[HN Gopher] 2025 was the third hottest year on record
___________________________________________________________________
2025 was the third hottest year on record
Author : andsoitis
Score : 173 points
Date : 2026-01-17 17:29 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| magneticnorth wrote:
| https://archive.ph/KVTqO
| andsoitis wrote:
| Related: Earth is warming faster. Scientists are closing in on
| why (https://www.economist.com/science-and-
| technology/2024/12/16/...)
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I'm amused that the argument is that we are in a Mr Burns
| position where different kinds of pollution we were emitting
| was balancing out and somehow fighting pollution is the reason
| global warming is worse? While I'm sure it has some effect, the
| amount of co2 we pump out every year as a species is insane.
| The effect of ship pollution mitigating that is marginal at
| best
| pitched wrote:
| Some systems pulling the average up and some pulling down but
| the average of them is net up. I wonder though if it would
| have been better or worse for us if the net change ended up
| negative (dropping temps every year) instead. Probably worse,
| right?
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Are you sure? There is a lot of it https://www.shipmap.org
| greygoo222 wrote:
| Stratospheric aerosol injection is the leading geoengineering
| proposal for a reason. If you have well-supported reasons to
| be skeptical, you should share it, but just saying "idk
| doesn't sound right to me" isn't convincing.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| The amount of aerosol you need to I next is enormous, it
| needs to be sprayed at an altitude higher than realistic
| means of injection are feasible, and it has to be done in a
| way that doesn't produce so much CO2 that it defeats the
| point.
|
| Can you imagine an extant tech that can come close to doing
| that at the required scale? I can't.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| High altitude solar drone gliders that collect low level
| water vapor and spray it to form ice.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| It would be cheaper and more practical to talk about
| space-based sunshields, and that's about as practical as
| prayer. At the altitudes any realistic glider can reach
| you'd have to use sulfur aerosols and not ice, and in
| either case you'd need to inject gigatons per year, every
| year because at that altitude aerosols are very short-
| lived.
|
| A realistic aircraft capable of those payloads will burn
| avgas, no solar craft comes close to the capability. The
| side effects such as a significant increase in acid rain,
| are not trivial either.
|
| These are fantasies of people who cannot accept the
| reality of what we're facing.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Even if it were meaningful, is the proposal to fight global
| warming to keep dirty ships? That's an insane strategy.
|
| More realistically, there's vested interests in existing
| ships and shipyards not being made obsolete so any minute
| effect is overhyped as "this is how we solve global
| warming".
|
| This reminds me of a conversation I had with an
| acquaintance - he was convinced that anthropogenic global
| warming was impossible because a volcanic eruption emits so
| much CO2 and was completely unwilling to consider evidence
| that perhaps humans emitting annually 200x more than all
| volcanoes combined might have an effect.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| "Less bad" is still better than "worse"
|
| You want to unthinkingly reject a proposal that makes
| things better because you can't understand the third
| order effects and refuse to accept any evidence.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The proposal is the spray purpose made reflective
| aerosols high in the atmosphere.
|
| We almost certainly will end up doing this, negatives be
| damned. Even worse it's just a bandaid not a fix.
| simianparrot wrote:
| That will lead to world war.
| pitched wrote:
| https://archive.ph/jXcuJ
| card_zero wrote:
| Why: reduced albedo (less reflective clouds) because ships
| don't have so much sulphur in their fuel any more.
| terespuwash wrote:
| A change in attitudes is not enough. Structural change is needed
| to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, the population
| is unable to achieve results.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Our ecological goals are to make biosphere damage scarce, but
| our economic practices aim to make scarce things plentiful. We
| need something to balance out the effects of scarcity-based
| economics.
| evolve2k wrote:
| In the very fun board game 'Evolution : Climate' you "breed"
| animals designed to survive the climate conditions on the
| board. One strategy is to switch to breeding 'carnivores'
| that then can feast on the creations of other players. They
| downside tho is that once other players evolve their animals
| to have carnivore protections (fight back, scales, protective
| shells etc) the carnivores start to quickly starve and that
| player must quickly change out of this eat everything
| strategy back to a more sustainable strategy.
|
| In a similar way I think what works is to push back against
| growth only and growth at all costs approaches and back
| practises and models and communities that are working in
| other ways.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| The trouble is, when I receive my paycheck, it just comes
| as "dollars". I don't know whether my employer got them by
| providing services to communities which are working in
| other ways, or whether they come from more nefarious
| behavior--and I have no way to refuse one sort but accept
| the other.
|
| The kind of community action you're describing happens, but
| we need to find ways to help it scale.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| The population is achieving results. Most of these results are
| occurring in China, which has begun an unimaginably huge
| deployment of renewables and nuclear. Europe is also making
| progress. The rest of Asia will go next, and then (as it
| develops industrially) so will Africa. Even parts of North
| America will quickly electrify: for example, Canada just agreed
| to reduce tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6% from 100%.
| cryptoegorophy wrote:
| Is there a real practical solution to this? It seems like all
| proposed solutions in last 40 years are a drop in the ocean, or
| just a money grab scams. Only thing that really worked for such
| global scale is the ozone layer repair. Global warming/climate
| change I guess we should just accept it and adapt?
| hasley wrote:
| What about poor people that live in areas in the world that
| will become completely uninhabitable?
| jl6 wrote:
| Before areas become _completely_ uninhabitable, we will see
| areas become increasingly stressed: heat waves, more extreme
| weather events, poorer crop yields, depleting aquifers.
|
| Stress increases conflict risk. Fights for essential
| resources (land, water, food, shelter) will break out _long_
| before those essential resources are completely gone.
|
| If we skip past the immense suffering and death part, we will
| probably end up on a planet where national borders have been
| redrawn by war and desperation, and a smaller population that
| lives in more northerly climes.
| coryrc wrote:
| It's going to happen, so that's exactly what we should be
| prepared for.
|
| I'm sad all ocean megafauna are going to be extinct.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Perhaps they are part of the depopulation agenda.
| jandrese wrote:
| Our politicians are already thinking about them, which is why
| they are cracking down on immigration and generating
| relentless propaganda demonizing refugees and asylum seekers.
| quesera wrote:
| Whose politicians are you referring to?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Are you sure the whole world won't become completely
| uninhabitable? It's not like we have a trial earth to test
| this out on.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Technologically practical? Certainly. Kick renewables and
| electrification into high gear. Treat it like the emergency
| that it is.
|
| Politically practical? Not a chance. It was already a major
| struggle a decade ago when the political climate was much more
| favorable to addressing the problem. Now, even the countries
| that want to do something about it are going to be more
| concerned about more immediate threats like being invaded.
|
| Our best hope is that green technology quickly gets to the
| point where it so heavily outcompetes CO2-emitting technology
| that the latter disappears on its own. But this will take
| longer than it should.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| I'm not sure what we should do, it's very hard to determine
| what minimizes harm and maximizes benefits at a global scale.
| It's certainly not as simple as extremists would like to
| believe. Certainly it would be much (MUCH) less risky to slow
| warming as much as possible and maintain constant or slowly
| reducing CO2 levels.
|
| I think from the standpoint of predicting what will happen, my
| best guess is that people will use fossil fuels until it is
| economically not viable to do so. If you want hasten it at an
| individual level, buy solar panels and have your house
| disconnected from the grid until fees you pay no longer
| subsidize fossil fuels. Frown at people and refuse to give them
| positive social cues when they buy a car that isn't electric.
| Instead of "oh nice car" just say "it would be so cool if they
| had a plugin version!". Support electrification of things like
| heat and water heating so long as it can be powered by non-
| fossil sources.
|
| In the long run I think solar power, effective battery
| technology, and the peaking of the global population combine to
| cause fossil fuel usage to reduce over the next 100 years or so
| until CO2 levels stabilize. Lots of large CO2 emitters are
| already leveling off - the output is too high to sustain but at
| least it's no longer increasing year over year - such as from
| cement production.
|
| Honestly it's not much but that's what you can do, larger
| social movements and political action do not work when
| someone's decision is whether to spend $800 a month or $100 a
| month to heat their house. Anyone who says it does should buy a
| thermometer, but instead they will get a plane ticket to the
| next big city to run around in the street yelling at police
| (literally the only people paid to not care about your slogans)
| while nobody really notices.
| tantivy wrote:
| Electric cars are the savior of the auto industry, not of the
| climate. It needs to become viable for most people to get
| around without cars at all. The intensity of their resource
| consumption, both for manufacture and for infrastructure,
| independent of their fuel source, cannot scale up for the
| world population.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > Electric cars are the savior of the auto industry
|
| You should check with Ford on that. 19B write off this year
| Projectiboga wrote:
| Were you aware that the last time the planet was estimated to
| have co2 levels over 420ppm the global temperature was 10
| degrees Celsius warmer overall? This is the global equilvant
| of being locked in a car in a sunlit parking lot.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| If we are in overshoot scenario even reducing emissions may
| not be enough. There are warming gases currently trapped in
| permafrost, the natural carbon storage capacity is very
| dynamic, so global warming may target new (worse) equilibrium
| beyond what we think we can achieve in best case scenario.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| As with most difficult problems, this is a messy political
| problem, not a technical one. There is zero chance we avoid
| 1.5C gain. The best you can do is make life decisions for
| yourself to make your lifetime as comfortable for you as you
| can, assuming it will happen. I started doing that 5 years ago.
| chickenimprint wrote:
| The real practical solutions are trivial, the politics are not.
| It's a collective action problem, where the US is one of the
| actors.
| shrubby wrote:
| Yup.
|
| Plenty of solutions, but politicians will never make it
| happen.
|
| We calculated that capping personal emissions (mostly doable
| via peer pressure should we get this moving as normal people)
| to some top 1 percent 25 metric carbon ton and going plant
| based would get us net-zero while additionally getting rid of
| the zillionaire problem and adding extra 50-100 gigaton
| rewilding effect to the table.
|
| With no bigger than marginal effect on anyone's QOL.
|
| But we're SOL as the propaganda machines of the zillionaires
| keep dividing normal people to fake dichotomies.
| chickenimprint wrote:
| No, there's really just a few select politicians standing
| in the way. Governments around the world have implemented
| tons of policies to attempt to address the crisis, but
| unless every country participates, it's economically
| suicidal. Carbon-intensive industries can simply move to
| the US, strengthening them, while those countries
| attempting to carry the burden of preventing climate change
| will be equally affected by looming disasters.
| shrubby wrote:
| The same root cause everywhere . The zillionaires
| threatening to flee from the taxes. Annex Greenlands,
| Ukraines...
|
| Taking children to pedo islands.
|
| Once we'll wake up to the fact that almost every human
| becomes corrupt when treated with enough power we'll grok
| this.
|
| And provide mental health services to the zillionaires
| and also they'll be happier.
|
| Nobody wants the future we're getting.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Yes, we got to adapt, we won't cool it down and "repair" what
| is broken.
|
| However we can slow down the effects and try to stop the
| effects. So it's "only" 1.5deg or whatever, not 3deg, 5deg or
| 10deg. And if we raise average by 10deg at least not by the
| years 2100, but 2200 to give time to adapt.
|
| "Adapting" means resettling people, restructuring agriculture
| and food production, etc.
|
| (All numbers are quite arbitrary picks, just as any goal one
| tried to set before)
| mempko wrote:
| Look at the degrowth movement. There are solutions but nobody,
| especially the leadership, are going to like them.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Nobody has to "like" them. The centralized command and
| control structure is mostly in place to just force them down
| everyone's throats. Once we have centralized digital currency
| it will be a foregone conclusion
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| How will a centralized digital currency affect whether I
| decide to burn carbon fuels? If it gets obnoxious enough I
| can just use a different currency instead.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| That is the point...you can't
| tmnvix wrote:
| If only. Given how power and influence works currently, I
| would guess that those that have real control over these
| currencies would most likely use that power as they do now
| - to further their exploitation and pillaging of the earth
| with environmental considerations coming a distant second
| (or third, fourth, whatever...)
| cogman10 wrote:
| There are a lot of money scams out there to be sure.
|
| It's unlikely that something like carbon capture will ever
| significantly reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere. It's just too
| energy intensive.
|
| But there are a lot of practical solutions to significantly
| curb emissions that mostly just require regulations and taxes.
|
| Things like building out rail transport. Heavily taxing air
| travel. Taxing all forms of carbon emission (fuel taxes would
| be pretty effective). Subsidizing non-co2 emissions, pushing
| for electrification when possible and power generation which
| uses non-CO2 emission. Stop wasteful pipedreams like "clean
| coal". Force data centers to be better citizens. For example,
| make them buy the battery/solar systems to offset their
| consumption. Make them participate in district heating schemes.
|
| There's also some hope that even without intervention some of
| this will happen somewhat naturally. Solar and battery is
| already very cheap. Both are causing changes in the shipping
| and transit equations.
| parineum wrote:
| I heard about this[1] recently, essentially spurring a massive
| plankton bloom to capture carbon where it ends up on the sea
| floor and becomes future oil deposits in a few millenia.
|
| The nice thing about it is that it doesn't require global
| cooperation.
|
| [1]https://www.onepercentbrighter.com/p/the-no-bullshit-way-
| to-...
|
| Edit: I should probably link where I heard about it to give
| credit to someone who deserves it
|
| https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/p/the-climat...
| tmnvix wrote:
| I was under the impression that there have been multiple
| large extinction events in the past caused by excessive
| anaerobic decomposition underwater that led to the oceans
| becoming swamps and giving off nasty toxic gasses.
| themafia wrote:
| > is the ozone layer repair.
|
| Which was, stop using CFCs, and stop venting them into the
| atmosphere to "dispose" of them. We also stopped lighting
| rivers on fire for mostly the same reasons, stop dumping
| industrial waste in them.
|
| > I guess we should just accept it and adapt?
|
| Ocean shipping produces more pollution than most countries.
| There are only like 5 countries that produce more carbon than
| the worldwide shipping fleet. If they cared then "cheap crap
| from China" wouldn't exist.
|
| It's a scam. They want to monopolize the economy and they're
| using your environmental consciousness as the wedge to push you
| against your own best interests.
| chickenimprint wrote:
| Ocean freight accounts for 2-3% of global emissions. It is
| orders of magnitude more efficient and clean than air or road
| freight per ton-kilometer. It's twice as efficient as rail.
| The ability to efficiently transport goods enables your
| current standard of living. A world economy without ocean
| freight would be minuscule and of course far more polluting,
| without even considering land use.
| tmnvix wrote:
| Drive less.
|
| CO2 output per person in the US (all sources including
| industry, etc): ~13-14,000kg
|
| Average distance driven per year per capita in the US:
| ~20,000km
|
| Average CO2 output of current private vehicle fleet: ~250g/km
|
| Therefore, over one third of total CO2 output per person is
| personal vehicle use. Considering only CO2 output due to
| personal choices driving has to be well over half.
|
| Most people don't - or refuse - to consider the obvious choice
| to take personal responsibility. Drive less.
| bfrog wrote:
| I guess returning to the office isn't so great. Pointy hair
| bosses rage everywhere.
|
| But beyond driving less, surely eating further down the
| foodchain helps as well. Plants and shellfish are efficient.
| Cows are not. Eat fewer burgers and a few more lentils and
| mussels. Unless you are RFK Jr then of course please eat lots
| and lots of fatty cow, tallow, butter. Go full on Atkins
| please and follow right behind him.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| This also means two thirds of emissions are not due to
| vehicular emissions. Let's tackle that first, more bang for
| the buck?
|
| Also - does that per capita figure include cargo? If so, how
| much? Does it matter if random individual takes personal
| Responsibility and stops driving when all those long haul
| trucks will still be on the road?
| tmnvix wrote:
| My point is that in terms of personal responsibility
| nothing comes remotely close to driving but a vanishingly
| small proportion of people are willing to consider this.
| melling wrote:
| A few decades ago we explained that personal
| responsibility isn't the solution.
|
| Please catch up. Why we're having a conversation from the
| year 2000 now is beyond me.
|
| I also suggest reviewing the "nuclear isn't part of the
| solution. Besides it takes a decade" discussion.
| tmnvix wrote:
| How does cultural change happen?
|
| I would say it's often because people see individual
| examples in action. Some people follow those examples.
| Then more do. You are more influential than you think.
| mmooss wrote:
| > A few decades ago we explained that personal
| responsibility isn't the solution.
|
| I've never seen that argued persuasively. All the
| arguments I've seen are the usual hopelessness for
| democracy, lack of agency, and victimhood.
|
| Lots of people acting in the same way is the foundation
| of democracy.
| mmooss wrote:
| What I've read is that diet can do more, though of course
| it depends on what you currently eat and your current
| transportation.
| philistine wrote:
| Flying is much higher than driving.
| fullstackchris wrote:
| love how a completely valid point gets downvoted becuase the
| average person refuses to believe they are part of the
| problem "no! its those big corporations and airline industry!
| my daily commute has no input at all!"
|
| and this is why we'll never solve the problem
| Mawr wrote:
| Driving isn't realistically a personal choice. Roadways
| designed for cars extend from every single point in the
| country to every other. The support for alternative methods
| of transportation varies greatly by area, but is generally
| poor.
|
| Riding a bike or taking the bus is objectively the worse
| option for most people. That's not personal choice, that's
| policy.
|
| Reversing course for a car-culture country like the US would
| take 50+ years. If it's even possible, which I personally
| don't think it is -- the US is too far gone.
| tmnvix wrote:
| To an extent I agree with you. Some places and lifestyles
| (e.g. means of earning a living) don't make cutting back on
| driving a viable choice.
|
| However, these things can and do change (introduction of
| public transport and saner planning allowing local shops
| and the possibility for children get to and from school
| autonomously for example).
|
| One problem as I see it is that many people that don't have
| a viable choice other than driving everywhere are
| politically opposed to structural change. Adopting this
| political point of view is also a personal choice.
| f_allwein wrote:
| Don't live like a rich person in a developed country - they're
| the only ones whose co2 footprints are too high.
| oezi wrote:
| The real solution is pricing the true cost of the externalities
| fairly and globally.
|
| Everything which isn't sustainable must he taxed to the degree
| to offset the damage. We know well that economic incentives
| work best and that markets are efficient to achieve optimal
| solutions.
|
| The core issue is just game theory to coordinate globally all
| players to prevent free riding.
| doktor2un wrote:
| I'd love to see the raw data.
| rwmj wrote:
| https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/datasets
| doktor2un wrote:
| No raw data there just post processed data. Give me the raw
| data.
| ori_b wrote:
| Petabytes of it around. Here's a small sunset:
| https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/
|
| Would you like more, or do you plan on analyzing the first
| few petabytes first?
| tonymet wrote:
| He means the original recordings. There were no digital
| recordings in 1880. Different apparatus, different
| methods. That's the point
| dpkirchner wrote:
| They can speak for themselves, you and I don't really
| know what they want, or what they think counts as "raw"
| data.
| ori_b wrote:
| Ah, so a painfully obvious attempt at moving goalposts
| and showering people with bullshit.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| If you want the raw data, you'll have to go dig in the
| archives to find the log books and card decks.
|
| This[1] paper goes into some detail on how the digital
| records were constructed from the log books, card decks and
| such. This[2] paper deals with an update of those digital
| records, including new digitization efforts. You can
| download the raw digital data from ICOADS here[3].
|
| [1]: https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477(1987)068%3C1239:ACOA
| DS%3E2... _A Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set_
| (available on the hub of science)
|
| [2]: https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.4775 _ICOADS Release 3.0:
| a major update to the historical marine climate record_
| (open access)
|
| [3]: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/international-
| comprehensive-o...
| Certhas wrote:
| There are tons of raw data available freely and publicly. In my
| estimation, there is no comparable scientific discipline with a
| better curated data environment.
|
| What exact raw data would you want? I am sure ChatGPT can throw
| together some python that will download the relevant data.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| You are capable of operating Google, right?
| foltik wrote:
| Here's a raw table in .txt format from NASA
|
| https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/graph_data/Global_...
| doktor2un wrote:
| That's useless.
| foltik wrote:
| Hah. Shall I present it to you on a silver platter then?
|
| If you read the NASA page, they explicitly cite GHCNd, a
| raw surface temperature and precipitation dataset that goes
| back quite far. There's many other similar datasets you can
| find if you're willing to look.
|
| Check out the readme for the csv format description, and
| /by-year for the raw rows:
|
| https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/daily/
| genewitch wrote:
| picked four stations at random[0] and it's just precip
| numbers, no temps, no humidity, no insolation, etc.
|
| are you sure you linked what you think you linked?
|
| [0] /by-station and then unclutched my scroll wheel and
| spun it for arbitrary amount of time, re-engaged clutch
| and clicked what was under the cursor. repeated 3 more
| times. i did a fifth, where the one i was looking at was
| identical to the fourth one, but had a 1 in the least
| significant portion of the station ID instead of a 4, in
| case it was like, "4" is precip, "1" is temps, and i
| happened to click "4" 4 times in a row.
| foltik wrote:
| Quite a scientific data analysis you've done there. NASA
| must be completely mistaken!
| tonymet wrote:
| That's not the raw data. The original recordings were made by
| merchants on parchment. They measured the volume of water in
| a wooden box, to set the buoyancy for their loads
| foltik wrote:
| What are you even talking about. They had weather stations
| with mercury thermometers and wrote down temperatures in a
| logbook.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| For the interested, here[1] is an article on an attempt
| to recreate and verify measurements made during the HMS
| Challenger expedition in the 1870s.
|
| It was recently done so the full results aren't out, but
| one aspect they noted was that the traditionally-created
| hemp rope stretched about 10% so temperatures were taken
| at slightly deeper depths than expected. This can be used
| to calibrate the data from HMS Challenger.
|
| [1]: https://www.oneoceanexpedition.com/article/checked-1
| 50-year-...
| mempko wrote:
| And what will you do with the raw data? Are you trained in
| processing and interpreting it? How good is your math?
| genewitch wrote:
| you're right this is much to complicated and important for
| anyone to understand. just take our word for it that we have
| to make things more expensive, raise taxes, and restrict
| freedoms to fix it.
| foltik wrote:
| Right, if only scientists who understood it would publish
| some sort of document explaining their methods and citing
| the raw sources.
|
| > we have to make things more expensive, raise taxes, and
| restrict freedoms to fix it
|
| Aha, right on cue the mask slips off. Desperately trying to
| justify your own selfishness in the name of "freedom".
| mempko wrote:
| If you are serious about this, you know full well the data
| is out there. So stop asking for it and just go get it, go
| write some code and process it, then come back here and
| report your results.
| eimrine wrote:
| Climate deniers are perfectly trained for finding some weak
| spots in any data anytime they want. It would be better for
| them to be trained enough to show at least any links to any
| studies though. It is so hard to convince a climate denier to
| give at least one climate-denying source for the sake of
| experiencing some laugher together.
| vaylian wrote:
| Whenever you hear a politician say "carbon neutral by 2050",
| interrupt them. The real goal is to avoid getting too far over
| 1.5 degrees warming. We need to avoid reaching tipping points
| that will cause non-recoverable damage to the earth system. The
| year 2050 is meaningless. Actual global average temperatures is
| what should be measured.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| A couple years back I saw articles about how we're basically
| less than a year from the tipping point.
|
| Then nothing.
|
| My guess is we passed the tipping point. It's inevitable by
| now.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| Berkeley Earth berkeleyearth.org > home > global temperature
| report for 2023 Global Temperature Report for 2023 - Berkeley
| Earth
|
| February 29, 2024 - 2023 was the warmest year on Earth since
| direct observations began, and the first year to exceed 1.5
| degC above our 1850-1900 average. ...
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| 2050 is not meaningless. Its close enough to feel like its
| achievable but far enough away that you can put off immediate
| action and still feel there is time to get it done. Reminds of
| the lyrics of the spirit of the west song:
|
| It's a ways outside of town
|
| But the distance has its uses
|
| Close enough to make the effort
|
| Far enough to make excuses.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZXgl5KxUQY
| shrubby wrote:
| https://theshovel.com.au/2021/10/26/man-announces-he-will-
| qu...
|
| This.
| Faaak wrote:
| Even if we stop all emissions right now, we'll exceed the 1.5C
| target, so...
| agentultra wrote:
| Every point of a degree we can mitigate will matter a lot.
| pjerem wrote:
| The nice thing with climate change is that it can always get
| worse !
|
| If we miss the 1.5 target then the next target is 1.51. And
| so on.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| The Doomerist paralysis has been engineered by the folks who
| look to benefit the most from inaction, mainly the fossil
| fuel and related industries.
|
| To not even attempt to head for the lifeboats is suicide.
| networkadmin wrote:
| Exactly what is it about CO2, a plant food, that scares you
| so much? You do realize that green plants react to
| increased CO2 percentage with stronger growth?
|
| You're the one calling _me_ a "doomer"?
| WaxProlix wrote:
| Plants and humans both love water, but you can still
| drown.
| themafia wrote:
| > We need to avoid reaching tipping points that will cause non-
| recoverable damage to the earth system.
|
| Then I'd be far more worried about nuclear war than minor
| temperature excursions. Aside from that "non recoverable"
| damage happens every day. What do you think mining is?
|
| > Actual global average temperatures is what should be
| measured.
|
| On average it was 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler last year than
| it was the previous where I live in northern CA.
| misnome wrote:
| Congratulations, you know the local weather
| simianparrot wrote:
| Local weather is what matters to individuals. So is access
| to affordable energy.
|
| You cannot coerce someone to ignore their local weather and
| sabotage access to affordable energy because of some global
| average. It's a losing battle that's fundamentally misled.
| oezi wrote:
| You have to coerce the individual to follow the strategic
| direction despite tactical disadvantages. This is what
| leadership means.
|
| If we all individually spend more money to accommodate
| the effects of climate change than their causes, then we
| are wasting enormous economic resources.
| simianparrot wrote:
| Sure, but local is a radius. There's my local, then
| there's my region's local, then there's my country's
| local. As wonderful as globalism sounds on paper, if
| saving the global average leads to a drought or a flood
| for another country, or another region, then you are
| trying to convince others of giving up a lot for no
| tangible relevant gain.
| cco wrote:
| You're still hearing politicians talk about climate change?
| This could be an American bubble but I haven't heard talk of
| climate change from US politicians, or the other global leaders
| that filter through our news cycle, since 2023.
| apublicfrog wrote:
| Of course. Here's the Australian PM 4 months ago:
|
| https://www.pm.gov.au/media/setting-
| australias-2035-climate-...
|
| Here's the NZ PM last month:
|
| https://www.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/rural-news/rural-general-
| ne...
|
| I would imagine it's a relevant political football in most
| first world countries. I avoid American news, but the bits I
| see make me think it's probably still focused on culture war
| garbage.
| Freedom2 wrote:
| I don't think it's that easy to interrupt politicians,
| especially these days as more and more protections are
| justifiably given to them.
|
| Do you have an example where you personally interrupted a
| politician effectively?
| deadbabe wrote:
| That goal is no longer possible.
| vaylian wrote:
| I agree that staying below 1.5degC is extremely unlikely at
| this point. But it is still worthwhile to try to keep it
| under 1.6degC.
| linohh wrote:
| Third hottest year on record, so far.
| tonymet wrote:
| the article is particularly dodgy. "On record" is a crime. They
| hint at it being satellite recordings since the 1970s.
|
| The Economist used to be a good publication until McElthwaite
| left for Bloomberg about 10-12 years ago.
| foltik wrote:
| This isn't some big conspiracy. "On record" is since
| recordkeeping began in 1880.
|
| https://science.nasa.gov/earth/explore/earth-
| indicators/glob...
| tonymet wrote:
| Ok, so why not just be specific? "On record" usually means
| since we started recording history , at least 5k years ago.
|
| And have you looked into the records? satellite surface
| temps and high resolution recording have not been around
| for very long. 1880 methods were very crude and narrowly
| scoped.
| genewitch wrote:
| and scientists edit the historical temperatures because
| of, and i hope you can see my eyeroll here "anomalous
| readings" - but they're overwhelmingly erroneous in only
| one direction. that's strange.
| NicuCalcea wrote:
| > "On record" usually means since we started recording
| history , at least 5k years ago.
|
| I'm a journalist who has published "highest/lowest on
| record" statistics tens, if not hundreds of times, and
| I've never heard of anyone thinking it means "since
| Herodotus" or anything like that.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Uhm obviously. It would be difficult to have a year from the
| future on record wouldn't it?
| tonymet wrote:
| Because "3rd hottest year since the 1970s" didn't get as many
| clicks.
| foltik wrote:
| Uh, no, it's the 3rd hottest year since 1880. You can click
| "Download Data" and look the table yourself.
|
| https://science.nasa.gov/earth/explore/earth-indicators/glob...
| gwbrooks wrote:
| I can't think of a single time in history that humanity responded
| to a threat in a fully coordinated manner. Maybe this is the
| first time, but the incentive stack from the individual voter all
| the way up to geopolitical grand strategy argues against it.
|
| Trying to tell poor nations to remain poor -- or telling rich
| nations to consume less -- is a losing game. There's evidence
| that as societies get richer, their populations demand cleaner
| air, water, etc. And, as another commenter mentioned, a realistic
| hope is that the whole green-tech stack matures to the point
| where it can compete on price.
|
| We'll either make lower-carbon/lower-warming solutions work at
| near-market rates, in a way that allows personal and national
| economies to grow, or it'll just be talk for the next 50 years as
| well.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Banning CFCs. But that didn't require giving anything up really
| so it was an easier sell.
| cramforloin wrote:
| Oh, look, another left wing article about how we're all gonna
| burn up while the liberal elites jet around and gobble up all the
| coastal real estate.
| dust42 wrote:
| 30 years ago I attended a university lecture in an economics
| class and the professor spoke about the economic consequences of
| global warming - some places will be better off and plenty of
| places will be worse off. There will be water shortages in some
| places, while heavy rainfall in others. He presented it as a
| given fact that the global warming is coming - and pretty much
| the whole audience was shocked. Finally someone asked if he
| really thinks that it is unavoidable. And his answer was yes,
| that is human nature. As long as fossil fuels are there and cheap
| to explore someone will use them.
|
| 30 years later it looks like he was right.
|
| Edit: the IPCC was founded in 1988 thus people started in the
| 70ies to understand that there will be a problem but there was a
| very long period of inactivity. Personally I am quite optimistic
| that fusion will become commercially available before 2040.
|
| And dear downvoters, dont shoot the messenger.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| With 2024 and 2023 being 2nd and 1st resp. The last 11 years were
| the hottest 11 in recorded history. I don't know how more
| evidence we need. We are standing on the train tracks, the train
| is coming, and many of us say "Oh just look over there instead,
| we'll be fine."
|
| Meanwhile - even if you do not care about climate - there is so
| much money to make with renewables (production, storage,
| mobility, etc). China and much of the rest of the world are
| charging ahead, while the US wants to be a petrol state.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| China emits 34% of the world's total carbon emissions, the USA
| produces 12%.
|
| Since 2000, China has increased emissions by 262%. The USA has
| decreased emissions by 21%.
|
| If that's how China is charging ahead, we don't need it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
| cabirum wrote:
| Who are "we"? China population is 4 times the US, with carbon
| emissions just 3 times greater, making them produce less
| carbon per capita.
| ainiriand wrote:
| I am still confused why this argument is still valid to
| anyone... Not only China has 4 times more population than the
| US, but they produce all the stuff that the US buys, so if
| the US had to produce all that stuff on their own they would
| emit so much more carbon.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| The US has no new coal plants under construction.
|
| 2024 had the highest number of Chinese plants in a decade.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| They're adding capacity, not increasing utilization. Many
| new plants are smaller, more grid-friendly, more-
| efficient replacements for aging plants.
|
| Coal Utilization growth in China is negative and has been
| for years.
| rmitsch wrote:
| There's no amount of evidence that'll help. We have had a
| sufficient amount of that for a long while. It's entrenched
| economic interests fostering a lack of political will that's
| keeping us from taking this seriously.
| networkadmin wrote:
| Actually the whole thing is a fraud.
| miroljub wrote:
| Yeah, we definitely need to put more weather stations in urban
| areas and remove rural ones. That's how we can reach first place
| every year. Being number 3 is disappointing.
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