that view with others that might contribute. Appreciate your thoughts on this! You make a great point about LED bulbs and their landfill potential. You're totally right about the fixed costs of LEDs. Today they're very complex from a manufacturing and materials standpoint, and can create much more trouble at a landfill than o…

My city runs on 100% hydroelectric. I use incandescent and halogen. They give off much better light anyway, and don't mess up blue light cycles / sleep.

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#95

Post by mavhc » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

weirdstuff wrote: post #82

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the great Pacific garbage patch a scam? Is the great Atlantic garbage patch a scam? Are industrial chemicals in aquifers a scam? Is methylmercury accumulation in seafaring life a scam? Is world heating, up to locations being human uninhabitable, a scam? Are the glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic breaking off and melting, a scam? How much evidence do you need in convincing? Or is it just political posturing, and…

Let’s not accuse HN’ers of being Russian plants, it’s bad for discussion in my opinion. It’s rotting Reddit already.

True, plants are useful, how about the term Coal Sore?

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#96

Post by mavhc » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

hychoi99 wrote: post #89

BurningFrog wrote: post #34

Without criticizing the article at all, I want to point out that headlines like this go viral and make money, while the opposite ones would go nowhere. In other words, the news you see is selected by virality, not by how well they describe the real world. I have no cure or even complaint for this. I just think it's a very important thing to keep in mind.

I may have seen this exact headline maybe once a month for the past 10-15 years.

Maybe soon someone will take notice and do something

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#97

Post by phkahler » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #59

phkahler wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's part of a natural cycle. We were never going to stop it anyway. The real means to stop it will not be talked about until the serious changes start happening and the entire world is in panic.

Your first sentence is false (there are natural cycles but the next one is due to cause an ice age in a few thousand years’ time, not warming). Your second sentence is TBD, except that the actual natural cycle that would have led to an ice age in a few thousand years’ time has been disrupted and that ice age (and perhaps the one after it) will not now occur. Your third sentence does not follow from either of the firs…

>> Your first sentence is false (there are natural cycles but the next one is due to cause an ice age in a few thousand years’ time, not warming)

I contend that the warming leads to a tipping point that brings on the glaciation. Its part of the cycle.

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#98

Post by lumberjack » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

sambull wrote: post #27

pstuart wrote: post #2

It's going to happen faster than we've been told. I expect in 10 years global panic will set in.

Mainly because that means there is finite growth in the economy, and we've built a ponzi scheme of sorts at this point. It's a hard pill to swallow, that we can't just grow forever.

If you adhere by the definition of wealth that pg lays out in his famous essay, then it is not true that there is finite growth. The more accurate statement would be that there is a limit to the amount of consumption and consumerism that we are allowed to indulge ourselves in. In our present economy that might more or less be what everyone thinks growth is. But we could have other kinds of economic growth that do not impose a cost on our environment.

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#99

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

weirdstuff wrote: post #82

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the great Pacific garbage patch a scam? Is the great Atlantic garbage patch a scam? Are industrial chemicals in aquifers a scam? Is methylmercury accumulation in seafaring life a scam? Is world heating, up to locations being human uninhabitable, a scam? Are the glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic breaking off and melting, a scam? How much evidence do you need in convincing? Or is it just political posturing, and…

Let’s not accuse HN’ers of being Russian plants, it’s bad for discussion in my opinion. It’s rotting Reddit already.

[deleted]

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#100

Post by gggegegeh » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #81

gggegegeh wrote: post #60

I don’t get why people are so crazy about climate change. There are multiple avenues to fixing it. It’s a very simple problem to solve. Some aspects might not be like ocean acidification but cooling the planet is well within our reach. And when it starts getting way too warm, everyone will realize what’s happening and everyone will work together on a solution. It’s already starting to happen. It’s not like a gamma ra…

Please tell me this “simple solution?” More importantly, is it, viable?

Why should I tell you? Clearly from your condescending tone you are, whether you realize it or not, emotionally invested in the idea that it’s unsolvable. I know because I know tons of liberal people who are the same way. It’s like the liberal version of religion. It’s simply doesn’t yield to logic. And also the solutions are quite simple and obvious and if you haven’t thought of them yourself then you aren’t going to be contributing much either way.