Seems people are very taken aback by the "extremist rhetoric" of the group publishing this. Two comments:
1. Focus on the actual report, the leaked files. Top right corner, or somewhere here on HN there's a link to it. That document is the primary source here and might fit your taste better. Judge for yourselves what conclusions are presented there and whether those match the "extremist" ones you complain about.
2. To be completely clear here I'm more convinced than ever that any moderate response (and rhetoric) about the climate crisis at this point is the truly extremist stance to take. Recently courts have ruled that any semblance of incremental changes are, at this point, endangering the very lives of future and current generations. See e.g. the Shell case, I think in the Netherlands, or the recent constitutional court ruling in Germany.
It would've been much better served for OP to link to the actual IPCC report, so we could have a substantive conversation about climate, rather than everyone (understandably) being taken aback by the extremist and communist arc of the current link.
(I've been reading the report, and it's definitely worth seeing even if you despise this "Science Rebellion" website).
Maybe some mods can change the link to the pdfs?
In any case they're not difficult to find and I trust the HN crowd wants to see the primary source anyhow.
"Delayed action increases challenges to both economic and societal feasibility after 2030"
This is coming from the historically conservative IPCC. They're still incorporating carbon capture technology that doesn't exist or doesn't exist at scale in projections (see C2.4 on page 17 of the PDF). While they admit in C8.2 (page 23) that these technologies are still in pilot stages and require commercialization, I would have liked there to have been more analysis of the risk that these technologies won't work at scale in section C10. Is it a near certainty we figure CCS out and the challenges are political and economic, or are there uncertain scientific and engineering challenges that remain?
Why is it always in the future? We have ALREADY, REPEATEDLY, delayed action and we are CURRENTLY experiencing challenges in both economic and societal feasibility.
We've heard previously that we would have to make changes by 2010 to have a decent chance, and before that it was by 2000, and before that it was by 1980. No matter how many red line dates we pass, there's always another created. I suppose there's always a worse situation that we'll be in by some future date while we continue to do nothing, but in that case choosing a date is completely arbitrary as every second that passes is worse than the previous.
the 1980 one is a bit disingenuous though, as climate scientists believed that we were going to move into an ice age unless we did something to stop it.
I am glad to see sunshine on this matter, but...boy, that site is rather extreme. [UPDATE] I'm talking about the site; not the report.
I do believe that climate change is an existential threat, and am rather disappointed that it looks like I'll get a front-row seat for the start of things, during my lifetime.
It's just that I think extreme rhetoric, and extremist positions, are making global cooperation almost impossible.
I saw how extreme this page was but didn't even check out how ludicrously extreme the rest of the website was — they have an "action guide" on how to smash windows [1]. As if cracking a window or throwing paint will somehow... help the environment, or rally people to their cause?
Some even believe that a country without a strong federal state would be better for the environment by killing a lot of incentives that the strong federal state provides to gas and oil companies.
I first thought that you meant the report itself, which I don't think is the case.
But after reading you comment again, I think you mean the site itself and I would agree.
Good thing, that the report itself is the main publication and will be processed by the various media outlets around the world, who will find a more suitable communcation style.
I can live with halting all private combustion, but how do we get there?
Who takes the hardest hit? Trick question. The answer is always "The poorest people."
Unless we have a world war (which is likely to have an effect on the climate), where a dictatorial regime conquers all of the world, and imposes these types of things by fiat, we need to learn to work together, which does mean making compromises, and looking at root causes that may be several degrees removed, such as global poverty.
Poverty is something that can be found at the root of so many troubles, yet people aren't particularly interested in addressing it. I have family that have been very involved in addressing poverty, and it's a tremendous problem. They are now engaged in an effort to get groups of people with widely divergent opinions and competing interests, to work together (to address poverty, and other pressing issues).
It's really not simple, at all. When we go into "extreme" mode, our thinking becomes "binary." We -quite literally- become unable to even conceive ideas that would actually fix things.
I guess people can just freeze, or use the wildly less efficient electric grid to heat their homes (seriously, resistive heating is the least efficient, moreso considering the waste in generating it with heat and then inefficiencies with transmission.
If you're going to use electricity to heat, at least mine bitcoin or something.
Yep to your first point. Even if we count in heat pumps (or geothermal heat pumps and how expensive they are), you're still probably better off using a newer wood stove (old ones were pretty shit)
Wood stoves in forested places directly contributes to the local economies compared to spending $$$ on the infrastructure necessary for other types of energy. It also adds a capital incentive to keep growing trees and not turning them into cattle-ground.
It's upsetting to see this flagged for no understandable reason to me other than not liking the scientists rebellion's politics. The documents they leaked are vitally important given the immediate dangers of climate change. Whether you think their philosophy is extreme or not, it can't be denied that suppressing the sharing of leaked information from the IPCC is stifling the understanding to this crisis. Their language is extreme, but that is a result of the inaction and severity of the crisis. We have less than 10 years to completely change the global economic system to stave off the worst possible outcomes, civilization wide collapse. That is extreme, and it does no favors to not be alarmist about a situation so alarming. Maybe you don't agree with them, but instead of harping on their language as proving your point, try reading the report they leaked instead of flagging it
Meta: I posted the original material as ipfs links in a comment here, but it seems to have been flagged? I don't see anything in the guidelines that would justify this, besides "crap links". Was this an automatic flag?
Does anyone know if there is a better quality PDF available? I'd like to be able to search the document and copy and paste text, but it doesn't seem possible with this version
I 100% believe in climate change. Seems like these guys really want a strong central government that what to influence everything from my diet to combat climate change. <sarcasm> It sounds like they will do in a fair and equitable manner, so that doesn't sound so bad </sarcasm>. I think the solution is more simple and relies on the free market. Just tax carbon appropriately.
> justice, equity and redistribution are essential to climate policy
> death cult of conservative economics
> we must abandon economic growth, which is the basis of capitalism
I've worked in environmental sciences, and am in the political sphere, and I'm really shocked at seeing an IPCC report attached to what looks like clear leftist propaganda, identifiable by its vocabulary, being upvoted on HN.
Clean energy and less waste is the future. Economic growth is also the future. These can coexist. Attaching this all to communist talk-points around "redistribution" is so 2021 far-left, it's really jarring, and would be humorous if not frightening.
Climate change is a serious issue, almost certainly the greatest issue of this century, and politicizing it into some communist arc is the absolute worst thing one could do to help enact change. It only sets us back.
Edit: Here comes the downvotes, appears someone really wants this to be received positively.
These are the demands of Scientist Rebellion, from their "About Us" page on that site:
• To achieve decarbonisation on the required scale demands economic degrowth, at least in the short term. This does not necessarily require a reduction in living standards.
• For a just transition, the cost of degrowth must be paid for by the wealthiest, who have benefited enormously from the current destructive world order, while others have faced the consequences.
• A just transition to a sustainable system requires the wealth from the 1% to be used for the common benefit.
Sure, it's a leftist position. But these ideas are increasingly popular and probably worth debating on HN as well.
The linked page includes leaked sentences from the report, including:
> Transition pathways entail distributional consequences such as changes in employment and economic structure
> Equity and justice are important enabling conditions for effective climate mitigation. Institutions and governance that address equity and supporting narratives that promote just transitions can build broader support for climate policymaking
> Collective action through formal social movements and informal lifestyle movements expands the potential for climate policy and supports system change
"Fifty-six percent of registered voters in the March 5-8 survey said wealth inequality is a significant problem facing the country and billionaires paying a wealth tax is a part of the solution."
I don't have historical poll data at hand, so I don't know how this has changed over time. My impression that it's become a more popular proposition recently (since the start of the pandemic) might be wrong.
Thanks for your reply, it doesn't really cover all the arguments you mentioned, particularly about economic degrowth which I don't believe is so popular outside turbo leftists.
France recently removed wealth tax, because it's too easy to fraud and just made it harder for wealthy people to spend their money in France. I suppose the experience will be the same in the US.
It's very far-left and unpopular, and I think their positions can easily be dismissed on HN as ludicrous if not dangerous. It's always good to have discussions on climate change and learn more about the current state of it, and I think the IPCC report accomplishes that, but this website itself is awful.
Their website provides "action guides" [1] on how to smash windows or throw paint, as if that's going to help the environment or rally people to their cause. It's basically a younger, communist, and even more ineffective Greenpeace.
To me SRs points seem fully compatible with (strongly) progressive taxation to finance meaningful Anti-CO2 measures; calling that "communist" looks like an inaccurate, americanist slur to me.
Whether unceasing economic growth is compatible with hitting emission goals is a numbers game in the end and has little to do with ideology: At some point, no amount of "greenification" will allow positive growth, because the efforts of de-carbonizing alone might already be too costly emission-wise, and reducing consumption would be inevitable then without sacrificing the goals.
All I know is that we basically knew all of the facts for the last 40 years without much to show for, so continuing "conservative economics" does not seem too promising to me.
> It shows that we must abandon economic growth, which is the basis of capitalism.
These people are insane. Not only they don't understand basic economics, but they are also brainwashed by far-left ideology. I see no possibility to have rational discussion with these people. It is just pathetic to have those insane people working in a science field which is somehow connected public policy.
1. Focus on the actual report, the leaked files. Top right corner, or somewhere here on HN there's a link to it. That document is the primary source here and might fit your taste better. Judge for yourselves what conclusions are presented there and whether those match the "extremist" ones you complain about.
2. To be completely clear here I'm more convinced than ever that any moderate response (and rhetoric) about the climate crisis at this point is the truly extremist stance to take. Recently courts have ruled that any semblance of incremental changes are, at this point, endangering the very lives of future and current generations. See e.g. the Shell case, I think in the Netherlands, or the recent constitutional court ruling in Germany.