[HN Gopher] 'Devastating' melt of Greenland, Antarctic ice sheet...
___________________________________________________________________
'Devastating' melt of Greenland, Antarctic ice sheets found
Author : gmays
Score : 138 points
Date : 2023-04-21 17:57 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| pier25 wrote:
| Every year we find out climate change is worse than expected and
| accelerating faster than expected.
|
| I'm not saying this as a way to minimize these findings but
| rather to point out that we should expect things to get worse.
|
| Humanity needs to act now.
| antibasilisk wrote:
| Faster than expected, Venus by Thursday.
|
| >Humanity needs to act now.
|
| And do what exactly? The kill count from shutting down all
| emission-producing parts of society would be enormous, and it
| still wouldn't be enough to keep global warming at a level that
| is habitable for a good chunk of people on the planet.
|
| Net zero carbon by 2030 is a joke, literally nobody is on track
| to meet those targets and BOE will happen before then at the
| rate we're going anyway.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| BOE= Blue Ocean Event, or where all the ice in the Arctic
| ocean melts.
| oezi wrote:
| It tragically comical that all it would take is something
| like 2% of GDP over a couple of years (until 2050) to fix.
|
| We rather spend it on the military or pensions.
| antibasilisk wrote:
| We don't have until 2050, we have -15 years or so.
| gus_massa wrote:
| You can shut down the military if every other country
| agree. That looks difficult.
|
| But how do shut down pensions?
| quacked wrote:
| 2% GDP until 2050 would allow for every single chemical and
| material used in farming, building, and mining in the world
| to become part of a net zero carbon supply chain?
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The kill count from not fixing the problem will be so much
| higher.
|
| We're going to be destroyed by the narcissism and sociopathy
| of our supposed leaders.
|
| And I don't mean our elected politicians, who are largely
| ornamental. I mean the individuals who buy and sell them.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Nothing gets done until property prices are affected.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I love how the cookie popup takes up half the screen on
| mobile with a button saying "I'm OK with that"
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I wouldn't pay much for property in Florida knowing the
| ongoing insurance situation
|
| https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2023/04/18/florida-
| insurance-...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Florida insurance costs were driven up, _primarily_ , by
| rampant litigation and fraud [1], not climate change. With
| that said, insurers are starting to price in the realized
| risk [2]. Assuming built to modern code (post 2002) and
| elevation above flood and storm surge risk, homes in
| Florida are resilient to all but the most powerful storms
| (Cat 4, Cat 5). Of course, code will need to be revisited
| if housing must resist the occasional 200+ mph storm
| (primarily roof to wall attachment and roof shape, as well
| as shutters for doors and windows to resist impact [3] [4];
| cinder block/concrete exterior walls are very common but
| not yet mandatory).
|
| [1]
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-22/fraud-
| lit... | https://archive.is/Njkww
|
| [2] https://www.mic.com/impact/climate-change-is-ravaging-
| florid...
|
| [3] https://www.floir.com/siteDocuments/OIR-B1-1802.pdf
|
| [4] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/21/how-to-build-a-
| hurricane-res...
|
| (one of my properties is insured by the state's high risk
| pool at an elevation 90 ft above sea level)
| [deleted]
| kvetching wrote:
| [flagged]
| chimpanzee wrote:
| > look at the data slightly differently
|
| You mean like look at it upside-down? Or with your eyes
| closed? Please explain.
| morkalork wrote:
| I look forward to the future where we'll hear things like:
| "The earth is flat", "The moon landing was faked", "Those ice
| sheets never existed", "The ocean level hasn't changed".
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| The first step is to eliminate cars as a primary mode of
| transportation.
| wilg wrote:
| Probably a lot easier (and therefore faster and therefore a
| better strategy) to not do this, and instead electrify
| everything.
| S201 wrote:
| And replace them with what? Because if you're not in or at
| least near a city you'll be stranded without a car.
| timeon wrote:
| We need to change planning.
| illiarian wrote:
| That is the same level of advice as "humans need to learn
| how to fly".
|
| You not only have to change planning, you also need to
| change all the _existing_ cities to accomodate that
| planning
| agentultra wrote:
| And we can do that if the will to do it was there. I
| suspect those that benefit the most from the subsidies
| that support their life styles will have the most to
| complain about.
| illiarian wrote:
| > those that benefit the most from the subsidies that
| support their life styles will have the most to complain
| about.
|
| What
| tiedieconderoga wrote:
| >>>>>The first step is to eliminate cars as a primary mode of
| transportation.
|
| >>>>The first step is to make it possible to live without a
| car.
|
| >>>The first step is to set up separated bike lanes and
| improved electrified bus/rail routes.
|
| >>The first step is to convince the legislature to shift
| infrastructure funding away from building new roads.
|
| >The first step is to elect the right candidates, build a
| base of support, and draft an amendment which can get through
| the next budget showdown.
|
| And so on...although it's more of a sprawling tree than a
| descending list.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > elect the right candidates
|
| That part's made even more difficult by there typically not
| being any right candidates at all.
| pleb_nz wrote:
| It does and I am not happy with individual persons.
|
| Most people are waiting for big corporate entities or the
| government to do something. Yell that they need to do
| something, but in the meantime go about the lives as if nothing
| needs changing. People only care as long as it doesn't affect
| them and someone else acts or makes the decisions. It's
| despicable
|
| Every person on this planet has the power and responsibility to
| change and act now, we do not need to wait for government and
| corporations to change. Waiting is just an excuse, and really
| is just slowing the desired outcome.
| tiedieconderoga wrote:
| >Every person on this planet has the power and responsibility
| to change and act now, we do not need to wait for government
| and corporations to change.
|
| I would take issue with that statement. It is very difficult
| to make the sort of personal changes which would eliminate
| your own footprint. It might be impossible without leaving
| civilization entirely, largely because of how our societies
| and markets are structured.
|
| Here is the story of a journalist who tried to go a full day
| without using plastics (disable JS if you get a paywall):
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/style/plastic-free.html
| api_or_ipa wrote:
| I listened to a podcast that posed the question "is it
| better to pressure industry to stop polluting, or focus on
| minimizing your own footprint" and the dialogue that
| sparked, as well as the conclusions, were very informing.
| In a nutshell, it's incontrovertible that as a single
| person, most of us can only hope to achieve climate change,
| there are, after all, 8 billion of us, so on average each
| of us can only achieve 1/8e9 * 100% change in pollution.
|
| However, behaviour is learned by sharing. In that mind set,
| the best course of action is, in addition to one's own
| virtue, to encourage others to also recognize the situation
| and to change their own ways. In this way, one multiplies
| their own impact. People need to be the first movers of any
| social change, regardless of their own insignificant
| impact, because behaviour spreads and eventually industry
| will have no choice but to change.
|
| Simply sitting at the sidelines complaining of industrial
| pollution is about as helpful as watching your own house
| burn.
| waboremo wrote:
| I'm going to push back on this, largely because it assumes
| an all or nothing mentality which is discouraging at best.
|
| If you look at the meat industry, and we all agree it's
| environmentally impactful to absurd degrees, one might
| apply that same all or nothing mentality here - which is
| incorrect. You don't need to become a vegan to have
| dramatic impact, but what if it became a norm to go a day
| without meat? We already have some religious expectations
| about that, we even have cultural norms that have altered
| what we eat and when (breakfast = sugary carbs in the
| West), why can we not do the same here? But this cannot
| happen magically, it involves individuals making the choice
| to encourage themselves and then their families. Everyone
| can do this.
|
| I bring up a day without meat (per week) because it's a
| great example of how little change is actually required to
| have tremendous results. But we cannot get to those results
| if we expect some gigantic overnight change.
|
| So going back to your article, you don't have to leave
| civilization entirely, and going plastic free overnight is
| silly. But, you can buy shampoo that comes in recyclable
| cardboard instead of those tacky bottles. You can eat
| delicious veggie meals for an entire day once a week. You
| can buy reusable utensils that you carry with you instead
| of demanding they be offered. You can use refillable
| containers to buy your groceries with and store them. List
| is truly endless.
|
| You, yes you, can have a great impact. We as humans just
| struggle understanding long term impact. In the exact same
| way that we see someone like Michael Jordan and think he's
| naturally gifted, and ignore him spending 8+ hours a day
| practicing for years and how those choices have compounded
| for him.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > eliminate
|
| The better is not the enemy of the best.
| pleb_nz wrote:
| You don't have to eliminate and not do you have to do it
| all in a single step. Everyone is different and in
| different situations. Just start doing where you can as
| best you can. Stop consumerism for the hell of it if you
| can. Stop following fashion trends and wear clothing until
| it falls from your body. Don't replace your 5ech equipment
| because it doesn't have the latest feature etc etc. The
| statement wasn't meant to be taken so literally and fully.
| tiedieconderoga wrote:
| You're right, and funnily enough, that's the same sort of
| advice that the article's author got. Start slow, focus
| on avoiding single-use waste, you can't do it all at
| once.
|
| But that was an example, plastics are only one small part
| of the problem. Production of energy, metals, wood, food,
| etc. Disposal of the toxic byproducts. Nothing we do at a
| large scale is clean or sustainable, and there's almost
| no accountability for any of it. Individuals don't have
| the ability to meaningfully influence all of that,
| outside of large-scale political action.
| Maursault wrote:
| > Every person on this planet has the power and
| responsibility to change and act now, we do not need to wait
| for government and corporations to change.
|
| Acting responsibly makes us feel better, but little else. The
| fact of the matter is the problem is not individuals, it's
| government and industry. What can any individual do to stop
| the burning of fossil fuels? To stop deforestation? To curb
| industrial agriculture? To stop the concrete and glass
| industries? To clean up shipping?
|
| I'm not being cynical, you're just focusing on the wrong
| people. Every individual on earth could begin to reduce their
| carbon contribution to nothing, and it wouldn't make a dent
| on Climate Change, It isn't us, it really isn't. We can only
| elect so many liberals and environmentalist conscious
| politicians, because the stupid is very strong in our
| country. To fix the problem, we need to focus on the problem,
| of which more than 99.9% are the list of major carbon and
| greenhouse gas contributors. I think we need to start with
| energy production, and silence the entitled energy hogs
| insisting on more and more energy no matter the consequences.
| Then work down from there, agriculture, construction, glass,
| shipping, etc. And that will make a difference if we could
| just target the top 10 greenhouse gas producers.
| illiarian wrote:
| > Every person on this planet has the power and
| responsibility to change and act now
|
| What more power beyond, say, recycling and using public
| transportation can an individual person have? Note how this
| narrative is literally shifting the blame from corporations,
| industries, and governments to individual people. "It's your
| fault you're not doing enough".
|
| Meanwhile, Germany alone, thanks to the actions of its
| government, is responsible for more carbon emissions on a
| single night than I can even theoretically reduce over a
| milion lifetimes.
|
| They shut down their nuclear reactors, and right now even on
| a windy night they burn coal and gas to make up for the
| difference: https://imgur.com/a/3bYudyd
| asah wrote:
| stop flying.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=airplane+emissions+calculat
| o...
| moffkalast wrote:
| Or ban fossil fuel powered private jets, so the elite is
| incentivized to invest into development of hydrogen
| airplanes to the grand benefit of everyone. If they want
| something done it happens. It's up to the rest of us to
| force them to want it.
| illiarian wrote:
| At all? Often? If I fly once a year over a distance of
| over a thousand kilometers, is it fine or not?
|
| What can I, and individual, do to fix the issue that it
| takes three trains with a high chance of failures and
| delays, to get to a destination within my country on what
| is a direct route from city to city?
|
| etc.
|
| Stop shifting blame to individuals
| altec3 wrote:
| Or the issue with the ozone hole in the 1980s... that was
| not solved by people stopping personal use of CFCs, or
| boycotting products that used CFCs. A multinational
| agreement known as the Montreal Protocol is what stopped
| the use and production of CFCs.
| bluescrn wrote:
| > Every person on this planet has the power and
| responsibility to change and act now.
|
| Not really. Many are struggling to put a roof over their head
| and food on the table. If they commute by car they do it out
| of necessity, as living within walking/cycling distance of
| ones place of work is quite a luxury, and even moreso to live
| in an expensive city with good public transport.
|
| EVs, heat pumps, and solar panels are essentially 'toys for
| the rich', only relevant to a tiny percentage of the world
| population, those who already have large homes and large
| incomes. Same goes for giving up/cutting down on air travel -
| the majority don't fly at all, or very infrequently.
|
| And no, before you suggest it, society at large is not
| prepared to stop eating meat, and even less prepared to also
| give up dairy products.
|
| What's left, other than the choice to not reproduce (and iif
| that's the expected action, who or what are we 'saving the
| planet' for?). Or the choice to commit suicide right now to
| make an infinitessimally small contribution to saving the
| beachfront mansions of the ultra-rich from the rising seas?
| qtzaz wrote:
| [flagged]
| hinkley wrote:
| Every year we find out the guys yelling about this in the 80's
| were not wrong.
| indymike wrote:
| Having been there in the 80s I seem to recall the fear was
| global cooling, and that we'd all be dead before the turn of
| the century. Glad they were wrong then. Hopefully, we're
| wrong now.
| [deleted]
| mikestew wrote:
| What's the saying, "if you remember the 80s, you weren't
| really there, man"? Or maybe it was the 60s. Anyway I, too,
| was there and despite trying desperately to forget the
| popular music of that era, I am quite confident that your
| recollection is wrong as it pertains to climate change. No,
| you only _think_ you remember that Time magazine cover.
| musictubes wrote:
| It's behind a paywall but here is an article from a 1958
| issue of Harpers discussing a pair of scientists, Ewing
| and Donn, had a theory about how the last ice age was
| caused by melting arctic ice. They were primarily trying
| to figure out what would cause the ocean to heat up so
| much so quickly.
|
| https://harpers.org/archive/1958/09/the-coming-ice-age/
|
| I have a distinct memory of my "science" textbook in 2nd
| grade circa 1981 had a section on the upcoming ice age.
| Once I realized that the book was old enough to not
| include the moon landing I didn't pay much attention to
| it.
|
| In any case, the idea about an impending ice age was in
| the science zeitgeist, at least the layman understanding
| of it well before the 80s.
| hinkley wrote:
| My recollection was that the warming guys spent the 70's
| trying to figure out how to be coherent, and at the first
| sign of the solar epicycle going the other way, a bunch
| of whataboutists started clanging the bell about climate
| cooling they could drown out the warming people.
|
| And it mostly worked.
|
| The first time I was ever mad about politics was in grade
| school, when some fake magazine for kids (probably one of
| the ads from Scholastic) had an interview with Ronald
| Reagan, and what the interviewer thought kids needed to
| know about Reagan was how crazy he was for jelly beans.
|
| If I had known the phrase, "What in the actual fuck?" I
| would have said it out loud.
|
| It would be 6 more years before someone summed up how
| terrifying the 1980's were and that man's name was Phil
| Collins (Genesis, Land of Confusion). But those bases
| were already loaded with... well, take your pick. You can
| go with Michael Keaton Movies about the crumbling economy
| or West German rock bands with a sprinkling of Sting
| ('Russians') while we all collectively crossed our
| fingers that we wouldn't wake up on The Day After.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| What science was the fear of global cooling based on?
| pulvinar wrote:
| Most people then thought of nuclear winter as more
| likely.
|
| In the Fort Worth Star Telegram, 27 Sep 1981, is the
| article "World's mercury inching upward", discussing the
| science which wouldn't look out of place today. But it
| wasn't until the end of the 80s that the US government
| started to take it seriously.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| Unfortunately nuclear winter is still more likely, and
| that likelihood grows with each passing day.
| jeffbee wrote:
| None. There was not ever widespread anticipation of
| global cooling. There was one (1) mass-market magazine
| article about it that the dupes of fossil fuel propaganda
| campaigns have been pointing to for years. Rush Limbaugh
| talked about it constantly in the 1990s, then someone
| photoshopped up a bunch of fake magazine covers
| supposedly from the 1970s and your uncle, who is an
| idiot, has been forwarding those to everyone since.
|
| The only underlying science was some debate about whether
| air pollution, the kind you can see and scrape off your
| skin, was going to be so bad that it would offset the
| greenhouse effect. But Nixon effectively ended that
| debate with the Clean Air Act.
| musictubes wrote:
| Maybe it didn't catch on and it certainly seems to have
| been disproven but there was some serious scientific
| discussion about an upcoming ice age.
|
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/1756074
|
| I mentioned it in an earlier comment but it was also in
| my science textbook in my elementary school days.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| My understanding is that we currently reside in an inter-
| glacial period within the ice age. If humanity has
| already engineered the climate of the Earth enough to
| exit the ice age, then that's quite an accomplishment.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| There was more than one mass-market magazine article.
| There were no mass-market magazine cover stories, and yes
| there are fakes going around of those. There were also
| newspaper articles on it regularly throughout the 1970's.
| As well as numerous works of science fiction, and TV
| episodes like "in Search of...The Coming Ice Age" from
| 1978 narrated by Leonard Nimoy:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kGB5MMIAVA.
|
| The science it was based on, of course, was the fact that
| ice ages are cyclical and we are well towards what would
| typically be the end of an interglacial period:
|
| "the last four interglacials lasted over ~20,000 years
| with the warmest portion being a relatively stable period
| of 10,000 to 15,000 years duration. This is consistent
| with what is seen in the Vostok ice core from Antarctica
| and several records of sea level high stands. These data
| suggest that an equally long duration should be inferred
| for the current interglacial period as well. Work in
| progress on Devils Hole data for the period 60,000 to
| 5,000 years ago indicates that current interglacial
| temperature conditions may have already persisted for
| 17,000 years."
|
| -- https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-long-can-we-expect-
| present-int...
|
| You also had the fact that some of the coldest (and
| snowiest) winters on record in the US were during the
| 1970's, most notably during 1977 when it snowed in Miami
| and the Bahamas for the only time in recorded history,
| and temperatures in much of the midwest stayed below
| freezing for over a month. So of course articles about a
| new ice age would attract readers, even though any return
| to ice age conditions would happen over centuries, if it
| wasn't disrupted by humans.
|
| It really was a lot of snow though, we were out of school
| for like two weeks in the spring of 1978.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Interestingly, 1980 was the hottest year recorded up to
| that point. I'll probably never forget that now that I
| mentioned it to my mom, and she remembered it being super
| hot because she backed her car into a tree while trying
| to park in the shade to escape it and that burned it into
| her memory.
| theChaparral wrote:
| Think the OP misremembered it, It wasn't global cooling
| in the 80's it was nuclear winter.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter
| hinkley wrote:
| No there was some global cooling whataboutism going on in
| the late 70's early 80's, but I didn't hear much about it
| until the late 90's, when we started talking about the 33
| year solar cycle.
| michael1999 wrote:
| The first UN climate treaty was signed in 1992. This is not
| new stuff.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Co
| n...
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Your recollection is incorrect. Concern about global
| cooling peaked in the '70s, and even then was still a
| minority position in the scientific community compared with
| concern about warming. In the '80s, cooling concerns were
| related to hypothetical scenarios like nuclear winter.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling#1980s
| joelfried wrote:
| Every year we find out the guys in their 80s running the
| country don't care because they'll be dead soon.
| yongjik wrote:
| Meh, the majority of people buying SUVs and flying for
| vacation aren't in their 80s ...
| asmor wrote:
| We got surprisingly close, so close that Exxon had a
| division on renewable energy in the 80s (but then decided
| to spend that money on lobbying and disinformation
| instead).
|
| Climate Town has a great video essay on it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MondapIjAAM
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Can you cite any accurate prediction about 2023 made by
| climate alarmists in the 1980s?
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| > Can you cite any accurate prediction about 2023 made by
| climate alarmists in the 1980s?
|
| https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_ha02700w.p
| d...
|
| Feel free to superimpose today's data[1] on Figure 3 from
| the above report. Link to the CSV file is here [2] to save
| you some time with the analysis. Some discussion here [3]
| (2007). Seems to me that if you compare against the most
| recent data, scenario B ("the most plausible" of 3
| scenarios) is pretty close to dead-on.
|
| [1] https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4/graph_data
| /Glob...
|
| [2] https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4/
|
| [3] https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/
| hanse...
| [deleted]
| RC_ITR wrote:
| Can you cite any accurate predictions about 2023 by climate
| denialists in the 80's?
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Well no, it's tautological that predictions made by
| alarmists are inaccurate. Otherwise they wouldn't be
| alarmists.
|
| Here's how various models made during the 80s fared though:
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-
| climate-m...
|
| Not unreasonably badly really. On the other hand I haven't
| really seen evidence from what I've heard from various far-
| right figures of a sudden shift to global cooling. If
| anything I've heard arguments shift from "global warming
| isn't happening" which has been a minority position for al
| long time largely propped up by Exxon and co, towards
| "peoples models of how climate change will impact the
| economy are wrong" and "it's easier to adapt to climate
| change than move away from fossil fuels".
| slashdev wrote:
| All of which amounts to sticking one's fingers in one's
| ears and saying don't try to change me followed by a
| bunch of of neeeneer neeners.
|
| I kid, but I guess that is what's at the root of it. A
| fear of change and wanting to believe it isn't so,
| because then there's no need for change.
|
| The whole attitude is foreign to me, because I believe in
| following the evidence wherever it takes me, no matter
| how frightening I find it. It would be easier if I could
| believe the comforting lie sometimes.
| jackmott wrote:
| [dead]
| hinkley wrote:
| [flagged]
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| > You want a citation? Look around.
|
| I'm looking around. Can you show me someone from 1980
| predicting what I see now? And I'm not talking about
| predictions about predictions about 2066. I'm asking for
| some 1980s predictions about the climate in 2023 that can
| be trivially shown to be accurate by looking at data like
| average temperature over the last year, or sea levels
| today compared to in 1980.
| jackmott wrote:
| [dead]
| Insanity wrote:
| What is that laser reference about?
| klyrs wrote:
| One of the first results for "Jewish space laser":
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/01/30/did-rep-
| mar...
|
| She says she didn't mean for it to be antisemitic.
| Doesn't walk back the space laser conspiracy theory,
| though.
|
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/marjorie-taylor-
| gree...
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| I have decided to hedge my bets on a long life by smoking one
| cigarette a day.
| milesskorpen wrote:
| This is not accurate.
|
| Renewable energy is growing faster than expected, and
| population growth is slowing faster than expected. We do not
| appear to be on track to meet worst cases scenarios from the
| IPCC. Note that I'm not saying there won't be/aren't harms,
| just that the rate of change does not seem to be accelerating.
| jshen wrote:
| Is there data showing that the greenhouse gases in the
| atmosphere are declining or plateauing? If not, aren't you
| wrong?
|
| Edit: here's a graph. I see no reason to feel optimistic.
| https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions
| wilg wrote:
| I mean you can see it plateauing in that data. Feels good
| to me!
| thriftwy wrote:
| How is that solar shade coming along?
| thriftwy wrote:
| Seriously though, I always post this comment and get
| downvotes.
|
| Are we going to see any realistic solutions to climate
| change, the ones which do not expose you as a religious
| person who want to flagellate themself and still be a sinner?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| No. There will be no solutions. Those who can afford to
| will take measures to maintain their quality of life, those
| who can't will suffer.
|
| This might change in a decade or two due to electorate and
| therefore representation turnover. Until then, you're on
| your own.
|
| Edit: @thriftwy reply here because of comment throttling
|
| Will they though? Sounds like those folks are uniquely
| positioned to take the brunt of climate change. Hard to say
| who is going to a) still be living and b) have power that
| far out into the future.
|
| Long story short, do what you can with what you have where
| you are while staying emotionally healthy and grounded.
| That's all that really can be done imho. Take care.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Why all the endless bother across all Western media then?
|
| In a decade or two, most of world's electorate, in terms
| of energy production and manufacturing production
| capacity, will be people from China, India, Bangladesh,
| Indonesia, Brazil and the like. Iran, Uzbekistan and
| Tunisia. Maybe Nigeria or Congo. You will have to start
| climate change debate afresh because post-christian
| flagellation is starting on a seriously wrong foot when
| talking to these people (to whom I am not a complete
| stranger). The audience who is now receptive to climate
| change talks will be largely irrelevant.
| wilg wrote:
| Seems like it's actually decelerating (or at least not
| accelerating), both global temperature and greenhouse
| emissions?
|
| https://climate.nasa.gov/
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions
| Daishiman wrote:
| I continue to find it amazing that the destruction of the
| biosphere that supports human life as we know it barely makes the
| news.
| pkulak wrote:
| "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his
| salary depends upon his not understanding it."
| Proven wrote:
| [dead]
| RGamma wrote:
| And even worse, it barely makes the news when it concerns _us_.
| The stark reduction in ecosystem complexity and loss of animal
| life ( "Holocene extinction") is much more concerning to me.
| Even though some may call it aesthetics, but that's pretty
| cruel in its shallowness. "Half of the world's habitable land
| is used for agriculture"... https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
| myshpa wrote:
| Agriculture production as a major driver of the Earth system
| exceeding planetary boundaries
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320356605_Agricultu.
| ..
|
| And animal agriculture is the biggest culprit of them all ...
| but suggest that people should switch to plant based diets,
| and even climate activists will want to stone you.
|
| People are the primary cause of climate change. We all want
| it to change, but too few wants to change.
| pengaru wrote:
| Humans don't naturally have glacial attention spans, pun
| intended.
|
| The disaster is too slow-moving for human time scales to
| prepare for until it's too late. And our current systems of
| business and government aren't covering this natural blind spot
| when they're similarly incentivized to focus on short-term
| results/re-election.
|
| On a lighter note, watch Invader Zim's Walk For Your Lives [0]
| episode which cleverly speaks to this problem in the subtext.
|
| [0] https://zim.fandom.com/wiki/Walk_for_Your_Lives
| version_five wrote:
| The doomsday cult approach doesn't work. People wear out very
| quickly from having imminent destruction that never
| materializes pushed on them. Whatever one's position on what we
| should be doing about climate change, it should be obvious that
| regular alarmism is not the way to get people to do stuff.
| Daishiman wrote:
| The destruction is quite evidently materializing all over the
| world with new heat and drought records being broken
| constantly. A this point some people are actively refusing to
| see it.
| chasd00 wrote:
| The problem is timescale, the drought in California was
| pointed to as an example of a climate change disaster but
| now it's just about over. Over time the droughts and
| heatwaves will get worse and worse but human brains aren't
| geared to think on those timescales.
|
| Look at the changes in one year from the link below. https:
| //droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonito...
| version_five wrote:
| Are you advocating for just more alarmism then?
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| There are heat waves and droughts but food production has
| tripled over the last half century, and the only thing I
| have ever seen during that period that kept the grocery
| store shelves from being fully stocked for more than a few
| days has been a pandemic.
| tyfon wrote:
| Most people are not capable seeing longer than the tip of their
| nose as we say in Norway.
|
| It is also very unpopular to tell people that they need to
| change.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| People are not stupid but they also know that promises around
| benefits in the more distant future (50 to 100 years!) might
| never materialize. The physics don't even need to be in
| dispute for that. This all points to geoengineering at some
| point from a sociopolitical perspective.
| nomel wrote:
| > It is also very unpopular to tell people that they need to
| change.
|
| Part of the problem is that the things a person can do are
| almost entirely negligible, compared to industry, or require
| systematic changes of how housing, cities, and jobs are
| structured, which isn't something an individual can really
| influence.
| ognarb wrote:
| I disagree. The industry is a big emitter of co2 but they
| obly respond to demand from consumer. The oil industry
| would not pollute as much if nobody was driving a car or
| flying. The meat industry would not pollute as much if we
| weren't eating as much meat. It's a society problem but
| unfortunately unless you force people to change their
| habits I don't see this changing.
| eecc wrote:
| Lots of people are calling for WFH and legitimization of
| remoting. Alas, it seems to be a matter of monkey power,
| and the managers want you to burn tons of fuel to sit
| your butt in the chains they provide and smell his
| armpits from a distance.
|
| _shrug_
| redprince wrote:
| Whatever a single person does is except for a few cases
| negligible. The problems arise when a lot of people buy
| manufactured goods without regard for the consequences. The
| problems arise when a lot of people consume meat and thus
| create a huge demand for it. Or think that their own house
| in some sprawling suburb was always their dream and now
| they require a car too, because of poor public transport.
|
| People vote for all this with their life choices, by what
| they consume and literally at the ballot box. Saying
| otherwise is just a popular way to deny responsibility and
| the individual need to change.
| [deleted]
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Another part of the problem is it means telling people to
| do the opposite of "keeping up with the Joneses".
| trgn wrote:
| This is why we need taboo-formation around
| environmentally damaging behaviors and nurture virtuous
| aspirations towards environmentally responsible spending.
|
| That is, if it means riding your bike to work, or it is a
| shift in ostentatious spending, from e.g. square footage
| to bespoke furniture, keeping up with the joneses can
| actually be an excellent forcing function.
|
| e.g. new england puritans were (are (?)) famously keeping
| up with the joneses by not buying flashy, wasteful
| things.
|
| Similar mindsets - that are environmentally responsible -
| need to take hold (and can take hold. be that example.)
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Even friends of mine who are otherwise very conscious about
| social issues ignore climate change or push it all the way
| down. People seem to think corporations need to change and
| anything to suggest they need to change their lifestyle is
| basically drowned in cognitive dissonance. There's also a
| significant amount of e we h as whataboutism even here in HN.
| Meat & dairy, car culture, fast fashion, consumerism
| especially that of low quality goods, travel, ...etc are all
| things that could change or adapt. I just don't see that
| happening.
| jshen wrote:
| Sadly, after seeing so many deny the threat of covid as it
| was killing hundreds of thousands, I'm not sure people are
| capable of seeing the tip of their nose.
| haizhung wrote:
| You'd have to think that this is by design.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| The truth is more depressing - it isn't by design at all,
| it's by default- we ignore complex problems until they are
| existential threats. It's not a problem unique to modern
| society, it's just that our problems are much bigger now and
| approach faster. Our monkey brains and monkey social systems
| aren't equipped to handle these sorts of problems well.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I think our monkey brains are not that bad on their own.
| Meanwhile when influenced by capitalism...
| padjo wrote:
| Capitalism only exists in our monkey brains.
| hn_version_0023 wrote:
| It's seemed very clear to me the media seem to be positioning
| humanity for one last all-out war before the ecosystem
| collapses.
| Proven wrote:
| [dead]
| noiv wrote:
| Imagine some unstoppable force raises the water levels in your
| appartement by 1mm per year - starting next year.
|
| You'll probably buy rubber boots first week in January.
|
| When do you migrate?
| labster wrote:
| When the hurricane's storm surge enters your house. For now,
| the bigger coastal threat is from a longer, stronger tropical
| cyclone season. Moving extrema are always what you notice
| first.
| lisasays wrote:
| Not to minimize, but to put in perspective (from the article):
|
| _But because the world 's oceans are so huge, the melt just from
| the ice sheets since 1992 still only adds up to a little less
| than inch (21 millimeters) of sea level rise, on average.
| Globally sea level rise is accelerating and melt from ice sheets
| has gone from contributing 5% of the sea level rise to now
| accounting for more than one-quarter of it, the study said. The
| rest of the sea rise comes from warmer water expanding and melt
| from glaciers._
|
| Though they're happy to call this "devastating", and it sure does
| sound bad -- that label by itself isn't helpful, because it
| doesn't tell what danger we're facing and how much time we have
| to brace for it.
|
| That is -- it's sounding the alarm, without providing specifics
| as to what even the approximate level of danger to anyone's
| survival is, in real terms. Which probably has a lot to do with
| why this stuff barely gets reported, and why people mostly shrug
| when they hear about it (on top of the psychological and other
| sources of denial).
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Fresh water melt-off isn't about rising sea levels, at least
| not in the short term, it's about the shutdown of ocean
| circulation.
|
| The repercussions are basically an increase in warming and a
| decrease in sea-life. The effects of these will be more
| temperamental weather, and less fish to eat.
|
| https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-ocean-circulat...
|
| Mechanism: > The conveyor is driven by the descent of cold,
| salty water to the ocean floor in just two places: in the far
| North Atlantic near Greenland and in the Southern Ocean around
| Antarctica. In both regions, the mechanism is the same. In cold
| polar conditions, large volumes of water freeze. The salt in
| the water is not incorporated into the ice. It remains in the
| residual liquid water, which grows ever saltier. The saltier
| water becomes, the denser it becomes. So the residue is heavier
| than surrounding water and eventually sinks to the ocean floor.
|
| Consequence: > If there was no new deep water plunging to the
| ocean depths, however, there would be nothing to bring the
| nutrients back to the surface. Instead, the waters of the deep
| ocean would accumulate nutrients and become stagnant, while the
| supply of nutrients to sustain marine life at the surface would
| be drastically reduced, says one of the paper's co-authors,
| Adele Morrison of the Australian National University. Marine
| ecosystems could collapse. This would not happen instantly. It
| might take centuries, but once in train could not be prevented.
|
| Consequence: > A shutdown would also accelerate global warming,
| says Rahmstorf. "The deep-water formation sites are conduits
| where carbon dioxide is brought down to the ocean abyss, where
| it is locked away safely from the atmosphere for centuries
| [and] currently helps slow down global warming. However, this
| mechanism is set to be weakened." The IPCC estimates that the
| oceans altogether capture a quarter of our CO2 emissions, much
| of it through deep-water formation.
| lisasays wrote:
| Thank you - that was infinitely more helpful than the
| original article.
|
| And I am now suitably terrified.
| besoafraid wrote:
| well the conclusion is always the same and the authors work
| backwards from it so that they can receive funding, and it
| benefits them and the politicians who give them funding if
| you remain terrified, so that seems like it's working as
| intended
|
| the GP makes a bunch of assumptions about systems that
| science barely has any understanding of
|
| maybe in order to survive life will have to return to a
| pre-industrial state, but if that's the case and you think
| "humanity needs to act now" the only thing you could be
| possibly advocating for is genocide.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > well the conclusion is always the same
|
| From the link I posted:
|
| > Meanwhile the long-standing concern about a shutdown of
| the ocean circulation in the North Atlantic sometime in
| the 21st century appears to be subsiding. A Swiss
| study[1] published this month found that, contrary to
| past belief, the circulation did not fail at the end of
| the last ice age, suggesting, the researchers say, that
| it was more stable than previously supposed, and less
| likely to collapse. [1] - https://www.unibe.ch/news/media
| _news/media_relations_e/media...
|
| We're figuring this out all the time. We know change is
| happening because of human action. We know this will
| alter the status quo. For greenhouse gases we know this
| will involve general global temperature increases.
| Figuring out the precise results takes some work.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Global average rise seems like an uninteresting point. We
| recently read that on the highly populated US Gulf Coast, sea
| level rise was +5 inches since 2010, which is rather a lot.
| These are rates that amount to a noticeable difference in one
| lifetime.
| billiam wrote:
| Very much so. Sea level has actually been falling on the
| coast of Greenland, for example, due to the gravitational
| effect of ice melting along with crustal rebound. But all
| that water has to go somewhere, and along low lying coastal
| areas like Florida, it will rise a lot.
| zw123456 wrote:
| I know I have said this before on here, but when I was in college
| in the 1970's... yes, I am and old fucker. I lived in a co-op
| house and there was this guy that was studying environmental
| science, which was a new thing back then. He explained global
| warming to me, the whole Co2 thing etc. I listened, and I said, I
| am sure that we will do something before then. that will address
| it. He was predicting exactly what has happened. It's not a new
| idea or a surprise, it's the classic frog in the pan of boiling
| water. I was wrong, no one has done anything. Or certainly not
| enough. Listen to the scientists.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Climate scientist's journal, October 12th, 2045.
|
| Broken AC unit in alley this morning. Ambient temperature burst
| coolant loop. This city's afraid of tomorrow. I've seen its
| true face. The streets are extended beaches and the beaches are
| full of plastic and when the seas finally rise all the vermin
| will drown. The accumulated filth of all their emissions and
| pollution will foam up about their waists and all the deniers
| and oil execs will look up and shout 'SAVE US!'...and I'll look
| down and whisper 'No.'
| moltar wrote:
| So it got worse in the last couple of years just as the whole
| world was on pause. So maybe it's not caused by humans then?
| wilg wrote:
| Any intellectually honest person should be able to spot the
| flaws in your reasoning here.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Are people already selling land inland and advertise it as future
| waterfront?
| chimpanzee wrote:
| Jokes aside, I suspect future waterfronts would be unstable and
| potentially toxic, due to shifting land caused by the weight of
| the water, erosion from the flow, and landslides from weather
| and vegetation loss.
|
| On top of that, toxicity may be an issue in some areas as the
| water overcomes man made structures (eg roadways and basements)
| and systems (eg sewage and fuel delivery) that were never
| intended to come into contact with water.
|
| But still...someone will market it.
| Karellen wrote:
| Costa del Lex, Luthorville, Marina del Lex, Otisburgh...
| Otisburgh?! OTISBURGH?!!
| merpnderp wrote:
| Blame those who chose coal over nuclear in the 70's. That choice
| killed millions from air pollution, gave us global warning, and
| stole a future of cheap plentiful energy.
| madman2890 wrote:
| Alaska will soon be the most desirable state to live in.
| aurizon wrote:
| I have speculated that the fracturing as well of the melting of
| the Greenland ice sheet could lead to large area ice slide-offs?
| I am not sure how rough the underlying terrain is, but I expect
| millions of years of abrasion by stone in ice might lead to this
| occuring in some areas? Ice is structurally weak, so any motion
| embodying fracture would break it into ice boulders/gravel - none
| of these scenarios look at all good - how likely are they?
| moffkalast wrote:
| Good timing, the Gulf Stream shutdown will be the only thing
| preventing Europe from burning to ashes in the coming heat waves.
| labster wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the 'thermo' part of the thermohaline
| circulation is going to dominate.
| masklinn wrote:
| Would it? My understanding was that the Gulf Stream shutting
| down would make European climate a lot more extreme, more
| similar to norther US and Canada.
|
| And "not burning to ashes" is something Canada has been
| failing.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| There are now predictions that the Gulf Stream won't shut down,
| but the Antarctic equivalent may, which would be just as bad.
|
| https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-ocean-circulat...
|
| > Meanwhile the long-standing concern about a shutdown of the
| ocean circulation in the North Atlantic sometime in the 21st
| century appears to be subsiding. A Swiss study[1] published
| this month found that, contrary to past belief, the circulation
| did not fail at the end of the last ice age, suggesting, the
| researchers say, that it was more stable than previously
| supposed, and less likely to collapse. [1] -
| https://www.unibe.ch/news/media_news/media_relations_e/media...
|
| > A new analysis by Australian and American researchers, using
| new and more detailed modeling of the oceans, predicts that the
| long-feared turn-off of the circulation will likely occur in
| the Southern Ocean, as billions of tons of ice melt on the land
| mass of Antarctica. And rather than being more than a century
| away, as models predict for the North Atlantic, it could happen
| within the next three decades.
|
| > It predicts a 42 percent decline in deep-water formation in
| the Southern Ocean by 2050. This is more than twice the 19
| percent they predict for an equivalent event in the North
| Atlantic.
|
| > And after 2050, their model predicts that things will get
| even worse. Deep-water formation "looks headed towards collapse
| this century," the coordinator of the study, Matthew England of
| the University of New South Wales, told Yale Environment 360.
| "And once collapsed, it would most likely stay collapsed until
| Antarctic melting stopped. At current projections that could be
| centuries away."
| GiorgioG wrote:
| The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
|
| Nobody cares. We're too busy trying to get through our lives. No,
| I'm not a climate change denier, I'm a climate-change not-care-
| er. I keep my heat/AC where I'm comfortable. I drive a large
| comfortable ICE vehicle. Would I buy an EV, solar panel roof,
| home backup batteries - if they were cheap and as convenient as
| what I have today? you bet. Persuade me with things that make my
| life easier, or cost me less than what I have today.
| monktastic1 wrote:
| > Nobody cares.
|
| Actually, a lot of people care. It's just easier to pretend
| that it's "nobody" so that you can maintain the philosophy that
| your personal comfort is what matters most in this world.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Nowhere near enough people care to make a difference. Almost
| nobody's gonna drastically alter their lifestyles for the
| sake of the climate.
|
| The only way things get better is via technology that allows
| people to use the same amount of energy in ways that are less
| destructive. Anything else is fighting against human nature
| and wasting your breath.
| timeon wrote:
| Average climate-change denier in Slovakia produces less CO2
| emissions than concerned person in US. So apparently there
| are ways.
|
| Human nature is irrelevant. If not, it will be one day.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Sure. And that's even more true in Afghanistan. Doesn't
| mean the American is gonna be interested in living like
| that.
|
| > Human nature is irrelevant.
|
| Nope. If your plan is to make people do what they don't
| want, instead of making what they want tolerable, you've
| already lost.
|
| >If not, it will be one day.
|
| Definitely nope. Climate change will change a lot of
| things, but even in the most extreme projections, it
| doesn't come anywhere close to wiping us out.
| ragingrobot wrote:
| > Actually, a lot of people care.
|
| I can see where a lot more people than we care to believe
| follow a philosophy in the same vain as that which was
| stated. Go ahead, do a survey and I bet you get a lot of "I
| care about climate change," but who's telling the truth and
| who's just trying not to look like a selfish a-hole? More
| people will lie, saying they care than will admit the truth
| and say they don't care.
| waboremo wrote:
| The people actually trying to just get through their lives are
| going to be the ones hardest hit (as they have been for years
| now) so don't play that card. You know the people who are
| making all those "cheaper" things for you to comfortably exist?
| The reason you can even afford AC?
|
| This also assumes prices will get cheaper, they will not.
| Climate change will cause prices to increase.
|
| It's shocking how little foresight people have about this. You
| don't have to start screaming in the streets - but to publicly
| proclaim you have zero empathy... and so proudly too.
| [deleted]
| allemagne wrote:
| The average person concerned about the climate is probably not
| too far away from this, realistically.
|
| Everyone doesn't have to be an activist or even perform outrage
| (for whatever marginal benefit that has to the cause), but if
| you're not willing to accept some level of inconvenience then
| that is a little abhorrent.
| gjm11 wrote:
| Well, then, congratulations on being smugly selfishly
| indifferent to everything other than your own convenience. But
| I don't understand why you expect anyone _else_ to be
| interested in your lack of interest.
| pseg134 wrote:
| You were interested enough to respond and so were many
| others. Seems like an interesting comment.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| It's your choice not to care, and reality's choice to ignore
| you not caring - and to steamroller your dreams of a
| comfortable life as if your existence is an irrelevance.
|
| Which on a planetary scale, it very much is.
|
| Don't bet against reality. Reality doesn't care what you want.
| You will _always_ lose.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Willingness to make personal sacrifices in order to benefit the
| greater ecosystem is what separates the weak from the strong.
| Hedonism is a copout.
| jnmandal wrote:
| > The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
|
| > Nobody cares. We're too busy trying to get through our lives.
| No, I'm not a climate change denier, I'm a climate-change not-
| care-er. I keep my heat/AC where I'm comfortable. I drive a
| large comfortable ICE vehicle. Would I buy an EV, solar panel
| roof, home backup batteries - if they were cheap and as
| convenient as what I have today? you bet. Persuade me with
| things that make my life easier, or cost me less than what I
| have today.
|
| This is the perfect demonstration of the type of attitude that
| is pervasive among the high energy use, heavy emission segments
| of humanity. Most people simply do not like to face the
| consequences of their actions; they believe their lives must be
| constantly made easier and more comfortable as part of
| modernity, progress, human development -- whatever you want to
| call it.
|
| As became evident in the last few years, its far too late to
| avoid the effects of climate change. Now its a question of how
| bad it will get. Well as long as this is the prevailing
| attitude (and while I have no source to say it is, I feel this
| to be so), we are ensured to have no short term solutions; so
| we can count on a future with intermittent catastrophe.
|
| What I find most interesting about this wicked problem is that
| its loudest proponents also make themselves doubly vulnerable
| by emphasizing the importance of individualism and downplaying
| the need for communal response. So its interesting to me to see
| at what threshold the "make my life easier", "I want a big
| pickup truck", "I deserve comfort" sentiment starts to be the
| driver of demanding assistance for natural disasters, drought,
| famine, etc. We are already seeing it happen in parts of the US
| southwest, in south florida, and to some extent in the
| California central valley.
|
| Anyways, I would argue its wrong when people describe climate
| change as a technical or scientific problem. As we can see, its
| very much a social and cultural issue -- maybe secondarily an
| economic one. I think the above sentiment provably captures
| that.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| It's your pejorative to not care. It is essentially a fact that
| barring some sort of societal sanction, that there isn't any
| personal benefit in "going green", because there is significant
| personal downside to doing so but an insignificant personal
| benefit to the climate. Even if we could argue that a world
| where everybody reduced their emissions would be better for
| your self-interest than a world where nobody did, you seem keen
| on not personally reducing your emissions anyways so long as
| you aren't forced to in favour of rational self-interest.
|
| Potentially one could convince you to favour forcing everybody
| (yourself included) to reduce emissions, but this seems
| unlikely when you start off a post with a mocking "the sky is
| falling!" with a middle of "I drive a large car and keep the
| heat comfortable" and end it with "convince me". Why would it
| be in anybodies strategic interest to convincing somebody
| openly hostile who affirms a minority position? It's more time-
| efficient to convince other people to use force against parties
| that you rely on for goods and services, as well as you
| directly.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| I was going to correct your usage of pejorative with
| perogative and found out that I don't know how to spell
| prerogative.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-04-21 23:03 UTC)