[TRDRVR]

I’ve heard a lot of denialists push the Tonga volcano and resultant water vapor in the stratosphere as evidence that climate change is more complex than we understand.

I always whole heartedly agree that it’s very complex, but we do know introducing novel gases to various parts of the atmosphere is generally chaotic and something to be avoided when we can.

[psychlops]

Where do you listen to denialists?

[yareal]

Plenty of them make their way to hn. Give this article enough time in the front page and you'll have a chance to listen to them.

[jl6]

I find the term denialist really unhelpful. It’s a polarizing thought-terminating cliche.

Outright denial that climate change is happening is now rare. It’s hard to argue with hard data so only the looniest attempt it. We have a fair few people arguing that climate change is happening but that it’s natural and the human impact is negligible. These people are mostly ignorant and could potentially be described as in denial. But then we have a lot of people who agree that climate change is real, agree that humans are a major causative factor, but disagree on what to do about it. I don’t think these people deserve to be called denialists even if I disagree with them. It shuts down dissenting views, and I’m not ready to declare that I definitely know what the answer to climate change is. I think it should remain possible to express different views. I worry that someone will eventually decide things have got bad enough that we’re going to try some drastic risky geoengineering, and objectors will be denounced as denialists because that’s what we do to heterodox thought.

[dwaltrip]

There’s also the whole range from “it might be kinda bad but it’s not a top priority” to “it’s gonna be fine, someone will figure it out”, and so on.

There are many ways to downplay or avoid taking action.

[yareal]

I've encountered people who deny it's happening, deny it's manmade, deny it will have impact, deny it will have a negative impact, and deny we should prioritize any changes in behavior. All on HN. I don't care which of the above you are, you are a denialist if you fit into any of them.

[psychlops]

I find it hard to believe there are "plenty" as well. I was hoping for a link as I'm curious where these people congregate.

Science allows many different views, each with differing levels of proof. "Denialist" would be a term reserved for the intolerant who believe in one truth.

[claytongulick]

> denialists

I don't think that's a very good word.

It stratifies people into weird binary groups, while ignoring the reality that people have nuanced opinions, and many of those are quite reasonable.

It's a subtle form of "you're with us or against us", and disparages people who don't see things exactly the same way you do.

It's also used to move goal posts. I.e. if a person believes that yes, it's likely that humans are having some effect on climate, but that we aren't sure exactly what it is and how harmful it will be over a period of time - are they a "denier"?

It has its roots in holocaust denialism, and tries to paint folks skeptical of a single climate viewpoint with that same brush.

It doesn't further the discussion and encourages tribalism.

Inflammatory words like that are a barrier to quality discussion.

[jemmyw]

> if a person believes that yes, it's likely that humans are having some effect on climate, but that we aren't sure exactly what it is and how harmful it will be over a period of time - are they a "denier"?

Yes 100% they are a denier. This was a position that was valid in the 80s. It's also exactly the bs talking point spread by those who profit from us not moving away from fossil fuels. Confuse and delay as much as possible and discredit those pesky scientists with their models that can't decide if it'll be terrible or catastrophic.

[claytongulick]

Ah. So if they aren't with you they're against you. Nuance and moderation need not show up, all those "pesky" scientists with different opinions should take their science back to the 80s?

Got it. Why bother considering other opinions? It's obvious what the Truth is.

There's got to be some pitchforks and torches around here somewhere...

[exoverito]

Climate is the premier example of a non-linear chaotic system, as evoked with the butterfly effect and unreliability of weather forecasts more than a week out. Making predictions of the far future state of chaotic systems is obviously going to have wide error bars. In just the past couple thousand years there has been significant climate change with little ice ages and warm periods. Notably, the colder climates have generally been far more destructive to civilization than the warm periods.

A sober approach would weigh the pros and cons of climate change and cost benefit analyses of the various mitigation strategies. Climate alarmists advocate degrowth in the extreme, or spending many trillions on intermittent energy sources and impractical energy storage systems. This would obviously reduce human well-being as energy consumption per capita is tightly correlated with standards of living. The costs of climate change are still unknown, and it could very well be the case that higher CO2 levels do not increase global temperatures to catastrophic levels, as evident with life thriving during the Carboniferous Era. Increasing CO2 levels would also be beneficial due to the CO2 fertilization effect, effectively greening the Earth, while also increasing agricultural yields as observed in greenhouses. And if temperatures rise too much then stratospheric aerosol injection is always an option. Calcium carbonate could be a good alternative to sulfur dioxide since it doesn't react with ozone, and cooling the Earth is estimated to cost only a few billion a year.

Obviously energy independence and ecological preservation should still be pursued for their own sake. Yet we should be careful of succumbing to hysteria and malinvestment.

[collingreen]

Are global climate trends a non-linear, chaotic system the way short term local weather is? If not this sounds intentionally misleading.

I don't like to feed the trolls usually but I found it entertaining to see you mix and match a "be reasonable" tone with bonkers suggestions and irresponsible "just buy your way out of it later" proposals. In particular I laughed out loud when you handwaved away catastrophic temperature changes because we could try to intentionally change the climate by injecting aerosols. I guess that unpredictable, chaotic system is totally predictable when it supports the (in)action you prefer?

> And if temperatures rise too much then stratospheric aerosol injection is always an option.

This reads like bad faith.

[exoverito]

I also find it interesting that climate change has taken the role of eschatology for an increasingly secular society, and I say this as an atheist. The industrial revolution acts as original sin, mother nature will give us her final judgment, we must all atone by buying climate pledge products from Amazon, etc. Western secular liberals don't realize how religious they actually are.

We've observed the immediate effects of stratospheric aerosols in living history, as with volcanic eruptions and forest fires reducing temperatures significantly. We don't know their long term effects, though most aerosols only stay suspended in the atmosphere for a limited time. CO2 is a much less powerful greenhouse gas in absolute magnitude than aerosols are anti-greenhouse gases, so we don't need long range modelling to understand they can cool the Earth in the short term.

My point is that mitigation strategies like stratospheric aerosol injection would be far more effective in the worst case climate scenarios than trying to spend many trillions on direct air capture of CO2, intermittent energy sources, grid scale batteries, punitive regulations, etc. I also find it interesting that all the elites seem to relish in the climate change narrative, they bring Greta Thunberg to admonish them, they fly their private jets to the conferences, still own their beach front properties. Revealed preferences would suggest they don't actually believe it to be that big an issue, and that it's more likely yet another scheme for increasing their power and extracting wealth from the public.