[HN Gopher] Global warming has accelerated significantly
___________________________________________________________________
Global warming has accelerated significantly
Author : morsch
Score : 882 points
Date : 2026-03-06 14:10 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.researchsquare.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.researchsquare.com)
| afandian wrote:
| This is open access. No need to post a researchgate link.
|
| Here's the original: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6079807/v1
| luxuryballs wrote:
| I'm out of the loop on researchgate, when you say "No need" is
| it like an archive.is? Why is it less desirable or, if I'm
| reading your tone correctly, a "backup option"?
| nyeah wrote:
| ResearchGate isn't open access.
| noboostforyou wrote:
| How so? I don't have an account but I am able to read the
| entire paper directly from the OP's link, is there some
| sort of free limit or something that I have yet to hit? I
| get some banner ads served on their site but I'm not seeing
| how it isn't open access.
| tokai wrote:
| Researchgate has nothing to do with OA. Its a social
| media page for researchers. OA is open licensing that
| give the reader the rights to download, distribute, etc.
| nyeah wrote:
| You may be arguing that ResearchGate allows free access
| to its articles in general. If so, I believe there's a
| logical fallacy in your argument. But I've been warned
| that naming that logical fallacy is a ban-able offense on
| HN. (Surreal but true.)
| noboostforyou wrote:
| Ah, gotcha - yes that explains my misunderstanding. I was
| equating "open access" to free access to the content via
| website. Thanks for clarifying.
| nyeah wrote:
| Some content on ResearchGate can be downloaded for free.
| Some can't.
| bee_rider wrote:
| ResearchGate isn't a journal, right? I think it is some
| sort of... pseudo-social-networking site for papers.
| nyeah wrote:
| Right, it's not a journal.
| serioussecurity wrote:
| They're a user hostile attempt to extract money from people.
| They make their website hard to use.
| kergonath wrote:
| How so? I am not paying anything and I don't have any
| problem getting full texts when the authors uploaded them.
| In fact, I just logged in and don't see even the
| possibility to pay for anything there. I assume they
| monetise their database, but everything there is supposed
| to be publicly accessible anyway.
|
| If I am not mistaken we can get documents without an
| account as well, unlike others.
| afandian wrote:
| I'm a bit of a scholarly infrastructure purist. The paper has
| a DOI, it leads to a landing page that has the full text, and
| the content is open licensed.
|
| Like if someone posted a link to an archive.is version of a
| Wikipedia page, you'd probably prefer to get the canonical
| link to that content.
|
| ResearchGate is a bit of commercial enclosure of
| infrastructure that is, and should be, open. Who knows, maybe
| it has other value. I'm not an academic so I don't know.
| miclill wrote:
| As far as I understand this is a pre-print under CC-BY
| license, if this answers your question?
| pc86 wrote:
| If the original is available, posting anything else is by
| definition less desirable.
| kergonath wrote:
| My position is that when it's open access, we might as well
| link the primary source. ResearchGate is generally legal.
| It's the responsibility of the authors to upload accepted
| manuscripts if the final document is not open access. AFAIK
| it does not do anything dodgy like archive.is does.
| dana321 wrote:
| The clue is in the name, research "gate"
| cubefox wrote:
| The researchgate link has for me a deceptive ad at the
| bottom: it has a PDF logo and says "download now", suggesting
| that this will download the paper. It then links to a
| download page which in the fine print says it will actually
| download some kind of ebook collection which costs 30 bucks
| per month. That's a scam.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've changed the URL from
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/389855619_Global_Wa...
| to what that doi.org link redirects to. Is it better now?
| afandian wrote:
| Cool, thanks. I approve!
|
| In a pure world everyone would use DOIs to refer to published
| literature. This would give two benefits: first, always link
| to the current version. Second, be a persistent identifier
| for the content.
|
| But HN isn't a specialist scholarly content platform, so it's
| practical to link to the landing page.
| eykanal wrote:
| For those (like me) who don't know the authors, apparently they
| are well-published authors in the field of climate science whose
| work is very highly cited:
|
| https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C39&q=gra...
|
| Not a perfect measure of whether this is a reputable article but
| at least readers should know this isn't from some randos in a
| basement somewhere.
| miroljub wrote:
| This comment makes me more skeptical.
|
| Do you want to tell us to trust the authority instead of the
| presented data and arguments?
|
| Usually, insisting on references, citations, and author status
| is a sign that the study doesn't hold on its own merit.
| Sharlin wrote:
| No, it really does not work like that, for reasons that
| should be obvious.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Yes, credibility is one component of evaluating conclusions
| from evidence.
| NotGMan wrote:
| Credibility of evidence, not the people doing the
| evaluation of the evidence.
| teamonkey wrote:
| Their credibility and experience makes it more likely
| that they will have followed scientific procedures
| correctly, that their measuring techniques will not have
| obvious flaws and their findings reflect the evidence.
|
| This is not an appeal to authority: the paper will be
| examined thoroughly by peer reviewers and likely by
| academics across the world, in part _because_ of their
| credibility. That will take time. Meanwhile it should be
| taken seriously.
| tarr11 wrote:
| It says this in bold red at the top - "This is a preprint; it
| has not been peer reviewed by a journal."
|
| I am not a climate scientist - how should I think about this
| statement? Normally I am looking for some statement that shows
| a document has been vetted.
| sleet_spotter wrote:
| Peer review is still very relevant in climate science. But
| given it is from well-respected authors, I am more inclined
| to trust the results at this stage.
| juujian wrote:
| It is already published at Geophysical Research Letters, a
| highly (if not the most) reputable source in the area. But
| that journal is behind a paywall: https://agupubs.onlinelibra
| ry.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...
| epistasis wrote:
| For non-specialists, I think the most important view on
| papers is to not view them as nuggets of truth, but
| communications of a group of people who are trying to
| establish truth. No single paper is definitive!
|
| Peer review is an important part of scientific publication,
| but it's also important for the general public to not view
| peer review as a full vetting. Peer reviewers look for things
| like reproducibility of the analysis, suitability of the
| conclusions given the methods, discussions of the limitations
| of the data and methods, appropriate statistical tests,
| correct approval from IRBs if there are humans or animals
| involved, and things like that. For many journals, the
| editors are also asking if the results are interesting and
| significant enough to meet the prestige of the journal.
|
| Peer review misses things like intentional fraud, mistakes in
| computations, and of course any blind spots that the field
| has not yet acknowledged (for example, nearly every
| scientific specialty had to rediscover the important of
| splitting training and testing datasets for machine learning
| methods somewhat on their own, as new practitioners adopted
| new methods quickly and then some papers would slip through
| at the beginning when reviewers were not yet aware of the
| necessity of this split...)
|
| Any single paper is not revealed truth, it's a step towards
| establishing truth, maybe. Science is supposed to be self-
| correcting, which also necessitates the mistakes that need
| correction. Climate science is one of the fields that gets
| the most attention and scrutiny, so a series of papers in
| that field goes a long ways towards establishing truth, much
| more so than, say, new MRI technology in psychology.
| tialaramex wrote:
| For one thing, some of the places which would publish this
| kind of thing will authorize authors to provide anybody and
| everybody pre-prints but _not_ the final copy they published.
|
| In principle you could go (pay to+) read the actual final
| published copy, maybe it's different, but almost always it's
| basically the same, the text is enough to qualify.
|
| If you go to https://eel.is/c++draft/ you'll find the "Draft"
| C++ standard, and it has this text:
|
| Note: this is an early draft. It's known to be incomplet and
| incorrekt, and it has lots of bad formatting.
|
| Nevertheless, the people who wrote your C++ compiler used
| that "draft" document, because it isn't reasonable to wait a
| few years for ISO to publish the "real" document which is
| identical other than lacking that scary text and having a
| bunch of verbiage about how ISO owns this document and it
| mustn't be republished.
|
| And you might be thinking "OK, I'm sure those GNU hippies
| don't pay for a real published copy, but surely the Microsoft
| Corporation buys their engineers a real one". Nope. Waste of
| money.
|
| + If you have a relationship with a research institution it
| might have this or be willing to help you order it from
| somewhere else at no personal cost.
| jfengel wrote:
| I'd say that for a non-scientist, you should treat it as a
| non-event -- a paper that hasn't happened yet.
|
| The climate is not something for which you need daily,
| weekly, or even monthly updates. Rather, this paper is just
| one more on top of a gigantic pile of evidence that that
| climate change is serious, something that we can and should
| do something about.
|
| If the paper passes muster, you'll hear about it then, though
| all it'll do is very slightly increase your confidence in
| something that is already very well confirmed. Or, the paper
| may not pass review, in which case it doesn't mean anything
| at all, and you fall back on the existing mountain of
| evidence.
|
| If the paper had reached the opposite conclusion, that might
| merit more investigation by you now, since that would
| potentially be a significant update to your beliefs. And more
| importantly, it would certainly be presented as if it were a
| fait accompli, even before peer review.
|
| Instead, you can simply say, "I don't know what this paper
| means, but I already have a very well-founded understanding
| of climate change and its significance."
| notarobot123 wrote:
| Ironically, those still unconvinced of the human influence on
| climate change seem to be the sort that would trust the
| basement randos _more_ than they would reputable scientists
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It's a culture thing, nobody on the right would ever be
| convinced by science, they will shop around until they find
| what they need to hear. My sister in law sent me a video and
| told me that she thought it was a really good explainer and
| had a lot of good facts and figures to support it. To humor
| her, I took a brief glance at it, and saw that it was
| produced by Dr. Shiva. I was thinking "no way, it can't be
| _that_ Shiva, could it, email guy? " Yes, yes it was.
|
| We are doomed.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Tell her that you have a greenfield synergistic solution to
| upscale her big tent.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Because they are practicing the reverse scientific method.
| They hold a conclusion in their hand, like, _man-made climate
| change is a hoax_ , and seek to find any threads of
| "evidence" that support their foregone conclusion.
| blell wrote:
| You can apply that too to the "man-made climate change is
| real" argument.
| jrajav wrote:
| Allegations of cherry-picking scant bits of evidence to
| support a claim are less effective when that claim is
| held up by vast quantities of distinct, high-quality
| evidence.
| exhumet wrote:
| my wife is an actuary, and we always joke that you know
| climate change has real cause and effect because the
| actuaries are specifically monitoring and modeling for it
| lol
| funkyfiddler369 wrote:
| that's cute but you can't blame people for holding opinions
| based on phenomenal observations before they learn the
| language and can perform experiments. the fact that so many
| can't is the sole reason you might be considered somewhat
| superior or competent. more people with scientific skills
| and a personal way to explain and adhere to the scientific
| method would mean that your competence would be no more
| than average, if at all. how would that make you feel?
|
| more importantly though, is the fact that there are enough
| "critics" that consider Global Warming a cycle that "man"
| merely accelerated by a few decades. most of these
| "skeptics" are also perfectly capable of discerning between
| the amount of energy "wasted" in office buildings and lit
| up skyscrapers as well as anything at the end of luxury
| supply chains and markets and what the rest of the world
| "wastes" or expends. to them, the hoax is the "man-made"
| part ...
|
| it should be "some-man-made climate change"
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| >that's cute
|
| Unnecessary but moving past that: I understand where
| you're coming from but a hallmark of people like that is
| they are not willing to learn or be swayed no matter how
| you try to educate them. They have decided what is real
| and it often dovetails with their social/political views
| in a way that is very hard to disentangle.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| My phenomenal observations are that it's been getting
| warmer during my lifetime, but as soon as I mention this
| in an online conversation I get slapped down with 'the
| climate is always changing' and 'n=1'.
|
| Most climate change denial arguments eventually boil down
| to social assertions about the change believers having
| perverse incentives, like being greedy for grants to go
| on sailing vacations to Antartica or feather their
| academic nests.
| like_any_other wrote:
| Many scientists (cited by Supreme Court justices even)
| practice that same method:
| https://dailycaller.com/2025/03/31/exclusive-researchers-
| axe...
|
| If you don't trust the Daily Caller - good. But their main
| claim is backed up by FOIA'd documents (which they
| include), and others have been independently reported, and
| they directly link to the study making the claim.
| yfw wrote:
| Theres a mistrust of government and the establishment. Not
| saying fringe is better but the behavior of govts, corruption
| and influence by rich donors doesn't help
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| It also doesn't help that anyone with few scruples and a
| desire to make a buck can quickly monetize screaming about
| how up is down on YouTube
| scottLobster wrote:
| Also scientists generally suck at messaging and persuasion.
| They think if they just dial up the stakes and consequences
| a little more, it'll be compelling! Maybe if we make one
| more documentary with bad CGI disaster movie scenes,
| that'll do it! Same with the stupid "Doomsday clock" that
| is somehow always "the closest we've ever been to nuclear
| war!" whenever it gets trotted out. You'd think people who
| know what stochastic noise is would realize when they're
| producing it.
|
| They would have made a lot more headway talking about clean
| air, clean water, jobs, and a bright prosperous future
| where we manufacture wind turbines, batteries and solar
| panels in deep red Missouri. A minority tried that, but
| most stuck with the catastrophizing for decades and now
| that they've ruined their social credit no one will listen
| to the message they should have opened with.
|
| You need people emotionally invested, and it's a lot easier
| to get them invested in their lives than in the abstract
| consequences of computer models that are at least 100 years
| out if they're even accurate. And most people are not
| independent enough to direct their own lives. If they make
| the right decisions on abstract concepts, it was more
| because the incentives/disincentives in their environment
| were set up correctly than they actually understood the
| decision they were making. Message accordingly.
| designerarvid wrote:
| There's actually research to support the claim you're making
| here (Elaboration Likelihood Model).
|
| When forming attitudes in an area where one doesn't care, one
| tends to rely more on who is saying it than what is being
| said. The opposite is true, if you care about [climate
| change], you listen to the arguments regardless of who is
| presenting it.
| draw_down wrote:
| Oops you forgot this part:
|
| > Here we account for the influence of three main natural
| variability factors: El Nino, volcanism, and solar variation.
|
| Whoops! Whoopsies! Oopsy doodles!
| xyzelement wrote:
| As an observation, global warming has completely disappeared as
| social concern in the last few years. Great that someone is still
| publishing research, but it seems like being a climate scientist
| has gone from hottest field to nobody cares.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| Nothing like fascism and war to take your mind off the
| environment.
| Octoth0rpe wrote:
| Because of how policies are grouped together in many
| countries (particularly the US), the fight against fascism is
| necessarily concurrent with the fight against climate change.
| Fricken wrote:
| I haven't seen much fight against either fascism or climate
| change so far in the US
| timacles wrote:
| What a coincidence that any fight that might impact
| corporate profits is always the "left's" interest.
| avereveard wrote:
| as soon as there was money to be made by concentrating data
| center, no matter the energy density impact on environment, the
| once philanthropist changed tune real quick
|
| https://www.gatesnotes.com/home/home-page-topic/reader/three...
|
| with gems like "Although climate change will hurt poor people
| more than anyone else, for the vast majority of them it will
| not be the only or even the biggest threat to their lives and
| welfare. "
| bena wrote:
| We've had other existential threats to worry about of late.
|
| People are way more alarmed by Rapid Local Temperature Rises By
| Mechanism of Thermonuclear Energy Being Suddenly Released.
| latexr wrote:
| Are you based in the US? Seeing how the current regime is doing
| its best to gut climate protections I get how it could seem
| that way, but it's definitely not the case in e.g. Europe where
| energy from renewables continues to grow.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Most countries including the US are deploying record amounts
| of renewables. But the climate conversation is definitely
| reduced, and that's global. Its been a good while since I saw
| angsty euro teens throwing tomato soup on paintings or gluing
| themselves to motorways. That used to be a monthly occurance.
| pjc50 wrote:
| That was .. last year?
|
| There's a "top of stack" effect in that there can be only a
| certain number of issues which are most important _in
| discourse_ , and the Israel/Iran situation has taken over
| the top of discourse as has the US President.
|
| A vital part of good governance is caring about things
| which _aren 't_ in today's newspaper.
| missedthecue wrote:
| No, it was more of a 2023 thing, which is now three years
| ago. It had definitely calmed down by 2025 too. Iran
| situation is only a few days old.
| latexr wrote:
| The US still produces more than half (58%) of its
| electricity from fossil fuels. In the EU, it's less than a
| third (29%).
|
| https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/united-
| states...
|
| https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/european-
| unio...
|
| In the EU I hear of new climate initiatives all the time.
| From the US every bit of news I know about is how they're
| making it worse.
| vixen99 wrote:
| What is the effect of the new climate initiatives?
| Undoubtedly $trillions have been spent on what might be
| termed 'fighting climate change' by all means possible.
| Looking at the Mauna Loa data on C02, can anyone see any
| effect at all? https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/. I
| merely present this as an observation. In other words,
| your comment is spot on at least with respect to the EU.
| stfp wrote:
| Anecdotally, as I spend time between the US and the EU, the
| divide is large and clear now. It feels like folks in the US
| sort of just gave up (me included to an extent), whereas in
| Europe there seems to be a stronger resolve at a personal
| level and institutional level, to keep reducing energy use,
| plastics, driving, waste, etc. The US on the other hand is
| accelerating overconsumption in all directions.
|
| It's especially depressing for me when it comes to younger
| folks. In Seattle where I live (not the suburbs, actual
| Seattle) some teenagers drive to school in 6 seater SUVs and
| spend their lunch time in there, with the engine on. A
| minority of students of course but that's still a mindfuck...
| in Europe they would get so much shit from other kids and
| neighbors. Drop in the bucket in terms of actual emissions
| but a very strong symbol of the lack of awareness/motivation.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| The individual contributions from emissions are much
| smaller than industrial scale emissions. People can still
| do what you describe if we magically move all power
| production to solar/nuclear, and move to cleaner airplanes,
| and things would be headed in the right direction global
| warming wise.
| f6v wrote:
| The problem is, no amount of climate policies in the West is
| going to offset burning fuel in the developing counties. It's a
| global phenomenon and addressing it locally is futile. That,
| and you don't have the luxury of green solutions when energy
| prices were going through the roof.
| rounce wrote:
| Surely it's better to be more reliant on domestically/locally
| produced wind and solar when oil and gas production by 3rd
| party countries is plummeting?
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > addressing it locally is futile.
|
| Imagine what could be accomplished if Americans used their
| global influence to affect global change on climate issues
| with the same zeal that they pursue manipulative trade deals.
| nDRDY wrote:
| It's a good job Americans are right if they were to start
| swinging their global weight around.
| wolttam wrote:
| Someone needs to set the example and be the model?
| nyeah wrote:
| Nice take on the trolley problem. "No amount of pulling the
| emergency brakes is going to prevent passengers from dying
| when this runaway train finally crashes. So let's be
| responsible adults and put the pedal to the metal."
| triceratops wrote:
| So pay for developing countries to go green. If they can get
| free solar energy they won't spend their money on gas.
| acdha wrote:
| This is not only wrong but you are bending over backwards to
| maintain the state of ignorance which makes it possible to
| say that. Most of the carbon in the atmosphere did not come
| from developing countries, and every reduction buys more time
| to deal with the problem so, yes, local measures matter: as
| an example, the U.S. transportation sector is so carbon
| intensive that getting our average efficiency up will reduce
| global emissions by more than entire other countries produce.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1118464/transportation-c.
| .. shows the American trend, then look at which other
| countries that's similar to assuming we electrify a given
| fraction of the transportation sector:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di.
| ..
|
| This is even more wrong when you look at how Africa is
| electrifying. Unlike the United States, China continued to
| invest in solar panel production and so they're now the
| cheapest option for electrical power for millions of people
| since solar panels run for decades and don't require trucking
| diesel fuel around or building out power grids. Investments
| in batteries are having the same cycle: richer countries have
| the research universities and product development but then
| anyone can buy the product.
|
| https://apnews.com/article/solar-energy-china-imports-
| batter...
|
| That's why the fossil fuels spend so much money spreading
| messages like yours: they grew fat on government subsidies
| and they need those subsidies to continue or even expand as
| the basic economics increasingly favor renewables. Trump has
| to force coal plants to stay open because otherwise the
| operators would switch to cheaper options.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Everyone and their mother is running digital influence
| operations, so the overall media landscape is just extremely
| noisy right now.
|
| This is an art that has been refined with every election cycle
| and every major political event since the early 2010s, and it
| had already gotten dang bad 5-6 years ago[1], and definitely
| did not get an ounce better once LLMs came along and drove the
| down the cost of this type of op.
|
| The result is that it's very hard to get _any_ sort of coherent
| message across.
|
| [1] 'member the absolute clown fiesta surrounding COVID?
| mchaver wrote:
| I assume because the public has been consumed by narratives
| over data. Narratives have probably always been more powerful
| than data for us humans, but we now have really powerful tools
| to generate the narratives we like. Combine that with
| algorithmic feeds that prefer certain types of narratives,
| boring and/or annoying data gets ignored.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Well, yes, due to systematic propaganda efforts and the general
| shift from being against mass death to being in favor of it.
|
| (the Iran collapse that led to mass protests and then mass
| murder of the mass protests is itself a climate driven issue
| https://www.unicef.org/iran/en/climate-change )
| nDRDY wrote:
| The messaging on "global tipping points" was over-done, and
| also many people are now aware that enforcing low-carbon
| policies is costing Western economies a huge amount of money
| while resulting in very little net reduction in global CO2
| output.
|
| Why care when we're already over the edge and there isn't
| anything we can do about it?
| superxpro12 wrote:
| Seriously? I see anti-global-warming propaganda every day.
|
| Every f'ing time it snows someone has to snide in with "BuT I
| ThOuGhT GlObAl WaRmInG WaS ReAl!?!?!?!?!" And i have to take a
| breath.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Well, this did hit #1 on HN. A bunch of us might actually still
| be worried about it.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Because of first COVID-19 and the post-peak economic chaos
| distracting us, and then afterwards Trump and Putin and
| Netenyahu and the global rise of erratic mayhem as a political
| platform.
|
| https://xkcd.com/2275/
|
| Eventually we'll have to deal with the Giant Spider Downtown,
| it's just that the to-do list is growing from the top.
| superxpro12 wrote:
| It's foolish to assume this is not a calculated effort. It's
| make us feel good that there isn't people who are actually
| evil enough to coordinate these full-blown authoritarian
| campaigns.
|
| Consider for a moment that there ARE people this straight-up
| evil....
| Pxtl wrote:
| Maybe for Putin, but for Trump it's hard to see it as
| anything but his completely mercurial nature just causing
| so much random melodrama that less-urgent problems
| completely vanish. The same people who love carbon also
| hate the damage he's doing to global markets. I mean except
| Putin again.
| dboreham wrote:
| I'm in the US and even here this is absolutely not true. It has
| disappeared as a government concern, because the government has
| been subverted by vested interests.
| mixdup wrote:
| This is the biggest headscratcher about AI. Before 2020 every
| big tech company had a net neutral, if not net negative, carbon
| goal. And many of them were talking about not just buying
| offsets but actual neutrality. And others were talking about
| even accounting for the emissions caused by their customers
| using their products
|
| LLMs hit the market and you never hear anyone talk about carbon
| at all. At all. Maybe Apple will mention it a little bit but
| they're not in the big datacenter game
|
| The costs of LLMs are just being completely paved over. We
| don't let manufacturers dump cadmium into the rivers in the US
| anymore, even if it would enable cheap or magic products, it's
| insane that we're just ignoring all the external impacts in
| this particular area
| jordanb wrote:
| They're grifters. They thought climate tech would be a big
| grift. When that slowed down they dropped it like last
| season's trendy outfit and jumped on the AI bandwagon.
| alberto467 wrote:
| I think a lot of people have lost faith in the ability of the
| world to come all together and make the necessary sacrifices to
| make a difference. Especially when some parts of the world are
| in competition with each other and not making these sacrifices
| allows them an edge.
|
| Also another group of people have realized they are not willing
| to forgo all their petty and unnecessary comforts nor are they
| willing to pay any price increases that would be required to
| adopt less economical but more sustainable services or
| production methods.
|
| I don't think there's been any big change in climate change
| believers/deniers, but i do think some people have started
| accepting that we're doomed and that there is no "practical"
| solution. And if you think you're doomed, you might as well
| skip the sacrifices and enjoy your last days (decades) to the
| fullest.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| "People aren't willing to pay price increases" is
| interesting. Of course that's what they say when you ask them
| directly. Yet everyone is currently paying massive price
| increases as a result of covid-era money printing. I'm not
| saying you're wrong necessarily but what it shows it that it
| has been possible in very recent times that a collecive
| decision was made which increased general prices for
| everyone.
| jmye wrote:
| People are largely unaware of the sources of those price
| increases, at least in the US, which is why they were such
| a successful bludgeon in recent elections.
| alberto467 wrote:
| > that a collecive decision was made which increased
| general prices for everyone
|
| I think you're referring to inflation with that? I wouldn't
| necessarily say that inflation is the result of a
| "decision", certainly not a direct decision of any single
| person nor any collective group. Economies can move around
| in weird and unpredictable ways, and they are also quite
| intertwined at the global level making policy decisions
| even more complicated and unpredictable.
|
| The "money printing" decision wasn't made by asking the
| public: "would you like to help our economy and businesses
| and our essential public services in this tragic event? Oh
| btw you'll be paying for all of this with inflation, are
| you still sure?". Politicians tend to conveniently leave
| the second part out, and also, this questions wasn't asked
| to the public at all. I believe a sizeable amount of the
| public would've responded "no, let the people die, let the
| businesses die, i'm not paying for them".
|
| Which is why for example, in many democracies with tools of
| direct democracy, such tools cannot affect fiscal policy,
| because people are dumb and they would just say "i want all
| of the welfare and zero of the taxes", bringing the country
| to ruin.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Its not that.
|
| Basically, on the average, people don't have ability to think
| rationally into the future. Most people think only 1 level of
| cause and effect.
|
| Right now, for the vast majority of people, global warming
| isn't a problem when your house has AC, your car has AC, your
| workplace has AC. When you are forced to do things that you
| see no direct effect of, it makes it seem less important, and
| its a self reinforcing cycle where you see other people not
| doing it and you wonder why you have to make your life
| harder.
|
| People will start caring only when their direct lives are
| affected. So unfortunately, the only way to fix global
| warming is to let it get bad enough to where there is enough
| death and destruction for people to start paying attention.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Denmark is having a parliamentary election in 18 days, and
| other than one of the left wing parties, it seems like no one
| gives a shit about environmental issues right now. Even the
| debate about clean drinking water is a bit one sided, where
| part of the left want to implement measures to secure it, while
| the right is "Fuck it, fixing it will hurt our heavily
| subsidized farmers".
|
| Part of the problem seems to be that many countries won't do
| shit, so all the improvements that have been made are just
| completely negated by other poluting more.
| ck2 wrote:
| Basically the oceans are way way way too hot which is melting
| even the most ancient ice and that can never be undone in our
| lifetimes (well maybe from a nuclear winter)
|
| USA is about to have another El Nino summer which will be
| scorching from overheating oceans
|
| But don't worry, USA is solving the problem by Biden banning
| cheap electric cars and Trump ending electric subsidies entirely,
| forcing coal plants to restart
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Biden?!
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| They're referring to this:
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/bidens...
|
| The Republicans are even more protectionist and sinophobic,
| however. Nobody ever had the option to vote for importing
| Chinese EVs.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| I might buy one just to annoy them then.
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| It reminds me of what I used to say whenever I've completed a
| contract for a client.
|
| "And remember, now that I'm gone, every problem that occurs
| is my fault. So stop looking for the culprit, find a
| solution"
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Remember when Republicans blamed 9/11 on Obama, not
| remembering that it happened when Bush was president?
| _heimdall wrote:
| Electric cars aren't a magic bullet. We need to drive less, not
| scrap ICE vehicles and buy new electric vehicles made on the
| other side of the planet with globally sourced materials and
| shipped to the US.
| bojan wrote:
| Do they have to be a magic bullet?
|
| Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than
| switching from personal cars to... bicycles?
| bluGill wrote:
| If there was some investment most of us could switch to
| public transit. The problems people have with transit are
| mostly around there isn't enough of it to be useful - when
| /where it is useful people use it.
| alberto467 wrote:
| That's not the full story, you're right that they "could
| switch", but would they actually?
|
| Good, working and efficient public transit still means
| having significantly less comfort compared to having your
| private vehicle. Pretty much the only exception is using
| the metro in a congested downtown area at peak traffic
| (still, your metro experience will also be degraded by
| the peak traffic), or perhaps if parking your vehicle
| will be very difficult. And i say this as someone in a
| rather big city in Europe who is currently only using
| public transit. And there is a lot of stuff that i'd like
| to do but i can't do since i currently don't have access
| to a car or motorbike.
|
| People don't just want "useful", at least the majority of
| people in developed countries also want "comfortable",
| and "nice", and "easy", and "enjoyable". A peak-hour
| metro ride or missing your tram by one minute is none of
| that.
| bluGill wrote:
| If the next bus/tram isn't almost there when you miss the
| previous then it isn't nearly as useful.
|
| there are things you can't do with transit. However
| nearly everyone is living in a family - so keep the truck
| to tow the boat, but get rid of the other cars that you
| won't need if transit is good. That is a much more
| reasonably goal that transit can aim for. A few like you
| won't own a car/truck at all, but most won't need to go
| that far
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| I would settle for "available". Where I live, i have a 40
| minute commute to work by car. I live in a suburb of a
| midsize american city.
|
| When i bought my house, i looked into public
| transportation options. Instead of a 40 minute car ride,
| i could drive for 5 minutes and then take 3 hours (and 2
| bus transfers) to get to my office by bus.
|
| I would love to get some reading done on my commute, and
| would be willing to spend an hour on a bus or train
| instead of 40 minutes fighting traffic in my car, but
| it's just not really feasable. I think this situation is
| extremely common.
| bluGill wrote:
| That is what I'm getting at. Most cities in the US don't
| have a useful transit system.
|
| though your 40 minute by car commute is something that is
| unlikely something any invsetment will ever make
| reasonable.
| alberto467 wrote:
| True but also building a new electric car consumes many
| order of magnitudes more resources (and it will keep
| consuming them) compared to a bicycle.
|
| But hey, at least you get to keep 99% of your comfort while
| making 50% less emissions! (if it really is that much).
| nDRDY wrote:
| With a correspondingly smaller decrease in CO2 output.
| We're in a Climate Catastrophe on the edge of Global
| Tipping Points, remember!
|
| Sarcasm aside, I think this is why people have generally
| stopped caring as much. What we are being asked to do (buy
| new shiny things for some estimated small percentage
| decrease in lifecycle CO2 output) does not match the
| messaging.
|
| FWIW I cycle almost everywhere.
| microtonal wrote:
| _Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than
| switching from personal cars to... bicycles?_
|
| Bikes are awesome. I do 95% of my trips by bike. It's
| healthy, cheap, and has very low amortized emissions.
| Everybody can repair a bike with a small amount of
| training.
|
| More countries/cities have to do bike-centric road design.
| NicuCalcea wrote:
| Why not encourage people who can reasonably cycle to do so?
| It's not a magic bullet either, but it's no less magic than
| EVs.
| bojan wrote:
| Why not both? Encourage cycling when possible, and when
| not, an EV.
|
| Looking at American commute distances however, cycling,
| even with an e-bike, is likely not a reasonable option.
| bdangubic wrote:
| The issue is not just commute distances, it is cultural.
| Just in my personal "click" there are 5 people of which:
|
| - 2 live less than 5 minutes from a metro that literally
| takes them to the office, they never take the metro
|
| - 2 live easily within a biking distance to work, 1 has a
| bike, another has e-bike, they never bike to work
|
| - 1 lives literally _walking_ distance to work, she never
| walks to work
|
| Public transportation where I live is vast, you can
| easily commute with the public transportation to just
| about everywhere but only low(er) income people will take
| public transportation.
|
| Two most-frequently cited reasons I hear why not
| bike/walk/...
|
| 1. Dangerous - every female friend I have lists this as
| #1 reason they always drive. Regardless of the fact that
| I live in the area where I often forget to close my
| garage overnight and leave the front door open (very very
| low crime rates) the women feel unsafe. A lot of
| sensationalism in the news regarding every minor thing
| happening might be to blame but I have a wife and a
| daughter and am godfather to several girls so I
| understand
|
| 2. Inconvenient - what if after work I want to go to ____
| and ____ and ____. Now I got to track back home and then
| perhaps change clothes, clean the house... and then get
| into the car to go to _____.
| NicuCalcea wrote:
| Of course, both are better.
|
| A lot of Americans probably won't be able to commute on a
| bicycle, but could easily use one for shorter trips like
| visiting friends, doing groceries, getting a burger, etc.
|
| Even with commutes, there are lots that could be done on
| a bicycle. I briefly lived in the US and had a 6-mile
| (~10 km) commute. It was an unpleasant experience because
| there was exactly zero cycling infrastructure along the
| way, but otherwise it was a brief 25-minute trip, shorter
| than any of the commutes I've had in Europe. Not a single
| one of my American colleagues, all of whom lived locally,
| cycled or took a bus.
| queenkjuul wrote:
| Switched from driving to biking and my life is 10x better,
| js
| everdrive wrote:
| >But don't worry, USA is solving the problem by Biden banning
| cheap electric cars and Trump ending electric subsidies
| entirely, forcing coal plants to restart
|
| People really think if they just buy the right products we'll
| solve this problem. People are really fundamentally unable to
| solve global warming issues. There are a few fundamental
| problems:
|
| - Broad, collective action is not possible in just any
| direction. People can broadly get behind causes that are
| related to some fundamental human motivation, but generally
| cannot be guided towards nuanced political topics except via
| general tribalism and coalitions. (eg: you can go to the moon,
| but there's only broad support for this in the sense that it
| has consequences for national pride. You didn't have a whole
| nation helping the the logistics; you just had broad
| coalitional support.)
|
| - People think that merely buying the right product will help,
| but major impacts to climate would require a serious
| modification in quality of life and material wealth. This will
| never have broad support. People will always scrape out the
| most comfort and most material wealth that is possible, and
| will only allow themselves to be constrained by hard limits.
| Technology can help here to a degree, but once technology
| helps, people just advance to the next hard limit. For instance
| the use of insecticides, industrial fertilizer, and large-scale
| factory farming just allowed for more population boom. Rather
| than arriving at a place where where had near infinite
| abundance, we just ate up the gains with expanded population
| and luxury products. (sort of how computers don't get faster;
| once the computer is made faster, the software does more and
| the actual UI responsiveness just stays in the same place.)
|
| - People would need to intentionally decrease population and
| find healthy limits with the environment. No living thing does
| this. If you watch population curves in predators and prey,
| they occur because the hard limits force starvation and
| population decline. (ie, if the wolves eat too many deer, then
| the wolf pups starve, the wolf population declines, and then
| the deer can rebound.) In other words, nature is not "wise and
| balanced" but instead the balance is a mere fact of competition
| and death. The moment we produce an abundance, we use up that
| abundance. This may not be true in the case of some
| individuals, but broadly this is true for any population.
|
| - No political body, even an authoritarian regime could force
| these things. People would revolt. Authoritarians themselves
| often get into power by promising abundance they can never
| actually deliver on. No authoritarian has gained power by
| promising to reduce abundance and material wealth.
| bobson381 wrote:
| So I've been on a journey of discovering basically this -
| limits to growth - for the last few years. It's been .... an
| emotional roller coaster as someone living in the developed
| world. I'm following the work of Nate Hagens and others in
| the space, but The Dread still ebbs and flows.
|
| How do you hold this dispassionately? How do you get to a
| point of wanting to reproduce, or even wanting to continue,
| as an act of radical hope? Absurdism? Pure interest in
| watching it all unfold? I'm pretty aware that we are going to
| have constraints forced on us as like, a thermodynamic
| function, but ... how to cope? Go back to the tragedy?
|
| -confused, interested, fascinatedly dreading
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| Throughout human history entire families, tribes, villages,
| and cities were on the edge of death, whether it was by
| disease, famine, or invaders. This is nothing new. Don't by
| into the people selling fear.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I suspect the reason Trump is talking about annexing Canada is
| because of our vast swathes of land which have historically
| been too cold for settlement, which are going to become much
| more temperate in the near-ish future.
| hnfong wrote:
| That explains the 300 IQ attempt on claiming Greenland.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| I really wanna know the kind of person you are that thinks
| that Trump makes logical decisions.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I didn't say it was logical, I said there was some kind of
| rationale.
| willhslade wrote:
| Soil is generally garbage though. Just saying.
| captainbland wrote:
| Today: this
|
| Tomorrow: trillions invested in new technology for simulating
| human torture accurately at the molecular level, requiring twice
| the level of all consumer electricity use on the planet.
| Advocates claim "all use is valid".
| inetknght wrote:
| Arguments against call it immoral, while counter-arguments call
| it "legitimate".
|
| Meanwhile, three-time Billionaire claims he's solved the
| problem using soylent green while fifty thousand people react
| in awe at the live presentation.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Is this a reference to "Torment Nexus"?
| inciampati wrote:
| I prefer to think of it as a reference _in_ the Torment
| Nexus.
| captainbland wrote:
| While I'm sure that subconsciously influenced what I wrote,
| it was more a general jab at the sentiment that negative
| externalities can always be justified so long as a technology
| has users who prefer to use it.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Yeah. Did you see article that they made a brain organoid
| (actual brain neurons on a chip) play DOOM?. What are those
| neurons experiencing?
| layer8 wrote:
| > What are those neurons experiencing?
|
| Doom. (Obviously.)
| AlexeyBrin wrote:
| > What are those neurons experiencing?
|
| A reasonable explanation is that a few neurons probably
| don't have conscience so they can't really experience
| anything.
| captainbland wrote:
| It's an interesting question as to what that level is
| likely to be though. The chip in question apparently has
| around 800,000 neurons (https://www.forbes.com/sites/john
| koetsier/2025/06/04/hardwar...) so not a trivial quantity
| which makes it significantly more complex than most
| insects' forebrains but still less complex than any
| mammal.
|
| I think once they're able to put 15 million such neurons
| on a single device that puts them in the range of more
| relatable animals like mice and Syrian hamsters, and I
| also expect that relatability is also what will drive
| most opinions about consciousness.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >a few neurons probably don't have conscience
|
| Given our piss poor understanding of consciousness, I
| have to ask: on what grounds do you make this claim?
| captainbland wrote:
| I hadn't until you mentioned it but now I have! I expect
| one day they'll generate a language model on one and then
| we can just ask it, assuming they don't give it a special
| rule about never describing its experiences.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| The language model's output would be informed by its
| weights, not by its experiences as wetware. Substrate
| does not make a computation special: that's the whole
| point of the Chinese Room thought experiment.
|
| What mechanism are you imagining that would allow a LLM
| built of neurons to describe what it's like to be made of
| neurons, when a LLM built of GPUs cannot describe what
| it's like to be organised sand? The LLM in the GPU
| cluster is evaluated by performing the same calculations
| that could be performed by intricate clockwork, or _very
| very slowly_ by generations of monks using pencil and
| paper. Just as the monks have thoughts and feelings, it
| is _conceivable_ (though perhaps impossible) that the
| brain tissue implementing a LLM has conscious experience;
| but if so, that experience would not be reflected in the
| LLM 's output.
| captainbland wrote:
| When I say language model, I mean of whatever form would
| make it native to the wetware medium. This brings with it
| a few key distinctions. The distinction I think is most
| relevant is that human neurons including in chips like
| the CL1 have the capability to dynamically re-organise
| topologically (i.e. neuroplasticity) which is something
| that computed LLMs can't do, which have a fixed structure
| with weights.
|
| We can't assume that a computer based neural network will
| have the same emergent behaviours as a biological one or
| vice versa.
|
| The interesting point for me is in the neuroplasticity,
| because it implies that the networks which are
| specialised for language could start forming synapses
| which connect them to the parts which are more
| specialised to play doom giving rise to the possibility
| that this could be used for introspection
| z2 wrote:
| Ah, I thought you were just referring to the decades-long
| use of the most massive supercomputers to simulate nuclear
| arsenal maintenance and explosions (maybe literally at the
| molecular/atomic/sub-atomic level).
| heavyset_go wrote:
| It would also work as a jab at Roko's basilisk
| oofbey wrote:
| Actually "last year: this". It was published in early 2025.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| We might actually hit the jackpot from The Peripheral.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| I don't buy it. I read the Peripheral, and through the whole
| thing I was always asking "who actually built all the stuff
| these guys were inheriting"??? Are we assuming robots got to a
| level where incredible magical worlds could be built to server
| just a few people?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| We built it, before we were intentionally allowed to die of
| climate change and flu pandemics. If you sell your labor for
| money you are building it, there is no plan for you
| afterwards.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Are we assuming robots got to a level where incredible
| magical worlds could be built to server just a few people?
|
| Given the other tech in the novel, that seems highly likely.
| It includes nanobot "assemblers".
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| It really does seem to be the goal.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| A weird title.
|
| The content of the paper is summed up as "everyone felt like the
| climate changed after 2015, the data up to 2023 was inconclusive;
| we finally have enough to prove it with 95% confidence."
|
| EDIT: The title is weird because it's generic to the point of
| being unsearchable. I'm not disputing the facts of the paper.
| epistasis wrote:
| It's one of those titles that makes perfect sense to a
| scientist working in the field, but which is quite inscrutable
| to those not working in the field. (Just like the titles of
| most HN submissions)
|
| Since manuscripts are written for those working in the field,
| and need to be, it's one of the big challenges of science
| communication. In the past these articles would be in a library
| and mailed out to the subscribing specialists, which minimized
| the confusion. In the age of the internet, even our dogs can
| read highly specialized scientific pre-prints that haven't even
| been peer reviewed yet.
| guenthert wrote:
| "inconclusive" only regarding the significant acceleration. The
| warming part wasn't in question.
|
| The actual abstract reads: "Recent record-hot years have caused
| a discussion whether global warming has accelerated, but
| previous analysis found that acceleration has not yet reached a
| 95% confidence level given the natural temperature variability.
| Here we account for the influence of three main natural
| variability factors: El Nino, volcanism, and solar variation.
| The resulting adjusted data show that after 2015, global
| temperature rose significantly faster than in any previous
| 10-year period since 1945."
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| Man, I get definition-lawyered a lot on HN but this is
| something special.
| tjnaylor wrote:
| The title is a fair summary. The paper isn't simply confirming
| the "climate changed [warmed]" since 2015. The paper is showing
| the climate warmed the past decade _twice as fast_ as it had
| between the decades from 1960-2000.
|
| "This 58 indicates that the warming trend has been accelerating
| from a rate of 0.15 - 0.2 *C 59 per decade during 1980-2000, to
| more than twice that rate [0.4degC] most recently."
| pluc wrote:
| Yeah but now you can ask a question instead of providing a search
| term!
| azan_ wrote:
| It's not a great idea to blame AI, which is small addition to
| the global emissions. I suggest focusing on what's really
| important, not what's currently trendy.
| topaz0 wrote:
| This is like saying in 1910 "cars are a tiny fraction of our
| emissions, you should be focusing on the steam train and the
| woodstove"
| azan_ wrote:
| No, it's not. The comparison makes zero sense and is
| fuelled by social-media sentiment, not facts.
| topaz0 wrote:
| It's already using on the order of 1% of global energy,
| and there are active plans to expand that by a factor of
| 5 or more in the near future. That's as a percentage of
| current energy use, which is already way higher than it
| should be, so if all other sectors reduced theirs to
| sustainable levels it would be like 5% now and 25%
| planned. It's a bit more complicated when you account for
| renewable energy, but certainly adding consumption is not
| helping there. Now that buildout may not happen as
| planned/advertised, but I think it's very reasonable to
| worry about new things that make the situation worse even
| by a few percentage points when you need to make things
| better overall by much more than that to make progress.
| Of course this is not to say that we _shouldn 't_ be
| worried about/working on other sources of consumption
| that are currently a larger fraction -- we need to keep
| doing that too. But giving a pass to hundreds of TWh from
| AI junk in favor of trying to reduce the thousands of TWh
| from some other source by a couple hundred is a good way
| to erase the gains that you make over there.
| azan_ wrote:
| Come on, if the first thing that comes to your mind is
| something responsible for 1% with projection of 5%
| emissions then it's clear that you don't really care
| about actual solutions but prefer to parrot current
| rhetoric from social media. Why not focus on the biggest
| contributors?
| spwa4 wrote:
| Was anybody really expecting anything else? The only factor that
| would matter is if _oil producing nations_ STOP producing oil
| entirely. Not reduce, not limit, stop. Same with coal and other
| small contributions. Note: limiting exports, CO2 limits in oil
| customer states, ... all of that just doesn 't matter. And,
| obviously, this is just not on the table. There is no way these
| nations will make such a decision because what it would mean for
| their economy. Plus it wouldn't matter unless they all make that
| decision.
| briansm wrote:
| People are losing their minds at the prospect of oil
| availability dropping just 20% for a month or two with the
| closing of the Strait of Hormuz - even just this could collapse
| the global economy.
|
| So yea, no way is oil stopping or even dipping slightly any
| time soon.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Your initial question is a fantastic thought focus.
|
| The intention of the United States and the world is divided.
|
| We love our money too much to care about the Next generation,
| In my view.
| spwa4 wrote:
| "The intention of the United States and the world is
| divided."
|
| What do you mean?
|
| The intention of the United States is maximizing oil use.
|
| The intention of the World is maximizing oil use. Even EU
| countries are panicking over _maybe_ being forced to use just
| a little less oil.
|
| So where do you see this difference? Clearly, the entire
| world agrees: global warming is less serious than higher
| prices on oil. Much less important.
| DrBazza wrote:
| And when we've somehow stopped using fossil fuels for
| electricity, what next?
|
| Guess what a lot of plastic is made from? And how planes fly,
| and boats move?
|
| And there's lots of countries that aren't at 'Western' living
| standards. So we have decades of those countries building and
| emissions to come.
|
| Plus of course there's a lag in CO2 emissions to climate
| change. The next couple of decades are going to get a lot
| worse, before they get better, if at all.
|
| https://www.wri.org/insights/4-charts-explain-greenhouse-gas...
| pjmlp wrote:
| What a surprise with all the wars going on, and AI depleting
| Earth resources, what a change from about the pandemic era when
| everyone was into paper straws and cups and promising to be a
| better person, because that is what was going to change anything.
| unglaublich wrote:
| AI is nothing compared to automobiles and heating, construction
| and shipping.
|
| It uses a bunch of energy, but not so much compared to moving
| yourself around in a car of plane.
| pjmlp wrote:
| A bunch of energy, water and Earth rare materials, nothing
| really to care about.
| bluGill wrote:
| It is also much more likely to use renewable energy. Data
| centers look at the local energy mix when planning where to
| put one. (though they are perhaps taking energy that would
| otherwise be shipped to a different city/state)
| valiant55 wrote:
| This is definitely not always the case[0], let's not
| pretend these companies give a fuck about the communities
| in which their data centers operate[1].
|
| 0: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/15/elon-
| musk...
|
| 1: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/09/texas-hood-
| county-cr...
| bluGill wrote:
| Community has nothing to do with it. They are asking
| about energy mix because that is important to enough of
| their customers that it is worth looking at.
| lambdaone wrote:
| Yes. The obsession with demonizing AI/data centre loads seems
| to be a deliberate distraction from the much, much larger
| carbon loads of the economy at large relative to which IT
| power consumption is a tiny proportion.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I think it's much less cynical than that. People both fear
| and dislike AI, recognize that the "it may destroy my
| livelihood and commodify human creativity" complaint falls
| on deaf ears, and are latching onto anything resembling a
| credible ethical complaint that people may actually listen
| to.
| alex_young wrote:
| Animal agriculture is around 15% of global emissions, and
| AI is probably .1% to .5%, but sure, stop using LLMs. That
| will solve the problem.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Indeed lets tear down forests to build soya fields for
| all that fake meat tofu.
| pingou wrote:
| You must have been misinformed, they tear down forests to
| grow soya to use as feedstock (mostly for beef). Nothing
| to do with fake meat tofu, quite the opposite actually.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> Animal agriculture is around 15% of global emissions_
|
| The majority of which is methane, which only has a 7-12
| year life. Which means -- unless for some reason you
| started eating way more animals than you did yesterday --
| that your emissions today simply replace your emissions
| from 12 years ago. In other words, it is a stable system,
| unlike carbon, which basically sticks around forever.
| al_borland wrote:
| Most people pushing back against data centers simply don't
| want invite something into their city that will use up
| resources (likely raising prices), while the big selling
| point is that it will put them out of work. You can say
| that won't actually happen and everyone will keep their
| jobs, but that has not been the messaging. CEOs want to
| know how many people they can get rid of once they start
| using AI. Why would anyone sign up to have that in their
| backyard?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > AI is nothing compared to automobiles and heating,
| construction and shipping.
|
| When the oil in your frying pan is smoking, adding a _tiny
| bit_ more heat may be unwise.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| Yeah that assumes that AI is an absolute negative. What if
| it impacts positively? I mean you gotta spend money to make
| money.
| moogly wrote:
| I would be fine if LLMs disappeared tomorrow, but if I
| couldn't heat my house, I'd freeze to death. But I guess some
| would argue that everyone needs to live in a city with
| district heating.
| epolanski wrote:
| Which in turn are also relatively small compared to the
| damages of cattle and fishing.
|
| Seriously adapting our diets around being more sustainable.
| I'm not advocating for veganism or such, but at least to
| understand that eating a burger pollutes as much as driving a
| large vehicle for 50 miles and that maybe we can substitute
| that with poultry or eggs or cheese many times.
| pjmlp wrote:
| What about putting trees down for soya fields?
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Speaking of deforestation:
|
| > Globally, 77% of soya is produced for animal feed,
| 19.2% for direct human consumption and 3.8% for industry
| (biodiesel, lubricants, etc.).
|
| https://www.deforestationimportee.ecologie.gouv.fr/en/aff
| ect...
|
| Poultry protein efficiency is 21% and beef 3%
|
| > We find that reallocating the agricultural land used
| for beef feed to poultry feed production can meet the
| caloric and protein demands of [?]120 and [?]140 million
| additional people consuming the mean American diet,
| respectively, roughly 40% of current US population.
|
| https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/1
| 0/1...
|
| Edit:
|
| Note the soy usage vary around regions. The first link is
| from a French gov page, after the previous citation it
| gives the world repartition:
|
| > In animal feed, the largest consumer of soybeans is
| chicken (37% of world production), followed by pork
| (20.2%), aquaculture products (5.6%), dairy products
| (1.4%) and beef (0.5%).
|
| Which is quite different than the French reparation :
|
| > flesh and egg poultry account for 44% of total
| [imported] soy, then diary/mixed cows (36%) then flesh
| cow (8%) and pigs (6%)
|
| (fr) https://chaire-bea.vetagro-sup.fr/en-france-les-
| animaux-dele...
|
| Soy protein are 97.9% as digestible as beef
|
| > protein qualify can be scored in terms of its Protein
| Digestibility-Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS). Soy
| achieves a PDCAAS of 0.92, comparable to beef at 0.94.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
|
| The DIAAS is sensibly worse (soy 0.898 - beef 1.116) but
| still far from the beef protein efficiency cited above
| (3%)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestible_Indispensable_Am
| ino...
| qgin wrote:
| All data centers in aggregate (AI and all other uses) use about
| 1.5% of electricity production, which itself is about 20% of
| total energy use.
|
| So when people are focusing on AI above all other energy uses,
| it doesn't really paint an accurate picture of what's going on.
| Fricken wrote:
| I've heard many different groups tell me their small fraction
| is not the small fraction that matters.
| qgin wrote:
| It's not really about which one matters. They all matter.
| But here is a rough breakdown of global fossil fuel energy
| usage:
|
| * Electricity: 27%
|
| * Industry: 24%
|
| * Transportation: 15%
|
| * Agriculture & land use: 11%
|
| * Buildings: 7%
|
| Then within electricity, data centers use about 1.5% of
| global electricity. Within data centers, AI accounts for
| somewhere between 15-20% of energy use.
|
| So if you take 27% x 1.5% x ~17%, you find that AI is
| currently responsible for something like 0.07% of global
| fossil fuel emissions.
|
| It definitely matters in the "every bit matters" sense, but
| also the numbers paint a really different picture than
| you'd get from statement like the one we started with.
| lm28469 wrote:
| You can split up every single industries/topics/&c. into
| "yeah but it only use 1.5% of energy", "yeah but it only
| produces 1.5% of the co2"
|
| Guess what happens when you add them up...
| logicprog wrote:
| This kind of logic only works if the percentages for each
| industry are all equally that small, so you can treat them
| as all equally bad, but they are absolutely not.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >Guess what happens when you add them up...
|
| I'll guess, they add up to 100%?
|
| I don't see what's the insight here.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Thats OP's point - you need to reduce usage everywhere
| and pointing out that AI is only 1.5% doesn't take away
| from the fact that usage needs to be reduced there as
| well.
| tencentshill wrote:
| Wasn't crypto a significant percentage as well? And that was
| before the AI buildout started.
| rvz wrote:
| Not even close. Crypto has always been able to cut their
| own emissions before needing lots of compute.
|
| AI on the other hand cannot, and still needs thousands of
| wasteful data centers.
| cshores wrote:
| It will normalize though once everyone is out of a job
| Zigurd wrote:
| What otheer industries are hyping the need for tens of
| gigawatts, maybe hundreds? On top of that they are hyping the
| idea of building utterly unrealistic space stations that
| would cost 10 times what the ISS cost. So maybe people are
| focusing on the dishonesty instead of the energy use. One or
| the other I suppose.
| noslenwerdna wrote:
| As we all know, global warming wasn't happening until AI data
| centers started being built. They are honestly a drop in the
| bucket
| lapcat wrote:
| See also from yesterday, "Rising carbon dioxide levels now
| detected in human blood"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47261968
| Bombthecat wrote:
| This is good! Better to be numb and stupid when we die of
| hunger on the streets
| luxuryballs wrote:
| It's these dang seltzer waters I can't quit them!
| ndiddy wrote:
| I don't see the US doing anything about global warming regardless
| of who's in charge. China has won on manufacturing cheap
| wind/solar energy and is scaling up their cheap EV manufacturing
| right now. Trump is definitely accelerating China's future
| dominance by completely forgoing anything related to developing
| or manufacturing green tech in favor of fossil fuels, but I think
| both parties would rather get into a conflict with China than
| cooperate with them and purchase their energy tech to deploy
| domestically. Solar and wind power are already far cheaper than
| coal or natural gas, and are much quicker to deploy, but the US
| government would much rather prop up the domestic fossil fuel
| industry than cooperate with China on renewables because fossil
| fuel is where all the incumbent money is.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| At this point, one possible 50-years projection of outcomes
| here is that China eventually declares the US an existential
| threat to humanity's continued existence and deploys economic
| or military power to stop it unless the US gets its act
| together on carbon emissions. Can't build those AI datacenters
| if China has physically embargoed the chips.
|
| That may seem extreme, but the Chinese culture is more
| collectivist than its Western counterparts and (perhaps unlike
| the US culture) can recognize a threat as complicated as "This
| entire nation's set of rules they treat the universe by
| threatens humanity existentially" even when said nation can't
| recognize it in themselves. Plus, India is hit hard and fast by
| climate change in the short run so China already has an ally in
| their backyard who would support them doing something about
| polluters.
| vixen99 wrote:
| And this? https://ourworldindata.org/profile/co2/china
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Correct; they are currently a major polluter. They are also
| cognizant of that issue and taking concrete steps to
| transition their power dependency off of fossil fuel. I
| don't think the same can be said for the United States,
| sadly.
|
| China currently emits per-capita co2 about half that of the
| US.
| bluGill wrote:
| China is clearly gearing up for war for Taiwan, and it is
| highly likely the US will be involved if that happens. That is
| why both Republicans and Democrats are worried about China. I
| can't say what will happen in the future, but if you are not
| worried about this you are not paying attention.
| cogman10 wrote:
| The one thing the US could do to combat global warming is
| dropping the tariffs on chinese renewables. That's something
| that could possibly go through a regular spending bill.
|
| Power companies in the US are already deploying renewables
| pretty quickly without incentive. If the tariffs are dropped
| that'd further incentivize build out.
|
| What should be done is carbon taxes and subsidies, but that's
| not likely to be done. And since that's not going to happen,
| economics is what will drive transition.
| WarmWash wrote:
| China installed the most new coal power last year than it has
| in 20 years.
|
| If you think China is developing renewables out of some kind of
| green future plan, well there is a whole lot of geography and
| geopolitical information that you are out of the loop on.
| maffyoo wrote:
| some context here is really important:
|
| China started construction on an estimated 95 GW of new coal
| power capacity in 2024 it accounted for 93% of new global
| coal-power construction BUT, importantly, Coal power's share
| in the electricity mix has steadily declined, dropping from
| around 73% in 2016 to 51% in June 2025 heavily driven by
| renewables push in China
|
| China's average utilisation rate of coal power plants in 2024
| was around 50% meaning there's already spare capacity. The
| continued building is driven largely by energy security
| concerns, financial incentives for coal-mining conglomerates,
| and institutional momentum. The most immediate trigger was
| power shortages of 2021, when factories had to cut production
| due to blackouts. That was politically embarrassing, so
| provincial governments and energy companies rushed to approve
| new coal capacity as an insurance policy. More than 100
| billion yuan in capacity payments were made to coal plants in
| 2024 essentially the government paying plants just to exist
| after all half the capacity isn't being used.
|
| Chinese policy makers have plans to "strictly control" coal
| use during the current period and start phasing down coal use
| during the 15th Five-Year Plan period covering 2026-2030.
| China also has a long-stated goal of peaking carbon emissions
| before 2030 and reaching carbon neutrality by 2060. which
| probably explains the apparent paradox of being world leaders
| in renewables but investing more in Coal than anyone else.
| usual caveats notwithstanding
| lambdaone wrote:
| This is terrifying, and those fighting against stopping or
| reducing global warming should at this point be regarded as
| _hostis humani generis_
| ecshafer wrote:
| The issue with any significant steps to curbing the climate or
| environmental impacts with laws or treaties is always: But the
| economy. It creates an incentive where someone doesn't follow the
| laws, burn everything they can to accelerate their economy, and
| take industry from other countries.
|
| My proposal is thus: create a supranational treaty organization
| with a EPA like authority(or whatever the European equivalent is)
| that can inspect and fine companies in member organizations. Then
| any treaty members agree with the following conditions: The EPA
| can enter their nation freely, inspect, and are able to fine
| companies that break rules. Members send delegates to a session
| to create new rules democratically. And most importantly all
| members act as a cartel, imposing large tariffs on any country
| outside of the organization. So if US was in and Mexico was out,
| you couldn't just pollute in Mexico, without some massive tariff.
| This creates an economic incentive to be in and clean.
| WarmWash wrote:
| The real problem is that everyone has to sacrifice, but half
| the people think there is no problem and then other half thinks
| only corporations need to sacrifice (and are unwilling to
| sacrifice themselves).
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| No one thinks only corporations have to sacrifice; they do
| think that it's folly to ask individual members of society,
| who on average contribute the smallest overall proportion to
| global warming, to sacrifice while corporations continue to
| squander away our natural resources. And the pareto principle
| agrees.
| kibwen wrote:
| No, that's insufficient. Yes, corporations that cause the
| most warming will need to be curtailed if we're to survive.
| But those corporations are in the act externalizing costs.
| Once you force them to internalize those costs, the visible
| costs to consumers will increase, meaning less consumption
| overall. If you can't convince those consumers that less
| consumption is a good thing if it's in the service of
| saving the biosphere, then they're going to rebel against
| your efforts to properly force companies to account for the
| environmental costs of their products. There's no either/or
| here, it's the responsibility of both corporations and
| individuals.
| harimau777 wrote:
| I think the problem may be that consumerism is the only
| thing most people have left. Capitalism has already
| comodified culture, ground workers down to replacable
| cogs, and put home ownership out of reach. I think its
| reasonable for people to demand that some of those things
| be given back in exchange for abandoning consumerism.
| JuniperMesos wrote:
| Yeah but there's a lot of individual members of society,
| and nearly all of them benefit from supply chains that emit
| CO2 and would have to stop doing so in order to not emit
| the CO2.
|
| If gasoline in the US cost $20/gallon this would reduce the
| amount of CO2 emissions because suddenly driving a
| gasoline-powered car is much more expensive for everyone.
| This would make a lot of ordinary Americans very upset.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Oil companies sell you gasoline that _you_ burn.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| One rule which always holds true in life: people who ask for
| sacrifice will never sacrifice an inch themselves. No matter
| what cause.
| microtonal wrote:
| _The issue with any significant steps to curbing the climate or
| environmental impacts with laws or treaties is always: But the
| economy. It creates an incentive where someone doesn 't follow
| the laws, burn everything they can to accelerate their economy,
| and take industry from other countries._
|
| Or quickly develop to the point where solar, wind, and hydro is
| cheaper than getting dead fossils out of the ground and
| processing them.
|
| I am not familiar enough with the economics of this to know
| whether we are close to that point, but I can imagine once we
| cross it, combustible fuel burners will be at a disadvantage if
| they haven't invested in infrastructure needed for renewables.
| queenkjuul wrote:
| Solar plus batteries is the cheapest form of energy now as of
| 2025
| cogman10 wrote:
| > It creates an incentive where someone doesn't follow the
| laws, burn everything they can to accelerate their economy, and
| take industry from other countries.
|
| I think the flaw in this thinking is thinking that burning
| things is the cheapest way to get energy.
|
| Oil processing and extraction is a complex industry which
| requires a huge continued investment. Coal requires massive
| mining operations. Natural gas is probably the least intensive
| of the burny things, and it still requires a pretty advanced
| pipeline to be competitive.
|
| Renewables are relatively cheap one time purchases. Save energy
| storage, the economy that is most competitive at this point is
| one powered by renewables.
|
| That transition is already happening in the US without a
| massive government regulation/mandate. In china, it's happening
| a whole lot faster because the government is pushing it. And
| the chinese economy is at no risk of being outbid by smaller
| economies burning fuel.
|
| The main reason burning remains a major source of fuel is that
| for most nations, the infrastructure to consume it has already
| been built. It's not because it's cheap.
| jmye wrote:
| My country mines rare earth metals. Your country processes them
| into computer chips. Joe and Jane's country want those computer
| chips to fuel their economy.
|
| Who's getting fined, here? Me, because mining the stuff is
| inherently dirty (without, probably, significant research and
| capital investment)? You, because you need the stuff to build
| other stuff? Joe and Jane because they're the ones ultimately
| driving the production of the stuff? If you fine me into not
| producing the raw materials, what, ultimately happens to your
| economy and Joe and Jane's? If I don't sign up, where are you
| going to get the raw materials, if I'm tariffed into oblivion?
|
| Sorry, I'm not trying to like, doom this away - but there are
| _so many_ interconnected pieces, that I don 't think it's a
| problem that can even start to be solved from an internet
| comment. At some point, voters in democratic societies need to
| decide that they care as much about the world their children
| will inherit as they do a ten cent difference in gas prices ten
| minutes from now. It's unclear that they ever will on a long
| term, consistent basis.
| curiousObject wrote:
| Rationally, you apply fines as close to the source as
| possible. Because they will pass those costs up the stack.
|
| But the source could be the most likely place for corrupt
| reporting. Or: Maybe the source element is not dangerous but
| downstream by-products are.
|
| Like you've said: It's a problem.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Nobel memorial prize winning solution:
| https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Faer.15000001
| lapcat wrote:
| The economy is an abstraction. Millions of individual consumers
| are concerned with the environment and have demonstrated that
| they're willing to take individual actions to reduce their
| environment impact. However, individual consumers are not in
| charge of the economy, which is increasingly consolidated and
| monopolistic. The majority of pollution is coming from
| industrial activity, not from consumer activity, not even auto
| exhaust, and the most important decisions are made by wealthy
| industrialists who seem to care only about unlimited growth of
| their own wealth and power, at the expense of the planet. (Even
| if we're talking only about auto exhaust, think about how
| return-to-office was forced on workers against their will after
| the pandemic. Non-wealthy individuals simply don't have the
| leverage over mega-corps.)
|
| From a political perspective, I think the problems of global
| warming and wealth disparity go hand-in-hand. It's difficult to
| solve one without solving the other. To the extent that the
| ultra-wealthy own the politicians, or actually become
| politicians themselves, there is little hope for environmental
| regulation.
|
| Consumers don't need or necessarily even want unlimited
| economic growth. That only "helps" consumers if they're relying
| essentially on trickle-down economics, where we have to allow
| the ultra-wealthy everything they want in the hope that they'll
| spare us some change. A more equitable distribution of the
| current wealth would reduce the pressure to produce ever more,
| more, more.
|
| Consumers usually want products that they own, not rent,
| products that last for a long time and don't need to be
| constantly updated or upgraded. Coincidentally, this is also
| better for the environment. Producers often want the opposite
| of that, in order to maximize profit. So what we get depends
| crucially on the power balance or imbalance between consumers
| and producers. This is where consolidation and monopolization
| become a major factor.
|
| A lot of the "convenience economy," dominated by temporary,
| disposable goods, is predicted on consumers having no free
| time, because they're constantly working. Despite vast
| improvements in worker "efficiency," we haven't seen
| comcomitant reductions in the number of hours worked. The
| future of leisure facilitated by technological advances, which
| everyone was imagining 50-60 years ago, never became a reality.
| The technology did advance, but the leisure did not. The other
| day (or night) I noticed Amazon delivery drivers arriving for
| neighbors after 9pm; this is a dystopia.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| > So what we get depends crucially on the power balance or
| imbalance between consumers and producers.
|
| Gosh, if only consumers and producers were the same people.
| What could we call this new economic paradigm?
|
| But no, economic monarchy is the only way to have Freedom
| (TM)(R), so let's slap on some easily-sidestepped regulations
| and keep going the same direction! It'll probably turn out
| fine.
| jtr1 wrote:
| "But the economy" is an out-of-date framing. The cost of
| renewables has been plummeting for well over a decade. New
| renewables are now cheaper than new fossil fuel plants in most
| of the world, and in many regions they're already competitive
| with or cheaper than simply running existing fossil fuel
| infrastructure. As modern wars in Ukraine and now Iran are
| increasingly demonstrating, they are not only cost effective
| but rapidly a matter of energy sovereignty and national
| security.
|
| That's not to say we won't need treaties and supranational
| entities for some aspects of decarbonization. Methane emissions
| outside of agriculture are notably a problem of enforcement.
|
| We're badly in need of a collective update to our priors
| regarding renewables. In the US, a hostile policy toward
| renewables is not only shooting ourselves in the foot
| environmentally, we are now actively impoverishing ourselves
| due to entrenched economic interests across the fossil fuel
| industry and the cultural inertia they actively worked to
| develop.
| goatlover wrote:
| A new US administration and Congress need to be voted in.
| There is one party who backs fossil fuel interests and denies
| anthropogenic climate change. They're currently in charge.
| The American public didn't see that as an important enough
| issue in 2024.
| lokar wrote:
| They are forcing power companies to run coal plants that
| they don't want to run (at a loss).
| breakpointalpha wrote:
| In principle, you are right. Cheaper than coal renewables are
| winning. Don't forget though, that fighter jets can't operate
| on batteries.
| lokar wrote:
| They don't contribute enough to matter
| NewJazz wrote:
| And using more electrics powered transport in other
| sectors frees up fossil fuels for other sectors.
| UqWBcuFx6NV4r wrote:
| That's a red herring. It's not worth mentioning.
| Supermancho wrote:
| Except for the industries where it does matter.
| Trivializing the needs of complex and energy hungry
| supply chains, is bad faith. They are one of the many
| reasons fossil fuels are so widely used.
| 317070 wrote:
| In the end, the industries that cannot run on biofuels
| are rare to non-existant. It's not fuel which is the
| problem, but fossil fuel!
|
| You totally can fly on biofuel, but it is not cheap
| compared to fossil fuel without externalized costs.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| If we stop using fossil fuels for the >90% of usage where
| fossil fuels are easy to replace, it'll make it much
| easier & cheaper for the <10% where it's difficult.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| So we won't be able to fight air wars over the last
| remaining pieces of arable land.
|
| I'm convinced.
| Aerroon wrote:
| > _" But the economy" is an out-of-date framing._
|
| Then why is my electricity and gasoline both so much more
| expensive than they used to be?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| There is a Nobel memorial prize winning plan to do something
| like this in a more elegant, voluntary fashion. Nordhaus'
| Climate Club.
|
| https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Faer.15000001
|
| It's essentially a carbon tax on local production and a
| corresponding carbon tariff on imports. Countries that already
| have a carbon tax or equivalent don't get tariffed. IOW,
| they're part of the club.
|
| Usually a carbon rebate is also included in the plan, although
| that's not strictly necessary.
|
| Germany was spear-heading an effort to create a carbon club,
| but it fell apart, unfortunately. At the time a club that
| didn't include the US seemed infeasible.
|
| In 2026 a club that doesn't include Trump's America is a good
| thing, not a bad thing IMO.
| Findecanor wrote:
| We have needed tariffs for many years now. The EU has some
| tariffs on imports, but they are only used to level the playing
| field for companies in EU countries with emission rules against
| companies in countries without, and only in some select
| industries.
|
| They need to apply overall, on all goods and services.
|
| And emission limits need to be progressive over time, with a
| limit for each year, not just "x% at year 2030".
| vrganj wrote:
| Honestly, if the economy is killing us all, then screw the
| economy.
|
| The way our economic systems are set up is inherently anti-
| human and only benefits a tiny fraction of the population
| anyways.
|
| It's time for a fundamental rethink.
| mcdeltat wrote:
| Bu-bu-b-bu-b-b-b-bu-bu-bu-but supply and demand bro!!!! It's
| the free market bro! If people are buying, the free market
| has decided the planet is right to be destroyed!!
| cmxch wrote:
| And what exactly would prevent a country like the United States
| to use its outsize resources to moot this org?
| kibwen wrote:
| If the US refuses to participate in the energy revolution,
| then it'll be a Russia-tier power within a generation.
| logicchains wrote:
| Empirically, Europe's embrace of the "energy revolution"
| has done far more to bring it closer to Russia, making
| energy 2-3x more expensive and gradually destroying
| Germany's industrial base. So much so that it can't even
| produce as many munitions as Russia, in spite of a GDP
| around ten times larger.
| DFHippie wrote:
| Give Germany time. The US and Russia have forced them to
| rearm.
| dottjt wrote:
| The technical term for what you're broadly describing is Jevons
| Paradox.
| Aerroon wrote:
| And why would countries adopt this? So that other countries can
| use this cartel to push their own agenda? If anything it seems
| like it would be in every country's best interests to make sure
| such an organization doesn't exist.
|
| In my opinion one of the reasons why European economies have
| been struggling for a long time is because energy has been much
| more expensive than elsewhere. Part of it is the excise tax on
| gasoline because it drives up the price of everything.
|
| Even to this day EU countries where people earn less than a
| third of what Americans earn still pay more for gasoline.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Recycling someone else's quote:
|
| "The economy is a wholly owner subsidiary of the environment"
|
| Many people use the 'but the economy' argument (including my
| mother in law, maddeningly) without seeming to have any remote
| clue as to the truth of the quote above.
| jokoon wrote:
| Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting
| to hurt.
|
| And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years.
|
| The pain will come slowly, people won't see it.
|
| It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the
| population don't realize or feel it.
|
| And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so
| difficult to think about.
| gman83 wrote:
| I think it'll start hurting sooner than that. We're already
| seeing property insurance rates spiking, and in some places
| it's even impossible to get property insurance. We could well
| be up for a 2008-level real estate crash. That should get
| Americans' attention.
| californical wrote:
| I feel like the possible real estate crash could be really
| interesting.
|
| Even different parts of a city would likely be affected very
| differently, where the edges near the fire risks crash, and
| the even mildly safer areas boom with high demand
| Frogeman wrote:
| The majority of pollution is caused by 3rd world/ eastern
| countries.
|
| Do you want to go to war with China to enforce an
| environmentalist agenda?
| wffurr wrote:
| If this was the stated rationale and goal of the trade war,
| I'd be all for it. This is exactly the kind of situation
| tariffs are for.
| goatlover wrote:
| Tariffs on goods the world pays China to make which drives
| up emissions?
| queenkjuul wrote:
| China produces a lot less carbon per capita than we do
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Global warming doesn't care about 'per capita'.
|
| Edit: Individuals do not build coal power plants, utilities
| (and therefore, governments) do. India and China are
| continuing to build fossil fuel power generation. Global
| warming does not care about 'fairness', global warming
| cares about co2 PPM in the atmosphere. When we address
| climate change, we have to do so at the government level,
| or we mine as well not bother.
|
| The whole idea that we should look at 'emissions per
| capita' or 'historical emissions' in the interest of
| fairness is simply giving a license to governments to kill
| genuinely poor people in the third world.
| californical wrote:
| And it also doesn't care about arbitrary country
| boundaries. But it is affected by total emissions, and
| per-capita measurements is one fair way to judge how a
| country is doing
| Longwelwind wrote:
| It also doesn't care about arbitrary groupings of humans
| (a.k.a countries).
|
| The fairest system would be for each human being to have
| an equal amount of pollution they are allowed to emit.
| myrmidon wrote:
| There is literally no charitable interpretation of this
| point.
|
| How much of a problem any individuals CO2 emissions are
| is completely decoupled from what nation they live in, or
| how many people live in that nation specifically.
|
| If you hypothetically split up Asia or the US into 100
| smaller countries then local emissions are not suddenly
| more (or less) of a problem than the are now (duh).
|
| And of course more people have more of an influence on
| global outcomes.
|
| This whole argument makes about as much sense as
| demanding that black people in Europe should not pay any
| income tax, because the total tax income from black
| people in Europe is very low, and "national budget does
| not care about per capita".
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| This is so disingenuous. Individuals do not build coal
| power plants, utilities (and therefore, governments) do.
| India and China are continuing to build fossil fuel power
| generation. Global warming does not care about
| 'fairness', global warming cares about co2 PPM in the
| atmosphere. When we address climate change, we have to do
| so at the government level, or we mine as well not
| bother.
|
| The whole idea that we should look at 'emissions per
| capita' or 'historical emissions' in the interest of
| fairness is simply giving a license to governments to
| kill _genuinely_ poor people in the third world.
| myrmidon wrote:
| > India and China are continuing to build fossil fuel
| power generation
|
| Power plants are not built for specific national
| governments, they are built because individual people
| need and use the energy. More people => more powerplants
| (number of governments is completely irrelevant, this is
| purely a per-capita thing).
|
| > When we address climate change, we have to do so at the
| government level
|
| Yes. For example by setting somewhat coherent CO2/capita
| emission targets.
|
| > Global warming does not care about 'fairness'
|
| Irrelevant, because anyone affected does.
|
| If you want a global reduction in emissions, how would
| you _ever_ convince a poorer nation (like India) to
| change anything while your own citizens are jet-
| travelling around the globe multiple times per year?
|
| It is obviously much easier and more effective to reduce
| emissions by limiting a family to a single cruise
| vacation per year (or only two cars) than to convince 10
| rice farmers to stop firing their oven for heat during
| winter...
|
| If rich nations can not get their emissions even close to
| a sustainable level, why would _any_ developing nation
| sacrifice growth, wealth or anything, really, to make the
| attempt?
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I never said rich nations _shouldn 't_ cut their
| emissions. If I were king, I'd enact a heavy carbon tax,
| and I'd tell every country I traded with that they could
| either do the same, or face tariffs and sanctions
| weighted by emissions that would have basically the same
| effect on their economy. I'd also insist that the
| institute the same tariffs and sanctions on economies
| _they_ trade with.
|
| All of a sudden, you'd have the world's short term self
| interest aligned with solving the long term problem.
| queenkjuul wrote:
| The comment i replied to does
| tzs wrote:
| > Global warming does not care about 'fairness', global
| warming cares about co2 PPM in the atmosphere. When we
| address climate change, we have to do so at the
| government level, or we mine as well not bother.
|
| That is _why_ per capita is the correct measure.
|
| The atmosphere is very good at mixing CO2 so a given
| amount of emissions anywhere has the same impact anywhere
| as the same amount of emissions from anywhere else.
|
| Whatever we decide the limit on atmospheric CO2 needs to
| be to address warming needs to be converted into a quota
| for each country, since enforcement has to be done at the
| country level.
|
| We can't just take the total and divide it by the number
| of countries. That would mean that Vatican City would
| have the same quota as the US. Regionally it would mean
| that the EU would have 27 times the quota of the US.
|
| The only sensible initial allocation is to divide the
| total allowed by the world population, and assign each
| individuals share to whatever country has the power to
| regulate them.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| And they make most of the stuff we buy, including the
| climate emissions involved in making them.
| mossTechnician wrote:
| I don't see why war is necessary. There could be something
| like the Space Race, where nations flex their technological
| skills at producing solutions to environmental problems.
| atlintots wrote:
| That race already started, but China is the only one
| participating at the moment. The US has been running
| backwards, though.
| jmcgough wrote:
| Over the past century, the US has produced more cumulative
| carbon emissions than any other country, and it's not even
| close.
|
| China is in the middle of a massive expansion in wind, solar,
| and electric vehicles. The US is burning even more coal to
| support AI, and has gutted much of its federal emission
| reduction efforts.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| This changed on the last decade or so. It's close now.
|
| Of course, China has 5 times more people than the US, so
| they get a little bit of leeway. But they are close, and
| their emissions are growing.
|
| That said, yes, they are investing more than anybody else.
| And they are improving the technology we need more than
| anybody else. People talking about military intervention
| are full of shit, but we could use some diplomatic
| collaboration.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| > and their emissions are growing.
|
| I know nothing about it. I have read comments on this
| very comments section, with references, that say China's
| emissions are not growing. This is what makes this
| subject so hard for the average numbskull like me, so
| much misinformation.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
|
| The discussion is about what happened last year. We don't
| have the last year's data assembled yet.
|
| There's a real possibility it changed.
| abound wrote:
| I've been mentally tabulating a list of reasons rich (and/or
| older) people should care about climate change, even if you're
| only looking out for your own interests:
|
| - Your children and younger family members will have to deal
| with this
|
| - Climate change is causing increasingly worse turbulence for
| airplanes
|
| - It will disproportionately affect your favorite vacation
| spots
|
| - Probably something about stock markets and pensions - a world
| constantly wracked with increasingly severe natural disasters
| isn't the most economically productive one
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| None of that would matter. Farmers are going bankrupt and
| losing family land and yet...
|
| There are a certain number of people who just cannot change.
| There are large numbers of diabetics who die despite an
| enormous number of warnings.
| Findecanor wrote:
| - The availability of food that you use often to get through
| your day, such as Arabica coffee and chocolate.
| cryptoegorophy wrote:
| Climate change is not the main cause for turbulence.
| mrintegrity wrote:
| As you are probably aware, the op didn't say that it was
| DennisP wrote:
| And since perhaps a source would be helpful, here's the
| research saying climate change is having a significant
| effect:
|
| https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023g
| l10...
|
| BBC reporting:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240524-severe-
| turbulenc...
| lovecg wrote:
| In an indirect way it kind of is though. At the end of the
| day there's more energy trapped in the atmosphere (stronger
| jet streams, more frequent and stronger frontal weather)
| nullhole wrote:
| Wildfires have to be a big one as well, the time range and
| geographic range is growing on a seemingly yearly basis.
|
| Related, home insurance cost increases (and, in places,
| unavailability) from wildfires & worsening storms hits the
| pocketbook directly.
| niels8472 wrote:
| You should consider it's much easier rich people to deal with
| the fallout from climate change (or living in a
| failed/failing state for that matter) than for poor people.
| Plus they often have interests in the things that are causing
| the issue(s) in the first place. Additionally, the children
| argument is probably the most powerful, but they would
| probably expect their children to be rich too. All in all I'm
| doubtful the arguments you are providing have any effect.
| asdff wrote:
| I think there is a level of working class poor where it
| hardly makes a difference what goes on to the world around
| your life as you are working paycheck to paycheck with much
| of your available time regardless. How worse it could get
| doesn't look appreciably different than how bad it can get
| already.
|
| A little higher up the economic pole is who stands to lose
| the most. Those are the people who will see actual quality
| of life reductions and not be able to afford to return to
| old norms.
| 01100011 wrote:
| "Your children and younger family members will have to deal
| with this."
|
| If my 50 years on the planet has taught me anything, it's
| that this is not a sufficient motivation the current
| generation in power.
| cute_boi wrote:
| Yeah, they'll just close their eyes and say our kids will
| figure something out.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> - Climate change is causing increasingly worse turbulence
| for airplanes_
|
| Cutting out air travel is the single most accessible and
| impactful thing an individual can do with respect to climate
| change. You can stop turbulence from getting worse, but since
| you won't be flying in the first place...
| asib wrote:
| Developed rich countries are hurting. See the wildfires across
| North America, massive amounts of flooding across Europe, etc.
|
| Nothing will change until many of the global electorate stop
| burying their heads in the sand. These people don't change
| their minds until things affect them specifically. Then they
| change their mind, and all their former fellows tell them
| they're brainwashed.
|
| This doesn't change until nearly everyone is affected, and by
| then we're so far into the catastrophe that the consequences
| don't even bear thinking about.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| What have you done? Why is it someone else's problem?
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| It's a collective problem that we all have to solve
| together. I'm doing my part. What have _YOU_ done?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I don't know how much surface area you consume, but the
| single biggest cause of energy use is spread out living
| in detached single family homes in the USA and other
| developed countries.
|
| All the recycling, solar panels, electric cars, whatever
| don't come close to making up for the fact that each
| family of 4 living on a 0.1+ acre lot with all the
| various setbacks and whatnot, commuting many miles to
| work and school and grocery stores and the gym, moving
| all that mass of people, students, workers, food, water,
| sewage, trash, gas, etc is orders more consumption than
| if people were living in dense arrangements such as
| apartments in 4 and 5 story buildings.
|
| Energy = Force * distance
|
| From what I can tell, none of it means anything as long
| as detached single family homes are still the expected
| lifestyle, at current populations. Might as well consume
| as much as we can while we ride into the sunset, or cull
| the population quickly.
| kelvinjps10 wrote:
| How does he has the power to change it?
| jmcgough wrote:
| The top three emissions sources are industry, electricity,
| and transportation. There have been important federal and
| state-wide attempts to address these, but Trump guts
| regulation every time he's in office. Chevron is dead,
| SCOTUS repeatedly rules to let big business do whatever
| they want, and we're now burning even more coal to meet AI
| energy demand.
|
| Compare this to China, where the government is aggressively
| promoting green energy and electric car tech.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| China is the number one burner of coal and other dirty
| fuels and only growing. This type of disingenuous
| analysis really sets the wrong understanding of the
| world.
| gzread wrote:
| It's also the number one producer of solar energy and
| growing. It's just a huge country with a lot of
| everything. Can we help them use more solar?
| jmcgough wrote:
| China has 4x our population and emits 1/3 less per
| capita. They've also been flat or falling for the last 21
| months. US emissions rose by 2.4% last year.
|
| Furthermore, because carbon emissions stay trapped in the
| atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years, one should
| also note that the US is responsible for more than a
| quarter of cumulative emissions, twice as much as China.
|
| I'm more interested in solving the problem than assigning
| blame, but it baffles me when people argue that we
| shouldn't need to focus on this because it's really
| China's fault.
| asib wrote:
| I've voted for parties that care about addressing the
| climate catastrophe.
|
| It's obviously someone else's problem if that someone
| refuses to accept there's a climate catastrophe.
| jmye wrote:
| What an odd question. Is this just the "and yet you
| participate in society" meme trying to act as insightful
| conversation, or did you have something to actually say?
| deaux wrote:
| > What have you done?
|
| Made a shitload of sacrifices, how about you?
| marcyb5st wrote:
| I agree. Also, we already tried to rely on the goodwill of
| the people and here we are with warming speeding up.
|
| We need some mechanism that penalizes polluters, benefits low
| emitters, and stops/limits/taxes/... worldwide shipping when
| local alternatives are available to avoid these [1]
| abominations.
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1e
| 4zl...
| jcfrei wrote:
| I have a different take: Things will change once a big part
| of the electorate no longer feels like climate change
| policies will hurt their pocket. A lot of the opposition to
| the policies are from people who aren't in the richer
| percentiles and probably work in a field that's related to
| fossil fuels (like heating engineers, car mechanics, etc.).
| They fear job losses and that their commute and heating bills
| go up.
| asib wrote:
| Not responding to climate change is hurting everyone's
| pocket. Home insurance premiums are obscene in some places.
| Energy insecurity due to reliance on fossil fuels sourced
| from overseas (particularly relevant right now with the US
| war on Iran and Russian war on Ukraine). Extreme
| temperatures mean we either spend more money on
| heating/cooling our homes or, if you're not wealthy enough
| to pay, you pay by having to endure the temperature
| extremes.
| jcfrei wrote:
| Not disputing that it will hurt everyone's pocket. But
| politically it is very fraught to push for policies that
| will benefit a new group of people (wind turbine
| engineers, solar cell installers) at the expense of an
| established group (gas turbine mechanics, fuel truck
| drivers). And for the home owners: It's not hurting them
| on a broad enough level - people who oppose climate
| change policies probably just don't care about homes in
| the coastal areas getting flooded - maybe because most of
| the opposition lives further inland.
| deaux wrote:
| > Not responding to climate change is hurting everyone's
| pocket
|
| No it's not. There's a large group of people whose
| pockets are being lined by it. A large group of
| billionaires.
| virgildotcodes wrote:
| The universe was not built to cater to our desires. We
| can't have our cake and eat it too.
|
| Virtually all economic activity consumes resources and
| energy, directly or indirectly, and in the process creates
| ghg emissions.
|
| If we want to curb climate change and our emissions, it
| necessarily means we're going to take an economic hit.
|
| We either do that willingly with some degree of ability to
| exercise control along the way, or be forced by physics to
| take an even worse economic hit and face vastly more death
| and suffering without our hands on the wheel.
|
| There's no option where we don't get our pockets hurt.
| jcfrei wrote:
| Same reply to you as the other commentator: Fully agree
| that not doing anything will hurt more. The hard part is
| finding policies that actually work without costing the
| lower and middle class more right now. The conservatives
| basically everywhere around the world are against
| redistribution - so they ideologically oppose anything
| that looks like it. At the same time if we just enact
| policies that limit CO2 the rich people won't really care
| that flying, heating, driving and some foods have gotten
| a bit more expensive. But the poor people will. And of
| the ones who would get hurt by the higher prices a lot of
| them are ideologically opposed to any kind of
| redistributing policies. So you are kind of stuck in a
| catch-22 for now.
| gzread wrote:
| An interesting policy proposal is negative tax. Basically
| take the carbon cap, divide by the number of people, and
| give the equivalent carbon tax price to each person. A
| person who uses exactly average carbon sees no change,
| while a person who uses less gets a tax rebate, and a
| person who uses more pays more. You can charge it at the
| source, tariffing oil by its carbon content and then
| reducing taxes by that amount for everyone.
| jcfrei wrote:
| Again - poor people, which:
|
| - still drive old cars with lots of CO2 emissions
|
| - live far away from their workplace
|
| - probably have a poorly isolated home with oil or gas
| heating
|
| will be the ones with higher than average emissions. And
| the rich people who do will just shrug at this minor
| extra expense. I feel like this is not mentioned enough
| in discussions (probably because wealth disparity is such
| a touchy subject) but your ability to reduce your carbon
| footprint is also directly tied to your wealth.
| gzread wrote:
| The average would also include rich people - if rich
| people are using far above average and poor people are
| using slightly above average, who's below average?
| deaux wrote:
| > The hard part is finding policies that actually work
| without costing the lower and middle class more right now
|
| You imprison the current administration for treason,
| seize their ill-gotten gains and there you go, hundreds
| of billions of dollars.
|
| It's absolutely trivial. There's just a group of people
| that doesn't want it.
|
| Simultaneously institute an inheritance tax as well as an
| exit tax of 90% of assets above $1+ billion, at time of
| death or leaving. That's a cool $1+ trillion in revenue
| for the next few decades. Both exit taxes and inheritance
| taxes are very established and work fine in plenty of
| countries, FYI. Not like yearly wealth taxes that are
| always criticized as not working or untested.
|
| It's _trivial_ to come up with policies that don 't hurt
| the lower nor the middle class. Laughably easy. There's
| however a group of people that are blocking them. Those
| people are the problem and their blocks need to be
| removed to get closer to preventing then oncoming
| extinction event (which has complete scientific
| consesus). These policies work, and what needa to be done
| is removing of their blockers.
|
| Come on now everyone, at least give an argument before
| you downvote. Warren Buffet is set to give away 99% of
| his wealth, so it's clearly possible. Humanity can no
| longer depend on the others to have the same basic
| decency as he does - clearly he's the exception, the
| others don't have it.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I have a different different take. It's not the
| electorate's pocketbook that matters, it's the political
| donors pocketbook that matters.
|
| "Drill baby drill" will be echoed so long as petroleum
| companies and petroleum rich nations dump billions into
| propaganda outlets, politician campaigns, and in the US,
| PAC groups to support "drill baby drill" friendly
| politicians.
|
| So long as that dynamic exists, it doesn't matter if 80% of
| the electorate screams for change. So long as the incumbent
| advantage exists forcing people to vote mostly on social
| issues, these sorts of economic and world affecting issues
| will simply be ignored.
|
| There's a reason, to this day, you'll find Democrats talk
| about the wonders of fracking, clean coal, and carbon
| capture.
|
| IDK how to change this other than first identifying the
| issue. Our politicians are mostly captured by their donors.
| That's the only will they really care about enacting.
| jcfrei wrote:
| Not sharing your take of the electorate's powerlessness
| at all. It's not an overwhelming majority (only 57% of
| voters in the US: https://yougov.com/en-
| us/articles/54124-nearly-half-american...) which thinks
| they need to do more about climate change. I think most
| politicians are in tune with their voters - you need to
| change the people's minds if you want stricter policies.
| Refine the question a bit more and ask people if they
| still want to do more against climate change if some
| basic necessities in their life will get more expensive
| and you will likely even drop below 50%.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Well part of that 43% I think have their opinions
| primarily because of propaganda from the same donors who
| are buying off the politicians.
|
| But also, I'd point out that even in the Democrat party
| where this is more of an 80:20 issue with their
| constituents, the democrats are still far too friendly to
| fossil fuels (Biden, for example, specifically campaigned
| on how much he loves natural gas, fracking, and carbon
| capture).
|
| This isn't the only 80:20 issue where democrat
| politicians are out of alignment with their base. That's
| also what informs my pessimism.
| gzread wrote:
| Solar power is cheaper than oil, but it doesn't work
| 24/7. If you can find a way to work with that, switching
| to solar is already financially incentivised. Even if you
| can't, we're already seeing whole countries and regions
| saturating at 100% solar electricity during daylight
| hours, significantly reducing oil usage. It doesn't
| matter what the oil sellers want, because it's a buyer's
| market for energy when the sun is out, and they're not
| going to throw extra money at oil companies just because.
| selectodude wrote:
| Eh, until "owning the libs" stops being a very valid
| electoral strategy, I think that's optimistic.
|
| Not sure how we fix that either.
| siruncledrew wrote:
| Until climate plans align with short-term personal
| incentives, I don't see how there's going to be any serious
| persistent fight against climate change.
|
| People might feel benevolent one day and do something good,
| but the next day when they are faced with a problem and the
| environment is a convenient trash can or resource bin,
| they'll go right back to those bad habits.
|
| The only way things will change is if everyone's life gets
| made miserable by the effects.
| xienze wrote:
| Aren't all these developed countries voluntarily self-
| depopulating by way of having birth rates below replacement?
| Seems like the problem will sort itself out if we can resist
| the urge to invite the entire third world to come in and
| instantly raise their carbon footprint to first world levels.
| adrianN wrote:
| That effect is much too slow.
| arrowleaf wrote:
| Wildfires across North America really scare me. I live in a
| valley in the west where wildfire smoke from not only our
| state but surrounding states comes in and settles, leaving an
| AQI over 150 for most of late July through September.
|
| Not only climate change, but aggressive firefighting over the
| past 50 or more years has caused a lot of material low in the
| fire ladder to accumulate, which in natural or at least pre-
| Columbian forests would be cleared out by routine fires.
| Brush and deadfall for example. The larger trees in healthy
| forests don't succumb to fire, but these fires have been
| decimating whole stands of trees. Pair that with almost zero
| snowpack this year, the only positive thing I can say is that
| I'm glad I can enjoy spring a bit earlier this year.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| The problem is humans are really bad at perceiving
| externalities at this scale, cause / effect between small
| actions and large effects, and effects that play out over the
| span of their lifetime rather than the span of their day. The
| denialist rationale shifted over the years from doubting the
| very basis of the science, to claiming its just a short term
| blip, to its natural long term cycles, to ... everything that
| involves not looking up.
|
| I think the truth is we won't really take this seriously
| globally until the changes are so severe that it'll take
| generations to undo if ever.
| kakacik wrote:
| Politicians, at least freely elected, are a symptom of given
| population at given time. Don't blame trump for trump, he
| made it painfully obvious to whole world who he is and who he
| certainly is not, sort of kudos to him for being consistent.
|
| Blame fully the people who saw all this and voted for him
| _twice_. At least if you care about root of the problems and
| not just venting off. I am not offering a solution to
| educating half of US population which clearly doesn 't care
| about facts, or lacks any basic moral compass... I don't have
| a practical solution.
|
| US 'special' form of voted democracy failed and failed hard,
| lets see how far this gets in next 3 years and if any actual
| lessons learned happen afterwards (I don't hold my breath
| since reality doesn't behave just because it would be nice
| and viable time to act is gone I think).
| thinkcontext wrote:
| > Blame fully the people who saw all this and voted for him
| twice
|
| Thrice actually
| newsoftheday wrote:
| > See the wildfires across North America
|
| I asked Gemini, "How long have wildfires across North America
| happened and are they truly any worse now?"
|
| "Wildfires have occurred across North America for millions of
| years, predating humans entirely." It also had some very
| detailed information backing that up.
|
| I then asked, "Were any of those fires in the past 20 years
| started by arsonists?"
|
| "Yes, arson is a significant factor in North American
| wildfires, though it is often overshadowed by accidental
| human causes (like downed power lines or unattended
| campfires) and natural causes like lightning."
| islandfox100 wrote:
| Well if Gemini says fires have existed, that's enough
| proof!!!!
| BikiniPrince wrote:
| The wild fires are entirely because of lack of management.
| This is why insurance companies noped out. The crazies
| believe it is an environment impact to manage the lands and
| then it all burns down. At least someone can blame the fires
| on something else. I guess it's a win?
| energy123 wrote:
| The initial pain will be diffuse and not obviously caused by
| global warming.
|
| For example, destabilization of equatorial countries due to wet
| bulb temperatures, through multiple causal paths: worse
| education outcomes (many days off school during hot months),
| worse economy (can't work outside), worse life satisfaction ->
| more autocracies, more water scarcity.
|
| Then you get more emigration to the colder north, more conflict
| and more suffering. But not much of it is easily and directly
| attributable to temperatures.
|
| Much of it is foregone upside, like GDP growth that's 3%
| instead of 5%.
| marcyb5st wrote:
| I am not sure how not directly linked to global warming. I am
| currently on the phone but I remember a study that mentioned
| that Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh would see a deadly heat
| (wet bulb temperatures) from basically 0 as it is right now
| to 30 days/year by 2050 or 2060. I can't remember right now.
|
| If that is not linkable to global warming I am not sure what
| is. And that is a huge event. In Europe we are struggling
| with accomodating perhaps 10M people. What happens when 1.5B
| come knocking because if they stay they die?
| cess11 wrote:
| "What happens when 1.5B come knocking because if they stay
| they die?"
|
| More taxes go to ammunition for autonomous border guard
| systems.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| This is not inevitable. We have time, now, to prepare for
| the future, which doesn't have to be a carbon copy of
| today.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Right now things are getting worse in that regard, not
| better
| jedberg wrote:
| Unfortunately most political systems around the world
| reward short term results, not long term thinking.
|
| Just look here in the USA -- the Democrats tried to do
| some forward thinking things like subsidizing solar and
| wind, and they were rewarded by losing at the ballot box
| (of course that isn't the only reason, but it's one of
| many).
|
| There are no rewards for long term thinking, so it's hard
| to get anyone to do it.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| So, those of us with no suede in this race, who will see
| no reward from the system _anyway_ , are the only people
| who can be trusted to make change. That means you and I
| (and I dare say a significant portion of the populace).
|
| It's not obvious what we can do (individual actions taken
| within the context of a system are dwarfed by structural
| forces of the system), but we're the only ones who are
| going to do it. So, let's assume we _did_ fix things, and
| we 're looking back from 2050, doing a retrospective.
| What things did we end up doing, that got us to that
| point?
| jedberg wrote:
| There's nothing you as an individual can do, or even a
| small group of individuals. This is where government is
| supposed to work. Using its power to force everyone to do
| something for the collective good that isn't profitable.
|
| Almost all emissions come from factories. There are only
| two ways to reduce that -- a global set of rules that
| increases costs to reduce emissions, and an overall
| reduction in consumption, via a carbon tax.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Factories are staffed by people. Those people have the
| physical capability to change the way the factories
| operate. Any individual person attempting to modify /
| replace the factory equipment against their line
| manager's will would quickly find themselves out of a
| job, but collective action among factory workers (e.g.
| unions) might work. So might getting the line managers on
| board with the proposal, if you can get enough buy-in
| that "we used our discretion" is an acceptable answer:
| it's not like most companies _actively want_ to pollute,
| rather that it 's usually cheaper to do so, and they
| don't _care_ about not. Being able to say "this move
| reduces turnover among our workers, slashing training
| costs; and you can probably use it in the B2B / B2C
| [delete as appropriate] marketing, since environmentalism
| sells in some markets; and this way, we're prepared for
| future legislation expected in jurisdictions A, B and C"
| may be sufficient justification. Alternatively, there may
| be ways to exploit the principal-agent problem.
|
| I'm sure there are people who've specced out detailed
| proposals for this sort of thing. There might even be
| previous cases where they've _succeeded_ , which we can
| learn from. Neither of those "two ways" you mentioned are
| things that I can do, but I _may_ be able to slightly
| reduce the intensity of the opposition. (Companies tend
| to _like_ when regulations require their competitors to
| do things they 're already doing, after all.)
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > Almost all emissions come from factories.
|
| industry, transport and home use (heating & A/C mostly)
| are all roughly 30% of emissions.
|
| (another way of splitting it says electricity, industry,
| heating, and transport are roughly almost 25% each. It
| depends whether you count electricity on its own or
| bundle it with how its used)
|
| But I agree with you about solutions. The market will
| quickly bankrupt any companies that induce extra costs to
| decarbonify. It's the governments job to ensure that
| externalized costs like CO2 emissions are internalized
| via carbon taxes. (or alternatives to carbon taxes, which
| are worse)
| deaux wrote:
| > (of course that isn't the only reason, but it's one of
| many).
|
| This is disingenuous. It's one of many in that it may
| have contributed 0.0001%. If they wouldn't have done
| that, would they currently have more power? Absolutely
| not, believing otherwise means being clueless about what
| has motivated people to vote in certain ways.
| jedberg wrote:
| It's definitely more than .0001%. Look at the campaigns.
| How much time did the GOP spend harping on windmills and
| solar subsidies and "clean coal". Calling out democrats
| for trying to make the environment better _at extra cost
| to US citizens_ was a huge part of their campaign.
| deaux wrote:
| I expected you to say this, but hoped you wouldn't. Of
| course I know they talk about it. GOP campaigns say and
| do a lot of things, there's dozens of topics they shout
| about. From Benghazi to Hillary's Emails to gender-
| neutral emails to immigrants to indeed coal/renewables
| and so on. You could easily name 30 topics.
|
| The topics have different purposes. Fossil fuels vs
| renewables in particular hasn't won the reps a single
| race, I repeat. Every race they've won, they would've won
| without it. And every race they've lost, they would've
| lost without it. The purpose of bringing up that
| particular topic for them isn't to help win close races.
| jedberg wrote:
| > The purpose of bringing up that particular topic for
| them isn't to help win close races.
|
| How can you possibly know this? How could you know what
| is in the mind of every voter and why they make the
| choice they do?
|
| They bring it up for a reason -- because their research
| says talking about helps them win elections.
| cess11 wrote:
| Sure, but if you were to make that concrete, what would
| you recommend and where do you see potential for it to be
| implemented?
| rapind wrote:
| > "What happens when 1.5B come knocking because if they
| stay they die?"
|
| You think that's bad... Up here in Canada we'll have to
| deal with Murican immigrants as things heat up. Talk
| about killing the vibe.
| un-diletante wrote:
| I think the least of your worries will be immigrants when
| an imperialistic nation with superior military power
| realizes that the annexation of your land is necessary
| for its survival.
| rapind wrote:
| I actually am moderately concerned with that to be
| honest. If the US doesn't have free and fair midterms I
| don't think it's really that paranoid to be worried about
| it.
| jpadkins wrote:
| This is why it's so important we pass the America SAVE
| Act. We have to stop MAGA from cheating in 2026.
| asdff wrote:
| Why would the US annex canada? It is already in the
| american hegemony.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| To distract from the Epstein files.
| asdff wrote:
| I'm surprised even the smarter democrats are saying that
| stupid line. Distraction would imply there are still to
| be people who have not yet learned and formed an opinion
| on the Epstein files. Everyone knows about these already
| and made their positions about it.
|
| As it turns out the most abhorrent things can come out
| with those Epstein files and it doesn't seem to hurt
| Trumps support among his base any. Doesn't seem to be
| threatening any legal action for him or implicated
| parties. Once again only Maxwell is in jail, somehow,
| with dozens and dozens of witnesses stepping forward.
| Democrats have been grandstanding on this man for 10
| years now and haven't been able to stop him. I think by
| this point it is clear he is going to get away with
| everything even if people want to write about him
| "flailing." Him flailing is literally him achieving all
| his domestic and foreign policy goals right now and his
| base couldn't be more pleased...
| ragall wrote:
| > What happens when 1.5B come knocking because if they stay
| they die?
|
| We sink the boats.
| skvmb wrote:
| Y E S
| peterpost2 wrote:
| Are you that excited to see innocent people die?
|
| Or am I misunderstanding your comment?
| gzread wrote:
| Indeed, no reason to expect anything will happen
| differently from what is currently happening, but on a
| 150x bigger scale.
| boutell wrote:
| Patricia Anthony published a novel about this in '93. Cold
| Allies. It's good military sci fi. Doesn't pretend to offer
| answers.
| dontwearitout wrote:
| Chapter 1 of "The Ministry of the Future" describes a
| fictional wet bulb event. It's grisly and horrific and I
| highly recommend you read this chapter, it changed my view
| on climate change.
|
| https://books.rockslide.ca/read/780/epub#epubcfi(/6/14!/4/2
| /...
| marcyb5st wrote:
| Thank you. I will
| numpad0 wrote:
| > What happens when 1.5B come knocking because if they stay
| they die?
|
| Like let them build few of those sci-fi domes and let them
| keep buying disposable bottled oxygen? I don't get the
| pessimism. India makes its own rockets. Pakistan has nukes.
| Why are they supposed to be incapable of holding the nation
| together on Mars-like Earth?
|
| Tokyo is already hitting 40C/100F at >90% RH during
| summers. It's already mildly unsurvivable. Nobody cares.
| Maybe in 10-20 years we'd be wearing spacesuits, but do
| anyone seriously think the equatorial regions will be
| uninhabitable and land prices on northern Europe is going
| to skyrocket???
| asdff wrote:
| The fact people already live in some of the hottest
| places in the world today should speak a little to human
| resiliency.
| vlz wrote:
| We can live in hot places if the air stays dry, which it
| usually does or historically did. If the air gets more
| humid we cannot anymore.
|
| > Humans may also experience lethal hyperthermia when the
| wet bulb temperature is sustained above 35 degC (95 degF)
| for six hours.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoregulation
| t0bia_s wrote:
| There are also statistics showing that mortality because of
| cold is much higher than mortality because of heat.
|
| About 9 times higher.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S25425196
| 2...
| morkalork wrote:
| Wasn't a drought originally part of the cause of Syria's
| collapse into civil war? Climate change is already causing
| unrest in equitorial countries, mass migration and a
| corresponding rise in authoritarianism / right wing populism
| in Europe.
| parineum wrote:
| You're making the "It's snowing there can't be global
| warming" argument in reverse.
|
| One local drought can't be attributed to or be proof of
| global warming.
|
| It's like smoking causing lung cancer; (the following
| numbers are made up) 5 in 100 non-smokers might get lung
| cancer but 20 in 100 smokers do. 5 of those smokers would
| have gotten lung cancer anyway and 15 wouldn't have but
| there's no way to know which individuals are in which
| cohort.
| gzread wrote:
| Not necessarily. Climate change means there will be more
| droughts; and if droughts cause civil war, there will be
| more civil war (that's the GP's relevance); even if we
| can't tell which ones were caused by global warming,
| that's still bad.
| morkalork wrote:
| Oh no, on the contrary, I'm saying it's already started
| and people aren't paying attention.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| That's the sum of climate change. "GDP growth of 3% instead
| of 5%."
|
| Severe enough to be noticeable, but not severe enough to
| warrant radical climate action. Not an extinction threat. A
| "slow trickle of economic damage, some amount of otherwise
| preventable death and suffering, diffused across the entire
| world, applied unevenly, and spread thin across many decades"
| threat.
|
| And stopping the GHG emissions demands radical, coordinated
| global action. Major emitters would have to pay local costs
| now - for the sake of global benefits many decades down the
| line. And those emitters are not the countries that face the
| worst climate risks. Global superpowers can tolerate climate
| change - it's countries that already struggle as it is, that
| don't have the resources to adapt or mitigate damage, that
| can face a significant uptick in death and suffering rather
| than damage in the realm of economics.
|
| That makes climate action a very hard sell for the
| politicians. Thus the tepid response.
|
| By now, I'm convinced that the only viable approaches to
| climate change lie in the realm of geoengineering. Which does
| not require multilateral coordinated action against a
| "tragedy of commons" scenario, and is cheaper than forcing
| local GHG emissions into negatives.
|
| Even non-permanent geoengineering solutions offset impacts
| here and now - thus buying time for fossil fuel energy to
| succumb to the economic advantage of renewables. And
| geoengineering measures can be enacted unilaterally by many
| powers - as long as the political will is there to absorb a
| few strongly worded condemnation letters.
| gzread wrote:
| And then when the GDP finally collapses, there will have
| been nothing that could be done about it for the last 50
| years and they'll ask wtf we were doing in 2040, why we
| didn't stop it then.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| That's the nasty thing. It doesn't "finally collapse".
|
| The world just eats the climate costs and keeps going.
|
| There's no global catastrophe. No single moment when the
| magnitude of your folly is revealed to you a blinding
| flash. Just a slow trickle of "2% worse". A loss of what
| could have been.
| gzread wrote:
| There's only so much worse things can get before the
| fundamentals of civilization aren't there any more. 3
| meals a day from anarchy.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| The world got hit with WW2 and moved on. It takes a lot
| to destroy "the fundamentals of civilization" on a global
| level. Climate change is woefully insufficient.
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| The problem is that we will not move on from WW3, and
| famine, water depletion, resource exhaustion etc. are all
| existential problems for individual countries that will
| cause conflicts between previously peaceful nations. At
| some point the nations in conflict will have alliances
| and nuclear weapons, and people will use them when the
| choice is between that or starving to death by the
| millions. I would be somewhat more optimistic about
| humanity's ability to weather worsening circumstances if
| we didn't develop the human extinction button in all of
| our grand technological wisdom.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Climate change is not the great equalizer people want it
| to be.
|
| Nuclear superpowers are among the _least_ likely
| countries to actually collapse from climate damage.
|
| US isn't Syria, and it's Syria that's at risk.
|
| First world countries like France can absorb a +30% spike
| to food prices. Countries where the same food price spike
| would come with a major death toll don't have the tools
| to kick off WW3.
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| Pakistan and North Korea have nuclear weapons. What makes
| you think that other countries won't develop them when
| push comes to shove? Right now the status quo is such
| that smaller countries find violating international
| sanctions on nuclear weapon development to be
| disadvantageous (no immediate benefit from having them;
| expensive to have them; economic punishment for having
| them). The calculus on the status quo changes
| considerably when famine or other ecological disasters
| are threatening to wipe out half your population. Is the
| US going to invade all potential nuclear weapons
| developers like it did with Iran? Do you have complete
| confidence that will always work and never escalate
| towards anything larger?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Is the US going to invade all potential nuclear
| weapons developers like it did with Iran?_
|
| Invade? No. Bomb? Probably. Same if for India if _e.g._
| Sri Lanka decides it wants nuclear weapons.
|
| Global warming will unfortunately disproportionately hit
| poor, equatorial countries. (Also, starving countries
| can't afford a nuclear programme. There is no breakout
| risk in Sudan.)
| ACCount37 wrote:
| You know it. The country that was probably the closest to
| "developing nuclear weapons" is currently in the process
| of being bombed to shit for it.
|
| Not the only reason, no. But their nuclear ambitions
| certainly did contribute to their current predicament.
|
| Nuclear weapons take time, expertize, resources and
| sustained political will to develop and deploy. If you
| have all of that, you might be able to put all of that
| towards climate adaptation instead. Or: go for the nukes
| and bet hard that you aren't going to get bombed to shit
| for it. Worked out for NK, but doesn't seem to have
| worked for Iran.
|
| I think the level of tolerance US has for marginally
| stable autocracies with nuclear weapons has receded
| permanently.
|
| Not to mention that merely _having_ a nuclear bomb doesn
| 't automatically allow one to cause WW3. Nuclear weapons
| were used in a world war already, and that didn't even
| destroy a single country - let alone the world. It takes
| a lot of nukes, and a lot of delivery mechanisms, to
| actually move the needle on the matter of human
| civilization existing.
| triceratops wrote:
| > US isn't Syria, and it's Syria that's at risk. First
| world countries like France can absorb a +30% spike to
| food prices
|
| And you think a second, much larger Syrian refugee
| migration will have 0 impact on France?
|
| Nothing happens in a vacuum. Everything and everyone is
| connected.
| gzread wrote:
| WW2 hit the higher layers of abstraction. You could still
| grow food plants in those countries during and after the
| war, but the governance structures were bombed. Climate
| change is the opposite. If you can't grow food, you're
| fucked.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Whether there will be a global catastrophe or not, it is
| unknown yet and unpredictable.
|
| There are many mechanisms of positive feedback that can
| accelerate global warming instead of just reaching an
| equilibrium at a higher average temperature than now.
|
| If some of those mechanisms of positive feedback would be
| triggered, a global catastrophe would be possible, due to
| the excessive speed of the climate change, which does not
| give enough time for the biosphere to adapt to it.
|
| Instead of hoping that we will be lucky, it would have
| been much better to avoid such risks and prevent further
| increases in CO2 concentration and average temperature.
|
| I am old enough to have seen a dramatic change in climate
| from the time when I was a child, when the seasons were
| still exactly as they had been described for centuries
| and millennia at that location in Europe, to the present
| time, when winters are no colder than autumns were before
| and I have never used again my winter clothes and boots
| for about 15 years.
|
| I find such a radical change during my lifetime quite
| scary and I see no evidence for claims that "the world
| will keep going". The truth is that nobody knows whether
| this will be true and hoping that this will happen
| without doing anything to guarantee such an outcome is
| reckless.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| There is not enough "positive feedback" going around in
| the system to do anything of the sort.
|
| Plenty of feedback mechanisms were proposed,
| investigated, and found lacking. It's a "makes climate
| change 10% worse than it would otherwise have been" kind
| of thing, not a "makes climate change 1000% worse than it
| would otherwise have been" kind of thing.
| gzread wrote:
| Making the temperature rise 10% worse doesn't mean the
| GDP impact won't be 1000% worse.
| realo wrote:
| "Migration to the colder north..."
|
| Maybe that's why the Trump regime wants so badly to invade
| Canada and the Groenland?
| thinkcontext wrote:
| I wonder if the current war will significantly accelerate the
| roll out of non-fossil energy. If the Strait of Hormuz stays
| closed for a few more weeks there's going to be significant
| pain, not just for energy but things like fertilizer etc. Once
| you deploy a solar panel it works for 20+ years, conflict
| doesn't cut you off from energy.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Nothing will change until billionaires start losing money over
| it. Then it will be a national priority.
|
| It's also why I've sort of resigned myself to a cynical
| optimism that the worst won't come to pass. The rich are not
| going to tolerate losing money. They will force through
| geoengineering stopgap measures that will save us from
| catastrophic warming, at the cost of unknown consequences.
|
| This is why I vehemently disagree with those who say we
| shouldn't be conducting research on geoengineering. It _will be
| done_. The only question is, will we have done enough research
| to understand the potential consequences, or not?
| haizhung wrote:
| Don't get cynic. The good news is: the worse it gets, the
| more impact every single .1 degree of prevented climate
| change has.
|
| I'm with you in the billionaires. Research has shown again
| and again that people _do_ care about climate change and
| _want_ it to be stopped - but only if they have the
| socioeconomic status to actually care.
|
| If, as so many people on this planet, you are living paycheck
| to paycheck, and the social security nets are being
| dismantled by the uber rich, you instead switch into a
| ,,protect what's mine" mindset. This further exacerbates the
| tragedy of the commons.
|
| So I am of the following opinion: fix wealth inequality;
| which will give people their actual lives back; and will
| reduce the political power of the sociopathic billionaire
| class.
|
| Then, the rest almost takes care of itself.
| 3371 wrote:
| Yeah just fix that already, how hard could it be?
|
| The problem is human, not society, I don't any any -ism can
| fix human.
| willis936 wrote:
| This is why I think the middle strength Global South countries,
| who hurt the most in the near term and have the necessary
| resources, will unilaterally start albedo modification. They
| don't need permission of rich nations and it will become an
| existential issue that they might risk sanctions and war over.
| That's when it will become "our problem" (in the eyes of the
| extremely selfish and/or stupid members).
| chewbacha wrote:
| They are already in pain but are blaming immigrants instead of
| trusting science.
| xienze wrote:
| True or false: a person in a third world country has a lower
| carbon footprint than someone in a developed country.
|
| Also true or false: an immigrant from a third world country
| will have a higher carbon footprint if they emigrate to a
| developed country.
|
| Maybe they are part of the problem.
| deadbabe wrote:
| _> Nothing will change._
|
| Fixed
| jmcgough wrote:
| Soon, we'll have millions of climate change refugees, battles
| over resources, regular once-in-a-century storms, more wars.
| We're close to the point where we'll be too busy thrashing to
| address the root cause.
| gzread wrote:
| This isn't a powerful motivator to people who think they will
| win those wars.
| jmcgough wrote:
| No one wins in a protracted war.
| apexalpha wrote:
| A lot HAS changed. Europe even has a tax on CO2 emissions.
|
| It's just not enough and it's very hard to convince the public
| to accelerate when the US not only gave up but it actively
| reversing to fossil fuels.
| NDizzle wrote:
| At what European tax rate will China and India work on
| reducing their CO2 emissions?
| jgraham wrote:
| China has now had flat CO2 emissions for two years, and
| experienced a decline in overall CO2 emissions during
| 2025[1]. Part of this is that they're deploying way more
| renewables than basically any other large economy [2].
|
| They've also pivoted their industrial strategy so that
| basically the entire green energy sector depends on Chinese
| supply chains. This is significantly contributing to their
| economic growth [3].
|
| I don't know to what extent taxation in Europe contributed
| to China's decision making here, but it presumably created
| an market for green energy and therefore helped solidify
| the economics.
|
| This is of course not to say that there's nothing to
| criticize in China's environmental policies; there
| certainly is. But the trope of "why should we do anything
| because China won't" turns out to be spectacularly ill-
| informed. Indeed I think it makes more sense to ask the
| opposite: what are the likely consequences now that China
| has positioned itself as the global centre of green energy,
| and what should other countries be doing to ensure that
| they're not left behind?
|
| [1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-
| co2-emissions-ha... [2]
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/g7-falling-behind-china-as-
| world... [3] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-
| energy-drove-more...
| inaros wrote:
| The bottle is half full:
| https://youtu.be/CFyOw9IgtjY?list=PL3A647D3FD57E0F96&t=205
| frogperson wrote:
| Chaos is extactly where fascism thrives. Expect to see more
| trumps, not less.
| cess11 wrote:
| Why would something "change" because "developed rich countries"
| hurt? Why wouldn't those leaders just roll with it and see it
| as inevitable, or a purification of their degenerate
| populations, or just another day in the end times, or whatever?
|
| I expect "change" when people form unions or union like
| organisations and withhold or redistribute their labour, both
| waged and in more subtle forms, such as attention, and unwaged
| but socially important labour (e.g. women refusing to be
| servile homemakers and instead get guns and start soup
| kitchens).
| utopiah wrote:
| > until developed rich countries are starting to hurt.
|
| Well Spain, 12th largest by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest
| in Europe, isn't exactly poor and yet seems to hurt quite a bit
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_Spain#Impact...
| ... but I bet the wealthiest Spaniards have air conditioning,
| heating, bottled water delivered at home by staff, etc to
| isolate themselves. That does include politicians.
|
| So... IMHO until the richest of the rich countries hurt, then
| nothing will change. They (we?) are very sheltered precisely by
| leveraging their wealth to abstract away from the lowly
| difficulties of life, like the weather.
|
| TL;DR : yes, but the more insulated feel it less and
| consequently, rationally, think they have more time thus
| postponing the process.
| tlogan wrote:
| China creates about 30-35% of global emissions. India about 8%
| but it is climbing fast.
|
| What rich countries do is they just export their factories to
| other countries and say: look we do not pollute.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Would someone like to explain why the Chinese (if as you say
| produce 30-35% of global emissions) don't appear to see a
| problem or at least if alluding to it as they do, fail to do
| much about it as major contributors of emissions? And then of
| course there are the countries proud of a relative lack of
| emissions who are merely exporting the problem to somewhere
| else, often enough, China.
| youngtaff wrote:
| Yes, they're still burning coal and gas but China are
| making huge strides in non CO2 intensive electricity
| generation
|
| China are the reason solar has become so affordable for the
| rest of the world
| tlogan wrote:
| The latest major IEA estimate says China's CO2 emissions
| reached 12.6 Gt in 2023, up 4.7% from 2022.
|
| On the other hand U.S. CO2 emissions decreased slightly
| between 2022 and 2023. About 2-3% (from 4.79 to 4.68 Gt)
|
| I just do not understand how we can claim any kind of
| progress here.
| 01100011 wrote:
| CA buying gasoline from Bermuda, shipped via the Panama
| Canal, because it refuses to allow new refineries is the
| perfect demonstration of this.
| gzread wrote:
| That's also kind of a pigovian tax though, right? By making
| gasoline more expensive they discourage its use. I guess
| they're chicken to make it an _actual_ tax
|
| Also why wouldn't it come from other US states? Seems
| easier
| 01100011 wrote:
| Pipelines, the Jones Act and CA blend requirements
| prevent CA from getting much gas from other states.
| tlogan wrote:
| Sadly, it does not come from other states. It comes from
| other countries which, amazingly, tend to have much less
| strict environmental regulations.
|
| Yes, California is a little cleaner because we have fewer
| refineries and gas is more expensive, but globally we are
| probably about even.
| youngtaff wrote:
| US is the largest historical emitter... responsible for
| something like 25% of all man made CO2 emissions
| tlogan wrote:
| The entire west world contributes 28.8%. US is about 11%.
| [1]
|
| [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-
| review-2025/co2-em...
| DeepSeaTortoise wrote:
| Exactly, this was the whole point of Trump calling climate
| change a hoax to benefit China, but somehow this got twisted
| by the media into not denying climate change being an anti-
| Trump position.
|
| The base then started demanding this from their reps and
| Trump almost picked up on this himself. It took years to undo
| that damage and even now we're barely back at a pro-clean
| air, pro-solar and pro nuclear position...
| lukas099 wrote:
| This is why politicians are usually expected to choose
| their words carefully. Most of them know that what they say
| matters and has effects on the real world.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Just for reference China has about 17% of the world's
| population, and India has about 18%.
|
| China has also been deploying lots of renewable and nuclear
| energy, and their carbon emissions actually falling.
|
| Solar and wind have gotten so cheap we should be able to
| forgo more fossil fuel deployment in developing nations.
| tlogan wrote:
| China CO2 emission increased a lot over the last 20 years
| and it is growing every years. Not decreasing but
| increasing. The IEA estimate says China's CO2 emissions
| reached 12.6 Gt in 2023, up 4.7% from 2022.
|
| On the other hand U.S. CO2 emissions decreased slightly
| between 2022 and 2023. About 2-3% (from 4.79 to 4.68 Gt)
|
| [1] https://www.iea.org/countries/china/emissions
| mountainriver wrote:
| We are already seeing it in Colorado. Record low snowfall,
| record heat, record winds; which are a very bad set of
| conditions for fires.
|
| The power company is now preemptively shutting off our power.
| Which is really fun in the winter.
|
| I'm honestly not sure about the future of my hometown Boulder.
| The odds of it fully burning to the ground seem to increase
| significantly every year.
| chazburger wrote:
| Get your own solar and batteries.
| ragall wrote:
| It will take a few fires like the one in LA, but eventually
| even the USians will learn it's not a good idea to build
| cities out of wooden houses.
| chazburger wrote:
| I don't know, was in Haiti a few months ago and they burn all
| kinds of shit there. Gotta get them on solar and wind. Whatever
| happened to the Clinton foundation's billions?
| slibhb wrote:
| > Nothing will change
|
| Things have already changed!
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Nothing will happen until the super rich who define policy
| begin to hurt. And they won't hurt because they can exploit the
| situation to become even richer.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| I think it will change when the people that don't believe in
| global warming die off, ala 'Science progresses one funeral at
| a time'. For the US, that's basically Boomers and Gen X [1], so
| I still think your 10 - 20 years estimate is decent (they don't
| have to _all_ die, but as more pass away I expect progress)
|
| [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/26/key-
| findi...
| deepsun wrote:
| Well, most deforestation happens in poor underdeveloped
| countries. Yes, they hurt, but keep doing it.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| For the UK at least, this must be in a large part because we
| already cut our forests down. We simply couldn't deforest at
| a high rate, because there aren't enough trees left to go at.
| Aunche wrote:
| > Nothing will change until developed rich countries are
| starting to hurt.
|
| The EU reduced their emissions by over a third from their peak.
| Their emissions per capita is less than that of China (not
| meant to be a dig at China who is the leader the development of
| renewables). Even Americans reduced their CO2 emissions by 15%
| in absolute terms and by about 30% per capita as well.
|
| Why is it so hard to understand that individual people, let
| alone hundreds of millions of people in aggregate, can have
| multiple priorities? This whole doomerist attitude doesn't help
| anyone. If anything, it contributes to the erosion of the good
| things we already have. Nobody gave a damn about USAID saving
| millions of people until it could be weaponized against
| Trump/Elon for taking it away.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Rich countries will never feel it. Look at the middle east.
| Already scorching desert, they build indoor ski hills...
|
| On the plus side, I think we'll solve global warming, with
| technology, in a few generations.
| fortedoesnthack wrote:
| it depends where you live... I live in Japan now. One comment I
| hear often and see reflected in old TV shows is how different
| summers are already. 20-25 years ago it would have been
| considered a hot summer day around 30c.
|
| Now every summer day is 30c+.
|
| Also, a comment I hear often is that people didn't really need
| air conditioners back then. You definitely cannot get away with
| living in Tokyo without an air conditioners these days!
| jedberg wrote:
| Same with Los Angeles. In the 1950s, when my parents were
| young, you didn't need AC in LA. You just opened a window on
| the few hot days, and those were like high 70s/low 80s.
|
| By the 1990s, you didn't _need_ AC, but your home /rental was
| more appealing if it had one, because there were a few hot
| days a year that were pretty uncomfortable otherwise.
|
| Now, you can't not have it. There are far too many hot days
| to live without it.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Same thing here in Vancouver. I took a picture of my car's
| dash display reading 43*C during the heat dome in 2021!
| 01100011 wrote:
| I initially supported this comment but no, I think it's worse
| than this. As rich countries cut back, dirty energy becomes
| cheaper and developing nations just use more. They'll need to
| use more just to fight the climate. India, for instance, is
| going to need a whole lot of air conditioning just to survive.
|
| Sure, blame developed nations for getting us here, but the path
| forward isn't solely in the hands of those developed nations.
| bko wrote:
| > Nothing will change until developed rich countries are
| starting to hurt.
|
| Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions based on
| a peak in 2007 and continue to do so. Not reduced as a
| percentage of GDP or adjusted for population growth, but
| reduced in absolute levels. It's all China, but I guess it's
| cool to blame things on developed countries.
|
| There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented
| if they lifted restrictions on AC so that they can feel good
| about making a negligible effect on carbon emissions. So I
| think you have it opposite, how much pain do rich countries
| have to endure before they realize that their efforts are in
| vain.
|
| And before you say "that's because the West outsources all the
| dirty production to China", even trade adjusted emissions are
| down considerably and continue to be down.
|
| Please do some research if you're interested in this topic,
| it's not hard to do. Just follow the logical steps.
|
| 1. What causes global warming
|
| 2. Who produces most of these chemicals
|
| 3. Are there any global trends over the last 20 years in
| production of these chemicals
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2
|
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/europes-crusade-against-air-co...
| gzread wrote:
| China is some years behind our industrial development then
| undevelopment, and is building an entire USA of solar panels
| every year or whatever - can we expect them to quickly reduce
| emissions soon?
| bko wrote:
| I thought the world and civilization would collapse because
| of carbon emissions. It's either serious or it's not. If
| it's serious then it doesn't really matter right?
|
| It's like you're on a boat that sprung a leak and everyone
| grabs a bucket. But a few people choose to not help because
| it's not fair for whatever reason.
| thfuran wrote:
| What?
| bko wrote:
| The point is that China is the only thing that matters at
| this point. It's a lot bigger, has surpassed OECD and is
| growing quickly. Every decline of emissions by developed
| countries is more than made up for by growing China
| emissions
| islandfox100 wrote:
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-
| co2-emissions-ha...
|
| Chinese emissions have peaked and are now falling.
| mbgerring wrote:
| Emissions in China are not growing, and Chinese
| manufacturing is largely responsible for falling
| emissions in developed countries
| triceratops wrote:
| > It's a lot bigger, has surpassed OECD and is growing
| quickly
|
| Please stop lying. It hasn't cumulatively emitted as much
| as the OECD [1], and cumulative emissions are the cause
| of our current predicament.
|
| It's also doing the _opposite_ of growing.
|
| 1. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-
| co2-emissions-...
| squibonpig wrote:
| Are you a climate change doesn't matter guy or a china is
| the climate change causer guy? You can't do both at once.
| bko wrote:
| I'm pointing out the hypocrisy and the focus people have
| on developed countries is just signaling. A weird anti-
| west sentiment from people who almost exclusively live a
| wealthy life in the west.
|
| I'm not an expert, but from what I have read I believe
| humans do have an effect on climate. However this doesn't
| mean that any draconian measure that would essentially
| impose one world government and population control (which
| is the inevitable outcome of all of this) is preferable.
| But more importantly I'm anti stupid measures like
| restricting air-conditioning because they make a
| negligible impact and literally kill 100k+ people a year.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| China has roughly .4 AC units per person while the USA
| has roughly 1 AC unit per person. You are simultaneously
| arguing everyone should have an AC, and that China should
| stop expanding their usage of AC.
|
| I'd argue everyone should have an AC if they need one
| (probably China needs more than they have.) But we
| shouldn't build any more fossil fuel extraction, people
| who need AC should figure out how to do it with batteries
| and renewable energy. (Nuclear is fine, if it makes sense
| economically.) We don't need population control, we just
| need to add sufficiently large taxes on things we want
| less of. AC isn't a thing we want less of, it's carbon
| emissions.
| triceratops wrote:
| To deniers both arguments are valid - just use whichever
| one is more convincing to the person you're talking to.
| The objective is continue using fossil fuels no matter
| what.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| To _alarmists_ both arguments are valid - just use
| whichever one is more convincing to the person you 're
| talking to. The objective is _stop_ using fossil fuels no
| matter what.
|
| Im not sure what is this type of debate good for.
| triceratops wrote:
| What "both" arguments are so-called alarmists using?
| What's an alarmist, exactly?
|
| And yes, the objective is to stop using fossil fuels.
| That's not exactly a secret agenda, it's the _whole
| fucking point_.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| What is denier, exactly?
|
| Seriously, there is no debate with this rethoric.
| triceratops wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial
|
| You didn't answer either of my questions. Even though I
| asked first.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| You missing the point, again.
| __s wrote:
| To your metaphor, their point is that if everyone is
| grabbing buckets while someone else is working to spring
| more leaks, maybe someone needs to set aside their bucket
| & stop the person springing leaks
| reitzensteinm wrote:
| Nah, the analogy for your argument is:
|
| Two Americans and ten Chinese are on a lifeboat. The
| Americans are each eating two sandwiches a day and the
| Chinese are eating one. Supplies are low. You do the math
| and note that the Chinese sure are eating a lot of
| sandwiches.
| peab wrote:
| they continue to build more solar, more wind, but also more
| coal power plants.
| bschwarz wrote:
| China is also replacing old, inefficient coal power
| plants with new ones.
| mbgerring wrote:
| No, they are not building new coal fired power plants at
| the same rate they are expanding renewables. This is
| several years out of date.
| epistasis wrote:
| A year ago, the IEA thought China's emissions had peaked:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-fuel-
| demand-m...
|
| And this recent assessment puts emissions from China at
| "flat or falling" for the past 21 months:
|
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-
| ha...
| triceratops wrote:
| > can we expect [China] to quickly reduce emissions soon?
|
| They did, last year.
| nicoburns wrote:
| A reminder that reducing emissions isn't enough. We actually
| need them to be net-negative.
| epistasis wrote:
| _Eventually_ we want to get there, post 2050, but at a very
| low rate compared to our net emissions right now. Still, it
| 's far cheaper to avoid emitting now than it is to pull it
| down later, so every time you drive your kids to school
| remember the debt you are saddling them with.
| daed wrote:
| > Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions
| based on a peak in 2007 and continue to do so
|
| Any idea what percentage of this reduction is due to
| offshoring manufacturing?
| bko wrote:
| Keep reading the comment, pretty much the same.
|
| > https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2
| krd8ssb wrote:
| To add to this, no matter what countries do, we can make our
| local environments nicer to live in by reducing pollution but
| across the globe, solar activity has exponentially more, and
| the ultimate impact. With the magnetic field weakening, it's
| going to continue going in this direction as it has
| throughout history.
|
| I'm not saying we shouldn't do what we can to make our local
| environment better and protect and Preserve what we have. We
| absolutely should. I'm just stating that this is not the
| first time the Earth has heated or cooled and nothing that we
| do will ultimately stop it from this cycle from continuing.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| You've been misinformed. Yes solar activity fluctuates.
| Human induced climate change is still real and affecting
| temperatures much more rapidly.
| HappyPanacea wrote:
| > There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be
| prevented if they lifted restrictions on AC so that they can
| feel good about making a negligible effect on carbon
| emissions.
|
| What restrictions are there on AC?
| bko wrote:
| Several EU countries have mandatory temperature limits for
| air conditioning in public buildings. Spain, Italy, and
| Greece have all announced that A/C in public buildings
| cannot be set lower than 27C (80F) in summer Some
| exceptions allow up to 25C like restaurants and some work
| places.
|
| The EU's F-Gas Regulation creates significant restrictions
| on refrigerants used in air conditioning
|
| There's significant red tape when installing AC due to
| building regulations
|
| 90% of US homes have AC while only 20% of European homes
| have it, I don't think that's by accident.
|
| Fun fact, some EU countries even have laws telling you how
| much you can open your windows! In the UK, there is a law
| that in any public building, windows must not open more
| than 100mm (about 4 inches).
| sofixa wrote:
| Are you claiming there are restrictions on installing
| ACs, or there are restrictions on how those installed are
| used? The two are quite different arguments.
|
| And 27C is a completely normal temperature. When it's 35C
| outside, you're better off with a minimised thermal shock
| with a small difference, instead of going at it the US
| South or Dubai style where inside it's 18C, so all
| everyone does is move from one air conditioned place to
| another (home to car to office to car to mall to home).
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Newer refrigerants with lower GWP are great actually.
| That's not a restriction on installing AC.
|
| Your mentions PUBLIC building policies are irrelevant
| triceratops wrote:
| > Spain, Italy, and Greece have all announced that A/C in
| public buildings cannot be set lower than 27C (80F) in
| summer
|
| So?
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| > Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions
| based on a peak in 2007 and continue to do so.
|
| Our economies are _built_ on oil burning somewhere else in
| the world. You can try to point the blame at China, but the
| wealth generated in the middle east selling them oil is a
| major part of the reason why US stock markets keep going up.
|
| If you forced China to use less fossil fuels you would
| personally feel a much larger hit to your quality of life.
|
| We in the developed world love to outsource the violence and
| environmental damage we cause. It's one thing to wash your
| hands, but quite another to then try to point the finger.
| Retric wrote:
| > If you forced China to use less fossil fuels you would
| personally feel a much larger hit to your quality of life.
|
| America imports more from Mexico, Canada, and the EU than
| China which ranks as #4 when you consider EU as a single
| entity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_t
| rading_pa...
|
| Imports from China are a small fraction of GDP and offset
| by exports to other countries. OECD countries are largely
| exporting labor not the kind of heavy industry associated
| with heavy CO2 emissions. Which makes sense as China has
| relatively cheap labor, but they don't get a discount on
| Oil.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| > Mexico, Canada, and the EU
|
| Do you want to take a wild guess as to which country is a
| top 3 importer to all of these countries/regions?
|
| Here's a clue: it's the same country that is a major
| exporter of oil from GCC countries, and the wealth from
| those GCC countries is a major contributor of investment
| to US industry/financial sector.
|
| The correct answer, is of course: China
|
| The global is economy is very tightly interconnected and
| still very much driven by oil and fossil fuels in
| general. You can do all the accounting tricks you want,
| but developed Western lifestyles, especially in the US,
| are entirely supported and made possible by growing
| global fossil fuel usage.
| Retric wrote:
| > Do you want to take a wild guess as to which country is
| a top 3 importer to all of these countries/regions?
|
| Canada imports 377 Billion from America and only 88
| Billion from China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of
| _the_largest_trading_pa...
|
| So you clearly don't actually understand global trade if
| you think being top 3 trading partner somehow drastically
| changes the equation here. China is a massive economy
| with 1/6th of the worlds population and a top 3 economy,
| so yes it does a lot of trade but economies are a lot
| more than just trade.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| I think you're missing the point. A large part of the
| things we import from those countries indirectly _come
| from China_ , so it's disingenuous to claim that China is
| not a major contributor to the US economy based solely on
| what we import directly from them.
|
| For example the US's top product imported from Mexico are
| vehicles, electrical equipment and machinery. But those
| things are _assembled_ from parts produced in China. So
| if you reduce China 's use of energy you not only impact
| the direct trade that we benefit from but also the
| indirect trade.
|
| And you still haven't addressed the way the global
| financial system is so tightly interconnected. GCC
| countries invest an estimated $1 trillion in the US, but
| a large chunk of that wealth comes from oil being sold to
| Asia, with China being one of the major purchasers.
|
| The point stands that you can't meaningfully disconnect
| US energy usage from Chinese energy usage. If, for
| example, we were to stop GCC export to China (and not
| sell that oil in order to fight climate change) the US
| economy would ultimately collapse (this is in fact one of
| the major strategic levers that Iran has right now).
| epistasis wrote:
| tl;dr The amount of fossil fuels it takes to make stuff
| is not nearly as big as the amount of fossil fuels we use
| to transport ourselves in cars.
|
| Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions is harder
| than production-based accounting, but it allows us to see
| more clearly what the CO2 cost of our lifestyle is. It's
| been ~5 years since I looked at one of those in detail,
| but I don't think it's changed much since then. The big
| takeaway for me was that for the US, which has _massive_
| emissions compared to Europe countries, urban /suburban
| design and land use was by far the biggest determinant of
| CO2 consumption, followed by income/wealth. Despite their
| higher wealth and ability to spend more, residents of
| urban areas have for lower emissions than suburban
| residents.
|
| See, for example, https://coolclimate.org/maps
|
| There's a tendency to think of consumption in zero-sum
| terms, but it turns out that energy efficiency has a
| massive impact on emissions, and also that intuition
| about quantities of emissions is really hard to gain
| without a lot of study.
| Retric wrote:
| > A large part of the things we import from those
| countries indirectly come from China
|
| 88B can't be a particularly large part of 377B even
| before you consider that 88B is largely used domestically
| not for exports to the US and Canada also exports to
| China.
|
| Fundamentally something that costs 1$ can't require more
| than 1$ of fossil fuels to produce without someone losing
| money on the transaction. Most goods do embody some
| carbon, but US agricultural goods being exported actually
| embody a much larger fraction of CO2 than most goods due
| to the nature of farming and the vast agricultural
| subsidies. This alone offsets the trade imbalance
| rendering US trade very close to carbon neutral.
|
| As to your specific point, product from Canada, Mexico
| etc, may have parts from China. But Canada isn't simply
| redirecting 100% of its Chinese imports to the US.
| Further Canada, Mexico, and the EU and the US are also
| exporting goods to China directly and indirectly.
|
| Again, calculate the actual CO2 involved trade with China
| is basically irrelevant from a CO2 perspective relative
| to domestic emissions.
|
| > global financial system is so tightly interconnected
|
| We're talking actual emissions which sums to 100% of
| global emissions. The environment doesn't somehow double
| count pollution because it's the result of the financial
| system. Thus the impact of the global financial system
| and everything else is already being accounted for.
| epistasis wrote:
| That's a bit out of date, it's likely that China has
| already peaked. And it's not oil but coal that they tend to
| burn.
|
| Renewables are cheaper than coal and oil energy, so we will
| see an increase in quality of life as China electrifies, at
| least for those of us that import Chinese manufactured
| goods.
|
| Oil is mostly for people's cars, for an unsustainable
| transit system that locks us in little boxes and kills all
| our salmon and is one of the greatest threats to the lives
| of our children. Getting rid of oil and coal is going to be
| a loooot easier than getting rid of our car infrastructure.
| exceptione wrote:
| Don't do the AC thing, it is a stupid trope under
| blogfluencers. There are no restrictions (besides positioning
| the outer unit in such a way that you cause your neighbors to
| lose sleep). As the summers get more extreme in Europe, more
| residents decide getting one is starting to pay off, so you
| see more AC's, but many people think they are doing fine
| without.
| cataphract wrote:
| Yeah, never heard of such a thing. The restrictions are
| placing the units in common areas of the buildings -- in
| that case you need permission -- and external walls are
| usually common parts. Placing them in the facade may have
| additional restrictions.
|
| But, if anything, energy efficiency standards for new
| construction are so strict that heat is becoming less of a
| problem.
| bko wrote:
| I can easily google restrictions and share them, and I have
| in other comments but let me throw it back at you.
|
| Why do 90% of Americans have AC while only 20% of Europeans
| do?
|
| Why does US have ~4 heat related deaths per million while
| Europe has ~235 per million?
|
| Do you think it's just stupidity (Europeans don't know the
| relationship between heat and AC)? Or poverty? Any other
| explanation?
|
| https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152766
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| > Why do 90% of Americans have AC while only 20% of
| Europeans do?
|
| Because Rome is further north than New York and Paris is
| just south of Ottawa/Montreal.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Raw latitude hardly tells the entire story.
| myrmidon wrote:
| > Why do 90% of Americans have AC while only 20% of
| Europeans do?
|
| Maybe because the majority of Europe is closer to Canada,
| latitude-wise, than to Phoenix, AZ, and there is simply
| less demand? Less wealth is certainly a factor, too,
| especially considering how the warmest nations in Europe
| all tend to be weaker economically.
|
| > Why does US have ~4 heat related deaths per million
| while Europe has ~235 per million?
|
| Maybe its just the higher life expectancy increasing
| susceptibility? Everyone has to die of _something_ at
| some point.
| bko wrote:
| > Maybe its just the higher life expectancy increasing
| susceptibility? Everyone has to die of something at some
| point.
|
| Ah yes, heat death, essentially "natural causes". Never
| mind what's obviously in front of your face.
| sofixa wrote:
| Most of Europe simply doesn't need an AC. Spain, south of
| Italy, south of France, parts of the Balkans. But in
| countries like UK, the Nordics, Germany, etc. you'd need
| something more than "open windows" for mere days of the
| year, if that. The people who live in the places that
| need AC usually have AC. It's actually pretty damn
| simple.
| bko wrote:
| Got it, it's cooler, no one needs AC. Next question, why
| are there a lot more heat deaths per capita. I mean, a
| lot more (4/million vs 235/million)
|
| Should be simple
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Because 'global warming has accelerated significantly'?
| wilg wrote:
| then it wouldnt be cooler would it
| test001only wrote:
| Could be lot of reason. Older European cities with high-
| density stone buildings and less green space often trap
| heat more effectively than typical U.S. suburban layouts.
| Europe has a larger proportion of elderly residents (aged
| 80+), who are the most susceptible to heat stress. You
| just picked a data and are trying to fit your narrative
| on top of it without really considering all possible
| aspects.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > Older European cities with high-density stone buildings
| and less green space often trap heat more effectively
| than typical U.S. suburban layouts.
|
| Doesn't that mean that they would need AC, then? At least
| for those specific buildings.
|
| However, as a European living in Paris, one of the
| densest cities in the world, I only feel the need for AC
| like 2-3 weeks a year. I think the issue is that most
| people dying of heath are already very old and much more
| sensitive to it.
|
| But if you live in any kind of share building, you can't
| just go and set up a split. If it is outside the
| building, you need permits, both from the architects, so
| that you don't deface your ugly concrete building, and
| from your fellow residents, who usually vote "no" by
| default.
| bko wrote:
| You make a lot of great points. You know what would be
| great for helping those elderly residence prone to heat
| strokes living in high-density stone buildings with less
| green space? Air conditioners! In face, I think EU should
| mandate air conditioners in every home.
| exceptione wrote:
| It is a statistic, 'treacherous' is a word often lurking
| around the corner.
|
| No healthy person all of a sudden dies from heat, I am
| sorry to tell. If that would be the case, everyone would
| be as panicked as you are. Europe has comparatively older
| demographics. Heat risk mainly affects infants and the
| elderly.
|
| Most EU countries have free health care, so even people
| not caring enough for themselves will have a
| comparatively higher chance to survive into an old age.
| But also those who didn't die because of a bad lifestyle
| are part of this demographic. Like I said, treacherous,
| because you should look at this demographic and start to
| ask how many hours of life expectancy is lost. Healthcare
| keeps finding that the elder people just don't drink
| enough during these warm days.
|
| I guess that if you want to win back these hours, you
| have to convince those elderly people to install AC or
| get them to drink enough during hot days. At this age
| people have a certain flexibility of mind, complicated by
| the fact that heat waves these days are really more
| severe than in their lived past.
|
| Let me assure you: if people think it is too hot for them
| at home and they don't see an alternative, they will
| install AC. It is affordable enough. But there might be a
| cultural difference, people don't think of AC as the
| first line of defense against the hot days. Environmental
| awareness is higher; AC's contribute to global warming.
| Anecdotally, looking around I see there is a preference
| for sun protection over AC's.
| myrmidon wrote:
| > It's all China, but I guess it's cool to blame things on
| developed countries.
|
| This is just a naive take. You'd obviously expect chinese
| emissions to be higher (than the US) assuming similar
| industrialization, because you are counting emissions for
| like triple the amount of people.
|
| What you conveniently _fail_ to mention: US citizens still
| emit over 50% more CO2 each, and China basically just _caught
| up_ to emission levels of developed countries (EU, Japan),
| while still being significantly below US levels. High income
| countries combined still emit more than China, too (richest
| ~15% globally).
|
| If your argument would make any sense, then the obvious
| solution would be to split China into 3 countries, making the
| emissions instantly negligible compared to the EU/US. Problem
| solved?!
|
| There is no reality where we make good progress toward
| climate change without the "main culprits" (=> nations with
| highest historical and per-capita emissions) making the first
| steps.
|
| Why would a country like India pay/sacrifice to reduce
| emissions while western citizens still pollute at much higher
| levels after reaping all the spoils from historical
| pollution?
|
| You could argue that wind/solar is a huge success story in
| this regard already, with western nations driving lots of the
| research/development/commercialization efforts (over the
| previous decades) and now indirectly causing much bigger
| nations like China to transition onto those very quickly
| instead of basically fully relying on fossils for _decades_
| to come.
| cataphract wrote:
| > Why would a country like India pay/sacrifice to reduce
| emissions while western citizens still pollute at much
| higher levels after reaping all the spoils from historical
| pollution?
|
| To avoid their country having large regions become
| uninhabitable?
| myrmidon wrote:
| Even for a giant country like India you control <20% of
| global population, and you are responsible for much less
| than 20% of the effect (climate change).
|
| So why would India take more expensive and painful steps
| than say, the US or EU, or Japan? India both indisputably
| affects _and_ controls climate change _less_ then the US
| or EU, so why would they put in completely outsized
| amounts of effort to fight it?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > US citizens still emit over 50% more CO2 each
|
| The problem the US has per-capita is lower population
| density. The majority of the US population lives in
| suburban or rural areas without mass transit and changing
| that on the relevant timescale is not feasible. It also has
| major population centers in areas that experience winter
| and thereby have higher energy costs for heating,
| exacerbated by the lower population density (more square
| feet of indoor space to heat per capita), with the same
| infeasible timescale for changing that.
|
| As a result, the only way to fix it is to switch to other
| forms of energy rather than having any real hope of
| significantly reducing consumption in terms of GWh. Use
| more electric cars and hybrids, generate electricity using
| solar, wind and nuclear, switch from fossil fuels to
| electric heat pumps for heating, etc. But that's largely
| what's happening. The percentage of hybrid vehicles goes
| up, despite Trump's posturing nobody actually wants coal,
| ~100% of net new generation capacity in recent years is
| solar and wind and even when new natural gas plants are
| built, they're displacing old coal fired ones, which
| results in a net reduction in CO2. It would be nice if this
| would happen faster, but at least the number is going in
| the right direction.
|
| The problem China has is that they've been building brand
| new coal fired power plants at scale. WTF.
| bdangubic wrote:
| You listed out a whole lot of excuses for America,
| suburbia this, heating that, etc etc, etc...
|
| Now an assignment - you are Chinese and you have 1.5bn
| people in your country, lets hear it? You think you can't
| reasonably list 100x "excuses" for their "issues" and
| "reasons" for CO2 consumption?
|
| They are working _a lot harder_ than pretty much all
| other countries combined to usher in renewables and many
| other things while we elect people who don 't know what
| wind is/does and stare at the Sun during the eclipse.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| What excuse actually is there for building new coal
| plants instead of directing the same labor to building
| more nuclear or renewable generation? There is no reason
| to build coal, Trump is a schmuck for proposing it but
| China have been the ones actually doing it.
| hvb2 wrote:
| > What excuse actually is there for building new coal
| plants
|
| Just that they're still 'developing' and aren't even
| close to the historical contributions of the US?
|
| Assuming you're American, it's a bit rich to have
| contributed more in absolute terms and then tell other
| countries what they can't do.
|
| Explain me why the average car in the US is a tank with
| horrible fuel economy? In rural I can sorta see it. But
| in cities, why drive a truck? These are all choices that
| America makes.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Just that they're still 'developing' and aren't even
| close to the historical contributions of the US?
|
| This is a sham excuse. Building coal power plants before
| solar or nuclear were viable or even existed is not the
| same as choosing to do it in modern day.
|
| > Explain me why the average car in the US is a tank with
| horrible fuel economy?
|
| The "best selling" light vehicles in the US are pickup
| trucks because the sales numbers aren't divided out into
| personal and business purchases and businesses buy a lot
| of trucks. The best selling non-pickup is the Toyota
| RAV4, which gets better than 30 MPG in the non-hybrid
| version and better than 40 MPG in the hybrid version.
| bdangubic wrote:
| what he said
| WaxProlix wrote:
| Chinese demand is increasing just like everyone else's,
| and they're both retiring older less efficient plants and
| using fossil fuels as both peaker and baseline
| generation. But coal utilization overall, despite massive
| growth in energy demand, is basically flat in China.
| There's plenty of reason to build out coal capacity to
| keep grids stabilized while you transition to solar and
| wind (China finished their 2030 1200GW solar capacity
| target 6 years early in 2024 and continue to grow that
| number at an incredible rate).
|
| I agree that new coal sucks but it's a very easy talking
| point for westerners like us to latch onto when our own
| contributions to emissions remain way over 50% higher per
| capita - despite much of the manufacturing and such not
| happening in our countries.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > But coal utilization overall, despite massive growth in
| energy demand, is basically flat in China.
|
| "Basically flat" only after running up an exponential
| curve so that coal consumption is now higher _per capita_
| in China than it is in the US and China is generating
| ~60% of its electricity from coal compared to ~16% in the
| US.
|
| > I agree that new coal sucks but it's a very easy
| talking point for westerners like us to latch onto when
| our own contributions to emissions remain way over 50%
| higher per capita
|
| You don't even get to say "westerners" anymore. CO2
| emissions are higher _per capita_ in China than they are
| in Europe because they burn such a disproportionate
| amount of coal, and are only lower than the US and Canada
| because the US and Canada burn more oil per capita from
| being so spread out.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| Sure but they don't burn oil because they don't have oil.
| So focus on fossil fuels in general, or emissions rather
| than just coal specifically - again it's not good to add
| new coal plants but they're growth negative. And EU has
| done an admirable job of reducing their emissions, with
| help of course from Chinese manufacturing of pv cells
| etc.
| myrmidon wrote:
| The difference in coal power for china is basically
| purely from them using coal instead of gas, see comment
| here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47276338
|
| Despite higher carbon intensity (for now), they still
| emit less Co2 per person on electricity than the US
| (because they need/use less).
| Ma8ee wrote:
| They are also building more solar panels and wind
| turbines than the rest of the world combined, and are the
| biggest investor in renewables. Their emission of CO2
| just recently peaked. But they need a lot of power, and
| most of the new coal plants are there for days when
| there's neither sun or wind.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > They are also building more solar panels and wind
| turbines than the rest of the world combined
|
| All the more reason they have no excuse for building
| coal. Yet they're also burning more coal than the rest of
| the world combined.
|
| > most of the new coal plants are there for days when
| there's neither sun or wind.
|
| If that was actually the case they wouldn't need to build
| _new_ coal plants because renewable generation at 40% of
| normal plus the existing traditional power plants that
| used to be enough to supply 100% of power by themselves
| would be more than sufficient. More to the point, if that
| was actually the case then their emissions would be way
| down because they 'd only be burning coal for something
| like one week every two years.
| tzs wrote:
| They are building coal for things that cannot yet be
| handled by renewables because coal is the fossil fuel
| natural resource they have the most of.
|
| It's the same reason it was the dominant fossil fuel for
| electricity in the US until the shale revolution made
| natural gas cheap and abundant.
|
| The reasons Trump is a schmuck for pushing coal are (1)
| he wants it _instead_ of renewals rather than as a way to
| help fill the gap between renewables and what we need
| until we can build enough renewables and storage, and (2)
| in the US that makes no sense because because natural gas
| can fulfill that role and is better in pretty much every
| way that coal.
|
| Compare to China which is putting vast amounts of
| resources into building renewables, storage, and also a
| nationwide UHV distribution network (currently 40-50000
| km compared to ~0 in the US) which means local variations
| in solar/wind can increasingly be covered by non-local
| renewables, which should reduce the need to fire up those
| new local coal plants.
| myrmidon wrote:
| China needs some form of dispatchable power and is
| basically using coal instead of gas because they have
| none. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47276338
| for numbers/more detail.
| charlie90 wrote:
| Assume the avg. home will last 50 years. Limit
| construction on new suburban developments, problem solved
| in 50+ years. It would be _unpopular_ , but you claimed
| it wouldn't be _possible_ , very different. The latter is
| denying agency in the situation.
| nostrademons wrote:
| We're kinda doing that, through zoning requirements and
| NIMBY politics. It is, as predicted, very unpopular, and
| has a number of unfortunate side effects like rising
| homelessness, declining fertility, and increasing
| inflation.
|
| On the plus side, we're going to have many fewer people
| in 50 years, which will lead to correspondingly less CO2
| emissions.
| casey2 wrote:
| You miss the fact that China's GDP per capita is 1/6th the
| US. So to produce 1/6th per person they emits 2/3rds the
| CO2. Which means in total, the thing that matters, is that
| china produces 4 times the CO2 with no end in sight. They
| are 99% to blame for the current situation.
| maxglute wrote:
| Euro intransience about AC is confusing.
|
| As for PRC, they brrrted out enough solar last year to
| replace about 40 billion barrels of oil over their life time,
| or about annual global consumption of oil @100m barrels per
| day. They have enough renewable manufacturing capacity to
| displace global oil, lng and good chunk of coal.
|
| PRC is basically manufacturing the largest carbon
| displacement, i.e. emission avoidance system in the world,
| and if not for them, global fossil consumption would double+.
|
| It's even more retarded accounting that taxes PRC
| manufacturing renewables as generation emissions while
| fossils extractors, i.e. US whose massively increased oil/lng
| exports do not count towards US emissions.
|
| At the end of the day, PRC's balance of emissions vs how much
| they displace via renewable manufacturing makes their
| emission contribution net negative, by a large margin. OCED
| countries reducing their emissions don't even compare in
| terms of contribution, it's borderline performative. OCED
| need to be reducing emissions and generating equivalent
| displacement to be net negative. It doesn't have to be
| domestic net negative, simply export/fund enough renewables
| to developing countries whose power consumption and
| downstream emissions will increase by magnitudes... you know
| subsidize them like OECD was suppose to do. Reality is rich
| countries don't want to do shit about the "global" emission
| problem, at least PRC selling renewables at commodity pricing
| to displace velocity of fossil consumption increase.
| Ultimately, 4 billion developing people going to 10/100x
| their energy consumption, which like AC is net moral good
| over net emissions. The real battle is how to keep new power
| use as emission free as possible, and only PRC is doing that
| in numbers that matter.
|
| Wanking over OCED reducing their emissions is overlooking
| OCED was suppose to help developing countries minimize (not
| reduce) as they grow. All OCED has to do is give PRC
| renewables the 100b they once pledged on to help developing
| countries transition for PRC to run renewables manufacturing
| at 100% utilization (or even expand) so significant % of new
| power generation is renewables. 100b at current PRC prices of
| $0.1O/watt buys about 1000GW of panels (enough to power all
| of Africa & India and more). Or OECD can manufacture at sell
| at/below cost themselves.
| hanspeter wrote:
| > 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented if they lifted
| restrictions on AC
|
| Please don't repeat this anti-Europe myth. Anyone applying a
| bit of common sense should realize how improbable that claim
| is.
| triceratops wrote:
| > Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions
| based on a peak in 2007
|
| OECD countries' past emissions are causing the warming we see
| today.
|
| > and continue to do so
|
| China's emissions declined last year. The US's increased.
|
| > It's all China, but I guess it's cool to blame things on
| developed countries.
|
| China used their emissions to make solar and batteries the
| cheapest source of electricity today.
| ezst wrote:
| > OECD countries' past emissions are causing the warming we
| see today.
|
| China passed EU's cumulative emissions in 2014, if I
| remember correctly. It's totally fair to blame
| industrialised countries for their share in causing global
| warming, irrespective if that happened in the early days of
| industrialisation and was propped up by dirty energy
| sources. Though, it's morally much harder to give a pass to
| countries polluting now using the same sources.
| triceratops wrote:
| > China passed EU's cumulative emissions in 2014
|
| Not yet according to
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-
| co2-emissions-....
|
| > it's morally much harder to give a pass to countries
| polluting now using the same sources
|
| Developed countries should subsidize their use of cleaner
| energy sources. That balances things out, morally
| speaking.
| sofixa wrote:
| > There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be
| prevented if they lifted restrictions on AC so that they can
| feel good about making a negligible effect on carbon
| emissions
|
| Where in Europe are ACs restricted because of carbon
| emissions? Even in France with very strong building codes
| (you can't just plop an AC on your own, you need approvals),
| ACs are the standard in the south where they are needed for
| long periods of the year.
| drnick1 wrote:
| > There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be
| prevented if they lifted restrictions on AC so that they can
| feel good about making a negligible effect on carbon
| emissions.
|
| Which restrictions on AC? I know that Europeans don't use AC
| as much as the US because of a mixture of historical and
| cultural reasons, but I wasn't aware of any restrictions.
| What prevents someone in Europe from buying and installing an
| AC unit in their own home?
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Here in France, where you need a bureaucrat to sign off
| some paper for another bureaucrat, and where we levy taxes
| on taxes, I'm not aware of any restriction on AC _from the
| state_. Sure, the politicians say we should put up with
| sweltering heat, unlike them who have _reasons_ to run
| their cars ' engines for hours while they sit around in
| useless committees inside air-conditioned historical
| buildings. But there's no law against AC yet.
|
| What usually happens, is that most people live in cities.
| And in cities, they have to get a permit from the HOA and
| from the city, lest the outside unit deface some
| historically significant square concrete building (yeah, I
| know there are actually historically significant buildings,
| ugly concrete ones built after 1950 aren't among them,
| though they're where the majority of the people live).
| nostrademons wrote:
| The "Our World in Data" citation cuts off right as China's
| emissions started to decline. More recent data [1] indicates
| that China's emissions have been flat or falling since the
| beginning of 2024, and falling fast in the last quarter of
| 2025 (1%, which is huge on a quarterly basis).
|
| China's decarbonization & renewable efforts have been paying
| off in a big way. EVs now have a 51% market share among new
| vehicles [2], exceeding every single major city in the U.S
| [3] (though the SF Bay Area comes close). Likewise,
| renewables are 84.4% of its new power plants in 2025 [4].
|
| [1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-
| co2-emissions-ha...
|
| [2] https://electrek.co/2025/08/29/electric-vehicles-reach-
| tippi...
|
| [3] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/06/climate/hy
| bri...
|
| [4] https://en.cnesa.org/latest-news/2025/11/4/chinas-newly-
| inst...
| tlogan wrote:
| The IEA says China's CO2 emissions rose by 565 Mt in 2023 to
| 12.6 Gt, which it states was a 4.7% increase from 2022.
|
| So any emission reduction done by developed countries is
| offset by China.
| htx80nerd wrote:
| >Nothing will change until developed rich countries are
| starting to hurt.
|
| They already are. China does whatever it wants en mass
| meanwhile.
| tencentshill wrote:
| It's going to cause slow, constant refugee crises, which will
| affect everyone.
| abustamam wrote:
| > The pain will come slowly, people won't see it.
|
| I'd argue that many lower and middle class folks already feel
| the effects of GW, even if they may not be able to articulate
| it. The flip side is that developed rich countries will hurt
| because of this but the people in power won't care because it
| probably only (visibly) affects the lower class, and they can
| always take their jets and rockets to countries (and eventually
| planets!) that haven't been fucked.
|
| And they'll spin it to blame it on immigrants somehow.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > (and eventually planets!)
|
| This particular point is remarkably optimistic on the part of
| our ruling elites who genuinely seem to think they'll be
| abandoning Earth like the Titanic and running off to Mars or
| whatever. I wonder if it's just wishful thinking or if they
| genuinely believe living off-terra would be a luxury
| experience, and not what it far more likely would be, which
| is hurtling through a void separated from instant death by
| nothing more than sheet metal, and after months of that,
| living inside a specially pressurized biosphere on an alien
| world that is, at all times, trying to kill them. And is
| almost guaranteed to succeed if nothing else by attrition.
|
| I wonder if any will think as they prepare to die whichever
| death comes to them first that maybe just paying taxes and
| not having a private jet wasn't that steep of an ask after
| all.
| abustamam wrote:
| Lol. Yeah I actually hope they aren't serious about it and
| are just using it as an excuse to send things to space
| because it's cool. Because I do not foresee us colonizing
| Mars in our lifetimes. I'd be happy for them to test the
| waters for us though.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Oh they're more than welcome to go. Everyone who signs up
| is basically volunteering to die for science, there is
| simply no other end to that.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| > And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so
| difficult to think about.
|
| These are all related. All of them are connected to humans
| pushing the planetary resource limits from various directions.
| We're attacking Iran _now_ in part because climate change has
| dramatically increased the water stress conditions making the
| population more susceptible to political collapse. It 's also
| happening because it puts energy stress on our geopolitical
| adversaries (same with Venezuela). Trump emerged in the first
| place because declining American prosperity (despite GPD
| numbers) drove a large portion of the population to nihilism.
| gcanyon wrote:
| > Nothing will change until developed rich countries are
| starting to hurt.
|
| There are two clear parallel points to this:
| 1. Over the time frames we're discussing (even the next 50
| years) how many "poor" countries will there be left? We're
| seeing substantial progress on economic, educational, and other
| fronts over the past 50 years. 2. Will there ever be a
| time when the change occurring is direct and over a short
| enough time frame to matter to "rich" countries? Yes, it will
| suck if most of Florida is underwater, but this process has
| already started, and has been going on for 20, 30, 50 years?
| And most people care very little. If it takes a century for the
| state to completely submerge, that apathy will continue.
|
| Disclaimer: none of the above is saying we should or shouldn't
| take a particular course of action about warming, just to speak
| to the way people deal with very slow-moving issues.
| patwater10 wrote:
| Look at the Colorado River situation to see how it's affected
| the US already. Now that hasn't really impacted consumers per
| say other than through indirect water conservation and higher
| consumer grocery prices (slightly not a primary driver on the
| latter). But it's a massive deal that will ripple out more and
| more in the coming years.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > Nothing will change until developed rich countries are
| starting to hurt.
|
| More specifically, nothing will change until the politicians
| and billionaires _personally_ get hurt.
|
| The negative effects of climate change need to come for them
| personally for them to care.
| epistasis wrote:
| The energy situation is actually changing very quickly
| precisely because renewables and storage are so cheap. Building
| a new natural gas plant today is really hard to justify in most
| places in the world.
|
| Capitalism will actually save the day, because a bunch of
| capitalists advanced renewable technology to the point where it
| was cheap.
|
| The biggest impediment to change right now is actually
| political interference in deployment of cheaper renewables. You
| see this all across the US both in intentional and
| unintentional ways. Trump explicitly cancels permits for wind,
| tries to ban solar on federal lands, and forces coal plants to
| keep running even when they are super expensive and raise the
| cost electricity.
|
| Unintentional political impediments are also endemic in the US;
| permitting and interconnection of residential solar makes it
| 5x-6x more expensive than places like Australia, even in places
| like California that should be accelerating residential solar
| and storage.
|
| There's a lot to be hopeful about when it comes to climate
| change, in addition a lot to be scared about.
| M95D wrote:
| > Capitalism will actually save the day, because a bunch of
| capitalists advanced renewable technology to the point where
| it was cheap.
|
| That "bunch of capitalists"... why are you avoiding the true
| word: "China"?
| epistasis wrote:
| That's not the true word though, is it? It's an effort of
| capitalists the world over. And crucially, German
| government incentives when solar was still very expensive.
| M95D wrote:
| I can't say anything about the German gov. I don't live
| there and I have no info. But I wouldn't call bureaucrats
| "capitalists" either.
| gmuslera wrote:
| Not even countries, but rich/influential people on them. And
| they must be hit hard to be concerned enough about it.
|
| If some extreme weather event hits you you may lose your only
| house, your savings, your health, maybe a good percent of the
| population of rich countries are vulnerable ot that. In the
| other hand if someone rich and powerful in those or even
| somewhat poorer countries, they may buy another house, have
| more already, lose some money and goods but that's it.
|
| Until those extreme weather events, floods and so on affect
| enough of the people those people have around, to eventually
| affect their business and them. But by then it will be far too
| late.
| giarc wrote:
| >people won't see it.
|
| You are correct because it's happening already (massive
| wildfires burning down cities, 100 year floods every year, mass
| migration out of hot, dry climates) and the news will state
| something like "scientists are 85% certain this fire was
| accelerated by climate change" and then will move onto the next
| story. Climate change is all around us, but we refuse to see
| it.
| tsoukase wrote:
| This ship has sailed, warming is irreversible. Developing nations
| mainly in Asia (China, India etc) are, well, developing and burn
| like there is no tomorrow. But they are not to blame. It is their
| turn to live nicely, like the US and Europe did for decades.
| Nobody can remove this right from them.
| hskalin wrote:
| No only that, but per capita emissions of developed countries
| still remains higher. For example I found that US/Russia have
| 6x per capita emissions compared to India
| padjo wrote:
| This perspective is so important. The wealthy in western
| society are responsible for a massively disproportionate
| amount of emissions.
| fjwater wrote:
| I don't think that's fair to say; the USA's CO2 emissions per
| capita are roughly 150% of China's, and the average Canadian
| emits more than 7x as much as an Indian citizen.
|
| The entire EU produces only about half of the USA's total
| emissions, despite having a population of over 100 million more
| people.
| O5vYtytb wrote:
| Fair? Maybe not, but IMO it doesn't matter. The only thing
| that matters is gross emissions. The effects of a warming
| planet will not be fair. We should be looking to
| reduce/eliminate emissions wherever they are happening.
| vrganj wrote:
| China's actively fixing the problem. [0]
|
| Why aren't we?
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/11/china-
| co2-emis...
| LegionMammal978 wrote:
| U.S. and EU CO2 emissions have been actively dropping for
| the last ~20 years [0]. (Of course, it's different
| question how quickly they _ought_ to be dropping.)
|
| [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-
| co2-emissions-per-...
| triceratops wrote:
| Good. They should keep doing it and faster.
| teamonkey wrote:
| That's because we've outsourced so much of our
| manufacturing to China. _Of course_ ours is going down
| while theirs is going up.
| tock wrote:
| Fairness matters because the only way we can collectively
| decide to reduce emissions is if people everywhere feel its
| fair.
| fjwater wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to look only at gross emissions by
| country. How can we demand that India drastically cut its
| emissions when its per capita output is already so low?
| Forcing reductions there effectively caps their living
| standards while developed nations continue to enjoy the
| benefits of much higher individual carbon footprints.
| tzs wrote:
| > The only thing that matters is gross emissions
|
| Which is why, unless you can come up with a good argument
| that some people have some kind of divine or natural right
| to a bigger share of whatever global emissions budget we
| decide we need to stick to, per capita is the correct way
| to compare countries.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| Lol. Not exactly an apt comparison.
|
| "Average" Canadian. A lot of the population lives in a
| climate where half the year more energy is required to
| survive the climate. And the population is exponentially
| smaller than the United States, India, or China.
|
| That's like calling out the guy in the mountains burning a
| campfire to stay warm at night when the guy sleeping on the
| beach in Hawaii requires none.
|
| Point being, brand new account, if we want solutions it needs
| to be done without such angling or it all reduces to
| absurdities and jabs instead of cooperation. It needs to be
| realistic in terms of where people are being absurdly
| wasteful, but also sympathetic that we do not all face the
| same circumstances.
|
| It's a hole and we don't get out by digging downward.
| fjwater wrote:
| I agree that climate is a factor, but the survival argument
| only goes so far. Finland, Sweden and Norway face similar
| sub-zero winters but maintain a higher standard of living
| with less than half the per capita emissions of Canada.
| Findecanor wrote:
| We can still limit the amount of the global warming. It does
| not run by itself, but it _could_ start doing so.
| conception wrote:
| This assume you can't have a modern, high quality of life
| without destroying our ecosystem we depend on to survive. When
| in fact, we can have both. It would just require making a few
| very wealthy people less so.
| O5vYtytb wrote:
| Ideally us rich countries would help pay for overhauling of
| infrastructure in developing nations since each $ goes way
| further to reduce emissions there compared to at home.
| kergonath wrote:
| > This ship has sailed, warming is irreversible.
|
| Nobody who understands the subject claims that it is reversible
| on a human life scale. In the realistic best cases, it'd
| stabilise in a couple of decades and slowly decrease from
| there.
|
| The real question is not whether it is reversible, but how high
| it will go and how we are going to deal with it.
| ks2048 wrote:
| There is not "one ship" to sail or not - it is a matter of
| degree.
|
| Warming is here and will continue.
|
| Our decisions from here on could vary the outcomes between
| massive disruption and movement of people to a wholly
| uninhabitable planet.
| bluedino wrote:
| At least when the USA did it they only had 75-100 million
| citizens doing the polluting.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| this strangely self-hating and suicidal message has been spread
| for decades now, this falls along the same kinds of thinking as
| blood grudges and blood wars.
|
| we don't need to adopt this form of thinking at all, no one is
| owed anything.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| yeah, the audacity is insane China's been manufacturing and
| deploying more solar than anyone and solar+battery is a clear
| path forward.
|
| The people making these arguments are mendacious and
| misanthropic to the point of deep irrationality, so many
| people have been trained to do nothing, try nothing, and
| assume the worst, I don't know who trained these people to
| embody epistemological learned helplessness but it boggles
| the mind.
| zahlman wrote:
| > Nobody can remove this right from them.
|
| They do not have to repeat our mistakes. We can help them build
| out renewable energy instead.
| paganel wrote:
| It's also closely correlated with this not very happy decision
| put in place in 2020 [1]:
|
| > On 1 January 2020, a new limit on the sulphur content in the
| fuel oil used on board ships came into force, marking a
| significant milestone to improve air quality, preserve the
| environment and protect human health.
| bobson381 wrote:
| well we can stick planes in the upper atmosphere and sprinkle
| sulfur around to get some cooling, but it'll get worse before
| then. gonna be interesting.
| taeric wrote:
| Wasn't this attributed pretty much directly to cleaning of the
| shipping lanes? With more direct sunlight on the ocean, we are
| getting warmer oceans. With warmer oceans, we get everything that
| goes along with that.
|
| I didn't see it mentioned in the article, though I did do a very
| brief read through. And it has been a while since I looked at the
| shipping lanes thing.
|
| I hasten to add this is not to claim we should not have cleaned
| the shipping lanes. I don't know enough to say on that front. My
| gut would be that it was still the correct move.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Coordinating shared sacrifice between 7 billion people was always
| unlikely to achieve much. There are good workarounds though. I
| think this is what will/should happen:
|
| 1. For now, we can cool Earth artificially. 1 gram of SO2 in the
| stratosphere offsets the warming effect of 1 ton of CO2. It's
| known to be safe and effective. This company is already doing it:
| https://makesunsets.com
|
| 2. Fossil fuels will be phased out over the next few decades, but
| CO2 stays in the atmosphere for several centuries. The practical
| solution will probably have to be "carbon sequestration", where
| you capture CO2 from the air and pump it underground where it
| stays forever. Such storage is mature tech in the natural gas
| industry, but the capturing CO2 tech needs a lot of work.
| sealthedeal wrote:
| Oh no!!! The Earth is Earthing!
| epolanski wrote:
| World is plagued by consumerism and gaslighted into over focusing
| on relatively smaller energy savings instead of overall habits.
|
| I have friends shoving sausages and burgers into them while
| ordering countless things on Amazon every day, yet they think
| they help by buying a hybrid car, couldn't even be bothered by
| using public transport even though it's faster and cheaper where
| they live, because "too many people, dirty".
|
| Go figure.
| cryptoegorophy wrote:
| If it is too late to do anything, why should we care? We can't
| reverse it, so why should we care about slow down?
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| This is like punching a hole in your wall and saying 'there's
| already a hole, why shouldn't I just demolish my entire house'
| cryptoegorophy wrote:
| No. It is like punching a hole in your wall when something
| else punches the wall daily with increased rate. No matter
| what you do at this point the wall will be destroyed.
| kergonath wrote:
| We must limit the problem, then adapt and mitigate. Some damage
| is irreversible, it does not mean that it's a good idea to stop
| trying to understand what will happen. You don't stop weather
| forecasts when a hurricane touches land just because it's going
| to happen anyway.
|
| Reality is not binary. There's a whole spectrum of situations
| between "everything gets back to normal and all is well" (which
| was _never_ on the cards after the 1980s) and "all humans die
| within a century". And the nuances in between still affect
| billions of people.
| cryptoegorophy wrote:
| From what I understood we are closer to the "all humans will
| die within a century" and if this is the case then what's the
| point of doing anything? Does it matter if our effort just
| delays the "all humans will die" by let say 50 years? Radical
| change we need to do if we are serious is going back to
| caves. 0 consumption. I highly doubt anyone will do that.
| code4life wrote:
| Where i live, we had the coldest winter on record in 30 years.
| I'm going with that.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| The jetstream which prevents the polar vortex from migrating
| south is getting weaker.
| cetinsert wrote:
| Sure.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| You don't think weather is explainable, or?
| bakies wrote:
| Dismissing thousands of years of global temperature averages
| because you had a cold winter, very smart.
| code4life wrote:
| Im not dismissing anything. I'm just saying, when a
| measurement was taken in my region in 1925 it was warmer then
| than it was 100 years later in 2025.
| pstuart wrote:
| There's plenty of money to be made mitigating this,
| unfortunately, there's plenty of money _currently_ being made
| causing this, and _those_ moneymakers are the ones in power and
| are happy to kill the planet as long as they themselves can live
| in luxury while it happens.
| cetinsert wrote:
| Good! Won't change a thing in how I live my life!
| maest wrote:
| You must be American.
| small_model wrote:
| "Preprints and early-stage research may not have been peer
| reviewed yet."
|
| I have a paper that says Global Warming is not real (Also not
| peer reviewed)
| jacquesm wrote:
| Are you going for a record in bad takes? Your account is a
| month old and yet I recognize it on sight for the bs takes. Try
| a bit harder please.
| small_model wrote:
| My point is until it's peer reviewed it offers no value. Do
| you know how many papers are published that don't pass peer
| review?
| jacquesm wrote:
| > My point is until it's peer reviewed it offers no value.
|
| That's just your opinion.
|
| It clearly has some value, whether or not it will have even
| more remains to be seen.
| maest wrote:
| There is a vast peer reviewed literature that points in the
| same direction. Getting hung up on how this has not yet been
| peer reviewed is just bizarre.
| alansaber wrote:
| Only good news these days eh
| tlogan wrote:
| The sad reality is that much of the climate work done in the West
| does not matter because China, India, and the rest of the world
| are not involved.
| kergonath wrote:
| That is completely wrong.
|
| First, the West and particularly the US are still well ahead of
| China regarding both historical total emissions and per-capita
| annual emissions. And regardless of what China does in the
| future we still need to get our acts together domestically.
|
| Also, China is aggressively pushing low-carbon energy sources
| on all fronts. Where they are now is not necessarily an
| indication of where they will be in a decade or two.
|
| A large part of their emissions is the result of stuff they
| make for us. If we are serious about climate policy, we have to
| set up trade barriers proportional to greenhouse gases
| emissions to limit this effect. These policies must be informed
| by climate science.
|
| Finally, regardless of what the rest of the world does,
| mitigation depends only on us and how well prepared we are.
|
| Really, there is absolutely no scenario in which it is not a
| good idea to understand what the hell is going on with our
| climate.
| tlogan wrote:
| If the United States stopped polluting 100%, global pollution
| would decrease by only about 10%. Probably even less, because
| much of that pollution would simply be exported through
| outsourcing. So what happens next?
| hnfong wrote:
| You're arguing a hypothetical where the US stopped all
| emissions 100% and the rest of the world isn't doing
| anything.
|
| The reality is that China is aggressively pushing solar and
| electric vehicles, and the West is complaining about it.
| Meanwhile the current US president's maxim is "drill baby
| drill".
|
| I mean, if we don't need to stick to facts, let's discuss
| the hypothetical scenario where I am a powerful wizard, and
| when I say a magic word and I can halve the total amount of
| CO2 in the atmosphere?
|
| OK, now where's my Nobel peace prize dammit??
| tlogan wrote:
| So we do not need to worry. China and India will cut
| their emission a lot and we US just need to cut a little.
| Problem solved. /s
|
| From 2022 to 2023 (lates report), China increased their
| emission from 11.9 Gt to 12.6 Gt. The US decreased from
| 4.79 to 4.68 Gt. So we (US and China) increased emission
| by 0.6 Gt.
|
| So we (the world) are polluting more and more and you are
| telling me that we are on a great trajectory.
| ryeights wrote:
| >If we are serious about climate policy, we have to set up
| trade barriers proportional to greenhouse gases emissions
| to limit this effect.
|
| Consumption economies can incentivize production economies
| to emit less.
| kergonath wrote:
| Please remember that we are not talking about stopping
| climate-related _policies_. The point here is climate-
| related _science_. And even if you are an arch-conservative
| and you assume (despite all observations) that you can do
| fuck all about it, _knowing how things are going to be_ is
| very useful if you intend to survive, never mind thrive.
| myrmidon wrote:
| Western efforts matter because they allow less wealthy nations
| to follow along a proven path towards sustainability.
|
| Nnobody is going to follow a hypocrite, and no one in east asia
| is gonna cut back on consumption/growth/lifestyle if rich
| westerners can't even pretend to put in some token effort for
| the same cause.
|
| Solr and wind power is arguably a huge success story (looking
| at china specifically) because it was arguably enabled and
| triggered by western efforts in research, development and
| commercialization.
| Shin-- wrote:
| Hilarious take. China and India have historically emitted much
| less carbon than many western countries, per capita they emit
| less Co2, and a large part of emission is to produce for
| western countries, which have effectively outsourced their
| emissions to other (poorer) countries.
|
| At the same time, the US is the main force fighting against
| carbon neutrality, renewable energy and pretty much anything
| reasonable. By directly burning a lot of fossil fuels and by
| lobbying and poisoning discourse in other countries.
|
| Meanwhile China is by far the biggest producer of anything
| related to renewable energies and installing more renewable
| energy than the rest of the world, by far.
|
| If anything, the work done worldwide does no matter (it still
| does though) because USA is doing their best to destroy the
| planet.
| tlogan wrote:
| Using the IEA's 2024 energy-related CO2 data, advanced
| economies emitted 10.9 billion tonnes out of a global 37.8
| billion tonnes in 2024, which is about 28.8% of the world
| total.
|
| So if developed countries completely eliminate all pollution
| we will reduce it by 30%. Good. Then what is the next step?
| War with China? Attack India?
|
| [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-
| review-2025/co2-em...
| acdha wrote:
| Let China continue to cancel fossil fuel plants as they
| roll out renewables and electrify at rapid scale? It's not
| 1980, China is leading a lot of key technologies and
| they're looking like they value long-term planning a lot
| more than we do.
|
| To the extent that they need a nudge, a carbon tax would be
| very effective for correcting export market incentives,
| too.
| tlogan wrote:
| They are doing so good that they increased their emission
| by 4.7% from 2022 to 2023. /s
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| China has long surpassed most countries in per-capita
| emissions and is still on an upward trajectory. India is on
| an upward trajectory but still below the world average. The
| US and Canada are higher than China but on a downward
| trajectory. The EU is on a downward trajectory and below
| China.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita
| gedy wrote:
| You quickly start seeing people's root biases about when
| you bringing info like this up, "well but _historically_
| ... ", "you know, the _colonialism_ ", "per capita ...",
| etc. I wish we could deal with the here and now and deal
| with this scientifically.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Those are our emissions that we have exported to china.
| Your TV, Phone, etc etc isn't built in NA.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Dropping bombs has accelerated significantly. The last one to
| leave, turn the light off.
| santiagobasulto wrote:
| What! you're saying that my selective recycling of paper and
| having the plastic caps attached to the bottles didn't work?
| SHOCKING
|
| (only europeans will understand)
| vrganj wrote:
| It _did_ work. There 's wayyyyyy fewer lose plastic caps
| littering the streets now.
|
| There's more than one aspect to the environment. Plastic
| pollution and global warming are two separate concerns with
| separate ways of dealing with them.
| zer0zzz wrote:
| This entire thread is a demonstration in how doomed we are.
| storus wrote:
| I am wondering how much did war in Ukraine contribute to it? On
| one hand, EU is pushing green agenda, on the other hand there are
| daily oil storage facility explosions evaporating weeks of oil
| consumption in a few hours.
| blueeon wrote:
| I am in Wuhan, China. This past winter, I was able to bike along
| the lake all day. In previous winters, due to the cold and strong
| winds, we rarely exercised by the lake. This has had the biggest
| impact on me, and it's still a positive one.
| apt-apt-apt-apt wrote:
| Isn't this like a frog in a pot saying, ah the water was cold
| but now it's warm!, moments before getting cooked?
| fvv wrote:
| I believe that as soon as nuclear fusion becomes operational (and
| perhaps AI could be of great help in this regard in the next 5
| years),
|
| all the carbon storage methods (efficient and otherwise) studied
| so far could be immediately put into action.
|
| In addition to the immediate reduction in the use of fossil fuels
| for energy production, the scenario could be completely changed
| in 10 years, water could be desalinated, desertification
| reversed, etc.
|
| Free and unlimited energy would be the solution to everything.
| The question is whether we will get there before it's too late...
| and perhaps AI is the answer?
| bakies wrote:
| Fission is good enough for this.
| DoctorOW wrote:
| > _The question is whether we will get there before it 's too
| late... and perhaps AI is the answer?_
|
| I won't touch "free and unlimited energy", but is there even
| evidence that AI produces more energy than it uses? Produces
| any at all?
| sulam wrote:
| FWIW my personal assessment is that this acceleration is both
| real and largely out of our control. Models in the past did not
| attempt to account for non-anthropogenic carbon emissions, but as
| we experience further warming, most especially in the Arctic,
| feedback loops and tipping points mean that this (carbon
| emissions caused by "natural" processes) are becoming more
| evident. This is especially sensitive because a large proportion
| of such emissions are methane, which is a much more powerful
| greenhouse gas vs CO2, albeit with a much shorter expected effect
| time once airborne (~12 years). Consider also that warming is not
| uniform and the polar regions are warming significantly faster
| (3x) than lower latitudes, making permafrost melting a very
| significant climate tipping point. The last point I'll mention is
| not about non-anthropogenic emissions but rather absorption. The
| world's oceans have been a significant absorber of CO2 however
| that process is sensitive to temperature and is less effective as
| the planet warms, not to mention acidic ocean waters prevent
| shell formation, which is a minor but meaningful carbon sink all
| by itself.
|
| I'm of the opinion that direct air capture is the primary escape
| hatch we have for not hitting 3 or even 4C warming in the next
| 100-200 years, which mean major dieoffs in warm latitudes, even
| for humans, due to exceeding wet bulb limits. Oh and roughly 65M
| of sea level rise as the planet shifts to a snow/ice-free mode.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| No offense, but internet opinions are a dime a dozen -- do you
| have some special experience / credentials in this area? The
| arguments you provide are all just the sort of thing that PhD
| students would study, and incorporate into their models. I'm
| inclined to believe the experts, but if you _are_ one, and are
| saying with authority that these effects are missed, that is a
| much more interesting story.
| hendler wrote:
| The question is not if the commenter is an expert, but if
| they are correct.
|
| The claim that some models didn't take larger systems into
| account is also because an expert in the arctic wasn't an
| expert in oceans. And the expert in biodiversity isn't an
| expert in food supply chains. Expertise isn't the question.
| Instead it is - do all of us who are non experts (all of us)
| have enough expert data to have a systemic understanding of
| an accelerating trend?
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Ya, I agree, but I am not familiar with the intimate
| details of present climate models, nor am I planning to be.
| I can't/won't directly evaluate whether the argument they
| present is correct. But if _they_ are familiar with the
| intimate details of present climate models (ie, if they are
| an expert), I will tend to trust them more.
| sulam wrote:
| I'm not a modeler but I have directly asked modelers if
| clathrates, permafrost melting, wildfire incidence and
| ocean drawdown responses to warming was incorporated in
| the major models. 5 years ago the answer was no. Today
| the answer might be yes, but this is not really the point
| I'm trying to make. It's really that we should expect to
| see acceleration in warming as the natural environment
| responds to anthropogenic ("forced") climate change.
| mlyle wrote:
| The models don't consider these because there's
| considerable uncertainty as to the size of these effects
| and potential countervailing forces of similar
| magnitudes.
|
| The fact is, for all of these other secondary effects
| etc... we just don't know. It's too complicated of a
| system.
|
| So as a result, we've got a prediction of something
| between "somewhat bad" and "catastrophically-is-an-
| understatement bad" with a maximum likelihood estimate of
| "really really bad."
| sulam wrote:
| And yet we can still say something simple that is true:
| warming will accelerate due to non-human greenhouse gas
| emissions as the planet continues to warm, due to
| feedback loops and tipping points in the natural carbon
| cycle. This is an unassailable statement.
| mlyle wrote:
| > This is an unassailable statement.
|
| No. I believe what you're saying is very likely to be
| true, but we know there's both positive and negative
| feedback and we don't _really know_ how they really will
| interplay and where all the tipping points are.
|
| There may even be significant phase delay in these
| mechanisms and so we could even get oscillation.
| sulam wrote:
| Over time periods in excess of 10K years this is a
| reasonable caveat. For more human-oriented timelines,
| there's no negative feedback mechanism I'm aware of that
| would do anything close to producing an actual
| oscillation.
|
| Edit: I'd be happy for you to educate me how I'm wrong
| btw, since that would mean I've missed something
| significant, which would make me happy! So please do tell
| me if you know of such a mechanism.
| mlyle wrote:
| I really meant to say that there's no way to _really
| know_ of any region of the CO2 vs. temperature graph if
| there 's positive or negative feedback dominating. You're
| proposing it all runs away in one lump, and I'm saying
| that there can be chunks of runaway and then damping. An
| extreme case would be if things are really underdamped
| somewhere and we spiral down to one of these points.
|
| There are all kinds of things that have time lags from
| years to centuries, though, that could cause ringing
| (ocean heat uptake, rates of carbon uptake as the
| biosphere adapts and shifts, etc).
|
| Indeed, we have evidence of ringing in the geologic
| climate record-- like Dansgaard-Oeschger events. We also
| live with ringing in weather systems like El Nino.
| Warming intensifying or creating new modes of oscillation
| would _not be that surprising_.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| > ... we just don't know. It's too complicated of a
| system.
|
| I wish this comment was higher up.
|
| The big thing under-discussed about climate change is
| that the deeper we get into it, the harder it is to
| predict and understand.
|
| I recall Dr. Richard Alley discussing how Thwaites
| Glacier collapsing wasn't factored into any IPCC reports;
| but ultimately pointed out it was for good reason because
| it's simply not possible to model these things and their
| consequences accurately.
|
| I don't do any climate modeling, but I do a lot of other
| modeling and forecasting: the biggest assumption we make
| in all statistical models is that the system itself more
| or less stays statistically similar to what it currently
| is and what we have seen in past. As soon as you drop
| that assumption you're increasingly in the world of wild
| guessing. If you wanted me to build you a RAM price
| prediction model 2 years ago, I could have done a pretty
| good job. Ask for one today and your better off asking
| someone with industry but no modeling experience what
| they think might happen.
|
| This is the hidden threat of climate change most people
| are completely unaware of: we can know it will be bad
| when certain things happen, we know they will happen in
| the nearish future, but we can't really say exactly how
| and when they'll unfold with any meaningful confidence.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| On the internet the default pisition is not true/untrue;
| its, why should I acknowledge you?
|
| If you are still trying to gauge truth before this, you are
| poisoning your mental heuristics. Thats why propaganda are
| ao effecfive: you can be told something is either, and it
| can still be effective.
|
| Humans and LLMs are similar: the separation between input
| and commands is not a hard barrier.
|
| So, back to GP: CLIMATE CHANGE is reversible. It just
| depends on whether we are talking about socipecnomics or
| physical processes.
| sulam wrote:
| 2 years ago this was hard won knowledge, searching for papers
| and then putting it all together in survey form for analysis.
| Today I can tell you: feel free to ask Deep Research or
| another LLM you trust to do that work for you, generating
| citations along the way. You can convince yourself vs me
| having to convince you. It will take about 15 minutes.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| For better or worse, I don't trust an LLM to give me a
| correct answer in this space. But you've kindof dodged the
| question by recommending LLM's -- do you have special
| experience / credentials in this area?
| Yhippa wrote:
| If they said yes, would you blindly trust them? They told
| you to "do your own research" effectively and you punted.
| That would arguably be a more reassuring path for you I
| assume.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Truthfully, because they dodged the question I am now a
| bit suspicious of everything they say. It just seems a
| bit deceitful. I explicitly called out the dodging not
| because I wanted to hear from them after they'd dodged
| it, but because I want to make it clear to GP that their
| answer is not sufficient, and highlight to others that
| they maybe shouldn't trust GP.
|
| If they had answered my first question in the affirmative
| (something like "I am a researcher at X institute on this
| topic"), ya, I think I would have trusted them.
| sulam wrote:
| I don't type fast on my phone, so you're getting
| responses as I can give them. I think I've answered your
| questions sufficiently to draw your own conclusions at
| this point. Feel free to ignore me. Physics doesn't care.
| sulam wrote:
| I answered elsewhere. I've been doing research on this
| topic for about 10 years, but I am not a climate modeler.
| I have spoken to people who are climate modelers and, at
| the time, these non-anthropogenic factors were not
| controlled for. They acknowledged that this was a blind
| spot that needed more research. At the time Arctic
| warming was only just beginning to be recognized as
| happening more quickly than the rest of the planet and
| the implications of that were concerning but unclear.
| There is still some acknowledged lack of understanding
| for just why the polar regions are warming so much faster
| (it's not all melting / albedo feedback, because it's
| happening in Antarctica too). What is less debated at
| this point is that permafrost comprises a truly mammoth
| proportion of CO2/CH4 reserves that are on an accelerated
| melting path (~1000Gt was the last estimate I saw,
| although it's not all likely to go up at once of course).
| order-matters wrote:
| I do not trust any LLM. But I am with the other person, the
| intention is not to discredit you or make you convince us -
| you are doing exactly what a comment section is designed
| for. Your comment is so good, in fact, that we want to
| trust it more than a comment in general deserves to be
| trusted.
|
| while i agree its better to go off and prove it to
| ourselves, there is merit in having a conversation here
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| The people who say the Earth is flat have been "searching
| for papers" too.
|
| No offense, but you sound like an oil shill.
| nostrebored wrote:
| Surely the children churning out papers in a memey field,
| with no real special insight into computational modeling, are
| the real ones to trust! Their papers are in Nature!
|
| Ridiculous take, and you'd know that the OP was correct if
| you cared enough to know what researchers were actually
| saying.
|
| Climate arguments devolve into appeals to impact claimed by
| authorities rather than any examination of what they've said.
| transcriptase wrote:
| Would a PhD student incorporate something into their model
| that flipped their results from agreeing to disagreeing with
| the premise that has not only practically become a religion,
| but forms the foundation for more and more funding flowing
| into their field each year?
|
| Would they really want to risk being basically excommunicated
| from their area of research for daring to provide ammo to
| "climate change deniers"?
| deepsun wrote:
| Re carbon capture -- we can cut trees and dump them in "carbon
| storage" places like the bottom of some water bodies where due
| to lack of oxygen no rotting happens, like peats and e.g. Black
| Sea.
|
| And grow new trees in their place of course.
| adrianN wrote:
| It's difficult to scale this to the levels we would need to
| make a difference.
| lazide wrote:
| The more likely candidate is mineral based, because yes
| trees are hard to scale this way.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Depending on the tree, freshly cut wood can have anywhere
| from 1:3 to 2:1 ratio of water to actual wood fiber.
|
| So, unless we want to remove a massive amount of fresh
| water from the ecosystem, we also need to invest energy in
| drying out the wood well below natural humidity levels
| (transport to a desert maybe?) on top of electrifying what
| is currently a diesel and gas heavy industry (cutting and
| transporting logs with heavy machinery).
|
| There's definitely lower hanging fruit for getting C02 out
| of the cycle.
| MarkusQ wrote:
| Dumping wet wood--even very, very wet wood in a lake and
| sinking it to the bottom does not "remove a massive
| amount of fresh water from the ecosystem". It does not
| remove any fresh water from the ecosystem.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Sinking wood into a lake won't remove the carbon unless
| you have a very deep lake, and you'd need many, many of
| them to have any impact on the CO2 levels whatsoever. The
| scale of wood that would need to be harvested is far
| beyond dropping some logs in a lake.
|
| They need to go into a deep enough pit where the methane
| produced from anerobic breakdown won't reach the
| atmosphere.
|
| The conditions that created the lignite coal and peat
| simply aren't that easily reproducible, especially with
| large volume of wood (rather than ferns over thousands
| and millions of years).
| MarkusQ wrote:
| So sink them in the ocean. Or better, burn off the
| hydrogen and use the energy to dry the wood, leaving the
| bulk of the carbon, and then mix that in with the soil.
|
| Recreating the lignite era process could be as easy as
| genetically engineering an alternative,presently
| indigestable version of lignin.
|
| But my point is that the claim above that sequestering
| wet wood will somehow take meaningful quantities of water
| (fresh or otherwise) out of the ecosystem is just plain
| silly.
| zdragnar wrote:
| > Recreating the lignite era process could be as easy as
| genetically engineering an alternative,presently
| indigestable version of lignin.
|
| Ah yes, so easy. Why on earth have we been treating wood
| with chemicals to prevent rot in our structures when we
| could have just engineered them to not rot all along?
| MarkusQ wrote:
| "Easy" is relative. If the comparison is completely
| abandoning fossil fuels, launching continent sized
| parasols into space, running a significant fraction of
| the atmosphere through a magic filter, etc. the bar is
| quite different than your moved-goalposts of "compared to
| spraying something on some fraction of our lumber".
| deepsun wrote:
| Yes, agree. But I'm not sure direct air capture is more
| scalable than trees. Yes trees need to be moved, but at
| least they grow by themselves.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| Considering the scale that we are burning oil and gas, our
| sequestration efforts would have to be comparable. Continuing
| to burn oil and gas and trying to recapture it is madness,
| like realizing you are driving way too fast and instead of
| taking your foot off the gas, you keep flooring it but start
| applying the brakes.
|
| If we could actually grow trees to capture carbon equivalent
| to 250M+ barrel of oil _per day_ , it would be better to just
| grow trees and burn them for energy.
| chinathrow wrote:
| If we just could stop burning that oil, that would be
| great.
| 01100011 wrote:
| What about solar shades? Seems like a _relatively_ quick and
| easy way to regulate solar input. It 's nice too because you
| can quickly remove it if necessary.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Only becomes viable if you have things like Starship online
| and fully operational, with launch rates at the level of
| Falcon 9 today. At the minimum.
|
| Still a more viable option than bringing greenhouse gas
| emissions into the negatives globally, by the way. But that's
| a low bar. Nuking the ocean floor is probably a better call.
| casey2 wrote:
| I'm confident that pushing everyone involved with Starship
| into the ocean would be a better and faster and more
| ethical green transition.
| tremon wrote:
| How long would a single cargo-load of shades have to be
| operational just to offset the amount of CO2 emitted by its
| launch?
| post-it wrote:
| Reducing sunlight to the surface means we lose solar power
| effectiveness and we need to use more power for artificial
| lighting to grow plants.
| altruios wrote:
| Most of the surface of the earth is covered with water...
|
| What if we cover the ice caps, and cover parts of the ocean
| instead of messing with grow cycles of plants on land...
|
| No reduction in solar power, no artificial lights to grow
| plants. What effects might that have on ocean life? (below
| a certain depth - probably nothing, so surface ocean life
| is what we need to look at).
|
| Just my two cents... we got plenty of surface area we can
| cover and potentially not affect much at all for day to day
| for animals, plants, and humans.
| post-it wrote:
| Plankton in the ocean produce our oxygen via
| photosynthesis.
| altruios wrote:
| Yep, and those need sunlight, silly oversight.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Not to a significant degree.
|
| Preventing 1% of sunlight from hitting Earth is more than
| enough to offset climate change heating. It's not enough to
| make agriculture or photovoltaics uneconomical. In many
| regions, it might make agriculture more viable on the net,
| not less - by reducing climate risks.
| teamonkey wrote:
| What percentage of the 128-million-square-km cross-sectional
| area of the earth are you proposing to shade?
| jpadkins wrote:
| kinda obvious, the wealthy parts?
| jgalt212 wrote:
| > Oh and roughly 65M of sea level rise as the planet shifts to
| a snow/ice-free mode.
|
| Where is this new figure coming from? It seems about 60X what's
| being published elsewhere.
| toxik wrote:
| If all glaciers and ice sheets on Earth melted, sea levels
| would rise roughly 65-70 meters (about 210-230 feet). It's
| worth noting that a full melt of Antarctica alone would take
| many thousands of years even under extreme warming scenarios,
| so this is more of a thought experiment than a near-term
| risk. Current projections for this century focus on partial
| contributions, with estimates ranging from roughly 0.3 to
| over 1 meter of rise by 2100 depending on emissions pathways.
| marssaxman wrote:
| That's been known for a long time - it just hasn't been
| considered a likely scenario. It's the rise we'd expect if
| all the ice on Greenland and Antarctica were to melt:
|
| https://sealevel.nasa.gov/understanding-sea-level/global-
| sea...
| pfdietz wrote:
| Albedo modification (stratospheric aerosols) seems much cheaper
| than direct air capture, as a stopgap.
| adrianN wrote:
| That unfortunately doesn't help with ocean acidification.
| ryeights wrote:
| We simply drop a giant tub of baking soda into the ocean
| every now and then.
| Fishkins wrote:
| Thus solving the problem once and for all
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW66EX75jIY
| loeg wrote:
| So what? You still save millions of lives.
| culi wrote:
| The research isn't there. Jury is still out on whether
| the long term consequences are a net benefit. In the end
| you're talking about increasing emissions for a temporary
| decrease in temperatures. And the chemicals we have that
| are good candidates for albedo modification are quite
| toxic. Today more than 10% of deaths globally can already
| be attributed to air quality
| pfdietz wrote:
| If India is experiencing large scale mortality from
| warming, they aren't going to give a damn about your
| concerns. They're just going to inject aerosols into the
| stratosphere.
| culi wrote:
| India especially is experiencing many more deaths from
| air quality than from warming
| groby_b wrote:
| Humans tend to not breathe in a lot of stratospheric
| aerosols, on account of that being pretty high up.
|
| As they sink down, they grow larger (condensation &
| coagulation). Once they reach the troposphere, they
| usually get down via precipitation, which also isn't
| really affecting a lot of breathing.
|
| They can absolutely have _other_ effects (see SO2
| /acidification, e.g), but air quality isn't really the
| main concern. For SO2 specifically, there's actually very
| little mortality sensitivity:
| https://www.giss.nasa.gov/pubs/abs/wa01010x.html
|
| You're right that the research isn't there yet to make
| statements with confidence, but that applies to the air
| quality claim as well.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Relying on DAC is putting our fate in the hands of a technology
| we've never deployed beyond some pitifully small pilot
| projects, and expecting that we're going to be able to deploy
| that at a larger scale than we've deployed any technology since
| electricity itself.
|
| We're going to have to resort to geoengineering alright, but
| it's gonna likely be stratospheric sulfate injection given how
| cheaply that can be done. Is it ideal? Nope. Better than global
| warming itself? Time will tell.
| marssaxman wrote:
| The prospect that the future we're headed for will be one
| where the survival of civilization (and much of humanity)
| depends on a massive, ongoing industrial process of upper
| atmosphere pollution, in order to counteract the massive,
| ongoing industrial process of CO2 pollution we can't be arsed
| to rein in, leaves me feeling relieved to be mortal.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I don't disagree. At this point, I'm thankful I never
| wanted kids.
| auntienomen wrote:
| It's going to have to be a mixture of approaches.
| Stratospheric injection buys time for more holistic
| solutions.
| baq wrote:
| > major dieoffs in warm latitudes, even for humans, due to
| exceeding wet bulb limits
|
| my extremely pessimistic position is nothing will happen
| systemically even after the first few such events, and they'll
| take tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives.
|
| I hope writing this out jinxes it.
| zeryx wrote:
| Are you kidding? It will be Millions easily. It will just
| take 1 or two blackouts in wet bulb conditions to cause that
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| You saw our reaction to covid. Millions. It will take
| millions of deaths in a nuclear armed country. See 'The
| ministry for the future'
| fwipsy wrote:
| I generally endorse that book but I am not sure we are
| quite so short-sighted. What's necessary is for the people
| who have power (not just billionaires and politicians, but
| even the middle class in democracies) to feel that they are
| in danger. A heat wave with a million casualties might do
| it, but I'm not sure it's the only way.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| We are already _far_ past the point of mere thousands of
| lives. Entire cities have been wiped off the map by floods.
|
| It will take millions, if not close to a billion lives before
| we get serious
| zahlman wrote:
| > Entire cities have been wiped off the map by floods.
|
| Could you name some?
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| I wish it were different but I would not be surprised if it's
| billions before anything changes. And even then there will be
| a major proportion of people that celebrate it as the second
| coming.
| fwipsy wrote:
| Billions? Sounds optimistic. Try trillions or quadrillions
| before anything really changes. Orders of magnitude are
| just a dime a dozen after all.
| netsharc wrote:
| The ingredients for the Syrian conflict came about because of
| climate change (dried up farms - farmers moving to cities to
| find jobs - social tension). The last 10+ years has shown
| that the relatively well-off Europeans would rather watch the
| Syrians drown rather than "pollute" their luxury enclaves...
|
| We'd rather kill everyone else rather than give up our
| luxuries...
| pier25 wrote:
| Excellent comment. I would only add two points.
|
| I think it's important to mention the effects we're seeing
| today are caused by the emissions from decades ago.
|
| Second, not sure if the paper in the OP touches this but we've
| reduced aerosols in the atmosphere. These previously were
| masking the effects of climate change by cooling the
| temperature.
| adolph wrote:
| The paper states it adjusts for "ENSO, volcanic eruptions,
| and solar variations" and not (afaict) the changes in
| shipping bunker fuel that reduced atmospheric SO2 (if that is
| what you mean by "reduced aerosols"). Below is a summary of
| the topic for those who are unaware. I withhold any opinion
| of validity of mechanism or effect. Sulphur
| particles contained in ships' exhaust fumes had been
| counteracting some of the warming coming from
| greenhouse gases. Lowering the sulfur content of
| marine fuel weakened this masking effect, effectively giving
| a boost to warming.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Models in the past did not attempt to account for non-
| anthropogenic carbon emissions
|
| They're literally mentioned by the first IPCC report already.
| culi wrote:
| Early IPCC reports, all the way up to AR5 basically threw
| their hands up when it came to permafrost emissions. They
| admitted we didn't have the necessary data yet and for the
| most part didn't account for it at all in their models
|
| Check out the 1.5C special report. Go to section 2.2.1.2,
| last paragraph says
|
| > The reduced complexity climate models employed in this
| assessment do not take into account permafrost or non-CO2
| Earth system feedbacks, although the MAGICC model has a
| permafrost module that can be enabled. Taking the current
| climate and Earth system feedbacks understanding together,
| there is a possibility that these models would underestimate
| the longer-term future temperature response to stringent
| emission pathways
|
| https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-2/#:~:text=Geophysi.
| ..
| Someone wrote:
| The claim being discussed is not that they didn't account
| for it, but that they didn't _attempt to account_ for it.
| Reading that text, I think they did, but chose not to
| include it (I guess because they didn't need to to make
| their point and, by not including it, avoided opponents
| from arguing about the validity of the result based on
| uncertainties in those models)
| culi wrote:
| I don't get the distinction you're trying to make. It
| seems to me they _considered_ it, but did not even
| _attempt_ to account for it.
|
| They admitted limitations of the data/research they had
| available. Their model explicitly does not attempt to
| account for it.
| lokar wrote:
| Is it fair to say they account for it, but don't try to
| quantify if?
| culi wrote:
| it did not factor into their models at all. They simply
| mentioned it. Mostly as an asterisk for why their models
| are likely an underestimation
| mempko wrote:
| Regarding carbon capture, it will take more energy to capture
| the carbon than we burned putting it up there in the first
| place. Alan Kay, who actually did some systems work on the
| environment, explained it to me that the climate system is like
| an upside down coke bottle. It doesn't take much energy to tip
| it over, but it takes a lot more to put it back up.
|
| In other words, we shouldn't have tipped it over in the first
| place. We may not have the energy to put things back to a
| habitable place.
| danny_codes wrote:
| Physically that's not the case.
|
| Scaled up nuclear power could be had for $3-4B a gigawatt/h.
| We waste say $1T a year on basic things, like not having
| universal healthcare. So a simple policy change would let us
| build about 300 reactors a years, after some scaling period.
| The excess energy can be used to turn C02 back into oil.
|
| It's not technically that difficult, we just chose to waste
| money on stupid things and rich people toys instead.
|
| Energy abundance is simply the choose to build nuclear power
| plants at scale
| mempko wrote:
| Since the industrial revolution we've emitted about 1.5
| trillion tonnes of CO2. Direct air capture requires roughly
| 1,500 kWh per tonne, so recapturing all of it would take
| around 2,250,000 TWh. Current global electricity production
| is about 30,000 TWh/year. That's 75 years of the entire
| world's electricity output just for capture, before you
| even convert it back to fuel, which costs even more energy.
| And thermodynamically you can never break even: we only
| extracted maybe 30-40% of fossil fuel energy as useful
| work, but reversing the dispersal of CO2 from 420ppm in the
| atmosphere fights entropy all the way back. It will always
| cost more energy to put back than we got taking it out. As
| for the nuclear numbers: Vogtle, the only recent US build,
| came in at ~$16B/GW, not $3-4B. The world started
| construction on 9 reactors total in 2024. The all time peak
| was ~30/year in the 1980s. 300/year has never been close to
| reality. Average build time is about 9 years per reactor.
| I'm not anti-nuclear but you can't hand-wave your way past
| thermodynamics and industrial scaling with "it's just a
| policy choice."
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| > I'm of the opinion that direct air capture is the primary
| escape hatch we have for not hitting 3 or even 4C warming in
| the next 100-200 years
|
| Why is it always never 'burn less fossil fuels'.
|
| Anything but the oil company bottom line huh?
| culi wrote:
| nobody will champion degrowth because it means less profits
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| We could cease burning all fossil fuels tomorrow and we'd
| _still_ have to resort to geoengineering. Read the IPCC
| projections. All of the ones that keep us below 3c require
| 'negative emissions'. That's code for DAC, a technology that
| we've only ever deployed to small pilot projects, deployed
| more widely, more quickly, than we've deployed any technology
| ever.
|
| TLDR: We're gonna have to use sulfate injection until we can
| transition our economy
| zargon wrote:
| Yes. And if we don't also stop burning fossil fuels then
| we'll never even break even.
| imglorp wrote:
| > direct air capture is the primary escape hatch
|
| We MUST MUST MUST stop burning things. Stop it.
|
| - We are still mining and burning coal. This is
| incomprehensible. US, AU, etc Eg: https://www.nacoal.com/our-
| operations
|
| - We are still subsidizing oil to around $1T/year, not counting
| oil wars.
|
| Yes it will take some grid and storage upgrades (US) and
| continue to embrace renewables. It would be cheaper than the
| oil subsidy.
|
| Otherwise it doesn't make sense to put CO2 into the air with
| one hand and take it out with another.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| This is why it's clear we will never do anything to slow the
| progression of climate change.
|
| _By far_ the most effective an immediate solution to
| limiting the damage of climate change is to simply to _keep
| fossil fuels in the ground_.
|
| People talk about the economic pain of doing this, but that
| economic pain is nothing compared to the impact of
| unmitigated climate change.
|
| Even though this would be painful, it is also _by far_ the
| easiest and fastest to implement solution. It would take
| fantastically more time and resources to scale up direct air
| capture (even if it existed in a scalable format today) to
| come anywhere near addressing this problem.
|
| > Yes it will take some grid and storage upgrades (US) and
| continue to embrace renewables
|
| This is not exactly true, we would have to experience global
| economic collapse in order to reduce our fossil fuel use. 80%
| of energy is _not_ spent on electricity globally and this is
| non-electricity usage is where most of the fossil fuels are
| consumed and this drives most of the global economy. There 's
| a good reason there are multiple wars being fought over for
| oil.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Genuinely not being snide, I really do not know.
|
| Is it possible to produce steel on industrial scales
| without coal?
|
| I know early ironmaking (I live fairly close to
| Coalbrookdale!) used charcoal, but is that possible at a
| large scale?
| acdha wrote:
| It's complicated:
| https://news.mit.edu/2025/decarbonizing-steel-tough-as-
| steel...
|
| This is one of the stronger arguments for a carbon tax:
| if you can't ignore externalities, people have strong
| incentives to use less (e.g. buying a car instead of an
| SUV or biking) and all of the alternative fuel and
| process work is going to be easier if the cost comparison
| is more even.
| Liftyee wrote:
| The economic pain is current. The impact of unmitigated
| climate change will happen in the future. Thus, the
| ingrained short-term thinking of the markets and
| politicians makes this sort of planning ahead difficult.
|
| It seems like the whole economic system runs on a quarterly
| time scale - just look at all the times negligent
| maintenance to improve profits in the short term have
| caused disasters in the long term.
|
| Not sure what the solution is though, so I won't complain
| too much.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| > the ingrained short-term thinking of the markets and
| politicians
|
| Honestly, if we made even a step towards the changes
| necessary to limit the current damage most of HN
| readership, especially the "green" ones that don't seem
| to understand global energy usage, would be revolting as
| well.
|
| The pandemic was a great example of what this would look
| like as a first step. If we even cared a tiny bit about
| slowing climate change, there would have been at least
| some amount of people voicing that we should actually
| continue to follow early pandemic economic restrictions
| since it did impact global oil usage.
|
| I pointed this out pretty frequently at the time and was
| nearly always down voted for it. People want "green" to
| mean "buying the right thing", they don't want "green" to
| mean "slicing my annual pay to 1/3, never using Amazon or
| large retail company to purchase thing, no fruit in the
| winter, and expensive locally woven clothes".
| nomel wrote:
| > Thus, the ingrained short-term thinking of the markets
| and politicians
|
| I don't think they're the only ones to blame. People want
| what's cheaper/keeps their standard of living the same.
| Any of these changes temporality upset and outright
| destroy large portions of the economy. You would be
| kicking the silent majority right in the wallet, who
| doesn't care all that much about any of this.
| simonsarris wrote:
| US, AU?
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coal-consumption-by-
| count...
| imglorp wrote:
| Yeah true. I was just giving western examples.
|
| To be fair, CN is known for exploring all avenues and are
| deploying a ton of solar and nuclear. http://large.stanford
| .edu/courses/2022/ph241/patel2/images/f...
| simonsarris wrote:
| It's commendable relative to other countries not
| deploying much, but nonetheless, CO2 cares only about
| totals. See consumption by source:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-
| sou...
| morphle wrote:
| > We MUST MUST stop burning things.
|
| Yes, we must. It is so rare to see someone saying this in
| public. Thank you for this simple clarity.
|
| Stop burning everything! Fossil fuel, wood, plastic, garbage,
| paper. Stop making methane.
|
| We only need solar energy at 1 dollarcent or eurocent (it
| will get much cheaper still!!) and a little batteries for the
| convenience of using electricity when the sun does not shine.
|
| In the north and south you need more solar panels in the
| winter than in the summer by a factor of 50. But that pays it
| back in summer when you have a squanderable abundance of free
| and clean energy. We can store that surplus energy in
| purifying drinking water, melting iron ore or aluminum [5],
| melting reusable plastics or purifying silicon ingots.
|
| Storing surplus heat or cold in the ground is another luxury,
| because it is more expensive than 1 dollarcent or eurocent
| solar running a heatpump.
|
| Wind and hydro are also more costly than solar so they are
| another luxury with worse environmental costs than pure solar
| cells.
|
| We need to build Enernet, a peer to peer electricity net and
| internet between all buildings with power routers. for around
| 100 dollar per building. You buy and sell your house surplus
| solar electricity to the neighborhood where it can be stored
| in car batteries. See my Fiberhood white paper [2].
|
| [1] Enernet: Squanderable abundance of free and clean energy
| - Bob Metcalfe https://youtu.be/axfsqdpHVFU?t=1565
|
| [2] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Merik-
| Voswinkel/publica...
|
| [3] Amory Lovins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v02BNSUxxEA
|
| [4] Saul Griffith on the one billion machines that will
| electrify America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEOPx2X-EtE
|
| [5] 101 million machines away from a zero emission Australia
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ8-uAhG-zs
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > Stop burning everything! Fossil fuel, wood, plastic,
| garbage.
|
| I don't understand the wood argument. Isn't it widely
| accepted we need to do burns to manage forests? Wood is a
| short-term cycle of carbon. It releases when it burns but
| frees up space to capture it right after. When people live
| on rural plots and trees fall, should they burn for heat
| (and lessen needing other energy sources) or let it
| decompose and cause the same thing? It's not the same as
| extracting deeply embedded carbon sources that won't make
| it to the atmosphere if untouched (fossil fuels)
| morphle wrote:
| Wood and plant burning requires a longer nuanced answer
| than the Hacker News format allows. Humanity must not cut
| forests or grow plants unnecessarily. If you must use
| wood to build a house -(there are better and cheaper
| materials in terms of energy and climate change enhancing
| emissions, see for examples Amory Lovins book Reinventing
| Fire or his lectures on Youtube) - then first grow those
| trees in a place that has no natural forest. And then do
| not burn the wood after you demolish the house. Do not
| use wood from forest, humans should let the forest manage
| itself.
|
| Same with clearing the underbush of Meditaranian and
| hotter climate forest to prevent forest fires. If
| humanity had not managed those forest (grazing animals,
| building roads, harvesting) in the first place than there
| would have been no buildup of excess material that
| sustain wildfires past its natural rate.
| imglorp wrote:
| The trick to forest management is allow or create small,
| frequent burns that clean up dry, overgrown understories.
| Nature does this without our help and some species even
| depend on it. If we interfere with this, eventually
| there's a big fire instead that levels the place.
| tsoukase wrote:
| Stopping burning fuel now will return us centuries in the
| past, I suppose to about 1700. Twenty years ago it would
| return us to 1500. Then a handful of people had heating in
| their homes and a horse to travel. This will happen again if
| we stop burning now.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Such claims are ridiculous. Nobody needs burning fuel.
| Everybody just needs energy and it does not matter which is
| its source.
|
| If enough energy is produced by other means than burning
| fossil fuel, nobody will return to the past.
|
| I happen to be one of those who does not use directly any
| kind of energy, except electrical. Despite the fact that I
| am still connected to methane gas distribution, I have
| never burned it for already around a decade. (And unlike
| most, I cook myself from raw ingredients everything that I
| eat, but I stopped using flames for that many years ago.)
|
| If burning fossil fuel would stop completely right now,
| that would not affect me at all, much less would return me
| centuries in the past, as long as the electrical energy
| supplier has enough sources in its hydroelectric, solar,
| wind and nuclear plants, all of which are abundant where I
| live.
|
| For aircraft and spacecraft, hydrocarbon fuel will remain
| the best solution, but synthesizing hydrocarbons was
| already possible at large scale before WWII and it could
| solve easily this problem in a CO2-neutral manner, if a
| fraction of the money wasted for various useless or harmful
| things would be invested in improving the efficiency of
| such critical technologies.
| joquarky wrote:
| Most people can't afford to go 100% electric.
|
| Many of them are already sacrificing health care to
| afford food and shelter.
| danny_codes wrote:
| Bro what are you talking about. Nuclear power exists. You
| simply scale one we have now by 10x and buy BYDs EV
| capacity for 5 years and you're done.
|
| It's not even particularly expensive relative to GDP.
| getnormality wrote:
| > Otherwise it doesn't make sense to put CO2 into the air
| with one hand and take it out with another.
|
| I agree that it doesn't make sense, but I also want to
| challenge the engineering assumption that an extremely
| relatively inefficient solution should be ruled out.
|
| If direct air capture _worked_ and simply required absurd
| amounts of carbon-free power, say from nuclear, it would mean
| that we no longer have to fight political battles against the
| entrenched incumbents. They could simply emit whatever our
| elected politicians let them get away with, and DAC would
| soak it up.
|
| I completely acknowledge that it seems somehow egregious to
| do it this way. I am an efficiency-minded person and would
| hope that we could do it the efficient way. But given all the
| ugly constraints and lack of progress so far, should we
| really expect this to be solved the way an efficency-minded
| engineer might prefer?
|
| If we get to that level of desperation though, I would hope
| that we could simply pay the emitters to install carbon
| capture.
|
| What I don't think will work is a politics of rage, righteous
| or otherwise. I don't recall any incidents in history where a
| politics of rage led to cool-headed, efficient technocratic
| solutions. The perennial problem is that the same politics of
| rage is equally accessible to your opponents, and it spirals
| down from there towards disorder and violence.
| WarmWash wrote:
| Can't wait until the arctic unwinds and releases massive
| amounts of methane into the air, then in the hot hell that
| earth becomes, all the fucking idiots saying "See I told those
| stupid liberals that the warming process was natural and not
| from my truck!!!1!1"
| mentos wrote:
| What if global warming is beneficial to keep the next ice age
| at bay?
| jpadkins wrote:
| > Oh and roughly 65M of sea level rise as the planet shifts to
| a snow/ice-free mode
|
| 65M seems a lot bigger than the 3.6mm/year rise we are seeing
| today (with +1.5C in warming already happening). Where did you
| read that we will get 65M of sea level rise with 1.5-2.5C more
| warming?
| ant6n wrote:
| > I'm of the opinion that direct air capture is the primary
| escape hatch
|
| Great! That means we dont need to reduce emissions, cuz the
| magic bullet will just take care of everything. No need to
| change anything.
| zahlman wrote:
| > Oh and roughly 65M of sea level rise as the planet shifts to
| a snow/ice-free mode.
|
| Current rates of sea level rise are still in single digit
| millimetres per year
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise), so that would
| take millennia. If there's even enough ice in the caps to get
| that far. Pre-historically, vast ice sheets covered broad
| swaths of regions now considered "temperate" (per the famous
| XKCD, "Boston [was] buried under almost a mile of ice"); what
| remains is a tiny portion and it's simply hard to imagine that
| it could fill the seas to such an extent.
|
| If you have detailed calculations, please feel free to cite
| them. But my back-of-the-envelope reasoning: NOAA gives an
| average sea depth
| (https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/oceandepth.html) of 3,682
| meters. You propose that this could increase by nearly 2%. But
| the density of water only exceeds that of ice by about 9% (via
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice); the thickness of the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ice_sheet is only about
| half that average sea depth; and it covers only about 4% of the
| water-covered area of the planet (14 million km^2 vs. 361
| million km^2, per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth) which is
| not even all oceanic.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| We already mined enough uranium for 500+ years of energy but
| people want to bury it in a mountain instead.
| standeven wrote:
| The main driver of this is human-produced CO2, and there are
| meaningful ways to reduce usage.
|
| -Switch to an electric vehicle -Migrate from gas appliances
| (range, furnace, water heater) to electric (induction, heat
| pumps) -If your power grid isn't clean, add rooftop or balcony
| solar -Encourage friends and family to do the same
| nairoz wrote:
| And don't fly
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| My impression is that flying on a commercial plane produces
| less CO2 than driving? So if your only options are drive vs
| fly, I think flying is the correct choice -- is that right?
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| It's code for "don't travel, especially long distance"...
| because most people would simply not be willing to make
| many trips if the trips took as long as the non-flight
| option would require.
| zaken wrote:
| It's about 60 mpg per passenger to fly domestically and 90
| mpg per passenger to fly internationally.
|
| If you have a family of 4, you can think of it as the
| equivalent of a 15 mpg vehicle for domestic flight and 22
| mpg vehicle for international flight. So somewhere in the
| range of a full-size pickup truck.
|
| But -- when you fly, you go very far. If you go on vacation
| to Hawaii from San Francisco once a year with your family,
| that's the equivalent of driving a Ford F-150 for 5000
| miles. If you visit India or China that's 15,000 Ford F-150
| miles! In a single trip, more than what most people drive
| in an entire year!
|
| So you can make a big difference just preferring local
| vacations instead of remote ones.
| mr_mitm wrote:
| And eat vegan and regional produce
|
| And don't build things out of concrete
|
| And better get a few room mates
| hnfong wrote:
| COVID proved that not flying barely made a dent in the global
| emissions.
|
| Sure, if we never fly again and reverted to living like a
| medieval peasant, maybe things will kinda work out.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Prices are a great incentive.
|
| In Germany, 1 kWh of electricity costs roughly 3x as much as 1
| kWh of gas. That doesn't make heat pumps very attractive.
| Historically the differences were even worse.
|
| Relying on people individually making choices that are better
| for the environment at a disadvantage for themselves is not
| going to work.
| blell wrote:
| What we should do is make gas four times more expensive
| through taxes to guarantee the poor never vote for the
| progressives again. Unironically.
| tzs wrote:
| A gas furnace produces at most 1 kWh of heat from 1 kWh of
| gas. A heat pumps produces 3-4 kWh of heat from 1 kWh of
| electricity. If electricity is 3x as much as gas per kWh the
| heat pump should be less expensive to operate.
|
| Plus, it also gives you AC which comes in handy if you live
| someplace where you want AC.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| > If electricity is 3x as much as gas per kWh the heat pump
| should be less expensive to operate.
|
| This would be true if heat pumps were free. But "less
| expensive to operate" needs to justify cost of installation
| over some measurable period of time. If electricity is 3x
| more expensive than gas, and the heat pump is 3-4x
| (2.5-3.5x realistically) then you're barely squeeking by
| except on the days when the pump is most efficient (when
| it's already warm out). That 3.5 - 3 leaves 0.5, amortized
| over the lifetime of the heat pump...might not even pay for
| installation.
|
| So, make heat pumps free or energy cheaper, I guess.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| The way a good heat pump works is that you can get about
| 3-5kwh of heat out of 1 kwh of electricity. So, they can save
| money over gas even though electricity is more expensive per
| kwh. And of course gas prices fluctuate quite a bit. Right
| now Germany is low on gas and gas prices are going through
| the roof because of the situation in the middle east.
|
| Here in Germany this issue is lack of policy, financing, and
| a lot of people are renting. I actually pay about > 100/month
| for gas. I live in a 20 apartment building with a big furnace
| in the basement for the whole building. A heat pump would be
| cheaper to run but you'd have to do a big one for the whole
| building. This is actually a good thing. Big heat pumps can
| be quite efficient. It's probably cheaper than having to
| install 20 heatpumps for 20 apartments.
|
| But buying and installing heat pumps costs money.
| Technically, it is actually an investment (i.e. it has an
| ROI). If you do this collectively as a building, you'd do it
| to lower your monthly bills. This is something that should be
| possible to finance out of those savings (at least
| partially). That's literally why private home owners install
| heat pumps and get their money back in 6-10 years typically.
| Faster if they also invest in solar. And get an EV that also
| powers from those panels.
|
| But this where things break down in Germany. You need
| consensus. And financing. And there are home owners that can
| block things and it's their renters that pay the heating bill
| so the owners don't care. And so on. And if you are renting,
| you are not going to pay for this either. So, everybody just
| coughs up the money every month without even questioning it.
| My apartment doesn't even have a thermostat or a smart meter
| for electricity. Apparently that's normal in this country.
| Germany is just deeply bureaucratic and inefficient. For all
| the talk about environment, they can't be arsed to do what
| the rest of the world did decades ago: save some energy with
| smart meters.
|
| Policy could help here. Mainly clearing up bureaucracy. And
| maybe some more subsidies/incentives (those already exist) or
| low interest financing. And a clear political goal to vastly
| reduce expensive gas imports. Even if the electricity for
| powering these heat pumps would come from gas powered
| electricity plants, it would still require a lot less gas.
| And of course Germany has lots of wind power. I think other
| countries in the EU are a bit further with their thinking
| than Germany on this front. On paper it having lots of
| apartment buildings like mine actually means it is fairly
| straight forward from a technical point of view to upgrade
| these buildings.
| 0wis wrote:
| If only the German infrastructure hadn't been built for
| Nordstream...
|
| In France, with Nuclear power and renewable it's 20% lower.
|
| Prices also depends on who you want to give power.
| yesfitz wrote:
| Reduce consumption of farmed animal products to zero.
| phasnox wrote:
| > Switch to EV
|
| Most people can't afford one
|
| > -Migrate from gas appliances (range, furnace, water heater)
| to electric (induction, heat pumps)
|
| Electricity is considerably more expensive, people that leave
| paycheck to paycheck would not be able to afford it
|
| Here are somethings YOU can do personally to help:
|
| - Never fly in an airplane again
|
| - Never use ANY vehicle again, walk everywhere(yes EVs also
| pollute)
|
| - In the winter, don't turn on the heat.
|
| - Eat only vegetables and things you don't need to cook
|
| - etc
|
| If you are not doing ALL OF THESE you have no right on telling
| other people how they produce their CO2.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| "since 1945"
| bleuchase wrote:
| Surely such a small variable wouldn't change anything about the
| conclusion. And the method used to calculate global mean
| surface temperature has never changed either.
| sourcegrift wrote:
| I wish more people understood the severity of the situation but
| all we ever get is that "New York has been underwater since
| 2010". Do people really want to take action only after the
| problem is irreversibly bad!?
| fragkakis wrote:
| Isn't it an irony that much of this is in the name of resolving
| World Problems, such as Global Warming
| lunias wrote:
| It's my understanding that if you look at a large enough
| historical time window, although warming has accelerated recently
| (and we are in part to blame); the Earth is still relatively cool
| compared to historical averages.
| pcl wrote:
| Of course, the relevant thing for us as a species is whether or
| not the forecast temperatures are sustainable for us.
|
| The planet as a whole will do just fine. We're not going to
| break the planet. The reason that people bring up the huge
| anthropogenic spike in temperature is because us anthropoids
| evolved in the context of a narrow band, and it would seem as
| though we're moving the global climate out of that band.
| casey2 wrote:
| We aren't hunter gather's, mammals have been around for
| hundreds of millions of years, and
|
| Modern Humans can just use air conditioning tech, most people
| in india already have a tanki, people will just dig as far as
| they need to keep their water cool like they already do.
| Irronically the people most affected are the affluent in
| places like dubia, if the grid fails and they don't have
| backups.
| crims0n wrote:
| I don't know why you are getting downvoted, you are absolutely
| correct: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-
| environment/2024/09/1...
| muwtyhg wrote:
| Because from a human perspective, it doesn't matter. The
| planet used to be a ball of molten rock at one point, it
| doesn't mean we should shrug our shoulders at the thought of
| it returning to a molten state. It may be "natural" but it's
| not suitable for humans.
| lunias wrote:
| People like to get worked up about this topic haha. All I'm
| sayin' is, it might get a lot hotter. Or maybe it will get
| cooler? I think it's important to put things in context
| because it's not some monotonically increasing function even
| if there is a local trend. I'm pro doing what we can to
| correct our impact on the environment; I'm even pro going
| beyond and attempting to control for other non-human
| externalities. My point is actually that nature doesn't care,
| but I think we should. Although, even if we try our hardest,
| we still might not like the outcome.
| oblio wrote:
| Look at all the comments under your original comment.
|
| Their point is very valid. Geologic scales are extremely
| long and the planet does not care.
|
| Humans, on the other hand would physically not be able to
| survive in most climates going back 100 million years or
| more. Too little or too much oxygen. Temperatures too high
| or too low, etc.
|
| We cannot compare this event, which is much, much, much
| faster than any natural warming, to natural warming events.
| Those generally take tens to hundreds of thousands of years
| to shift as much as we're moving things in under 200 years.
|
| Hundreds of thousands of years ago we were basically apes
| living in caves that could barely speak.
| lunias wrote:
| I never said their (or your) points weren't valid. In
| fact, I think they are quite self-evident and well known.
| People are assuming in bad faith that I'm unaware of
| these facts or that I sought to mislead with my original
| comment.
| acdha wrote:
| It's a common fossil fuel industry talking point, which hopes
| that the listener doesn't realize that the climate changes in
| the past which weren't deadly happened on much slower time
| scales. We have a much larger human population now so if
| you're saying "nature will survive" you're also saying that
| you're okay with millions of people dying or becoming
| refugees.
| tencentshill wrote:
| Milankovitch cycles? What time frame? Did humans live in the
| same areas during that time? At -4C cooler new york city was
| under 2000 feet of ice. +4C would be devastating for most of
| humanity.
| madman2890 wrote:
| We need the government to release the alien technology to the
| public now.
| chinathrow wrote:
| Companies are setting up constantly running gas turbines for
| powering AI datacenters - insanity.
| shevy-java wrote:
| I think it is already pretty clear to everyone, save a few
| scientistis who keep on preaching "we can prevent this!!!" that
| global warming will continue. I am all for being more energy
| efficient and what not, but the reality of the situation is that
| there are factors that are orthogonal to this - as well as a few
| states that sabotage everyone else. The USA in particular; the US
| government is by far the biggest troublemaker here. China and
| India are also troublemakers because they are so huge, although
| to be fair, China also invested a lot into green energy.
|
| We need to adjust strategies here. The "zero emission" strategy
| failed; it is not practical. Politicians love them because they
| are in the media, but everyone sees that this strategy is not
| working. Same with carbon tax - it drove prices up but didn't
| really help much at all otherwise. We need to stop pursuing
| strategies that do not work here.
| amelius wrote:
| > We need to stop pursuing strategies that do not work here.
|
| We tried top down. Didn't work.
|
| We tried bottom up. Didn't work.
| vorticalbox wrote:
| i think the only real strategy is that people take a hit to
| their standard of living but i don't think anyone will sign
| up for that.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| They don't need to sign up for it. It will happen
| regardless.
| ares623 wrote:
| They'll just continue blaming immigrants.
| amelius wrote:
| The immigrants who fled from the natural disasters in
| their country of origin caused by climate change.
| 00N8 wrote:
| It would be a lot easier if the global population
| stabilized at around 1 billion. It's conceivable we could
| get down to that by bringing 3rd world areas up to 1st
| world standards in terms of women's rights, access to birth
| control, education, standard of living, etc., since
| developed nations have had declining birth rates for quite
| a while. But it's not a cheap or popular idea & would take
| several generations anyway.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| What did we even try? We did talk a lot though.
| a456463 wrote:
| And yet yesterday people were gushing about more toxic waste from
| Apple!
| r2ob wrote:
| El Nino, volcanism, and solar variation.
|
| it's not about us guys, relax.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| I'm not sure if this comment was low effort or sarcasm but it
| certainly doesn't further discussion per HN guidelines.
|
| Those are factors in this analysis that weren't in all prior
| analyses, and the confidence levels in this analysis have
| improved greatly and we know much more certainly that global
| temps are rising faster now than earlier decades.
| tomgp wrote:
| Interstingly a paper was published today which confirms
| accelerated warming whislt accounting for the effects of
| natural fluctations (el nino, volcanism and solar radiation
| etc)
| https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2025...
|
| >We remove the estimated influence of three main natural
| variability factors: El Nino, volcanism, and solar variation.
| The resulting adjusted and thus less "noisy" data show that
| there has been acceleration with over 98% confidence, with
| faster warming over the last 10+ years than during any previous
| decade.
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| Any excuse to pretend we aren't contributing.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| curiosity rabbit hole spawned from the article, which got me
| wondering if the earth axis precession over ~26k years influences
| ice ages and those cycles:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The paper doesn't seem to account for the reduction in sulfur
| emissions from ships, which was widely reported to be the cause
| for some of the recent warming?
| moffkalast wrote:
| The worst thing you can do when you're actively geoengineering
| is to abruptly stop doing it. So naturally we found a way we
| were already doing it and cut it immediately to make sure we
| fuck ourselves as much as possible :)
|
| I'm almost convinced it's intentional at this point, the rich
| are busy building their offbrand vault tec bunkers and starting
| random wars for no real reason. Longtermism nonsense over the
| today.
| zahlman wrote:
| Airborne sulfur comes with its own negative environmental
| consequences, though.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Let's be real, this won't be solved by reducing consumption, only
| carbon capture technology (likely well into the future).
|
| It's in no nation's interest, from a game theory perspective, to
| stunt their own growth to reduce emissions. If the US stops,
| Russia and China will destroy the west. If China stops, they'll
| never catch up technologically. Ditto for India. Smaller nations
| have even less incentive (they'll easily be conquered by
| neighbours), except for the ones surrounded entirely by friendly
| nations...
| Invictus0 wrote:
| absolutely nothing can be done about this
| gedy wrote:
| All those RTO commuters /s
| honkycat wrote:
| we have had several manhattan project in the last 100 years, but
| they have all been for stuff like:
|
| - creating a new addictive form of entertainment we can use to
| brainwash people
|
| - Creating expensive data centers that MAY end up being extremely
| useful in the long run
|
| and never for saving the lives of the people on our planet.
|
| Humanity is doomed. We deserve it.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| Don't kid yourself - we closed this one with "Won't Fix" a while
| ago.
|
| "But what about <technology/option>?"
|
| No. Full stop. We're not going to do it, and we're not even going
| to apologize for it either.
|
| All we can do now is prepare, not that I've seen a lot on this
| front either.
| boxedemp wrote:
| We'll fix it if it become cost effective. It might, but
| probably won't because if the scale.
| nielsbot wrote:
| we're going to chose the most convenient path. if climate
| disaster becomes inconvenient, we'll attempt to do something
| about it.
|
| it will be a disaster.
| casey2 wrote:
| Nothing can be done about it. If you leave it up to the
| market it will spiral away forever since the cost of
| dealing with the problem always increases both due to the
| size of the problem growing and the cost to insure
| solutions compounding.
|
| The "obstructionist" greens understand that the system is
| flawed and needs a structural change. We don't live in
| capitalist fairyland, there are baseline energy costs that
| can't be inflated away and our ability to work on the
| problem degrades after every disaster.
| ares623 wrote:
| Just need a map for all the bunkers. It's gonna be the future
| version of open-world video games.
| sph wrote:
| Worse, even if we're going to do it, the next idiot in power is
| going to roll it back and declare to big fanfare and applause
| that coal is back.
|
| You can't change the world with plans that last no longer than
| a presidential term.
| apublicfrog wrote:
| Thankfully most of the world ignores America and does their
| own thing.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| There are plenty of people who find it convenient to listen
| to the current administration, and these people vote. I
| just hope they remain in a minority in my country. It's
| always a close run race though...
|
| And a 'more conservative than conservative' party is
| getting increased media attention here at the moment, which
| could do serious damage.
| htx80nerd wrote:
| let me guess we only have 10 more years, again?
| kai_mac wrote:
| capitalism is going just great
| karol wrote:
| It's gonna be great, when it's warmer.
| bigattichouse wrote:
| I'm hoping the current oil-war will cause people to re-assess
| fossil fuel use as expense becomes untenable and we start
| choosing electric vehicles and renewables.. which will just
| become "normal" and oil can stick around for synthetic chemistry
| routes.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| Agreed, it's a big sovereignty issue. Once a solar panel is
| installed it keeps working for 20+ years. It doesn't get cut
| off if there's a political problem that interrupts supply.
| 0ckpuppet wrote:
| Until they ban private jets, why take this seriously?
| PowerElectronix wrote:
| And yet the minimum extension of artic ice ever recorded was in
| 2014.
|
| I think there are more effects to account for when extrapolating
| measured temperatures, mostly made on the ground with cataclismic
| effects. After all, all the carbon being emitted nowadays was in
| the biosphere back in the days. Why couldn't it return back to it
| without the earth becoming inhabitable?
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| The argument isn't that the whole earth becomes inhospitable.
| But that certain regions do, and the rest will have their
| climate differ drastically.
|
| If you live on the coast and the water level rises, your home
| is inhospitable, even if someone 100mi inland is fine.
|
| If you live in a region that usually was 90F in the summer and
| is now >110F regularly, that's going to cause problem.
| alexk307 wrote:
| There isn't enough fossil fuels in the ground for us to burn
| to cause a 20F+ increase in annual summer temperatures
| globally...
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| Their argument is not predicated on a 20F+ temp rise
| globally; their argument is about regions.
| alexk307 wrote:
| Most of the increase in local temperatures are overnight
| lows in the Winter. I'm not sure there's any peer-
| reviewed mechanism to suggest that daytime Summer highs
| will increase 20F+ due to greenhouse gases in any parts
| of the world.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| So your argument that this statement by them: "If you
| live in a region that usually was 90F in the summer and
| is now >110F regularly, that's going to cause problem."
| is hyperbole, then? Okay, going with that, what
| temperature range would you find credible, as to describe
| a region that is seeing wilder swings in summer highs?
| alexk307 wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/summer-temperature-
| anomal...
|
| Somewhere on the order of 1-2C if you start from the
| 1850s.
| dcchambers wrote:
| There's literally nothing that can be done about it. The people
| with actual ability to make a change don't care.
|
| We're going to have to figure out how to adapt to it. Expect many
| of the things you love now (seafood, coffee, etc) to be gone
| within your lifetime.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| There were voters who could do part of it. Long term, having a
| US President that doesn't cancel wind projects, tear up EV
| subsidies, and promote coal would probably be a difference
| maker for US emissions.
|
| And if the voters were just a bit smarter and not bought into
| the "China bad" narrative, we might even get proper, nice,
| affordable EVs in the US.
| tencentshill wrote:
| Trump is still all bluster and words. He can't change the
| math. I've convinced 2 people to get EVs over ICE this year.
| They still make economic sense even without federal subsidies
| (dependent on your home/work situation). Though I don't deny
| that most OEMs are likely selling at a loss now. It's foolish
| how foreign wars directly affect how much it costs you to get
| to work.
| tantaman wrote:
| How are people handling this... mentally? and preparedness wise?
| I can't imagine what the next generation may have to live
| through.
| casey2 wrote:
| Most serious people realized decades ago that you just build a
| bunch of nuclear powered DAC and require oil companies
| sequester it. What occurred for last 30 years was a bunch of
| nonsense political BS and signaling that annoys effective
| people but they largely ignore.
| mbgerring wrote:
| The only extant "X-risk" is, and always has been, climate change.
| "AGI" is science fiction, and actually-existing AI is making
| climate change harder to deal with, by increasing electricity
| demand on our fossil-fuel-powered grid with no attendant increase
| in clean generation.
|
| Serious engineers need to stop whatever they're doing and work on
| this problem.
|
| Also, if you're hiring: I'm an expert on the U.S. regulated
| utility industry, demand management, and solar & battery system
| design, fabrication and deployment.
| patwater10 wrote:
| AI is also a useful tool that offers a lot of potential to
| untangle the permitting thickets that make it difficult to
| build the infrastructure necessary for the energy transition...
| chneu wrote:
| Really AI is a drop in the bucket compared to other things.
| Beef and dairy take up an incredible amount of water, land, and
| energy but we don't complain about that.
|
| AI could lead to massive savings and improvements in terms of
| emissions and climate change. AI could possibly help us out of
| this.
|
| Beef and dairy have no chance of helping us. They'll kill us
| and the beef nuts will say how they saved 4% of emissions by
| moving some cows around. Problem solved.
| tdb7893 wrote:
| I remember a couple years ago my family was worried about the
| Amazon burning and I was like "well, you could eat less beef
| as that's driving a lot of that in Brazil". Turns out they
| didn't care _that_ much. With how generally hippie my family
| is it really made me realize how absolutely screwed we are
| ecologically.
|
| There's a reason bird populations are down 30% in my parents'
| lifetimes (https://www.audubon.org/press-room/us-bird-
| populations-conti...) and I don't think my generation is
| going to do much better.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| The only extant "X-risk" is, and always has been, economic
| collapse due to loss of energy. "Climate Change" is science
| fiction.
|
| /s
|
| It amazes me climate change X-riskers scoff at denialists and
| then do the exact same denialism with AGI. How many leading AI
| scientists (like climate science) would it take to convince
| you?
|
| "Our great religion, their primitive superstition"[0]
|
| [0] https://imgur.com/EELDM6m
| mbgerring wrote:
| "AGI" was literally made up by a Harry Potter fan fiction
| community
| doubleg wrote:
| To work on this problem check out https://workonclimate.org/
| Founded by two ex-Google employees.
|
| From their About: "Work on Climate quickly built the world's
| largest and most successful community of its sort - with tens
| of thousands of members around the globe, thousands of whom
| have found climate jobs and started companies".
|
| Not affiliated but I ran into this initiative recently.
| tim333 wrote:
| I'm not sure about AGI as in human level intelligence being
| sci-fi. We seem rather close. I've never been much of a doomer
| though re AI X-risk.
| shashurup wrote:
| To be honest, looking at Paleogene climate reconstruction I
| believe it was the best time in earth history. The way things go
| shows us that all attempts to resist burning fossils are quite
| futile. It takes some kind of catastrophe to change people
| habits. The level of coordination required to achive the goal of
| lowering emissions looks unachievable to humanity. We have enough
| time to adapt, adaptation is more reasonable and pragmatic
| approach.
| adrian_b wrote:
| During the Paleogene, the terrestrial plants and animals were
| very different from those of today.
|
| Now on all continents and islands most of the big animals and
| plants are humans, domestic animals and cultivated plants. The
| wild animals and plants, even if they are much more varied,
| with many thousands times more species than the domestic ones,
| are much smaller in quantities, with only a few kinds that are
| non-negligible, e.g. ants, termites, rodents.
|
| So if we will return in a short time to the Paleogene climate,
| the main question is how this will affect the few dominant
| animal species, like chicken, humans, pigs, sheep, cattle, dogs
| and the main cultivated plants, all of which are not adapted to
| a Paleogene climate and which will not be able to adapt in such
| a short time.
|
| It is likely that places like Canada, Alaska, Greenland,
| Siberia, Antarctica might become nicer places where to live and
| practice agriculture, but the few people who live now there
| would not welcome invaders coming from places that are no
| longer habitable.
| shashurup wrote:
| I don't see that everything except Canada, Alaska, Greenland,
| Siberia and Antarctica was inhabitable. For instance in
| Eocene the climate remained fairly warm and homogeneous (the
| most uniform in the Cenozoic).
|
| From the equator to the poles, forests grew. Fossilized
| remains of cypress and sequoia have been found on the Arctic
| Ellesmere Island, and palms -- in Alaska and northern Europe.
|
| Equatorial and tropical forests (with palms, fig trees, and
| sandalwood trees) persisted in Africa, South America, India,
| and Australia.
|
| Eucalypts, sequoias spread widely, and new types of broad-
| leaved trees appeared.
|
| By the end of the Eocene, rainforests were preserved only in
| the equatorial parts of South America, Africa, India, and
| Australia -- due to the onset of cooling.
| oxqbldpxo wrote:
| For a 1000 points: For the turkey, what is Thanksgiving? What is
| a Black swan?
| shrubby wrote:
| We could chop of a quarter of total emissions (directly +
| rewilding effect) by ending factory animal production and
| swapping to plant based.
|
| Another quarter from the top 5 percent emissions that have
| practically nothing to do with the wellbeing, but only social
| comparison mechanisms (envy, herd mentality).
|
| But for that humanity would need leaders that are not either
| idiots, corrupt or spineless and toothless.
|
| But hey, I guess that's too much to ask, after all we're talking
| about unconscious reactive species that's only rumored to have
| brains or morals.
| xandrius wrote:
| I can barely get some people to do a week off eating red meat,
| imagine going cold turkey completely. If people haven't
| revolted about other stuff they definitely will for saving
| their meat consumption.
| ben5 wrote:
| I think we're well past the point of no return. In my part of the
| world, this year's weather has been ---- weird. Global warming
| doesn't mean warming per se - but it does mean unpredictability.
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is true, but sometimes I wonder if it is the biggest
| problem. Fortunately, the local environmental organizations
| explained to me that while it is a big problem it is much more
| important that we oppose infill housing and embrace sprawl
| because the former causes shadows to fall on parks used by
| underserved minorities.
|
| Another thing I have wondered is whether it is ethical to oppose
| solar power because I don't like how it looks. Again here the
| environmentalists have an answer. Yes it is.
|
| Recently I was wondering about geothermal power as well, but I
| learned that the good people of black rock city believe that we
| should leave no trace and a geothermal plant would leave a trace
| so it's far preferable to drive a large number of ICE vehicles to
| the desert.
|
| In general, I think that we probably exaggerate climate change a
| lot. It's not a big deal, at least when compared to things like
| sunshine for a park for underserved minorities.
| Qiu_Zhanxuan wrote:
| This is All on the US
| kristopolous wrote:
| American here, you're correct.
| timmg wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...
| WindyTree wrote:
| I've heard hints of this same thing, the rates are described as
| quadratic, not linear. The feedback mechanisms I do not know, but
| it's something related to a high degree of released ocean warming
| that was stored.
| beastman82 wrote:
| the good news is that nuclear power is coming soon
| vogu66 wrote:
| The article has comments on pubpeer (below) and comments on the
| pre-print page.
| https://pubpeer.com/publications/973ABFB81F504E8CB1B50E941CF...
|
| The gist of several comments is that the paper does not actually
| demonstrate an accelerated global warming, but instead an
| acceleration of anthropogenic global warming, when removing the
| influence of several natural factors. To be clear, they are not
| discussing the fact that there is global warming, just saying
| that currently, we cannot say that global warming has been
| getting faster after 2010 with statistical certainty.
| djoldman wrote:
| Basically this is the slowest train wreck in history that just
| won't be stopped. By 2050 (only 24 years away), these cities are
| projected to flood more than 1/3 of the days of every year:
| Galveston, Texas Morgan's Point, Texas Annapolis,
| Maryland Norfolk, Virginia Rockport, Texas Bay
| St. Louis, Mississippi
|
| Big cities close behind the above: Miami and
| Miami Beach, Florida Charleston, South Carolina
| Atlantic City, New Jersey
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Can we hope that the Strait of Hormuz remains essentially blocked
| to oil exports for an extended amount of time...?
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