Not news of course, but worth restating. Credulous 'scepticism' about the fundamentals of the climate collapse threat has been largely driven by corporate propaganda campaigns. Those campaigns were themselves constructed by people who weren't 'sceptics' -- they believed AGM was happening -- but considered their short-term profitability more important. Climate collapse 'sceptics' were nearly all gulls.
My view is that climate change is a world problem. Governments will not oblige their citizens to make steps on their consumption if it means reducing their comfort and their economic power.
Steps should be taken in advance so that once green deals are put in place, countries can implement those effortlessly.
We often hear that some countries don't make enough efforts, but
1. Other countries import carbon emitting products
2. The developed countries of today have emmited greenhouse gases for decades, which allowed them to become developed countries.
The geopolitics of climate change are extremely difficult. I don't think the UN is up for it.
Although a better scenario would be to enact tight regulations on a country basis, but it's a political minefield. Imagine riots because people want to keep using their cars and trade goods that have become illegal, or vendettas against people who emit co2.
> Governments will not oblige their citizens to make steps on their consumption if it means reducing their comfort and their economic power.
Here is the catch - efforts to reduce overconsumption mean slowing economy and lower tax base. No goverment can afford that.
> Imagine riots because people want to keep using their cars and trade goods that have become illegal, or vendettas against people who emit co2.
I believe we are on a verge of Millenial movement of some sort that will make a matter of enviroment a quasi religion of sorts. That would change the attitudes.
For a long time, the only times pollution reduced was during economic slowdowns. Lately, these movements have become separate. Measures to make our consumption cleaner means we can reduce our pollution without having to reduce our consumption, and that's basically what we need. Cleaner energy production, electric cars, better insulated houses, etc. It's happening way too slowly, but it is happening. We can absolutely do this if we put more effort in phasing out the old technologies.
The superstition that so-called 'economic growth' (which is actually not growth at all, but just a global entropy increase) can be decoupled from physical dismantling of ecosystems is a faith-based initiative of consumer-fundamentalism. There's no evidence that it's possible, and even the best approaches we can make would take centuries of technological advance - each decade destroying more of our living home.
> I believe we are on a verge of Millenial movement of some sort that will make a matter of enviroment a quasi religion of sorts. That would change the attitudes.
So did everyone in the 60s and at other periods. The world changes, but it’s no revolution. I’ll believe it when I see it, I remain cautiously optimistic but have my doubts as to whether the ‘millennials’ will be able to pry themselves away from their self interest for long enough
The birth of the first Green movement in the 70s was very much revolutionary. The cultural memory of just how bad things used to be has unfortunately already faded, to the extent that reactionary forces are endeavoring to bring back the bad old times.
I'd like to add, in case you don't know what I'm refering to:
There is a large movement widely called "Fridays for Future" going on lots of european cities (large and small) in which students will go on a school strike to demonstrate for sensible climate policy.
Sure, and there's the Extinction Rebellion stuff in the UK. Here in Australia we're kind of complacent/lazy, not often giving a stuff about anything except sports, celebrities, and limitless acquisition of consumer crap. But there is a bit of the school strike stuff happening.
It's all a bit marginal though, isn't it?
People might object to the 'quasi religious' aspect of what you're talking about. I'd make the point though that any culture which acknowledges even minimally the true nature of the living planet that is our home would appear mystical or religious to the deathly bloodless denatured worldview that so ruthlessly holds power now. The latter is either going to give way to something that is a better fit for physical reality, or it will destroy itself by soiling its own nest, largely in hapless ignorance regarding what's at stake.
> Governments will not oblige their citizens to make steps on their consumption if it means reducing their comfort
It's interesting though that they will oblige them to wars.
This is generally not a true statement. Government is not entirely segregated from the citizenry. It is, in some form, representation of society (even in a dictatorship).
It isn't necessarily denialism nor shilling to question the validity of predictions. It's a good thing.
Unfortunately the whole topic has become breathless "99% of scientists!" and tied in with social economic programs to the point I'm not convinced any more. To say nothing of failed predictions.
Ya, I believe C02 _should_ warm the earth based on the science. But this whole world is ending thing I'm waiting to actually see something.
For the record, I've been hearing this for over 30 years as an adult and so far not much. Perhaps one day it will all catch up, but I'm skeptical at this point.
I think it's more about the way we communicate model results. In the media, it's communicated as absolutes like "The ice caps will be gone by 2100!"
In reality, the model results are communicated in uncertainty. More akin to "There's a 70% chance the ice caps will be gone by 2100 if the current level of CO2 emissions are not abated." That's a much less sexy headline to say nothing about the fact that most people wouldn't be shocked if a 3 in 10 chance event actually happens. Nate Silver does a much better job explaining this in his book "The Signal and the Noise"
> better scenario would be to enact tight regulations on a country
Here, I am less convinced.
Globalisation came about in good part to move from the places with tighter regulation - on pollution, on employment, on finance - to those without.
It is the same way that offshore finance came about by trading each regulation against each other. The net result is there are fewer controls everywhere, despite a few headline money laundering regs. The history of this is fascinating.
I find it difficult to imagine how solutions to climate change, that don't rely on improvement in technology, won't result in authoritarianism. I don't think that all the world governments will accept limitations on their people freely.
The clean air acts, the banning of freon and other CFCs, and other public health measures like treated water and ending leaded fuel required regulation not authoritarianism. All placed limitations on their people.
Why would this be any different?
We don't need to replace political choice, or freedoms with repression to bring in carbon taxes and start banning plastic, coal or gas.
Because those limitations are minor compared to "eat less meat", "don't drive a car" and "food will be more expensive in general". These are going to be very tough sells among populations that are not rich. Look at the Yellow Vests in France.
Goods were more expensive in general when a sales tax or VAT was brought in. Without riots or oppressive regime.
If taxes and regulation penalise meat, people will buy less meat - just as taxes and regulation have changed the town landscape from cigarette butts everywhere, to remarkably infrequent. When I was at school pretty much everyone smoked. Now it's really uncommon to see a smoker. Again, there were no riots or oppression.
Considering the clear majority on both sides of the political map in Europe are convinced by AGW, rich and poor alike, I don't think it as tough a sell as you make out. Inequitable solutions will, rightfully, be a tough sell among populations.
Because nobody cares about "freon banning" with plenty of alternatives, or treated water, and leaded fuel had a long runway letting people the time to replace cars etc.
It's the actual "hard" bans and lifestyle change requiring laws that people would complain about.
And doubly so corporations and private interests making money off of them.
I don't know about the solutions - my view is that the die is cast.
> My view is that climate change is a world problem
That's undoubtedly true, and the fossil fuel companies clearly acknowledge this - their 30 year anti-science propaganda campaigns have been waged across the world.
"You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and 𝙀𝙭𝙭𝙤𝙣. Those are the nations of the world today."
It's interesting how much has changed since that movie came out. What was then shocking, now is mundane. Watching it now it's hard to see what the fuss was about. We've just all gotten used to it.
there has been plenty of genuine scepticism from within the scientific community (as there should be). what has happened is that it has become politicized such that the science is suffering for fear of being labeled a heretic. much of the research is published via the intergovernmental panel on climate change; well it's right there in the title. none of this is to say that there aren't also entities pushing propaganda (exxon, etc)
Unless you literally don't believe the raw numbers coming from sensors all over the world there is no room for doubting that the climate is changing.
There can, and has been, plenty of discussion as to the reasons, but for at least thirty years now the consensus has been that human activity is responsible for the vast majority of the effects we've seen.
Following the consensus is a fine choice if you're trying not to get lynched by the mob, but it really has very little to do with science. The scientific method does not say, "get everyone you think is smart to vote on it, if they all agree, it must be true". I really wish lay people would quit turning science into a religion and scientists into priests.
I'm not a climate scientist, so I let the experts battle it out and then look at the scientific consensus. I trust experts in all areas of my life, because I don't have the time to become an expert myself. Following the consensus is a fine choice if you're a politician and your task is to ensure that future generations have a chance to live a more prosperous life.
That's a very reasonable position, and I won't argue with you there. Many times you need to make a decision with imperfect or incomplete information.
However you go one step further and attack anyone who dares question that view, and you do it with the a sense of righteousness as though you did understand the topic and applied the scientific method to get there. That's just bullying, but you get away with it because you're part of a mob. I mean it's one thing for an expert to claim certainty and argue their point of view, but you aren't actually certain - you just picked the safer bet.
To be clear, I think the world would be a lot better place with less burning coal. I care a lot about the poisoning and pollution in the oceans. I think smog is disgusting. I probably have one of the smallest "carbon footprints" of any adult you know. However, I know a fair amount about programming, math, and simulations, and I don't trust anyone who says they can predict a chaotic system 50-100 years into the future.
And concensus doesn't compel me much at all. Once upon a time in America, you could probably get a concensus (even among scientists!) that God was real.
the scientific method is about hypotheses and experiments. we're running a global experiment now, with potentially disastrous consequences, which can't be repeated, and you're saying you're fine to wait for its outcome because it's unscientific to do otherwise, basic thermodynamics notwithstanding, and you dare to tell others that science is turning into a religion, where in fact you have an irrational approach to the problem at hand which you're rationalizing as 'scientific method'.
i'm afraid that in fact your stance on climate warming is a question of your identity instead of logical thought.
the scientific method DOES say that a result should be reproducible. and in this case it is reproducible beyond what is required for it to become accepted
I'd believe the simulations are reproducible. However, re-running the atmosphere of the earth is certainly not an experiment anyone has reproduced. There's at least some room for questioning whether the simulations have sufficient fidelity to predict a chaotic system 50-100 years into the future.
Arguing this topic doesn't do me any good. It's like trying to tell a devout christian you think there's room for doubt and uncertainty about whether the apocalypse is coming. Most people just lock their heels and reinforce their current beliefs. This message will probably fade away into a light shade of grey, making me wonder why I even bothered.
However, every time I see someone trot out the word "concensus", as though that's relevant to good science, I grind my teeth.
Much of the world was under ice 20K years ago. And the earth has generally warmed since then and melted much of the ice ( with occasional refreezes ).
And the "consensus" that human activity is responsible is utter nonsense. Feel free to research where the "consensus" came from. Also, whenever "science" relies on "consensus", you have to start wondering because real science doesn't rely on consensus - it relies on hypothesis and experimentation. The speed of light isn't derived from "consensus" but rather experiments. Science isn't politics, people don't vote for what the facts of science are.
You talk of 30 years of consensus. Do you know what the consensus was before the consensus on global warming? We had 30 years of consensus on global cooling. And before then we had decades of consensus of malthusian collapse. And before then consensus on social darwinism. Strange how all these "consensus" driven science has been debunked as pseudoscientific nonsense.
We are in many millenia long global warming period. This trend started long before humans started using oil. Thinking humans are responsible for global warming is like thinking humans are responsible for the rise and decline of tides because we drink water.
Your comment seems completely rational but ignores that we have science refuting your opinion. Not only that, the research on this comes from different branches of science that all converge on the same conclusions.
I suggest you do a little more reading on the topic. Storms of My GrandChildren is an easy place to start.
And as always if you have a good source that disputes climate science I would really appreciate a reference.
I'm always changing. But you could point to a moment before and after I hit puberty, or, on a long enough scale, the period during which I morphed from teenager to adult.
This "the climate is always changing" was just classic anti-intellectual rhetoric spread in response to changing the name from "Global Warming" (Oh but the Earth isn't warming during winter!) to "Climate Change". Be careful. Don't let yourself be swayed by those who only wish to harm you.
No one denies that the climate changed before and that it's a natural thing. The problem is that in 100 years we went from slow changes to 10 times the amplitudes ever recorded.
The questions isn't "Do these cycles exist ?" it's "Are we sure we want to trigger one early ?"
Greenhouse effect is a very well studied effect. CO2 / other gases level are a very well studied field. CO2/other gases dramatically increased since the industrial revolution. Are you also denying that ?
When you study something you have to look at the settings in which it happens and look at the time frame. Sure changes happened 10k+ years ago, that's not invalidating anything related to our role in the current change.
> Thinking humans are responsible for global warming is like thinking humans are responsible for the rise and decline of tides because we drink water.
You won't win anyone over with such nonsensical arguments.
You are mistakenly conferring the correlation between long and short term trends I think. The reason for long term trends is (as far as I know) somewhat uncertain and might be having an effect, but the short term trend is mostly attributed to humans doing things and can be shown to massively correlate to events (like the industrial revolution in the UK, massive oil consumption etc).
The consensuses you mention were in their time not a 'consensus' and dubious at best and already recognized by the contemporaries of the time.
> This trend started long before humans started using oil
Correct to a certain extend (see other post for sources), they started using (very broadly as greenhouse gas emissions concern) agriculture/herding first, wood, and coal. Oil as a source of greenhouse gasses is mainly 20th century thing.
um, "climate changing" is uncontroversial. the question that science is trying to answer, is "why". one hypothesis being fossil fuel emissions. you will note even the IPCC does't claim to have a definitive answer. yet a bunch of programmers and entrepreneurs on HN have no doubts.
Sorry, but that's just not true anymore. Fossil fuel emissions causing climate change has been proven pretty conclusively at this point. Anyone saying otherwise is either misinformed or is intending to misinform others. I do agree with you that the issue has been overly politicized though, which has taken something that would be simply taken as fact given the weight of evidence otherwise, and somehow made it controversial.
sorry it wasnt clear from my comment, but mainly that a governmental panel == politicized, and also that the IPCC reports to the UNFCCC, whose mission is to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-induced) interference with the climate system". in other words, it assumes the hypothesis that the science should be testing
There is no accurate number not even a range which can be scientifically demonstrated.
The data is not showing what you think it is and it's not the data you are getting served. You are getting served interpretation of that data which is very very very different.
The reality is this:
Temperature increased 0.5 degree celcius from late 1800's to 1950 before there were any significant CO2 emissions. Then it took a break and continued with about the same up until today.
How much of those last 0.5-0.6 are caused by humans?
That would be science. What we have today is mostly political and ideological and only a fraction of it is actually scientific by any reasonable interpretation of that word.
You might have a point if we were just taking temperature readings and guessing about the cause. However, the greenhouse gas effect is known, and can be easily demonstrated. Likewise, we can measure the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and see it rapidly rising[1]. We also know all the many human activities that release CO2 into the atmosphere. So there's a pretty clear causal chain here.
It can be demonstrated but that does not mean the entire system can be.
There is as an example negative feedback effects too in the system.
The temperature hasn't increased significantly from 1960's til today relative to CO2 more than it did from late 1800 to mid 1900.
So the question still becomes if the temperature increased 0.5 degrees while we weren't emitting that much co2 and it's done more or less the same in more or less the same timeframe with us putting much more co2 out there. How big a part is really humans and how much is natural variation.
If you want to convince me you provide me with actual scientific demonstration that aligns with the claim.
If we know how much humans are actually affecting due to CO2 then we can figure out what we can do about it. But as long as we don't know how much humans affect it I don't see any scientific foundation to go into the kind of panic we have seen the last 20 years really getting into the extremes these days.
The fact you are being downvoted really makes the case that any dissent on climate change makes you a heretic.
And before I'm downvoted, note that you don't know my position on climate change: all I'm against is punishing people for genuine disagreement of thought.
all I'm against is punishing people for genuine disagreement of thought.
I'll down vote you for the straw man. You have no idea why parent is being down voted, but a top runner on my list of guesses is that "scientists want to disagree, but they don't for fear of speaking up" is a pretty weak argument.
One of the more famous cases recently was Peter Ridd. He just won a court case against his university after being sacked for questioning the climate consensus.
He said the Great Barrier reef will profit from climate change and not die off because of it, is that the issue you mean?
Sooo - if it's true, great, one problem less! Regardless, there are still many other problems caused by climate change that he did not dispute and that we still have to fight. So the best course forward is still to reduce emissions, and keep an eye on the reef to see what's true.
---
Googling around I found the statement that
“Dr Ridd was not sacked because of his scientific views. Dr Ridd was never gagged or silenced about his scientific views, a matter which was admitted during the court hearing.” [0]
(But if that's true or not.. hard to say from here. The court recordings would have evidence.)
He's a physicists. Why would he have any idea about climate?
He's just a person with an opinion not a dissenting scientist.
And if his work suffered as a result of voicing such opinion then it was only to be expected.
If you voice stupid opinion regarding domain you know almost nothing about and prop it up with your work reputation it's only fair if that reputation takes a hit.
The “97% consensus” number is based on surveys of scientists in general, not just climate scientists. Including scientists when they agree with a position, but not when they disagree (because they aren’t real climate experts) is a very strange debate tactic.
This is not a well supported position. There are numerous well established scientists who have expressed concern and criticism on the current 'consensus' in regards to climate change. These include for instances Richard Lindzen [1], a member of the National Academies of Science, an MIT atmospheric physicist, and also a lead author on one of the scientific sections of IPCC climate report. Appeals to authority are foolish, but I think his credentialing is relevant to this discussion.
Beyond that, one major issue is that the extreme politicization of this issues makes it difficult for people to speak freely. Anybody who speaks their mind on this topic, when such view doesn't abide the 'proper' view is labeled, attacked, and ostracized when and if possible. So you end up primarily with radicals, fools, and a handful of people with extremely thick skin willing to speak. A similar treatment was given to those who, for instance, suggested that leaded fuel might indeed be harmful - the official government and 'consensus' position for decades was that it was safe or posed negligible risk.
I am not, in this posting, thus taking any side. But I do think if you ever want to achieve progress on any topic, people being able to speak freely is critical to progress. Only weak or poorly supported ideas need fear 'contrarian' views. And even in the rare case where those weak or poorly supported ideas happen to be the truth, they invariably become stronger over time (due to the accumulation of validated falsifiable evidence) while, vice versa, alternative views become weaker.
But perhaps more importantly, I think the desire to squash contrarian views has a paradoxical effect. The idea is of course to try to prevent the spread of these ideas, yet in reality there never works - even less so now that we've entered the era of the internet. See: China + Winnie the Pooh for an amusing example. But far more critically, I think efforts to avoid discussion are often seen as an inability to compellingly respond. Once ideas reach a critical mass, they will spread unless compellingly challenged. Refusing to challenge these ideas in a fair and impartial way only strengthens them.
Lindzen doesn't dispute that CO2 warms the atmosphere! The vast majority of "skeptics" seem to think it's all a fraud, and that CO2 does nothing.
There is zero support for that position.
If you would like to debate the merits of Lindzen's views, feel free to do so: he thinks there will be less warming than existing models predict. He doesn't deny warming!
Meanwhile he retired in 2013, and as far as I can tell has produced no active research in this field since 2011. And his 2011 paper was widely panned including by reviewers he selected. He had to correct numerous errors in the paper. According to wikipedia, he eventually argued that at least 75% of predicted warming was happening.
So, a 25% margin off a catastrophic level of warming. And that's the very best name you can produce. And this info is all in the link you sent. And that's apart from the question of whether he was right in his argument in 2011, which is a factual answer we can measure with temperature sensors. (IIRC, warming has progressed faster than expected instead)
Contrary to your point, there is tremendous economic incentive to prove that fossil fuels are safe, cause us no trouble, and can continue to be used. Anyone who decisively proved that would be a hero, as fossil fuels are very useful indeed. The absence of such a person suggests that this view is mistaken.
You're fighting against strawmen, which is understandable when everybody is afraid to talk unless it's to repeat the 'right' thoughts. It's quite obvious that greenhouse gases can increase temperatures. A basic understanding of how high frequency energy is converted into low frequency energy as is absorbed/emitted by the Earth and how the greenhouse gases react to both forms of energy is sufficient to prove this.
Lindzen's main issue is that the models are completely broken. As one example of this there is the 'Holocene temperature conundrum.' If you run our models on all data we have from around 10k to 6k years ago they all show there should have been significant warming. Instead we know there was significant cooling. And the reason for this remains completely unknown. In effect we are trying to forecast many decades into the future using models that break, even on their training data! This is a major problem.
And your perception of warming increasing faster than expected is once again being driven by the media. Our warming has lagged far behind models. For instance the first major climate report was the IPCC's report in 1990. That's nice because it forecast out to 30 years, which is just about now! They predicted a global warming of 0.3C per decade with an uncertainty of 0.2C to 0.5C on the 'business as usual' forecast, which is what we have followed. In reality, we haven't come anywhere near that. You can find various global temperature data, but here [1] are NASA's data. In particular (going decade by decade):
- 1990 = starting point
- 2000 = -0.04 'increase'
- 2010 = 0.3 increase
- 2019 = 0.1 increase
The IPCC was expecting an increase of 0.9 by 2020, with a minimum increase of 0.6. We've increased a bit less than 0.4 degrees. We're not even falling within the bottom end of their rather generous interval. That's, again, a major problem.
You're also misunderstanding that 75% comment. What Wiki (and he) was saying is that the temperature response is nonlinear. He is arguing that there will be a fraction of the expected heating due to a nonlinear response. In particular CO2 concentration levels have increased by about 30% and are at 75% of his expected temperature increase for a doubling of CO2. Does this mean his predictions are wrong, or does it mean the heating will slow? And similarly, we are only 15% of the expected heating for IPCC predictions, which are going in the opposite direction. Are the IPCC wrong, or will the rate of heating accelerate? This is an extremely critical distinction because if it turns out that increasing levels do not result in accelerating heating, then there's basically no problem whatsoever. Note both sides agree we'll continue to see 'the hottest year on [modern] record' for the foreseeable future. This might be what drove you to believe we were seeing more heating than expected.
All this said, I somewhat tend to agree that this is a dumb experiment to be running. I'd much rather roll back emissions, but I think the current science surrounding the arguments for such is running in an increasing number of problems as we start to be able to falisify or validate predictions. They're mostly turning up false (or at the very bottom of ranges), yet the media continues running sensationalized fearmongering nonethless. I think this is irresponsible, at best.
> Contrary to the IPCC's assessment, Lindzen said that climate models are inadequate.
> According to an April 30, 2012 New York Times article,[67] "Dr. Lindzen accepts the elementary tenets of climate science. He agrees that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, calling people who dispute that point "nutty." He agrees that the level of it is rising because of human activity and that this should warm the climate." He also believes that decreasing tropical cirrus clouds in a warmer world will allow more longwave radiation to escape the atmosphere, counteracting the warming.[67] Lindzen first published this "iris" theory in 2001,[9] and offered more support in a 2009 paper.[51]
Hm.. So he has a diverging view on the consequences of warming on the tropical cirrus cloud coverage, and thinks the models are not good enough to reproduce the real climate. That's disagreement about the projections, not the basics, with most of the community, and that's ok, we can research more and figure out the truth. The problem is, we don't have that time (unless he's right).
Only reality will really tell. Let's hope he's right (not that probable), but act as if he wasn't, and see what else we can learn about the system to improve our understanding.
It's terrible to think that maybe if Exxon and others didn't invest in lobbying and disinformation campaigns against climate change maybe humanity would have started acting 30 years earlier.
It's 2019 and humanity is barely starting to think about acting. Global CO2 emissions keep growing as if we were in "business as usual". Humanity needs to realize the magnitude of the problem. Climate change is, by far, the biggest threat it has ever encountered and probably will ever encounter.
The solution will require us to make radical changes to our lifestyle and our culture. For example, we can't keep having irrational leaders that ignore basic scientific facts.
We've known about the greenhouse effect and it's threat potential for nearly 2 centuries. Exxon just helped add to a growing body of evidence that we ignore.
I remember articles in “Scholastic” and the “Weekly Reader” when I was in elementary school (1980s) that said at the time scientists were worried about a 1°-2°C increase in temperature over a 50-100 year period. I’m sure that’s the same information Exxon had in the ‘70s.
Nowadays the predictions are much higher, because scientists started asking “if the oceans get warmer, what changes will that cause, and how will those changes affect the temperature?” In 1970, Exxon wasn’t suppressing research on whether warmer oceans mean more water vapor in the air, more carbon dioxide outgassing from the oceans, etc. They were only asking “should we really make drastic changes to head off a 1°-2°C temperature change that may not happen for a century? Is there a reason to believe that nothing will change in that time to make the prediction irrelevant?”
Weren't documentaries predicting a global climate cooling in 1978 ? In that context, did Exxon think they were saving the climate ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei-_SXLMMfo
Even in the 70s most climate scientists were expecting human caused global warming. The cooling thing was more a media phenomenon.
1965 - 1979 there were a total of 7 scientific papers predicting a cooling climate. Compared to 42 predicting human caused global warming (Peterson 2008).
Pretty interesting, thanks for answering. I wasn't even born, found a nice wiki link where scientists predicted cooling because of aerosol increase but the greenhouse effect was apparently published about in 1972 so they should have known:
> maybe humanity would have started acting 30 years earlier.
I wouldn't bet on it. We know we can cut emissions today by investing in nuclear ... and nothing. We could have invested in nuclear power 30 years ago and prevented trillions of tons of CO2 from being emitted.
Instead we decided wind/solar/natural gas (and those are always package deal) is our best bet at fighting climate change.
>For example, we can't keep having irrational leaders that ignore basic scientific facts.
Facts like nuclear power is by far the best and only way to effectively fight climate change?
> I oversaw the U.S. nuclear power industry. Now I think it should be banned.
> By Gregory Jaczko
> Gregory Jaczko served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2005 to 2009, and as its chairman from 2009 to 2012.
The author is arguably talking his book, since he invested in a wind power company. But it's still noteworthy that nuclear physicists and former regulators don't necessarily agree with you.
If memory serves me well, the author argues in a nutshell that, until recently, the risk of nuclear accidents was viewed as low enough that it was an acceptable one to take to reduce CO2 emissions, whereas nowadays producing green energy (wind, solar, geothermal) has become cheap enough -- and cheaper than nuclear, particularly if you factor in storing the waste -- that the nuclear risk is no longer acceptable.
>whereas nowadays producing green energy (wind, solar, geothermal) has become cheap enough
I keep hearing this meme, that either wind/solar is cheaper than X (where X is coal or nuclear) or is soon to be cheaper. The reality is that they are cheap and getting cheaper but the point is moot because wind/solar cannot power a modern economy.
By the way, Geothermal and hydro are great, but we're pretty much done with them. We've dammed every river that can be dammed and developed every geyser that can be developed.
>that the nuclear risk is no longer acceptable.
Our only real alternative to nuclear is wind/solar/natural gas (or coal). I put them as a package deal because they are a package deal. Wind/Solar only work when coupled with natural gas - this is why Germany is signing multi-billion natural gas as they are ramping up their wind and solar deployments. This is why every natural gas company now lobbies for wind and solar deployments. The problem is that natural gas is destructive to develop (for example may need fracking to extract) and is a fossil fuel. So if you really think that CO2 emissions are an existential crisis and cutting them to 0 is important - nuclear is still the only game in town. Otherwise, you're investing in natural gas as you are ramping up your solar panels and windmills.
I think you're right that nuclear energy is an excellent solution in many places, but I think it's actually becoming the case that solar and wind are cheaper in the short and long term and much cleaner in the long term. I'd personally like to see all 3 used in conjunction. Nuclear is very stable, but wind and sun are highly variable.
I don't disagree about nuclear, but you have to consider that the public opinion has been told for decades that climate change was a myth. Even today so many people use the word "believe" to talk about climate change. You can't believe a fact.
Former Exxon CEO and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson famously stated in 2013 during a meeting with Exxonmobil shareholders: "What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers"[1]. He explained, "As a species that’s why we’re all still here: we have spent our entire existence adapting. So we will adapt to this. It’s an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions."
The idea that the humans will somehow adapt to this is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Koch bros are pushing the same idea, on the evolutionary level, that humans will learn to live.
To me humanity is already dead, we are eternally doomed. We just don't know it yet. It's better to realize and accept it[2], as if we're told we have cancer and our days are numbered. This is a very pessimistic approach, but it is an honest one and may help mitigate problems for future generations.
Fortunately for the rest of us, that optimism has worked pretty well for thousands of years now. Besides, if you really believe we're doomed, what difference does it make to you what anyone thinks about anything?
Even if it were true, thousands of years is barely anything on any time scale that matters. Disregarding that, we've certainly not lived through thousands of years of global anthropogenic climate change, which is what this is all about.
It's worth to remember that adaption doesn't necessarily equate survival in the way we tend to think about it, as dinosaurs adapted too.
Humanity, at least on this planet, is already doomed. The sun will eventually consume us as a natural part of its life cycle. It's a very long time until that happens, but life here will eventually end. So as we're already doomed, should we then do nothing to prevent suffering and pain until then?
It should be a rhetorical question, but apparently it isn't always.
The argument can be made quite simple: As long as we continue to have children, or accept people having children, we have chosen - as a species - to not give up on them, and their descendants.
Preserving a livable environment, and preferably much more than livable, is simply a duty springing from that fact.
There is no need for any deep philosophy, to care for the environment is - essentially - a consequence of choices already made.
> Besides, if you really believe we're doomed, what difference does it make to you what anyone thinks about anything?
If you believe you're probably doomed because of what a large number of your most idiotic compatriots believe, what other people think is of great interest.
Why do you think it's appropriate to rely on blind optimism just because it's worked for us so far when the challenge we face is totally unprecedented as well as existential? Seems awfully careless to me.
I don't think humans will have much trouble adapting. Cities will move to accommodate the rising sea, we will move on to other food sources as the need arises, and life for us will go on.
It's the other species – the ones that had no hand in this – that I worry and feel regret about.
And where are those food sources coming from? As good farmland becomes too hot and the colder regions that warm up don't usually have good soil...
And sure, "cities will move" - so much political chaos happening on Europe just because of a million refugees - now imagine 50 times more coming to northern europe just from southern europe. Similar things happening all over the world. What fun!
We can't substitute water for anything, though. Hundreds of millions of people will lose their water, won't adapt to that, and will move to the northern hemisphere which holds the vast majority of the world's surface level fresh water, or they'll die trying.
If people think the current refugee crisis is bad, boy are they in for a shocker.
People discount the economic value of nature. The bees are a perfect example of this.
Yes we could come up with some automated polinator machine, but treating it like an engineering problem is insane! Nature has had 10000s of years to adapt to specific functions. The notion that a team of starry-eyed engineers can do a better job is egotistical and dangerous.
In other words - “I have faith your children and grandchildren will adapt to the catastrophe we created. Not to mention the catastrophe is totally worth it. Trust me.” - Person who gains the most from said catastrophe
Slightly tangential, but I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the political way forward for big countries:
1. Have a single CO2 budget for the whole country, with an aggressive, Hard to change roadmap of yearly reduction of said budget down to zero in the not too long future.
2. Estimate the CO2 footprint of every single product, incl. imports by one or several neutral organizations. This doesn’t have to be perfect as long as it attempts to be fair.
3. Tax every product according to this budget using supply/demand markets (certificates trading).
4. Redistribute the tax, especially to mitigate the hardship on low income households and domestic companies.
In my mind, this would create a gigantic incentive for CO2 reduction for your citizens as well as domestic AND foreign companies. Crucially, it would not require any global agreement and consensus. Apart from perhaps renegotiation or canceling of trade agreements on the side of the country that implements the policy.
Note, that you can replace CO2 by greenhouse gases or environmental impact in general. I just use it as a shorthandle.
There are tons of real world proposals that do this.
Here's one that's in Congress now that you can support: the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (http://energyinnovationact.org) . All revenue from a carbon tax goes to citizens as a yearly check. It has some 30+ cosponsors, including a Republican. A tax at point of source is more efficent than a per-item budget. Any rising cost of CO2 will be accounted for in the price of the product. Fossil-fuel-expensive products will cost more.
The group behind this is the Citizens Climate Lobby, which has been advocating a fee and dividend model for over a decade. It was cofounded by James Hansen, the NASA scientist who first testified to Congress about the perils of climate change over 30 years ago.
In addition, if you live in the states of Oregon and New York, both are on the cusp of passing similar legislation. And there are many more out there in various stages of development...
Thank you. I live in Switzerland not the US, so I’m not well informed on US legislation.
What about my points 1 and 2? Is the roadmap reliable and aggressive, and are all products incl. imported ones included.
This sounds very similar to cap and trade, no? Place a cap on total emissions, and decrease that cap over time. Correspondingly, have pollution permits that are allocated according to this cap. Companies that are especially CO2 efficient can sell their extra pollution allowances. Companies that are not can purchase these pollution allowances. As the cap is set lower and lower every year, the pollution allowances become more valuable, raising the price to pollute, or emit CO2. Over time, using fossil fuels becomes more and more prohibitively expensive, until we eventually transition to a near zero carbon society.
I prefer taxes because there's a reliable "shadow of the future". Market prices may go up and down depending on how many certificates are issued, how professional traders behave, and how technology progresses.
So, I'd suggest the following for any nation or country:
1. Create an independent institution (like the European Central Bank) with the goal to get to carbon neutrality until, say, 2040 or 2045.
2. Give it the right to tax carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. This should include tariffs for imported goods, and reimbursements for exported goods, and other means to make some special industries pay (airplanes and ships, mostly).
3. Give it the right to perform auctions for negative carbon emissions.
If the world wants a chance to fix the problem, it'll need negative emissions, as far as I know. This is missing in your suggestion. It may also be faster to create new industries than change existing ones.
My suggestion would also follow a well-known, although maybe no uncontroversial principle of "polluter pays". In the end, the price is determined by the goal, not by political considerations.
If I'm not mistaken, such a carbon tax would rise until (positive) carbon emissions equal negative carbon emissions. At this point, carbon neutrality should be reached. Whatever else needs to be done is then up to future generations.
I think the difficulty here is getting a consensus on #1.
If it's an international effort, there's going to be disagreement on how to set a budget. Does a country with an emerging economy get a higher budget because they're behind more advanced economies who benefited from fossil fuels in their past growth? Getting advanced economies to make a disproportionate sacrifice will be a hard sell. And what is the accountability/oversight mechanism at the international level?
If instead the budget was set at the national level, you're going to have a hard time getting countries on-board if they see other countries not doing the same. "Why should we hamper our economy when country X isn't making a sacrifice?"
Sure. The Citizens need to be very willing to take sacrifices despite other countries not being onboard (yet). But they can if they want to!
In principal this already works in many cases, eg California/US subsidies on electric vehicles or Germany’s subsidies for solar. Both are very expensive with little benefit for the countries citizens compared to all other earthlings. To everyone else. They are just not aggressive enough.
Again, we don’t need an international consensus yet. The interesting part is putting financial pressure on foreign companies to reduce their CO2 footprint.
Agreed. Most every problem is solvable if there's the will to do it. The problem in this case is that there doesn't seem to be the political/social will to make the changes and sacrifices necessary for this scale.
It's unfortunate, but most people are very present-biased. It's a tough sell to convince them to adopt a forward thinking policy when it causes pain now. Maybe I'm cynical, but if you offered people to vote on whether to double the price of gasoline in order to subsidize renewables because it will be better in the long-run, I doubt that would pass.
This approach is called "cap and trade" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading), and the main political problem with it is that most of the people arguing for it turned out to be doing so in bad faith, at least here in the United States.
When there were lots of options for dealing with emissions on the table, including more intrusive ones like carbon taxes and outright emissions restrictions, cap and trade was the favored alternative of conservatives because it was "market-based." When President Obama settled on cap and trade in 2009 in order to get conservatives on board with doing something about climate, though, those same conservatives immediately turned on their heel and started denouncing it as an example of Obama's "socialism."
(Yes, they went from praising a policy as market-based to condemning the same policy as socialist. Such is the sorry state of American political discourse.)
So, the political problem is: if the appeal of cap and trade is that it should theoretically get the support of conservatives who would usually oppose action on climate, but those conservatives will stop supporting it the moment all the other options they like less are taken off the table, is there any point in offering them a cap and trade olive branch in the first place? How do you negotiate with a faction whose only goal for the negotiation is that you have to lose?
Exactly. And sure, some people might move away because of this issue. But unless people start starving a majority won’t leave their homes. They will just revoke the legislation.
I don't particularly like the idea of coupling together one problem (poverty) with another (carbon).
For one thing, it will be a temporary windfall. Then you've got to find ways to replace the revenue when you succeed.
I'd rather see the revenue from a carbon tax go into research, development, and infrastructure that further accelerates the transition to carbon neutral energy.
Obviously, the tax already gives you an incentive to look for other alternatives, but this helps make those other alternatives more practical, so it kind of pushes and pulls you in the right direction.
Would be much better to give every citizen their share of the CO2 budget and then require them to spend them as they buy goods and services. This way you don't end up with bureaucrats giving favored, e.g. the company that promised said bureaucrat a huge annual salary post government service, businesses special treatment.
If a person can style their life in a such a way as to have CO2 budget left over at the end of the year, then they carry it over to the next year or allow them to sell it. But any system that doesn't involve giving the budget directly to citizens is broken and designed for graft and fuck that.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but that type of rationing in the U.S. only seems to work if there is a collective agreement on an existential crisis (e.g. WWII).
Unfortunately, there's still too much disagreement on climate change at the population level for that level of shared sacrifice.
If the proposal is mandatory restrictions on CO2 emissions then giving every citizen an equal share of the allowed emissions vastly beats giving those to industry or taxing people. Doing this also creates awareness about CO2 usage among the populace.
Opinions on climate change are irrelevant to my proposal to give the credits equally to everyone or some other scheme. If the population isn't in favor of a carbon regulatory regime, then it doesn't matter how it is implemented, we'll just replace the politicians who act outside of our preferences. The point of giving everyone their share is that it is literally fair and not just a scheme to enrich carbon alarmists or activists.
Of course the lack of opportunity for graft and criminality is exactly why my proposal won't happen. But we should tar and feather any pol or bureaucrat who implements any other scheme.
> Opinions on climate change are irrelevant to my proposal
How would such a proposal be enacted to begin with?
My comment was that for a proposal like that to be passed initially, it would almost certainly need the support of a politician's respective constituents. Anything else would be political suicide and have slim-to-no chance of even getting debated. Blame it on lobbying, or career politicians, or whatever else but that's the reality in the U.S.
There's lots of ways that carbon reduction system could work. If it's largely a man-made problem there's probably many man-made solutions. But, outside of dictatorial solutions, you have to start with the democratic political will to see it changed.
I was just responding to the proposal put forward upstream with a number of points enumerated. Things can be dictatorial but fair. And realistically I think most western countries can maintain their current standard of living while reducing emmisssions, as I too believe we are capable of solutions. It doesn't mean sacrifice if carbon became part of the economy. Honestly it could be the unit of exchange if we chose to make it so.
> The accuracy of their predictions are chilling — they anticipated (in their "21st Century Study-High Growth Scenario") that in 2020 atmospheric CO2 levels would fall between 400 and 420 ppm. They also foresaw the accompanying sea level rise, melting of polar ice sheets, change of rainfall patterns, and agricultural failures.
Wow. How does this compare to other predictions at the time?
Maybe they were somewhat later, but Shell oil knew too. They did similar research and came to the same conclusions. Here is a video they made in 1991 warning about climate change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTlYYlRN0LY
We all knew. I learned about CO2 greenhouse warming in high school in 1974. At a lecture at the University of Trondheim, Norway, around 1980, (in)famous physicist Edward Teller joked that we of all people shouldn't be worried about global warming.
This! I've noticed a pattern recently of headlines that person X or company Y "knew all the way back in the 70s/80s". The real tragedy is that we have delayed doing anything about it for so long, people are now "rediscovering" the original warnings as if they are historical revelations.
As a quick refresher: the original climate deal, the Kyoto Protocol, was signed in 1992, by then everyone was well on board with the science. In fact, the climate negotiations were spun off from the convention on reducing CFCs (Vienna Convention of 1985), which are important greenhouse gases as well as being damaging to the ozone layer. It was thought (correctly) at the time that because CFCs were produced and used in a limited number of places, it would be much easier to resolve that problem and move the wider greenhouse gas negotiations into a separate treaty, which took another 7 years until 1992.
I know Teller wanted to come across as calm and respectable so that people would take him seriously, but if he could look back now he would probably have acted like a deranged lunatic preaching in the streets about the dangers of carbon pollution.
I also think the same of Carl Sagan. For all his wonderful and critical achievements, I bet if he could see how things turned out, he would have unquestioningly devoted his life to spreading awareness about climate change here on Earth instead of focusing on astronomy and nuclear war.
No surprises there. I don't understand why it took so long to uncover the truth. Even today, they are just playing the long game using the same tactics that the tobacco industry used and deny, deny and deny some more.
Hopefully this company one day will be prosecuted.
It's not hard to imagine that in the future there will be some kind of Nuremberg trials against people involved in deliberate climate disinformation campaigns.
World's richest 10% produce half of global carbon emissions [0] If my math is right, if the top decile reduced their emissions at least to the level of the second decide, the global emissions would fall by 30%.
Dear HN crowd, I bet a fair share of us belongs to the top 10%, please reduce your emissions.
True. And to be honest I am not sure how lifestyle emissions are calculated. Does it include the cost of manufacturing and bringing goods to the market? Can't we argue that most emissions are ultimately lifestyle related?
Maybe no help from Exxon, but US per capita CO2 has been decreasing since 1978. But China and India have increased per capita, which is scary given their huge populations.
Both US population and absolute US greenhouse gas emissions have been growing over time. Population has simply grown proportionally faster than emissions. So yes, US emissions per capita have decreased over time, but total US emissions have been rising, and that's what affects climate.
US emissions have declined about 15% in absolute terms since the early 2000s. That’s a billion tons less per year. Unfortunately China added about 10 billion tons a year in the same period so it didn’t help very much.
I'm embarrassed that I didn't know total annual US CO2e emissions have _dropped_ since circa 2005. My only source when I wrote my comment was the in-browser graph in the Wolfram Alpha search result for "us greenhouse gas emissions history" (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+greenhouse+gas+emis...), which presents a data period of only 1990-2005. A more complete source is https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/.
Thank you for reminding me not to hastily extrapolate data when it happens to fit my expectation of what's going on, and when actual data are readily available.
The thing is: we are cutting emissions, but it probably won’t save the planet, if China and India keep growing. The “fairness“ of per capita usage is a separate issue from climate change
US per capita is still higher the China and India. It seems that the US thinks they are more entitled to output more per capita simply because they are decreasing.
the US is still an order of magnitude higher than India in per capita emissions
I made a choice-based game a few months ago about dealing with the political realities of climate change, inspired by Sara Teasdale and Ray Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains.
Remember this the next time someone tries to tell you that oil companies are just giving customers what they demand and that the companies themselves aren’t at fault.
The individualization of environmental problems is a serious obstacle. "We need to stop buying and using plastic water bottles" needs to become "Pepsico and Coke need to stop producing trash."
Almost everyone on HN recognizes that climate change is an existential threat to (most) life on earth. There is less agreement on how to mitigate it's effects.
One solution which I favor is nationalization of US oil companies. While hardly discussed in the US, it's a solution that is currently being discussed in the UK and has been done by many different countries, though usually because of the legacy of imperialism and colonialism. Overtime I have come to the realization free market solutions and incentives are incapable of spurring the changes needed to transition to a cleaner form of energy, especially with the short time scale we have before results are disastrous.
> One solution which I favor is nationalization of US oil companies.
Can you explain your reasoning behind this? It makes no sense to me.
This is fundamentally an economic issue. People will stop burning carbon when it's less expensive to do something else. If you nationalize the industry only to shut it down, that causes the cost of burning oil to increase (the intended effect), but then the higher prices spur foreign suppliers to increase production which blunts the effect. Meanwhile you suffer a massive domestic loss as you not only have to pay higher oil prices, you have to pay them to foreign suppliers like Russia and Saudi Arabia rather than domestic companies.
By contrast, a carbon tax reduces demand and makes production less profitable world-wide, so everyone reduces production (not just domestic producers), and the money from the higher prices goes to your own government which can either use it to subsidize alternatives or return it to citizens to mitigate the impact of the higher costs.
"Almost everyone on HN recognizes that climate change is an existential threat to (most) life on earth."
No. There are no even remotely plausible scenarios in which most life (say, all mammals, to pick something specific) go extinct due to climate change caused by human CO2 emissions. If you think that, you have been lied to - and have not been smart enough to recognize the lies.
"Unless nations step up their efforts to protect what natural habitats are left, they could witness the disappearance of 40 percent of amphibian species, one-third of marine mammals and one-third of reef-forming corals. More than 500,000 land species, the report said, do not have enough natural habitat left to ensure their long-term survival."
Talk of "efforts to protect what natural habitats are left" does not seem to relate to warming from CO2 emissions. Except, that is, that if you're concerned about protecting habitats, you should be concerned about some of the boondoggles destroying them that are justified by "global warming" alarmism - such as replacing natural forests with monocultures of trees that are converted to pellets and shipped long distances to be burned in place of coal. See https://www.draxbiomass.com
These percentages represent the percent of species currently threatened with extinction. The report makes it clear that the conditions which created our current ecological collapse are accelerating:
"Human actions threaten more species with global extinction now than ever before. An average of around 25 per cent of species in assessed animal and plant groups are threatened(figure SPM.3), suggesting that around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss. Without such action there will be a further acceleration in the global rate of species extinction, which is already at least tens to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years."
The report doesn't factor in insect decline and how that will effect the rest of the foodchain (they are the words biggest pollinators). It does bring up the staggering loss of insect biomass:
"Population declines often give warning that a species’ risk of extinction is increasing. The Living Planet Index, which synthesises trends in vertebrate populations, has declined rapidly since 1970, falling by 40% for terrestrial species, 84% for freshwater species and 35% for marine species (established but incomplete){2.2.5.2.4}. Local declines of insect populations such as wild bees and butterflies have often been reported, and insect abundance has declined very rapidly in some places even without large-scale land-use change, but the global extent of such declines is not known (established but incomplete){2.2.5.2.4}. On land, wild species that are endemic (narrowly distributed) have typically seen larger-than-average changes to their habitats and shown faster-than-average declines (established but incomplete)."
Edit: also, in the future, let's refrain from the "not smart enough to understand" style arguments on HN.
> Talk of "efforts to protect what natural habitats are left" does not seem to relate to warming from CO2 emissions.
They're connected. I mean, everything is.
Even if we didn't emit so much CO2, we destroy habitat for other species through agriculture and forest harvesting. And if we hadn't destroyed so much habitat, there'd be lots more slack for CO2 emissions.
And as you say, destroying habitat through biomass energy production -- whether it's fast-growing trees for pellets, or palm oil for biodiesel -- just makes it worse.
I was in a hurry, and didn't say how habitat loss increases extinction rates from global warming. The issue is habitat fragmentation. We degrade/destroy habitat for other species through agriculture, forest modification and harvesting, urbanization, road building, etc. But that not only decreases the amount of high-quality habitats. It also fragments habitats.
Without global warming, habitat fragmentation hurts other species in various ways. At some point, fragments become too small to support viable populations for many species. Especially larger animals, for example. But overall, it's not a huge issue, relative to the amount of habitat loss itself.
However, with global warming, habitat fragmentation becomes a huge issue. As the planet warms, species tend to shift toward the poles, more or less, to stay in habitats that they're adapted to. But when habitats are fragmented, that can't happen. And so you end up with isolated populations on mountains, for example. Given that "up" ~ "away from the equator". And with further warming, there's no more up, so they die off. One mitigation is creating habitat corridors. Through cities and farmland. Across roads, using bridges or tunnels. You can see habitat bridges in I-78 in eastern New Jersey.
Another factor is the speed of anthropogenic global climate change. It's too fast now for evolutionary adaptation.
Cutting off your thumb and half your forefinger is one-third of your hand, and I'm ok calling that 'most of' in context, especially if I hope to ever grasp things again :P
Almost every one of your posts here is to refute climate change.
Someone could be forgiven for thinking you have an interest in fossil fuels.
Edit: I see from your CV that you have a history of working with the fossil fuel industry - specifically, Exxon in Calgary in the early 80’s. I think it’s safe to disregard anything you have to say on the topic.
> Please don't make insinuations about astroturfing. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried, email us and we'll look at the data.
Besides this, it's rude to address other community members this way. Just email us at hn@ycombinator.com if you have such concerns, we take them seriously and we have better options for addressing them.
You appear to be unable to count. I've posted occasionally on climate change, but these are nowhere close to "almost every one" of my posts.
I have never worked for Exxon. I've no idea how you came up with that idea. I once worked briefly, 39 years ago, for a company that did production accounting for oil wells. I once worked, 30 years ago, for a SCADA company that may have had oil industry customers, though my recollection is that they had more to do with municipal water systems. The tendency of global warming alarmists to claim, on no evidence whatsoever, that any critic is funded by the fossil fuel industry is one of their most despicable characteristics (up their with trying to equate their critics with Holocaust deniers).
Fwiw, I was expecting your quote to include a number >50%. Not that this wouldn’t be catastrophic, but most does mean more than 50% :).
Edit: though now I’m curious by percentage of animals (presumably 40% of species may be, or even is likely, more than 40% of animals, because of power-law-style distributions).
Eh? There absolutely are plausible scenarios. For example, the Permian-Triassic extinction event was probably the result of runaway warming, perhaps as a result of the "clathrate gun": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
This event resulted in 96% of marine species dying and 70% of land animals dying. I don't think anyone thinks such an event is certain or likely, but it is surely a "remote possibility".
Of course we can’t agree it’s an existential threat. If you consider the people who study existential threats in general, climate change doesn’t even make the list.
I think we can agree there is a some risk of higher costs if climate change is ignored.
So Venezuela nationalized their petroleum, I think Mexico did something similar. And Iran. I don’t see where those actions have kerbed the export or internal use of petroleum.
Nationalizing those industries and using tariffs to stabilize at a higher price would accelerate adoption of better technology. You could implode demand for natural gas and fuel oil by raising prices and capturing profits to capitalize heat pump adoption in the northeast, for example.
...and you'd likely elect a populist in 4 years that would wrench open the spigots. Dramatically. Live. On cable news.
I'm fully in favor of "keep it in the ground." But nationalization isn't necessarily the right way. In fact: if someone sufficiently wealthy were able to buy up certain strategic assets, they'd be able to resist public pressure to reopen them. For instance, if you had bought Arch Coal at its nadir when it went bankrupt for about $1.4 billion, you would've had control over 16% of America's coal supply. From what I can tell, billions of tons of coal. You could shut it down for pennies on the dollar versus any carbon sequestration scheme.
Or buy up and close down export terminals (and revitalize the property around them if in urban areas, making back your money easily while crippling the profitability of coal mining in the US).
If it was nationalized, it could as likely go the way of Venezuela, which has (until recently) actually extremely subsidized petroleum consumption.
IMHO, government power should be used to tax these things what they're polluting (the stick), develop regulations while strongly subsidizing clean alternatives (the carrot). Nationalizing the oil industry and jacking up prices is just going to make people mad at you while enabling a successor to completely undo your work.
Aren’t the people who fought nuclear power in the 80’s just as culpable? Would there still be any coal plants running if we’d started to move to carbon free sources back then?
Those earlier articles made educated guesses that the greenhouse effect would eventually come in to play. Exxon attempted to model the effect to work out the possible impact.
I (not a mod, just your a regular HN user) think it's perfectly fine to post your own content. As long as you don't spam it, and you don't post over-flattering headlines for it. And definitely way better than posting your content under a guise of an "unafilliated" friend. It will reach the front page and stay here only if it's good, so who cares if it came straight from the wolf's mouth.
Also pretty creepy that people go down post comments history to check who it is and where you 're coming from. Eh.
I generally don’t look at post/comment history except out of general curiosity myself. It’s not like the stuff posted here is private, and it’s probably more permanent than most sites.
I also post under effectively my real life identity. Could eventually regret that, but there’s definitely downsides to the alternative approaches to online identity too.
The second part describes a thing I regularily do as "pretty creepy". To clarify: before deciding to flag, downvote or vouch for someone I might have a look at their comment history to see if I am misunderstanding something.
Also if someone posts something nice I look through their history to find more good comments.
I don't think I'm the only one who does this and in fact I'd recommend it instead of blindly thinking "troll" and hit downvote and flag whenever one sees something one doesn't agree with.
Downote is for comments that don't contribute positively to the discussion. Flagging is for more egregious violations of community guidelines.
Whether a comment deserves either of those does not in any way depend on the commenter's posting history and to reference posting history in applying them is problematic in a manner akin to the ad hominem fallacy, in that it substitutes a general judgement of the source of an utterance when what is called for is a judgement on the utterance itself.
I did not mean to offend you. And I am sorry I used that terminology. To me it felt odd that if you reach the front page suddenly eyes are looking at your history and everything you have done.
If you put yourself out there, suddenly eyes are watching everything. That seemed a bit scary (and again sorry for using emotional words), though of course makes sense why it happens.
But in general, I fully agree with you. There are many reasons to do it, and perhaps it's even helpful when something is not clear and you want to understand better where someone is coming from, as you said.
> If you put yourself out there, suddenly eyes are watching everything. That seemed a bit scary (and again sorry for using emotional words), though of course makes sense why it happens.
I'm painfully aware. Which is why I often use this account :-)
> Apologies again.
No need for that after you cleared it up. I might even have been too harsh myself. I actually prefer if there is some room for thought here and I might have read more into your original post than you intended.
What do we expect? If your purpose in life was found to be a total lie. Do you bury the truth and deny it to yourself and the world? Or do you commit suicide?
Every fossil fuel company is going to lie their pants off because that's what you and all other humans would do if they got into the same situation.
> Every fossil fuel company is going to lie their pants off because that's what you and all other humans would do if they got into the same situation.
Speak for yourself.
1. A good number of people actually have a spine. I'd not say the majority "is good && have a spine" but enough that you are lying.
2. It doesn't help at all to spread the lie that everyone else lying.
Speaking as someone who has been embarassingly honest, and who also admires his friend who came back and admitted he'd been laughing at me behind my back.
Speak for myself? I speak for humanity. And did you just call me a liar? Maybe a better way to disagree with me is to say you think I'm mistaken than to call me a liar.
What do you think religion is except for one big lie? Muslims and Christian's can't both be right, either one of them is right or neither of them. That puts a major portion of the world population gauraunteed to be delusional. Delusional behavior as a corporation like Exxon follows. This is logic you can't deny it.
You apparently are better than most humans since you brag about your ability to be embarrassingly honest.
Social sciences and questions about how a mass population would behave are always fuzzy. Some people would and some people wouldn't. My argument is that most people would lie to others and themselves, so much so that it encompasses the greater majority. Although I said all people, I would argue that common sense implies the phrase "almost all" because such absolute answers don't exist in the social sciences or sciences in general.
Also I didn't emphasize hard choices involving death. I was referring to life's work. Something you believed to be true your entire life and suddenly you have to give it all up because it's not true. (Think religion and evolution). There are examples of people slowly accepting the truth rather than instantly but even those are few and far in between. To maintain the illusion people build scaffolds like intelligent design to make sure their old frameworks fit the new ones.
I'm not talking about coexistence either. There is no need to bring that topic up. The only fact to support my thesis here is that part of the population is verfiably delusional for sure.
I also disagree with you about honesty. It's more complex than that. People can lie to themselves. Their biases can mold their behavior to the point where they deny logic. One religion must be wrong and those people will fight to the death for their beliefs just like how a fossil fuel company must be wrong and they will fight to the deaths for their beliefs.
Option 3 is what people admire but it is not human behavior. Throughout history people and corporations have chosen to lie to themselves and others rather than accept a cold hard truth.
Even if a fossil fuel company did the right thing, unfortunately all it takes is another fossil fuel company doing the wrong thing so that the end result is the same. The only difference is that the companies who did the right thing just get screwed. You need regulation to force every company to do the right thing so that no 1 company can screw it for everyone else.
Honestly you won't even find one fossil fuel company that will admit it. It's not human nature to do this. The data shows this both among people and corporations.
You are correct, regulation is the only path forward. The problem is, when you give too much freedom to a capitalistic society, the major capitalists aka corporations seem to take control. The corporations in turn take their power and influence the very regulatory bodies that are suppose to keep them in check.
Having now been in China for several weeks this beating the drum trying to make americans feel guilty (and give power over to other people) is absolutely absurd. You want to control pollution the first places to start are china and india. The US in comparison produces negligible impact.
That is simply not true. The US may not produce as much visible pollution anymore, but we still emit a ton of carbon.
Canada, Australia, and Saudi Arabia are all about as much or more than us but China is significantly less per capita.
It’s my understanding that America has contributed to the majority of total emissions since fossil fuel use began. I’ve heard that recently China has eclipsed us in annual emissions, but we still emit a lot of CO2 (and probably the most per capita). We have the power to develop new technologies and were the ones who benefitted from the majority of historical carbon emissions. With that information it seems to me justified to push Americans to act on climate change.
Nonsense. The US produces more than double the CO2 per capita as China.
As usual, total numbers are meaningless without scaling them by population. If China split into 100 independent states tomorrow, they wouldn't be a problem anymore by your metric, even if they produce exactly the same amount of CO2 as they do now.
Fair comparison with roughly equal population: Europe, the US, and Australia combined vs. China. And the former group produces more CO2 than the latter.
Surely, as far as the planet's concerned, the total numbers matter more than per capita. If, say, Andorra hypothetically had the largest per-capita numbers by an order of magnitude, that still wouldn't make them the biggest threat to the planet, nor would it Andorra the most effective place to target activism.
Also, if you look at the trendlines, the US's per capita numbers are going down, while the China's and India's are going up with no signs of slowing. So is their population growth. The US is currently "taking care of itself" more or less, but China and India (already # 1 and #3 in total carbon numbers) are getting worse at a frightening pace. If we spend all of our energy focusing on the US, even if we're extraordinarily successful there, we'll look around in 20 years and see we lost progress globally. As though we didn't heed Amdahl's law and spent all of our time optimizing the wrong function. The most important thing we can do is find some way for China and (especially) India to grow their economies and pull their citizens out of poverty in a way that doesn't destroy the planet.
It would make Andorra and countries similar to Andorra the most effective place to target activism, assuming the total population of those countries was large enough to be meaningful.
According to Wikipedia, there are 41 countries with more emissions per capita than China, including some with large populations like the US, Japan, Germany, Australia, South Korea, Russia...
Really, my point is that it's wrong to think in terms of "countries" because country boundaries are arbitrary. Like, if there were one small town with 1000x the per capita emissions as the US, it wouldn't matter. What matters is the number of people multiplied by the amount they emit.
I edited in a 2nd paragraph about trendlines while you were responding, sorry about that.
Country boundaries aren't arbitrary because they are where policies are made. If you could just pick the top 1-billion polluting individual humans in the world and focus on them, that would be ideal. But that obviously doesn't work. You have to operate on the level of political groups. Nation states are the most obvious groups because they can respond to geopolitical pressures.
> it's wrong to think in terms of "countries" because country boundaries are arbitrary
Policies and social behaviors (enforced by nations or voluntary) are not. People cause the pollution we're talking about, so we have to deal with them as they are.
> What matters is the number of people multiplied by the amount they emit.
Pointing to per capita rather than aggregate is a deflection. Either the environment is in practical danger and we need to reduce total aggregate emissions, or we need to do that AND need to mildly reduce emissions through personal responsibility (virtue signaling) leading to "eventual good" by habit forming. Either way the aggregate matters most, per capita least.
I believe that the situation will come down to a trade war before a physical war, which still involves nations and absolute measures. Once those measures are involved, then per capita will become a factor internally (to the nations involved). Convince me otherwise. I will not reply, but I will read/listen. I'm genuinely interested in the train of thought that other people follow.
Adding to what others have stated much of China's pollution comes from producing the endless stream of consumerist crap Americans are uniquely addicted to.
2009 article: Data from 1900 up to 2004 "The US has the biggest historical share (314,772m metric tonnes of carbon dioxide), while European countries such as Germany (73,625) and the UK (55,163) cast a shadow over developing nations such as India (25,054), Brazil (9,136) and Indonesia (6,167). China is on 89,243."
