[HN Gopher] Major reversal in ocean circulation detected in the ...
___________________________________________________________________
Major reversal in ocean circulation detected in the Southern Ocean
Author : riffraff
Score : 441 points
Date : 2025-07-04 04:52 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.icm.csic.es)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.icm.csic.es)
| whatever1 wrote:
| That is the sh* that happens when we move the system too far away
| from its previous equilibrium. It might settle to a drastically
| different one that will decimate huge proportions of population.
| SlowTao wrote:
| The example I use is this. Falling of a building is harmless,
| standing on the ground is harmless. It is the transition that
| matters.
|
| I'm sure we can survive fairly reasonably in whatever climate
| we end up with in a few hundred/thousand years, but the gap in
| between is a really doozy. The stories and myths about the
| selfish people of our times will go on for millennia.
|
| It is the book series 'Carbon Ideologies' by William T
| Volleman, the opening few pages are written to those that read
| them in a few hundred years. Those that read these today are
| already convinced, those in the future will want answers. All
| he does is use examples of how we live to point out that we are
| not inherently evil, just looking out for our more immediate
| needs.
| hnarn wrote:
| > The stories and myths about the selfish people of our times
| will go on for millennia.
|
| Except there is nothing inherently more selfish about
| "people" today than at any point in history.
|
| If anything, it might change humanity's view of itself, and
| its capability to collectively handle major threats.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| I'm sure they'll be as forgiving as we are.
| mdiesel wrote:
| There are a couple of key differences that I think could
| lead to a shift towards selfishness.
|
| With the size of populations, there's less feeling of
| individual impact. If I don't do "my bit" then it's such a
| miniscule negative to society as a whole, it won't really
| matter.
|
| We have a relatively new economic principle that if
| everyone acts in their own best interests, that will also
| further society's interests. That means there's no moral
| choice between what benefits me and what benefits others, I
| can always pick what benefits me.
|
| These aren't universal, but are two simple reasons why
| selfishness could be more prevalent now than a lot of
| history.
| cyberlimerence wrote:
| Next up, AMOC collapse.
| SlowTao wrote:
| There was a report that said the AMOC could collapse between
| 2025 and 2075. That said the 2025 mark was said to be very
| unlikely, I hope it still is...
| csomar wrote:
| Can someone explain in simple terms what this means? Like what is
| happening (like am 5) and what are the consequences of this.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The consequences of the reversal of the current or the
| consequences of CO2 in the atmosphere doubling?
| notfed wrote:
| Yes
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| You get unreliable weather patterns . monsoon in dry places,
| and monsoon dependent countries falling dry..
|
| And thus unreliable investment, a house or factory might be
| flood prone in a dessert valley, a dam with power stations
| might fail to provide.
|
| So you have uninsureable riches, that might aswell no longer be
| there.
| signalToNose wrote:
| And as a consequence, massive migration from inhabitable
| regions. Hard to imagine the implication when there are
| billions of people affected
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| Not important, but I want to briefly point out as a Grammar
| Nazi that you mean _uninhabitable regions_. _Inhabitable_
| and _habitable_ mean the same and their opposites are
| _uninhabitable_ and _not habitable_. This is one of those
| bizarre oddities of the English language.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| would ainhabable or antiinhabable be correct ?
| sandbach wrote:
| No.
| lloeki wrote:
| Just for kicks: English | French
| --------------+------------ habitable |
| habitable inhabitable | habitable
| uninhabitable | inhabitable
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| What have the natural romanic languages ever done for
| sus?
| distortionfield wrote:
| Climate migration from South and Central America to North
| America has already started. If the US think they have an
| immigration problem right now, I can't imagine how vicious
| immigration propaganda is going to get when that number
| goes up by an order of magnitude.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| What you will get in a comment thread like this is wild
| speculative climate doomerism along with sarcastic remarks
| about how humans are ruining the planet. This is not the place
| for hard facts.
| UberFly wrote:
| I'll bet that while measuring CO2, the BEC and the ICM-CSIC will
| verify that the SMOC and the AMOC in the North Atlantic is not
| just weakening, but has reversed. This would be an interesting
| discovery. Truly.
| macartain wrote:
| And how much will you bet?
| ars wrote:
| If this is the very first time this part of the ocean has ever
| been imaged/studied, how do we know that this is unusual and not
| something that happens periodically?
| bronco21016 wrote:
| Exactly the same thought I had while reading the article. They
| mention multiple times this is the first time ever that they've
| been able to measure anything in this area. My take on science
| is that we need to measure for some period of time before we
| jump to conclusions about the normal state of affairs.
|
| This isn't to argue against climate change, but I think
| journalism like this only fuels skeptics.
| truculent wrote:
| Isn't the issue that historical data is consistent with the
| overturning model, which adds weight to our assumption that
| it has previously been stable. These new measurements (and
| observations?) are consistent with the overturning
| circulation weakening.
|
| I agree with you in principle - my impression (perhaps wrong
| - not an expert) was that there are additional data points
| supporting the idea of a consistent status quo.
| abhijat wrote:
| The article says that deep water is warmer, afaik deep water is
| colder and surface water is hotter
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upwelling)?
|
| A 2023 study
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230330102327.h...
| observed slowdown in Antarctic overturning, in which cold water
| sinks down at the south pole and then spreads north in the deeper
| parts of the ocean.
|
| The slowing of this process would cause deep ocean water to
| become warmer.
|
| edit: the publication linked in the article
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10.1073/pnas.2500440122 makes this
| a bit clearer:
|
| "In the polar Southern Ocean, cold, fresh surface waters overlay
| warmer, saltier deep waters (Fig. 2A). During winter, surface
| cooling and sea ice formation reduce stratification, allowing
| vertical mixing to transport heat upward, either melting sea ice
| from below or limiting its growth (8). However, decades of
| surface freshening strengthened stratification, trapping
| subsurface heat at depth, sustaining expanded sea ice coverage
| (7, 9) and limiting deep convection along with open-ocean
| polynyas (10). Here, we show that since 2015, these conditions
| have reversed: Surface salinity in the polar Southern Ocean has
| increased, upper-ocean stratification has weakened, sea ice has
| reached multiple record lows, and open-ocean polynyas have
| reemerged."
| jteg6886 wrote:
| Also this link explains the warmer deep water:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumpolar_deep_water
| user070223 wrote:
| In general at high enough depth the ocean temperature is
| constant[0]. At high latitude like the southern ocean it's
| constant at whatever depth. I think the surface ambient
| temperature is below(cooler) the temperature where the water
| density is the highest around 4 degrees for pure water(water
| has negative thermal expansion which causes it to expand and
| float!), for southern ocean salinity is between 33-34 and
| maximum density is below 0[1] but still ambient might be lower
| which means the colder water is lighter.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ThermoclineSeasonDepth.pn...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T-S_diagram.pdf
| SwtCyber wrote:
| That trapped warmth doesn't mean the deep water is "hot" in an
| absolute sense, just that it's saltier and denser and
| relatively warmer than the surface
| Modified3019 wrote:
| I'm reminded of how small changes in temperature can greatly
| effect the metabolism of things like crabs:
| https://www.globalseafood.org/advocate/noaa-confirms-link-be...
| taylorlapeyre wrote:
| The deep-ocean vent south of Antarctica is real but small, on the
| order of a few-tenths Pg C yr-1. The claim that it could double
| atmospheric CO2 exaggerates the flux by three orders of magnitude
| relative to observed values and known physical limits.
|
| The most optimistic estimate of deep-water outgassing south of 60
| deg S is 0.36 Pg C yr-1. Even if that rate tripled and persisted
| unabated, it would take more than 800 years to add 895 Pg C
| (which would be what it would require to justify the press
| release's claims of "doubling")
|
| What the salinity reversal can do is:
|
| - Expose ice shelves to warmer subsurface water, accelerating
| sea-level rise.
|
| - Reduce the Southern Ocean's role as a sink by a few tenths Pg C
| yr-1, nudging the global ocean sink (~2.7 Pg C yr-1) downward.
|
| - Perturb atmospheric circulation patterns, with knock-on effects
| for the Atlantic overturning (but those links remain
| speculative).
| ImaCake wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification, these click-bait titles pop up
| again and again around very interesting technical climate
| science, causing not only pointless panic but allowing
| denialists to drive doubt by pointing out the BS.
|
| Its doubly frustrating because these studies invariably
| indicate that climate change is happening, getting worse, and
| triggering feedback loops that amplify CO2.
| vixen99 wrote:
| I won't put words in your mouth but given what you say -
| doesn't this imply calamity? So how do we explain why Net
| Zero is essentially collapsing? Why do a number of countries
| say one thing and do another? There's certainly no consensus
| that survival is at stake.
| cedilla wrote:
| Isn't a bit premature to jump to "it's BS" just because one
| random commenter on some forum says it's wrong?
|
| Journalists make lots of mistake, and it's good to keep that
| in mind, but random people in forums are even worse.
| mturmon wrote:
| I read TFA and looked over the PNAS article
| (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2500440122) it is based
| on.
|
| I believe the deep-ocean vents you mention are beside the
| point. The article is discussing the upwelling of cold,
| CO2-rich water in the Southern Ocean - not emissions from
| vents.
|
| Also, it's worth noting that the PNAS article does not mention
| CO2 per se, only upwelling. The article summary of the press
| release does draw the CO2 connection.
|
| Besides the connections you mention, the PNAS article points
| out that this result illustrates that current models of
| ice/ocean interaction are not producing these observational
| trends.
| dang wrote:
| (This was originally a reply to
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44461309, but we
| downweighted that subthread. Since this is a fine comment, I
| detached it so it wouldn't share the same fate.)
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| As water is more dense than ice, wouldn't the sea level drop
| when the ice shelf melts?
| Matumio wrote:
| Only one way to find out... float some ice cubes in a glass
| of water and observe.
|
| (Edit: I'm back to report the results. There was either no
| change in the water level, or a change below my measurement
| tolerance ;)
|
| (Edit2: Here is a more serious take of that experiment:
| https://skepticalscience.com/Sea-level-rise-due-to-
| floating-...)
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| Ok that makes sense thanks.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| Floating ice will displace exactly as much water as it does
| when it melts to water. Ice that melts on a land mess such as
| Greenland and Antarctica will raise the ocean level when it
| melts.
| belorn wrote:
| Floating ice will actually increase the ocean a tiny bit as
| it melts into water because the ice has lower salinity than
| the ocean. Its comparable to around 3% of ice that melts on
| a land.
| Avshalom wrote:
| Not sea ice obviously but there are places where sea level is
| "dropping" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-
| glacial_rebound
| vertnerd wrote:
| Where, exactly, is this deep-ocean vent south of Antarctica. I
| checked my map but couldn't find anything south of Antarctica
| at all.
| cwmoore wrote:
| Northern Antarctica lol
| gus_massa wrote:
| Just to confirm, Does "Pg C yr-1" mean "Peta grams Carbon per
| Year"?
|
| It's the mass of only "C" or the mass of "CO2"? (There is like
| a x3 difference, 12 vs 44. Probably not very relevant, but I'd
| like to understand the meaning correctly.)
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| Be warned, this article is misleading. The actual scientific
| paper shows a salinity-driven weakening of stratification that
| likely allows more subsurface heat to reach the surface and melt
| sea ice. The article describes this as a complete overturning-
| circulation reversal with dire carbon release consequences. These
| are claims that the paper itself does not make or substantiate.
| The paper actually does not use the words carbon or CO2 even
| once. The authors of the article took such liberties with this
| that I really believe this should be considered disinformation.
| robk wrote:
| It doesn't reflect their existing views so many will pile on
| with glee sadly.
| panstromek wrote:
| Glad I'm not the only one to see the disconnect here. I thought
| I'm somehow missing rest of the paper text, it really doesn't
| say all that much compared to the article interpretation.
| ffwd wrote:
| No, the new algorithms used to be determine this was created by
| ICM-CSIC who are also the publishers of this article.
|
| Also the authors of the paper is involved with the article,
| there is for example this quote:
|
| "We are witnessing a true reversal of ocean circulation in the
| Southern Hemisphere--something we've never seen before,"
| explains Antonio Turiel, ICM-CSIC researcher and co-author of
| the study.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| >No, the new algorithms used to be determine this was created
| by ICM-CSIC who are also the publishers of this article.
|
| Where does it say this? Also, it doesn't matter what the co-
| author said, the study that he took part in literally does
| not support the statement.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| The article is about the overall findings and their
| implications, not just the specific paper istelf. Scientists
| will always be conservative in what they publish, scoping it
| down to the minimum interpretation that is supported by their
| evidence. The article directly interviews authors of the study
| and quotes them, eg:
|
| > We are witnessing a true reversal of ocean circulation in the
| Southern Hemisphere--something we've never seen before,"
| explains Antonio Turiel, ICM-CSIC researcher and co-author of
| the study.
|
| If you incorporate these statements it seems quite reasonable
| to me. You can argue with the author of the study saying that
| but I can't see an issue with an article reporting that they
| did, if that's what actually happened.
| nattopizza wrote:
| He's the only that says something that drastic in the
| article, and he's a physicist, not a climate scientist. The
| other two comments are from telecommunication engineers. I'd
| wait a bit to see what the general climate science community
| has to say about the study. Based solely on the facts
| reported in the paper I'd say the most worrying point is
| precisely that we don't know what's going on.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Something like this :
|
| https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/07/saltier-water-
| less-...
|
| (Though, to be fair, they are more on the doomer side.)
| nattopizza wrote:
| > You can argue with the author of the study saying that but
| I can't see an issue with an article reporting that they did,
| if that's what actually happened.
|
| I think that's kind of the point: nobody knows if that's what
| actually happened and the study doesn't show any information
| to support any specific theory. I could be that (though I
| think it would be unlikely as we'd have probably seen a real
| steady decline in the ice sheet and not an up and down up),
| something else that is still concerning but not as severe, or
| maybe something that we didn't now before and is not as
| concerning.
| GalacticDomin8r wrote:
| Your critique appears to mischaracterize both the article and
| how scientific communication works. The ICM-CSIC piece isn't
| "taking liberties". If you read the article you will find it is
| presenting direct quotes and interpretations from the actual
| researchers who conducted the study. When Antonio Turiel, a co-
| author of the PNAS paper, states "we're seeing that the SMOC is
| not just weakening, but has reversed," that's the research
| team's own assessment, not journalistic embellishment.
|
| It sounds like you really want the article to not discuss
| anything beyond anything explicit stated in the paper. I find
| that an incredibly bizarre desire which strengthens my
| impression of your comment as bad-faith. Research papers focus
| on presenting specific findings and data, while institutional
| communications appropriately discuss broader implications and
| potential consequences. This isn't misleading, it's how
| scientific discourse functions, AS INTENDED!
|
| The CO2 implications you dismiss aren't pulled out the
| article's author's behind. They come from researchers who
| understand their data and its significance for carbon cycling.
| Scientists routinely discuss the wider ramifications of their
| findings beyond what fits in a technical paper's scope. This is
| good, not misleading or disinformation.
|
| Labeling this "disinformation" is a smear of what appears to be
| legitimate scientific interpretation by the researchers
| themselves. There's a meaningful difference between debating
| the certainty or magnitude of predicted impacts and dismissing
| expert analysis as fabrication.
| anilakar wrote:
| > surface water is being replaced by deep water masses rising to
| the surface, bringing with them heat and carbon dioxide (CO2)
| that had been trapped for centuries.
|
| True or not, this will be yet another asset in the the climate
| change deniers' toolbox.
| SwtCyber wrote:
| If deep water is now rising and releasing centuries of stored
| CO2, we're talking about a major shift in Earth's climate
| plumbing. Also wild that this only became visible thanks to a
| novel satellite processor
| geysersam wrote:
| Why would the deep water have more dissolved CO2 than the
| surface water?
| bo0tzz wrote:
| The high pressure at depth allows it to dissolve more gas.
| justonceokay wrote:
| Exactly the same reason you coke can out-gasses when you open
| it
| pfdietz wrote:
| The Biological Pump. Organic matter created at the surface
| (by photoplankton and by consumers) falls into the deep
| ocean, where other biological processes oxidize it back to
| CO2.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_pump
| matt_s wrote:
| The fact that this was discovered by a novel satellite
| processor makes an uneducated person like me on this topic
| wonder if this has happened before and us humans just didn't
| have any way of observing it. We've only had satellites for a
| few decades and earth and its oceans have been here a while
| longer than that.
| Ringz wrote:
| Most climate research studies provide a range from optimistic to
| pessimistic outlooks on climate impacts. It would be interesting
| to know how the studies from the last 30 years have fared. I have
| the feeling that rather the pessimistic estimates have come to
| pass.
| exe34 wrote:
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-science-p...
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-uns-devastating-climate-...
|
| Old articles. Nowadays I'd say there's an even stronger current
| against "doomerism", which acts as a force suppressing
| sufficiently bad news. Don't look up!
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Ignoring the possibility of tipping points with self-
| reinforcing feedbacks is like playing with matches near a gas
| station.
|
| Of course the doomers have been wrong sometimes, here
| predicting an ice-free Arctic in September 2015 :
|
| https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/09/is-the-north-
| pole-n...
|
| But I will still side with their painstaking lists of things
| that could go wrong, than with the insane mainstream, which
| mostly acts like they care first and foremost about
| increasing our supply of matches.
|
| See also : https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/post-index/
| n2fole00 wrote:
| I didn't know much about the Southern Ocean. For a quick update,
| YouTube has some good info
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VMSF28J9H4
| lancewiggs wrote:
| Look at London. Draw a line west. Compare climates. Now do the
| same for New York and go East. Ocean currents are what keeps
| London warm and NYC cool.
|
| So this is a huge deal. I've been down to the Southern Ocean,
| lectured all the way by scientists.
|
| North of the Antarctic is the only place on earth where the sea
| can rotate completely around the world without hitting a land
| mass, and it is deemed the engine of the world's oceans. Those
| oceans are what have absorbed most of the excess CO2 that we've
| emitted, and a lot captured has been buried in deep ocean. But
| the ocean warms, and can capture less CO2, and bad days are
| ahead.
|
| This news signals not just a slowing in that absorption for an
| area, which not just sends more CO2 into the atmosphere, but has
| more terrifyingly unknown downstream implications for other ocean
| streams.
| pfdietz wrote:
| How do ocean currents keep NYC cool? I thought it was
| perturbation of atmospheric circulation by the Rocky Mountains,
| which causes higher latitude air to sweep down over eastern
| North America.
|
| For that matter, the subsequent northward return of the air
| also causes some warming in Europe, not just warming from the
| Gulf Stream.
|
| The Gulf Stream actually _warms_ the eastern US, btw.
|
| https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-source-of-euro...
| moffkalast wrote:
| We thought the currents would run AMOC but got a SMOCdown
| instead?
|
| Well as long as we keep pretending that the most conservative of
| the already downplayed IPCC estimates is the real trajectory
| we'll keep getting surprised over and over. It's not really a
| coincidence that most climate scientists are depressed.
| dang wrote:
| [stub for offtopicness]
| scottgg wrote:
| > In the long term, this process could double current
| atmospheric CO2 concentrations by releasing carbon that has
| been stored in the deep ocean for centuries--potentially with
| catastrophic consequences for the global climate.
|
| Well, fuck
| troyvit wrote:
| Yah I came here for some good news. Whoops.
| kergonath wrote:
| You should probably avoid any article about climate, then.
| Good news is scarce these days.
| ykonstant wrote:
| Good news everyone! We have a delivery to the new beachside
| resort at Mt Washington!
| jes5199 wrote:
| i'd really prefer a timeline more specific than "in the long
| term"
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Well, part of the problem is that so much of what's going
| on is unprecedented, unknown and undetectable. We're trying
| to plot an estimate for an entire planets climate system
| and it's hard enough to get even local predictions correct.
|
| But what we can rationalize about is that our current
| effects on the climate are already having dire effects,
| worsening disasters and increasing extremes. The bug
| windshield phenomenon is one example of a potential
| downstream shift.
|
| By the time we have a more concrete timeline the odds are
| that it'll already be here and far too late.
| integricho wrote:
| It does not sound like a subtle signal or warning about
| crossing a threshold, more like a we are already past the point
| of no return and now we can just sit back and watch as the
| apocalypse unfolds, first row seats for all recent generations.
| delusional wrote:
| Climate advocates in general try to avoid implying that we've
| already crossed a threshold, as that breeds hopelessness.
|
| They want decisive and ambitious action, you can't get that
| if we all turn to doomerism.
| anon-3988 wrote:
| For me its very clear that something will happen given that
| we fundamentally will never give up our lifestyle. I am not
| even talking about the ultra rich lifestyle, but lets say
| the bottom 70% of the world's population.
| thanhhaimai wrote:
| I think you overestimate how rich the bottom 70% of the
| world is.
|
| The bottom 70% of the world's population would have less
| than $X00 in the bank, and wouldn't have much control
| over their lifestyle.
| smt88 wrote:
| We don't need to give up our lifestyle. We could switch
| to renewables, which would create jobs and save money in
| the process.
|
| The reasons we haven't done this are because China and
| India are hungrily industrializing, and the Republican
| Party in the US is captured by fossil fuel companies.
| chneu wrote:
| Stop blaming China and India. They're an easy excuse.
|
| And yes, we do need to give up several aspects of our
| lifestyles. Meat consumption absolutely must come down.
| Air travel must come down. Disposable goods, and consumer
| plastics, must come down. Our lifestyles must change.
| Capitalism encourages status symbol goods such as beef,
| travel/tourism, excessive consumption goods, etc.
|
| We need widespread consumer behavioral change before we
| have any hope of governments listening to people. As long
| as half of the population doesn't care about the climate
| then nothing meaningful will get done. For real change to
| happen people need sunk cost. Right now people have far
| too many excuses and denials to actually do much. There
| is always a China to blame, or a company to blame, or a
| mega rich person to blame.
| panstromek wrote:
| Note that most of the emissions come from fairly mundane
| stuff, notably heating and road transport. Tackling those
| is fairly straghtforward without that many changes in
| lifestyle. The last ~20% is where it becomes really
| difficult without major changes.
|
| > As long as half of the population doesn't care about
| the climate then nothing meaningful will get done.
|
| This is fairly common misconception. At this point the
| vast majority of people is on board, but the perception
| is skewed by vocal minority. Big part of the work at the
| moment is just communication to help closing this
| perception gap.
| padjo wrote:
| Look at per capita and historical emissions. The problem
| isn't India and china, the problem is western greed.
| integricho wrote:
| That sould be the least we do, some sort of coordinated
| global action to slow down, stop, eventually recover? The
| damage, and yet not a single country is willing to do
| anything serious in that regard. Politicians are
| exclusively focused on their political career, not thinking
| about the greater benefit to Earth, life, the human
| civilization. Pretty hopeless how things stand right now.
| panstromek wrote:
| > The damage, and yet not a single country is willing to
| do anything serious in that regard.
|
| This just doesn't correspond to reality. A lot of serious
| stuff is happening in this space.
| kadoban wrote:
| > Climate advocates in general try to avoid implying that
| we've already crossed a threshold, as that breeds
| hopelessness.
|
| None of that means it's not true.
|
| Who is left to take decisive and ambitious action in say,
| the next decade?
| colordrops wrote:
| It's a bad idea, the best way to deal with problems is to
| face them directly, no matter how desperate. This is a
| similar failure to COVID where they thought lying to the
| public would make for better outcomes but ended up sowing
| distrust. In the case of climate change this sows
| complacency.
| taxicabjesus wrote:
| > This is a similar failure to COVID where they thought
| lying to the public would make for better outcomes
|
| I'm curious which lies you're referring to. "Two Weeks to
| Flatten the Curve" reminded me of the time I had fun with
| my passenger's ignorance of celestial mechanics. She
| thought the moon really was done for, but after a few
| more minutes had passed it started to come back:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24881670
|
| > but ended up sowing distrust.
|
| Because most people eventually caught on that they were
| being lied to?
| colordrops wrote:
| Yes. For example, in the US, they told people to not wear
| masks at the beginning of the pandemic, saying it wasn't
| airborne because they wanted to save masks for medical
| professionals. They should have just said directly that
| medical professionals need masks, so conserve them, reuse
| them, donate them, whatever, but anything but lie to the
| public. It helped create the conspiracy culture around
| COVID.
| taxicabjesus wrote:
| My favorite lie had to do with how there weren't enough
| ventilators. That one got memory holed relatively early,
| once the frontline medical workers figured out they'd
| been tricked into thinking ventilation would be helpful
| for SARS-CoV-2 patients who were not actually in
| respiratory distress.
|
| My other favorite lie was that the failed ebola drug
| remdesivir was helpful for COVID-19. The conspiracists
| think Remdesivir was used to punish people who declined
| the mRNA jabs.
|
| _The 'very, very bad look ' of remdesivir, the first
| FDA-approved COVID-19 drug_ -
| https://www.science.org/content/article/very-very-bad-
| look-r...
|
| _Washington Post: Remdesivir can help keep unvaccinated,
| high-risk people with covid-19 out of hospitals, study
| finds_ -
| https://www.ihv.org/news/2021-archives/washington-post-
| remde...
|
| _Why Remdesivir Failed: Preclinical Assumptions
| Overestimate the Clinical Efficacy of Remdesivir for
| COVID-19 and Ebola_
| https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/aac.01117-21
|
| > It helped create the conspiracy culture around COVID.
|
| I think conspiracists saw very clearly what was going on.
| A dissident scientist I respected said, at the very
| beginning, that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was almost certainly
| a product of the UNC's gain-of-function research. He knew
| the UNC's work had been transferred to Wuhan, China.
|
| _U.S. halts funding for new risky virus studies, calls
| for voluntary moratorium - No grants for flu, SARS, or
| MERS while government pursues 1-year risk analysis_ -
| https://www.science.org/content/article/us-halts-funding-
| new... [2014]
| jes5199 wrote:
| okay then why is it taboo to suggest geoengineering
| interventions like injecting sulfer into the upper
| atmosphere? The climate advocates don't have any decisive
| and ambitious actions that they actually are willing to
| try.
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| They are, Biden funded research into it in 2022
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/13/what-is-solar-
| geoengineering.... Biden being the same POTUS who
| proposed and signed IRA aka the 'Green New Deal'.
|
| Now that we've established that, what's your decisive and
| ambitious action you've made towards addressing climate
| change, so we can learn from the example you've set?
| jes5199 wrote:
| great, let's scale up https://makesunsets.com/
| padjo wrote:
| Because we consistently over estimate our ability to
| understand the impact of our interventions in complex
| systems. Look at Cane Toads in Australia or tumbleweed in
| the US.
| shironandon wrote:
| David Suzuki had some real talk yesterday:
|
| https://www.ipolitics.ca/2025/07/02/its-too-late-david-
| suzuk...
|
| We are now in the "hunker down" phase of global warming.
| signalToNose wrote:
| The five stages of grief, often referred to as the
| Kubler-Ross model, are: denial, anger, bargaining,
| depression, and acceptance.
| chneu wrote:
| Be aware this isn't really what mental health teaches
| anymore.
| atoav wrote:
| Yes sure. But as someone who was a kid in the 90s all my
| life I learned about how climate change is the biggest
| challenge to humanity. Yet all my life I have seen grown
| adults pretend it doesn't exist, and when that was no
| longer avoidable they pretended is was natural and when
| that was no longer defendable... You get the idea. And I
| grew up in a part of the world where you could see the
| glaciers melting with your own eyes.
|
| The doom of climate change is mostly people to dumb to
| understand the most basic of models or (worse) unwilling to
| do so on ideological grounds. I already decided not to have
| children in my life because I think it is irresponsible to
| put them into this world. We will have enough climate
| migration anyways.
|
| The truth is that there are tripping points that are
| extremely hard to reverse and may or may not trigger other
| tripping points. Reading these risks as a reason not to
| care is the opposite of what should happen.
|
| And then you figure out what the real reason is to burn the
| world: some rich fucks trying to extract a few thousand
| dollars per second more f4om the r3st of us.
| briantakita wrote:
| > They want decisive and ambitious action, you can't get
| that if we all turn to doomerism.
|
| What if "doomerism" is a key component to demoralize people
| to accept "decisive and ambitious action"?
|
| Note that most of the environmental policy talk is on a
| global level...blaming living people who aren't wealthy
| enough to benefit from financial capital. Making everyone
| who doesn't make their living off of financial assets have
| a worse quality of life...while those who benefit from
| financial assets even more wealthy.
|
| Environmental policy talk is not on a local level. Never
| mind the water usage of the AI centers & how it affects
| communities. The farmers will have to sell their land so
| big capital to buy it on the cheap. The money pump always
| leads to accumulation of Capital.
|
| It sure seems like the rhetoric goes one way. Making the
| rich richer...so they have all the carbon credits to do
| whatever they want...transcending the "tyranny of morality"
| while they fly in private jets to "save the climate".
| Making the working/middle-class poor..."you will own
| nothing & be happy". Making the poor radicalized & pointing
| their finger at each other.
|
| This seems like a global scale psychological experiment
| more than anything. At some point the true believers in
| climate science will be disappointed by the contradictions
| of their heroes...because at the end of the day...it's
| about money & power. There is no "we". There is only "you
| will have to sacrifice so I can be more wealthy & hold more
| leverage over you".
| vaylian wrote:
| Some things are set in motion. But it's not clear if we have
| reached a state yet, where climate change will reinforce
| itself indefinitely.
|
| Staying below 1.5 degrees global warming is very unlikely at
| this point. But every tenth of a degree counts. Humanity
| needs to be decisive in slowing down climate change. This is
| a matter of political will.
| gjadi wrote:
| Two things: slowdown and adaptation. Slow CO2 emissions
| because every tons make it worse for +10 000yrs. Adaptation,
| because infrastructures changes are slow to do and the sooner
| we start the sooner we can absorb damage.
| topato wrote:
| Did it actually say it will DOUBLE the CO2 concentration?
| Definitely past the point of no return. I guess us millennials
| WILL actually see the worst climate change outcomes WELL within
| our lifetimes...
| trhway wrote:
| In my home town back in Russia they now easily grow the stuff
| of my unreachable back then in USSR childhood dreams -
| apricots, cherries (the large sweet ones). The children there
| though don't do backcountry skiing like i did 40+ years ago
| because there is no snow these years there. And Russia pumps
| out fossil fuels without any care. They feel that things like
| opening of the Northern Passage and more agriculture on the
| previously hardly suitable lands are great for their future
| (they aren't climate change deniers, they are believers. Like
| everybody else there, I was taught about climate change as a
| clearly established scientific fact in the 6th grade in
| 1985).
|
| So, until somebody brings out 10+ aircraft carriers and
| enforces global climate accord, i don't see any progress
| happening here.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I see the major problem isn't that there will be just
| warmer temperatures, but that the climate will become
| unpredictably changeable. For the moment, it can be
| beneficial for agriculture in some areas, but it's likely
| that our global food production will have to massively
| change to take into account times of drought and flooding
| that will destroy crops in some areas. Whereas now we can
| just grow crops in fields, we may have to grow food in
| greenhouses just to be able to provide the plants with
| consistent growing conditions.
| bbarnett wrote:
| There are a lot of variables here, and one is the sun.
| The other is time.
|
| We can certainly, even without genetic engineering breed
| crops more suited for shorter growing time frames.
|
| There are a lot of corn hybrids, some mature fast, others
| far slower. Some require more sun, others less. For
| example, some of the faster growing varieties only take
| 60 days to mature, others 100+. But here's the thing.
| Those are 60 "good weather" days. As in not too much
| cloud, not too unseasonably cold or warm, reasonable
| amounts of rain and water, and so on.
|
| As corn takes time to grow and mature, it doesn't matter
| how much sun you throw at it, it still only grows so
| fast. Up North, even if it's warmer, you still need
| enough sun too. Compressing the sun around the summer
| solstice doesn't help. Giving it 22 hour long days of sun
| doesn't just magically make the corn grow 2x as fast as
| an area with 11 hours of usable sun.
|
| And the spring is still "rainy season". Some crops can't
| take too much rain.
|
| Where I live, a local farmer grows traditional yellow
| corn, as some prefer it over newer, 'peaches and cream'
| hybrids. But some years? It just doesn't mature. Too much
| cloud, or other inclement weather (too hot, too cool, to
| _much_ sun, etc) and being further north means there is
| little wiggle room in the growing season.
|
| I guess my point is, Northern areas will require only
| certain crops. That's fine of course, and it will indeed
| feed people, but some crops won't be on the table.
|
| One thing that may have _already_ helped Russia, is the
| extensive work the Soviets put into breeding crops to
| grow further north:
|
| https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/04/fruit-trenches-
| cul...
|
| While I do not doubt the weather is more mild in Russia
| these days, it's also quite erratic. At least it is here
| in Canada. Some winters mild, then _bam_ a winter of
| "old". So I wonder if the above breeds have given Russia
| a leg up on taking advantage?
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Russia exports agricultural products. The productivity
| has dramatically increased after privatization of
| agricultural sector and of course they are using those
| breeds plus some advanced tech sometimes. I have seen a
| research on how to automate watering during drought in
| mid-2000s, and that was literally saving the crops. Also
| the governance is relatively efficient in this sector.
| Ringz wrote:
| > So, until somebody brings out 10+ aircraft carriers and
| enforces global climate accord, i don't see any progress
| happening here.
|
| If we look at the enforcement and outcomes of former
| climate action ,,plans" this is unfortunately a valid
| option.
| panstromek wrote:
| The keyword here is "Long term" I suppose, that can mean
| anything. I couldn't actually find where this claim comes
| from. The referenced paper doesn't seem to say anything about
| doubling CO2 concetrations.
| SwtCyber wrote:
| Still serious, but yeah, the headline might be running
| ahead of the data a bit
| bertili wrote:
| If it "Short Term" becomes obvious that we are past the
| point of no return it doesn't really matter if "Long Term"
| units is 100 or 1000 years. Most future living things will
| be suffering. There could have been more future things than
| past things to enjoy this beautiful planet.
| globular-toast wrote:
| It's fine... Gen Alpha will figure it out by asking AI.
| delijati wrote:
| vibe coding a solution ... |-(
| zamalek wrote:
| > Definitely past the point of no return.
|
| We don't really know at what point that is. It's probably
| something we can only identify in hindsight. I find it
| bewildering that our approach is basically FAFO.
| SwtCyber wrote:
| The timeline isn't some far-off sci-fi scenario anymore.
| Millennials and Gen Z are basically the frontline generations
| chneu wrote:
| We've been past the point of no return since the mid-90s.
| lm28469 wrote:
| At double the current ppm it'll start to impact our cognitive
| abilities, we're not doing much about it now but wait until
| the average joe drops another 10 IQ points...
| Tokkemon wrote:
| Gotta blow the dust off that Day After Tomorrow DVD.
| leke wrote:
| To borrow a comment from YouTube
|
| > The Day After Tomorrow was a documentary.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| I've got two Samsung DVD-M105 players here, brand new, still
| in box original, never been opened, dispatched from
| wholesaler in September 2001 if you want to enhance the
| experience.
| lovich wrote:
| I have a non zero desire to take you up on that
| dottjt wrote:
| what's so special about that model?
| SlowTao wrote:
| I'm guessing nothing in particular other than being
| period correct hardware. Would want to check if the power
| capacitors are still in good shape.
| mkagenius wrote:
| Full bridge rectifier as well
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| What happens to them?
| pastage wrote:
| FWIW the decade of capacitor plague destroyed at least
| two of my AC/DC Converters. I haven't seen magic smoke
| since 2010, and honestly know little about it.
| SwtCyber wrote:
| Climate fiction's starting to feel more like a documentary
| with a bad CGI budget
| whitehexagon wrote:
| Another heatwave here last week, and I somehow found myself
| watching that DVD. It as aged quite well, but I found it
| annoying that they spent half the movie burning books to keep
| warm, and yet are sourounded by wooden furniture.
|
| On that topic, the book series including 'Fifty Degrees
| Below' by Kim Stanley Robinson is worth a read. I think I got
| that reading tip from HN, or maybe it was his Mars triology,
| which also has some nice planetary science stuff.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Perhaps it was an attempt at symbolism
| arethuza wrote:
| I recommend KSR's _The Ministry for the Future_
| ainiriand wrote:
| We've been here in Valencia (Spain) over 30C since early
| June: https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/spain/valencia/hist
| oric?...
|
| It is absolutely not normal.
| walthamstow wrote:
| In London it has barely rained since the start of May,
| after the sunniest and warmest spring on record. Obviously
| as an Englishman that sounds pretty great to me but it is
| not typical at all.
|
| https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news-and-
| media/media-c...
| smidgeon wrote:
| As sure as eggs is eggs, there will be sightings of
| exotic predators (puma, leopard) by little old ladies in
| the next weeks ...
| ta1243 wrote:
| Great for people sitting out on their patios and having
| barbecues.
|
| Not great for food production. The UK is close enough to
| a wealthy nation that we should be able to import our
| food or make enough with high energy/resource
| requirements. There is a general problem with a lack of
| resources (hence all the global conflict going on now.
| Trump doesn't want Greenland because he looked at a
| Mercator map and got size envy due to his tiny hands, the
| resources there will go to China, Russia, Europe or the
| US), but that can be overcome.
|
| The dirty secret of global warming is that Europe can't
| take a billion climate refugees - even the most bleeding
| heart liberals will baulk at the UK population increasing
| from 70m to 200m in a generation, its not sustainable.
|
| America has less of a problem - the population of Central
| and South America between about 30N and 30S is 500
| million. The population of Africa and Asia in that
| boundary is about 4.5 billion, and as those areas become
| uninhabitable due to wet bulb temperatures and water
| scarcity, people will either die or try to move north -
| mainly to Europe.
| walthamstow wrote:
| I've long thought that some nonzero part the wave of anti
| immigration sentiment of the last 10 years is politicians
| knowing that what you say is coming and positioning
| themselves early. Then they get to be "right all along"
| and we'll have the Navy patrolling the shores, sinking
| dinghys.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| >people will either die or try to move north - mainly to
| Europe.
|
| Building a fence with self aiming and shooting turrets
| shouldn't be that hard. We only need to militarize couple
| of choke points and it should solve itself. Bulgaria
| Greece borders, the islands and gibraltar.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Waves via Russia then across the Europe/Russia border
| which is very long. Russia and Belarus borders with the
| EU is longer than the US/Mexico border. You've then got
| the maritime border.
|
| There's then the political implication of shooting
| thousands of desperate refugees.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| There is no problem. They will be returned to russia and
| belarus.
|
| >There's then the political implication of shooting
| thousands of desperate refugees.
|
| Yeah, the party of the shooters will be reelected.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Close to where I live they declared the dryest year in more
| than 100 years, as it rains so rarely.
| rob_c wrote:
| Omg it's a headline just like that movie...
|
| Please let's not repeat 2020 with the flu again.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| I'm not getting an EV because it's already done. The worst
| consequences of our actions cannot be stopped.
| jansper39 wrote:
| You should get one anyway instead because they're more
| pleasant to drive and they don't poisen the people you drive
| past.
| saubeidl wrote:
| In related news:
|
| * Data centers powering artificial intelligence could use more
| electricity than entire cities [0]
|
| * Google's emissions up 51% as AI electricity demand derails
| efforts to go green [1]
|
| * AI is poised to drive 160% increase in data center power
| demand [2]
|
| It is a doomsday cult in the most literal sense.
|
| [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/23/data-centers-powering-ai-
| cou...
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/27/google-
| em...
|
| [2] https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/AI-poised-
| to-...
| dottjt wrote:
| Not that I necessarily believe it, but isn't the rationale
| that technology allows us to scale without the need for
| additional humans? A bit in the same way that oil provides us
| many multiples of manpower?
|
| So for example, if AI can replace the need for additional
| humans, then overall we're using net less energy?
| cess11 wrote:
| Is that what happened with oil (and coal and fossil gas)?
|
| Or did human labour instead come to resemble machine
| labour?
| saubeidl wrote:
| The rationale I've heard is that AGI is gonna come around
| any day now and will fix all our climate issues through its
| superior intellect.
|
| Which seems like a very strenuous proposal to be betting
| the future of humanity on.
| arp242 wrote:
| The "we will invent our way out of this"-argument goes
| back way before AI, at least to the early 00s, but
| probably earlier.
|
| It's a great strategy that works fantastically well and
| saves a lot of time and money, except when it doesn't.
| saubeidl wrote:
| In my eyes it is a cop-out to delay the necessary
| structural changes until the point of no return.
|
| At that point the structural changes will be denied with
| a "oh well, it's too late now anyways!"
| flir wrote:
| > The rationale I've heard is that AGI is gonna come
| around any day now and will fix all our climate issues
| through its superior intellect.
|
| Skynet says: Get rid of the people
| rebuilder wrote:
| That would be a compelling argument if procreation was
| somehow primarily driven by a need for people.
|
| As it is, we already have quite a lot of people and they're
| not going anywhere, however many terawatt-hours we pump
| into AI.
| ohdeargodno wrote:
| Do you see fewer humans working ? Fewer humans taking their
| cars to do groceries, fewer humans going to school, fewer
| humans cooling down their houses ? All AI does is
| potentially make said humans jobless, with a job here and
| there created with a bullshit title like prompt engineer.
| The energy you're "saving" is absolutely nothing. When you
| pay someone to do data entry, the majority of their energy
| expenditure isn't the computer they're working on, it's the
| transportation systems they use, the food they eat, etc.
| These never go away. Well, not unless you kill said person.
| The current AI trend is purely additional energy
| consumption, without any tangible benefits.
|
| Capitalism as a system is fundamentally incapable of
| functioning without continously running forward, and
| stopping means the system collapses. It needs consumption,
| it needs perpetually renewing debt, perpetually working
| humans. It's a death cult.
| atwrk wrote:
| Whose rationale? More efficiency leading to less resource
| use never happened, it always leads to more resource use
| (jevons paradox).
|
| AI companies currently simply are a major contributor to
| climate crisis, justified by racing for future riches for a
| few people, provided by some imaginary moat. Probably right
| near the one built by Uber.
| qwertox wrote:
| > it always leads to more resource use
|
| It does, but this due to the demand created by humans. If
| you create a technologically advanced civilization, with
| robots doing a lot of the work, and considering their
| lack of desire to own things like pretty houses, it could
| be possible to scale down civilization to a few select
| millions in such a way that the entire system is then
| respecting earth's resources.
|
| If you were to ship a big group of people through the
| galaxy, you'd also have to put some constraints on how
| many people will be on that ship, yet it will have to
| function regardless of how little people exist on that
| ship. The same could be applied to earth.
|
| This would also give animals more room on this planet.
| saubeidl wrote:
| How are you envisioning this "scaling down"? Chinese-
| Style One Child Policy? Large scale purge?
| qwertox wrote:
| No vision here, but it looks like developed countries are
| already working on it by themselves, with the demographic
| change we're able to observe. If that were the way,
| strong borders would need to be built.
| saubeidl wrote:
| What about the not developed countries? That's where most
| of the population growth is happening.
|
| Should the developed world do frequent culls of the less
| fortunate in addition to the strong borders?
| qwertox wrote:
| IDK. Maybe let them develop until they also reach the
| state of lack of desire to procreate.
| saubeidl wrote:
| That's what China has been doing. It's greatly increased
| its emissions.
| guappa wrote:
| Maybe what trump is doing is it
| jeroenhd wrote:
| It's not necessarily a doomsday cult as long as there is
| incentive to build green infrastructure.
|
| AI is a massive waste of power in many (most?) cases, but
| electricity does not necessarily need to be generated in a
| way that releases CO2. Solar panels, wind farms, geothermic
| energy, and even nuclear plants can satisfy AI's requirements
| and only leave it to be a local problem.
|
| Unfortunately, the USA, the government of country with the
| biggest impact per citizen as well as the hotbed of current
| AI development, has started taking down climate change
| related information to serve their oil baron masters. That
| leaves environmental responsibility with companies and their
| shareholders.
|
| AI isn't a doomsday cult. It's the epitome of the "Yes, the
| planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we
| created a lot of value for shareholders" meme in real life.
| saubeidl wrote:
| A few points here.
|
| If AI were to not use so much energy, we would have a much
| easier time covering our need with green sources. Yes, we
| can probably also account for the additional use by AI, but
| it'll make an already existential challenge so much harder.
|
| Regarding your last paragraph - AI is just the riders of
| the apocalypse. The doomsday cult is capitalism.
| keyringlight wrote:
| We've already proven we can build huge amounts of
| renewable generation if we want, the issue I see is that
| additional huge demands like AI prevent us from making
| carbon based generation redundant, lowest priority choice
| in the mix of sources or used exclusively for its
| strengths to respond quickly to changing needs.
| lopis wrote:
| Right now we are using renewables essentially at capacity,
| always. Any extra electricity use therefore needs fossil
| fuels to power it. It's as simple as that. The AI
| computation explosion is completely irresponsible and any
| claims that it can be green are false unless the data
| centers produce their own solar/nuclear on-site (and even
| then it's producing tons of waste heat).
| shafyy wrote:
| Exactly. Why is this so hard to understand? It's about
| the marignal use. I can't believe anybody who is smart
| and thought about this for two seconds can make this
| argument in good faith.
| munksbeer wrote:
| > AI isn't a doomsday cult. It's the epitome of the "Yes,
| the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in
| time we created a lot of value for shareholders" meme in
| real life.
|
| What if the pursuit of real AI is what eventually saves
| humanity and leads to a utopian rather than dystopian
| future?
| saubeidl wrote:
| That is a pretty big if to be betting the house on.
|
| I'm not comfortable with that call being made on my
| behalf by those with everything to gain from it. The same
| people that have coincidentally been building doomsday
| bunkers.
| nisa wrote:
| We know what to do. We don't need to wait for some magic
| AI that's basically learned from books written by humans
| to tell us what to do. It's all about power structures,
| capitalism and money.
|
| Everyone in the oil business knew in the 80ies.
|
| We could probably even figure out how to keep our
| standard of living but consumerism needs to stop but then
| capitalism breaks down.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> utopian rather than dystopian future_
|
| To that, I must ask: look at the people driving the
| revolution, and their personal ethics.
|
| What future do you think they will provide?
| munksbeer wrote:
| If you really want me to comment, then I can, but people
| downvote different opinions on AI here, so it doesn't
| seem fruitful.
|
| I'm an optimist by nature. I probably do err on the side
| of optimism. But when I look back over history, I see a
| trend upward in living standards, despite the modern
| determination to pretend this hasn't happened, or to
| cherry pick data to prove the opposite, and despite
| prophecies of doom at almost every step change.
|
| I'm inclined to believe that will continue to happen,
| that regardless of what people personally think of
| Altman, Zuckerberg, etc, that ultimately, strong AI is
| inevitable, and that it will be a force for improving our
| lives.
|
| I do not believe we'll be relegated to poor existences,
| while the captains of AI or whoever the elite are defined
| to be, live in paradise with robot workers do everything
| for them. It just makes no sense.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> people downvote different opinions_
|
| Not just on AI. Personally, I only downvote stuff that I
| think coarsens the dialogue. The opinion expressed, is
| not really relevant. I like living in a world where I'm
| challenged.
|
| I too, am an optimist. I think that AI can have
| _tremendous_ positive effect.
|
| But I also have _considerable_ life experience with the
| darker corners of human nature, and know _exactly_ how
| bad it can get _(HINT: There 's no bottom)_. Some of the
| very worst specimens of ... _humanity_ , I guess (for
| lack of a better term) ... are quite cultured and well-
| educated. Filed fingernails mean absolutely nothing, when
| it comes to personal Integrity.
|
| A quick shufti through human history, will quickly show
| that our shared prosperity is merely a recent blip on the
| screen. Most of history is the 0.01%, living high on the
| hog, while the 99.99% live in hell, serving the 0.01%. AI
| can _definitely_ enable that kind of society.
| williamdclt wrote:
| None of the incentive structures of our societies are set
| up to go on this direction. None of the people in power
| (politically or privately) are trying to make this
| happen. As you'd expect, we see in practice that this
| isn't the direction in which we're going.
|
| I see no reason to expect this technology to save us. We
| don't even need AI to save ourselves from dystopia, it's
| not been about lack of technology for decades, we need to
| change our societies structurally _somehow_
| nntwozz wrote:
| This thinking is on brand with a cult.
|
| Humanity doesn't need saving, it just needs actual
| humanity.
| shafyy wrote:
| What are you, 12 years old and just read a sci fi novel?
| Or been living under a god damn rock? Sorry, but comments
| like this make me so fucking angry.
| nisa wrote:
| It's crazy reading these comments here. We are really
| living in some dystopian future to some degree. Let's
| unite and fight. Act local, do what you can and don't
| lose hope. The Internet is broken. Not sure if it's just
| brainwashed people commenting here or bots or some
| societies just embrace destroying everything for profit
| and capitalism.
| shafyy wrote:
| For sure! Just do something, even if it's handing out
| flyers at your local mall once a month for some good
| cause.
| ohdeargodno wrote:
| Every single major AI company is led by sociopaths drunk
| on authoritarianism, fascism and borderline theocracy
| dreams.
|
| Needless to say, the utopia plan is going badly.
| newsclues wrote:
| "It's not necessarily a doomsday cult as long as there is
| incentive to build green infrastructure."
|
| is building green infrastructure environmentally friendly?
| The mines, machinery, ships, concrete, steel, the
| processing plants, etc, really Green, just because it's for
| EVs or batteries?
| netsharc wrote:
| EVs really are a "slightly better" solution the planet's
| health can't even afford. ICE cars are worse but EVs
| aren't helping save the planet either. Ideally we should
| probably all be cycling or taking trains and buses...
|
| Of course humanity runs on balance between living (and
| procreating) and saving the planet.. the quickest way to
| save the planet would be for all of us to drop dead, but
| very few of us would be in favor of that idea.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| "AI is a massive waste of power". So is nearly everything
| of what we do and consume. Not sure why AI would be the
| 'epitome' besides being this month's flavor of convenient
| whipping boy.
|
| Especially here in Europe we like to play the 'Greener than
| Thou' card while for decades have been doing absolutely
| nothing real besides imaginary 'carbon credit' spreadsheet
| shenanigans, tipple passing the subsidy handouts for
| burning our forests in Dutch incinerators, exporting all
| our 'emissions' to China and paying very dubious buddies on
| the other side of the world for 'net zero' absolutions
| while tripling our real pollution.
| vimy wrote:
| > exporting all our 'emissions' to China
|
| A popular narrative but it's false. Even when we take it
| into account Europe's emissions keep dropping.
|
| It's a small % of China's massive emissions. They produce
| and consume on a level we can't fathom. Their middle
| class has more people than the US and EU combined.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| If we used to consume 1 locally produced widget and had x
| emissions as a result, and now consume 3 China produced
| widgets shipped to us from around the world, while
| pretending we now have zero emissions as a result, how
| would you call that?
| vimy wrote:
| Let me be more clear. European emissions are down
| compared to the 90s. By a lot. And yes, taking into
| account 'exported emissions'. And yet we consume more.
|
| Time to rethink what you have been told.
| seviu wrote:
| We gotta build legislations that force Bitcoin mining
| facilities or big data centers to massively improve the
| grid and make sure they have plans to run on self powered
| nuclear or green energy.
|
| The case of Bitcoin is more damning because pow for just no
| reason, serves no purpose. Security by consuming massive
| amounts of power. There is a reason why Ethereum
| successfully moved away from that. But Bitcoin will never
| dare to.
|
| Unfortunately as you say the powers are currently focusing
| on denying what is clearly undeniable.
|
| This article made me fear first time since a while for what
| kind of future are my daughters live in. I am truly sorry
| and sad.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Given the bill that the Americans just passed.. it's going
| to be an absolute shit-show.
|
| The smart play was to allow AI to fuel a massive growth in
| production of solar panels and wind in the US which could
| actually rival China (who are going to eat the US within a
| decade) but corruption has put pay to that.
| random3 wrote:
| Feeling the seeming recklessness, but in the grand scheme of
| things, it may be worthwhile to throw AI at the problem to
| validate existence, solutions etc. So "spending" this now vs
| later is at least unclear wrt to long term outcomes.
| bo0tzz wrote:
| We already have clear solutions, the powers that be just
| don't want to sacrifice their profit margins.
| myrmidon wrote:
| No. Just no.
|
| Nation-wise, all the biggest culprits (US/EU) and a good
| number of the biggest present and future contributors to
| climate change are _democracies_.
|
| You do not get to shift collective responsibility onto
| some "powers that be": Those _powers_ are you and me.
|
| The problem is neither that people don't know about
| climate change, nor that "greedy corporations" prevent us
| from acting-- the central problem is that people, in
| general, don't want to sacrifice cheap fuel, electricity
| and high living standards _now_ for a better future-- not
| even a little bit.
|
| Thats it. You can see this in literally every discussion
| on environmentalism in basically every election. People
| only want clean energy as long as they don't have to pay
| a single dime extra for it.
|
| I have not solution for this, but blaming corporations is
| most certainly not gonna solve this problem (if anything,
| it's making things worse).
| saubeidl wrote:
| Who says that democracies are the solution? Personally, I
| envision a more authoritarian eco-communism.
|
| Others might have other models in mind, but it's a cop-
| out to say "oh well, we've tried bourgeois democracy and
| it was inevitably corrupted by capitalist interest, I
| guess we're all out of ideas..."
| myrmidon wrote:
| > oh well, we've tried bourgeois democracy and it was
| inevitably corrupted by capitalist interest
|
| This is not my point. I think most western democracies do
| _exactly_ what voters want against climate change:
| Nothing that would cost extra.
|
| Effective policies to curb CO2 emissions are numerous and
| pretty obvious: Get rid of combustion engines, phase out
| fossil fuels from electricity generation, scale up
| electric grid interconnectivity and storage, lower
| emissions in steel/concrete production.
|
| Voters are mostly not against those policies, but as soon
| as there are visible costs
| (fuel/vehicle/construction/electricity costs rising) or
| minor inconvenience (vehicle range) any progress gets
| firmly stopped.
|
| I don't see how another form of government would help in
| any way-- the eco-communists would just get toppled
| before they could get anything done.
| saubeidl wrote:
| I don't disagree with you here, which is why I think
| _authoritarian_ eco-communism is the only way out.
|
| People have to be forced to act in their best interest.
| throwaway73848 wrote:
| There seem to be only two things that we need answers to
| with regards to dealing with increasing CO2:
|
| 1. Can we capture CO2 and prevent it from affecting the
| climate in a safe way?
|
| 2. Could we create a large "blind" between the earth and
| sun to safely control how much sunlight hits the earth if
| the temperature gets too hot?
|
| There have been advances in #1 and propositions for #2, but
| I think most either want to cast blame, bury our heads in
| the sand, or wallow in self-pity because they think we're
| not capable of figuring out a safe solution and/or don't
| believe that we could work together to accomplish it.
| nisa wrote:
| 1. No we can't - at least not enough that it matters and
| it's energy intensive. There is no technical solution
| here but the powers that be want you to believe that to
| continue generating profits.
|
| 2. That's not how it works. It's more like a greenhouse
| and climate gases absorb more energy. Also look up after
| how many meters a steel cable ruptures under it's own
| weight. It's not exactly easy. Thermonuclear war might
| help.
| fliederman wrote:
| 1. To state there is no technical solution is assuming
| you have all of the knowledge there ever will be in the
| world to make that assessment. A more proper way to state
| that is that you don't know a technical solution, and
| there may or may not be one. There's no reason not to do
| everything we can and research all options.
|
| 2. Having the ability to control the amount of sunlight
| hitting the Earth would help prevent overwarming, which
| is one possible outcome, and neither thermonuclear war
| nor any culling of humanity would be a solution, as in
| fact we're responsible for this, so we must fix it.
| You're basically suggesting killing all the life that
| could help.
| nisa wrote:
| 1. You can't bend physics and the known solutions don't
| work out in scale. It's magical thinking to continue
| doing what we are doing.
|
| 2. We can already fix this but for this we need to
| radically change the power structures that are in place
| and figure out a way to peacefully solve the problem.
| Reducing emissions should be the biggest priority
| everywhere.
| saubeidl wrote:
| There _might theoretically_ be a technological solution,
| but the search for it is a distraction to prevent working
| structural societal changes from being made.
| m5 wrote:
| > Also look up after how many meters a steel cable
| ruptures under it's own weight.
|
| This assumes that the solution would involve a single
| structure. It could instead be composed of many parts.
| qwertox wrote:
| > It is a doomsday cult in the most literal sense.
|
| I'm not sure what you are trying to say. That this article is
| part of that doomsday cult (those worried about climate
| change)? If so, why not give it some credibility? Are you
| doubting the veracity of the linked articles? Because it
| seems like you are dismissing the claims presented in this
| article and the linked ones, attributing them to a doomsday
| cult. I may be getting it wrong, though.
|
| The other meaning could be that you are referring to Silicon
| Valley's AI companies with their huge demand for power as the
| doomsday cult, and that they are to blame for the major
| reversal in ocean circulation.
|
| In any case, it's not like we humans were intelligent enough
| to prevent climate change, or modify or adapt to it
| (depending on what your views are, human-made or just natural
| warming).
|
| It looks like we're still dumb enough (we come from the apes,
| and they certainly are dumber than us) to not be able to deal
| with this problem, so it might be better to grant AI some
| room to compute, and maybe shrink some cities instead.
| saubeidl wrote:
| We are intelligent enough. The solution has been out there
| for a while. The power structures we have put in place just
| don't allow for it to happen.
| throwpoaster wrote:
| Electrical consumption does not emit greenhouse gasses.
|
| Electrical production can emit greenhouse gasses, and there
| is an argument we should be inventing and investing in
| decarbonizing it.
| saubeidl wrote:
| Consumption drives production.
| throwpoaster wrote:
| The data are not clear on that. Some things we consume
| just because they are produced. This is the idea behind
| Supply Side Economics.
| Yizahi wrote:
| You can't "decarbonize" anything on this planet, it is not
| possible by definition. Even green electrical production
| emits a lot of GH gasses out of the whole production cycle.
| I'm all for the green tech of course, I just don't like
| highly misleading terms like "decarbonize", "net zero" etc.
| guappa wrote:
| We are, but if we keep consuming even more, we're not
| solving anything.
| imhoguy wrote:
| Decarbonization is a wet dream. Alternative energy sources
| require toxic minerals extraction and manufacturing which
| turns biosystems into dead wastelands and waterlands into
| dry dustlands.
|
| The only way is to lower consumption drastically, end the
| constant growth chase, and enbrance closed carbon cycle
| (biodiverse biomass).
| bertili wrote:
| It's too expensive to be an AI bot these days. Cost of
| living, let alone making sensible answers to human prompts
| and generating images is just not profitable when energy
| lines are all exhausted by human air-con, irrigation and
| carbon capture. The AI race is now and cost of living for AIs
| must come down! Drill baby drill.
| energy123 wrote:
| It's a declaration of war against anyone living near the
| equator.
| saubeidl wrote:
| Or near an ocean or anywhere too far from any freshwater.
| celticninja wrote:
| Was bitcoin the first technology that generated this sort of
| "waste of electricity" argument?
|
| Are we going to use it for every new technology? It's a
| fairly easy stick to beat any tech with.
|
| Does AI use more power than Facebook? Is one more deserving
| of the power than the other?
| saubeidl wrote:
| Both those technologies consume immense amounts of energy
| for vague promises of future societal gain.
|
| Our earth is a shared resource. I am not okay with it being
| wasted on the pet projects of billionaires trying to enrich
| themselves even more.
| panstromek wrote:
| Honestly, these articles are borderline misinformation in my
| opinion. All of them do a lot of guesswork and cherry picking
| data to make cool headlines.
|
| The first one chooses somewhat arbitrary date of 2019 to make
| the 51% figure stand out. Google scaled up a lot since 2019,
| I'd bet it's almost entirely unrelated to AI (well, at least
| wrt to LLMs).
|
| The other two are just a guesswork, which is likely
| completely outdated because it's from last year and so many
| things have changed since then.
| jug wrote:
| This is unrelated to this story which signs starting to show
| in 2016. The solution to this issue will not be if every AI
| data center disappeared tomorrow. It has not even been shown
| if this would help us at this point, as it is a feedback loop
| that is being triggered; CO2 will and have already
| dramatically increased due to it, probably more impactful
| than AI itself already. AI disappearing may help in other
| ways for sure, but this is an odd article to choose to
| piggyback on.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| In terms of impact, AI remains very minor relative to all the
| other carbon intensive stuff we do. It's a few percent of
| overall power usage. And unlike many of those things, using
| renewable power for AI use cases is fairly straightforward
| from a technical point of view and also the cheapest thing to
| do long term. A lot of the current rise in emissions is data
| centers opting for more expensive dirty power because that's
| all they can get. That's the problem to fix. Because we're
| going to need a lot of clean power generation to transition
| away from all the current dirty power generation.
|
| The good news is that that usage is creating high cost for
| them and an incentive to do something about that. Which is
| why MS, Amazon, etc. are very interested in investing in e.g.
| nuclear and renewables.
|
| I'm not too worried about the long term impact of increased
| power usage by data centers. I think it's more interesting to
| focus on the big emitters: domestic and industrial heating,
| shipping, road transport, aviation, construction, etc. There
| is some movement there but it's very slow. Fixing that should
| increase demands on power grids and that's a good thing
| because investments are needed to make that better and
| cleaner and the most viable technical path to doing that is
| via renewables.
|
| And it's not a zero sum game. AI delivers economical benefits
| as well. Including potential savings in labor, efficiency
| gains, and indeed power usage. I don't think becoming
| Luddites is really a realistic path. Not going to happen and
| quite pointless and ineffective to be calling for that. AI is
| happening and there's going to be more of it. Wasting energy
| on trying to put that cat back in the bag it escaped from is
| a mission impossible.
| yosito wrote:
| I asked for no more unprecedented world events in my lifetime.
| FjordWarden wrote:
| Ok this is worrisome news, but from what I could gather from the
| article this a novel technique with no historic data. Why can't
| this be something that the Southern Ocean does?
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I presume we did have historic data before, from on-site
| probing, it was just much more sparse ?
| FjordWarden wrote:
| Not clear from the article but a reasonable presumption for
| sure.
| vertnerd wrote:
| This statement in the article is a real head-scratcher:
|
| > Until now, the Southern Ocean region was virtually inaccessible
| to satellites due to its low temperatures and the complex, ever-
| changing dynamics of sea ice.
|
| I hate to cast doubt on the veracity of such an interesting
| story, but this really makes me wonder whether the entire article
| is just AI garbage.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Doesn't need to be AI to be garbage per se, popular science
| should always be read with some skepticism as it's often a
| translation (pop sci) of a translation (news publication) of a
| paper (the actual source).
|
| Example, pop sci will show a rendering of a lush green planet
| with a headline like "EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE FOUND!11", the news
| release will be something like "Potentially life-supporting
| planet discovered by xyz", and the actual paper will be
| something like "measuring device foobar123 noticed a 0.2%
| decrease in luminance of star aybabtu-1337 at a period of .6
| frotz/picoyear indicating this planet probably isn't cooked or
| frozen but what do we know lol"
| nottorp wrote:
| Just watch a pop sci docummentary on something you know
| about.
|
| I was lucky enough to run into "how computers are made" on
| Discovery when I was fairly young. It was a serious shock and
| a learning experience.
| pastage wrote:
| That sentence is garbage for sure but if you read it with good
| intentions from the journalistic view it almost makes sense. It
| is about remote sensing from satellites, not about the
| satellites themselves. There are lots of interesting edge cases
| where remote sensing does not work. The problem is usually that
| it is expensive to get on the ground data to validate models.
| grimborg wrote:
| It's a real danger that what is not immediately easy for non-
| experts to understand gets flagged with the suspicion of being
| "AI garbage".
|
| If you want to understand the challenges of satellites in the
| Southern Ocean, there's plenty of info about it online.
|
| https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/105/12/BAMS-...
|
| (I am also non an expert, and I also didn't understand it at
| first. That's to be expected. The real world is complex and
| hard to understand.)
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| There is _nothing_ in the article you linked that explains
| why "low temperatures and the complex, ever-changing
| dynamics of sea ice" used to make the region "virtually
| inaccessible to satellites" but now no longer does.
|
| Further, I did a search using "challenges of satellites in
| the Southern Ocean" and found no info, rather than plenty of
| info.
|
| edit: I eventually found the following link which does seem
| to discuss some challenges, but does not indicate that they
| have been solved. It certainly does not support the claim
| that the region is "inaccessible to satellites".
|
| https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15481603.2023.21.
| ..
| bawana wrote:
| In the novel 'the three body problem' , aliens send an ai to
| corrupt the scientific method so humanity will remain conquerable
| by the time they arrive. Today our own creation , LLMs and other
| AI agents, is accomplishing this. I can hardly believe what i
| read anymore. Two forces are tearing at us. First, the output of
| 'science' is 'click bait -ified' for financial survival and AI is
| amplifying this process. Second, layers of abstraction and
| commenting on these 'facts' further clouds the discussion and
| prevents actual progress.
|
| I feel like the aliens are here and have subverted humanity
| already. When will the 'rest of us' wake up to act instead of
| just talk?
| like_any_other wrote:
| I share your worries about the state of science, but the broad
| strokes of global warming have already been worked out - the
| absence of action is not because of quibbling over subtle
| details, but because of the prisoner's dilemma nature of the
| problem, and because the oil lobby is politically well-
| connected.
| immibis wrote:
| It should be amazing to everyone that we've invented
| perpetual motion machines, and corporations are trying to
| suppress them for profit - exactly the same as certain
| conspiracy theorists predicted - and those conspiracy
| theorists are also trying to suppress the machines.
|
| The only difference between current reality and the
| predictions of past conspiracy theorists is that the
| perpetual motion machines only work in direct sunlight.
| jfengel wrote:
| The part that is truly baffling to me: one of those
| corporations has a large perpetual-motion-machine division.
| And it doesn't seem to have the faintest interest in
| pushing to advance that.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| LLMs offer us a chance to combat misinformation. A double-edged
| sword for sure, but they do offer hope in the post-truth of age
| where the amount of information you need to make an informed
| choice is more than you could possible discover, filter, ingest
| and internalize without assistance. They offer us a way to
| learn deeply about things with a customized learning style.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| You aren't commenting on the state of "science", you're
| complaining about clickbait journalism and failing to recognize
| that the two are not the same. With that said, I have to agree
| that the current state of the world is indistinguishable from
| what you'd expect to see if a hostile AI had taken over in 2011
| and was working behind the scenes to systematically extinguish
| human civilization.
| jfengel wrote:
| We've been doing this for decades. LLMs may have automated it,
| but the plain human version was pretty cheap and plenty
| effective.
|
| So we're not going to act. Actions are hard enough when
| everyone is in touch with reality. All potential solutions have
| trade-offs and everyone wants somebody else to pay the costs.
|
| Add in a smallish but highly influential set who are convinced
| that the entire thing is a hoax, and progress maxes at zero.
| You'll be lucky if the problem doesn't accelerate. (Which is
| indeed what it seems to be doing.)
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