[HN Gopher] Why climate 'doomers' are replacing climate 'deniers'
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Why climate 'doomers' are replacing climate 'deniers'
Author : tomrod
Score : 18 points
Date : 2023-05-13 19:07 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| [deleted]
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| There is a chance we are already doomed. We may have already hit
| a tipping point that'll trip other tipping points and things will
| get bad faster than the human race is capable, even on a good
| day, of overcoming.
|
| But even still, it doesn't really change what the best course of
| action is.
|
| We should electrify everything, deploy renewables, EVs and heat
| pumps widely, tax carbon etc.
|
| We'll live happier, richer, healthier lives right up until when
| (if?) doom overtakes us.
|
| Feel free to be a doomer, but don't be a sucker and let yourself
| be manipulated by obvious lies.
| _hypx wrote:
| Doomerism is catching on because nearly none of those ideas are
| worth a damn. It's something of an subconscious realization
| that most environmentalists are not serious people, and most
| policies are intended to placate the electorate rather than
| solve anything.
|
| When we see a large scale push for more nuclear power, mass
| transit, opposition to car-centric neighborhoods, shifting of
| focus to stopping industrial emissions, acceptance of ideas
| like geoengineering, as well as various other "unacceptable"
| ideas, then we will have become serious about climate change.
| If we want to stop doomerism, we'll have to make a massive
| shift on how we view the problem. Until then, doomerism is a
| logical conclusion of how we're actually attempting to solve
| the problem.
| htss2013 wrote:
| You're right that it's a logical conclusion given what's
| actually happening, but your examples aren't the reasons why
| people are starting to realize this.
|
| Eg, a mystery entity blew up the nord stream 2 pipeline and
| caused so much methane to be released, that years worth of
| past and future carbon progress have been erased.
|
| When people see that no one important cares about that
| because Russia is naughty, and people are still going on
| about your neighborhood design, what else is there to
| conclude?
| _hypx wrote:
| Why do you think Europe is importing so much natural gas in
| the first place? What Russia is doing is a symptom of the
| problem. It is not the problem.
| htss2013 wrote:
| What is the root problem that you think motivates Russia?
| _hypx wrote:
| Europe is buying Russia's natural gas. That is the root
| problem. In fact, with the shut downs of nuclear power,
| Europe is more dependent on natural gas and coal than it
| had been for decades.
| sillywalk wrote:
| The headline seems misleading, climate deniers are still around
| and blocking action, doomers aren't replacing them, they just
| think we're fucked no matter what we do at this point, leading to
| inaction.
|
| AIUI all emissions scenarios required a massive removal of
| BILLIONS TONNES of CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it
| somewhere. I imagine this will be a problem.
|
| Doomerism seems like blasphemy on a site for Techno Venture
| Capitalists :)
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| What's the thermo back-of-the-envelope calculation for, "here's
| the Gibbs free energy of the current atmospheric mixture;
| here's the same of a preindustrial atmosphere plus enough
| graphite to account for the carbon; here's the amount of energy
| it'd take to do the unmixing and shuffle the bonds around"? I
| just want some number of Joules.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| The atmosphere masses roughly 5.5x10^18 kg. Removing 140ppm
| to return to pre-industrial levels is 7.7x10^14kg of CO2 to
| split. 44g/mol and a Gibbs free energy of -394kJ/mol, and we
| need 6.5x10^21 joules, or 1.8 billion GWh. More or less dead
| on the energy in a trillion barrels of oil, or 10,000 1GW
| nuclear reactors working flat out for 20 years[1].
|
| Something on the order of 2003 estimates of global petroleum
| reserves and also gas reserves.[2]
|
| Sounds hopeless, but it's also a fraction of a percent of one
| year of total global insolation: about 12 hours' worth.[3]
|
| 1 trillion trees will also absorb roughly that much in about
| 30 years[4].
|
| So not completely beyond the scope of physically possible
| human endeavour, but also probably substantially larger than
| any previous single endeavour.
|
| [1]: in 2021, humanity operated 366 GW of installed nuclear
| capacity with 411 reactors. The line is currently going
| _down_ (2020 had 369 GW and 415 reactors).
|
| [2]: considering where the problematic carbon comes from,
| that's probably not a coincidental similarity!
|
| [3]: and that shows in solar installed capacity: about 1TWh.
| Build about 10 times more than _that_ , dedicate it all that
| new capacity to CO2 splitting, run it for 20 years, and party
| like it's 1499. It would need only 50 million acres: 10% of
| Saudi Arabia would do, or 1/3 of Texas.
|
| [4]: but the wood has to stay in the tree or otherwise not be
| burned or rotted. Obviously avoiding burning down what trees
| we already have is probably a good start.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I don't really think it's fair to say doomerism leads to
| inaction, I'm pretty sure inaction is the default state for
| 99.9% of people. Me for instance, I'm absolutely certain we're
| fucked but hey, if I hear that my government's getting serious
| I'll get serious too, but not a moment before because actually
| mitigating climate crisis at this point will take nothing short
| of fundamental revolution in our way of life.
| sillywalk wrote:
| I take essentially the same position.
| sph wrote:
| I am a climate doomer.
|
| Not being one means believing our institutions, politicians and
| corporations are a force for good. I would not trust anyone born
| after the 1970s that believes that's the case, because they're
| either frighteningly naive, borne from privilege or just lying to
| themselves.
|
| Oil companies with continue lobbying, politicians will continue
| to promise absolute nonsensical green dreams to get voted in,
| people will continue to vote the next guy in because he's gonna
| do something about it, and rinse and fucking repeat. In fact, the
| same applies to any major issue affecting the Western world.
|
| I am sure I am the minority and the lunatic here, but I do not
| trust anyone that does not see modern politics (which includes
| corporate capitalism and all that circus) as a net negative for
| humanity as a whole. We need action, yesterday, yet all we can do
| is tell Joe Average their steak is causing climate change, and
| Unilever will save us with their plant-based burger, with
| ingredients shipped from overseas because it's cheaper.
|
| But sure, the next party is definitely gonna do something about
| climate change. "It's just a matter of setting the right economic
| incentives," I can hear, over muffled laughter.
|
| _(I am aware I sound like a loon in this comment, but I am from
| the austerity and economic crisis generation, I have no belief
| whatsoever in our institutions.)_
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| Denial to doomer has long been projected as the progression the
| climate change "skeptics" would take, because their fundamental
| objective is to prevent any action from being taken so incumbent
| industries continue making money.
|
| 1. There is no climate change. 2. There is climate change but
| it's not caused by humans. 3. There is climate change and it's
| caused by humans but it's not bad for us. 4. There is climate
| change, and it's caused by humans, and it's bad for us, but it's
| too late to do anything.
| wilg wrote:
| Really enjoyed Noah Smith's argument against doomerism:
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/dont-be-a-doomer
| Devasta wrote:
| "For one thing, recent climate models have all but ruled out
| most of the worst-case scenarios for warming. Although it'll be
| very difficult to hold warming below the 1.5 degrees generally
| considered "safe", there's now a good chance that we can hold
| warming below the 2 degree level, which is around the point
| where words like "catastrophic" start to make sense:"
|
| The linked Twitter thread in the article suggests warming
| between 2.4 and 3 degrees.
|
| Noah Smith being relentlessly stupid is par for the course, but
| trying to prevent doomerism by suggesting "There is a decent
| chance civilization won't end in the next 100 years" is a bit
| much even for him.
| wilg wrote:
| The link you mention is in the first sentence and refers to
| "all but ruled out most of the worst-case scenarios". [0]
|
| The second sentence, about "a good chance that we can hold
| warming below the 2 degree level" links to a different tweet,
| with different data [1].
|
| I don't think there's any risk of "civilization ending" below
| 4 or 5 degrees.
|
| In the future, before calling someone "relentlessly stupid",
| you probably should check whether you've understood correctly
| what they're saying. But this is the sort of emotionally
| charged rhetoric that happens when people are primed for the
| apocalypse! That's why doomerism is a problem! It's
| cathartic, but not helpful.
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1425504599167827968
| [1] https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1465330361077018634
| nick_ wrote:
| I am a climate doomer. Not because I think it's a cool label to
| add to contrarian sensibilities, but because of this information:
| https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Being a doomer means thinking there is nothing we can do. In
| practice, it doesn't change much from denial: neither deniers
| no doomers will take action, the former because there is no
| need, the latter because it won't change anything.
|
| Thinking the future will be hard times no matter what, but that
| something can be done to make it survivable may be pessimistic,
| but it is not being a doomer.
| laratied wrote:
| [dead]
| hgsgm wrote:
| Sir Humprey's 4-Stage strategy to respond to a crisis.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak
|
| Stage 1: We say nothing is going to happen.
|
| Stage 2: We say something may be about to happen, but we should
| do nothing about it.
|
| Stage 3: We say maybe we should do something about it, but
| there's nothing we can do.
|
| Stage 4: We say maybe there was something, but it's too late now.
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