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I find myself losing hope for humanity when I observe a significant portion of society in Germany, for instance, either voting for or intending to vote for a party known as the 'Alternative für Deutschland'. This party is primarily defined by what it opposes. Its supporters are often frustrated and resistant to evidence that their meat consumption contributes to climate change, or that fossil fuels exacerbate this global crisis. They seem to long for the past, harking back to the ways of the 1980s, and are generally resistant to change. They often resort to derogatory names for those advocating for environmental responsibility and believe in conspiracy theories about hidden powers controlling the media and society. These theories often involve notions of a deluge of immigrants designed to alter the fabric of Western societies and strip them of their privileges.

Engaging in rational debates with these individuals proves challenging, as they often dismiss any evidence presented as a sign that you are 'woke', deluded, or part of a clandestine group intent on their destruction.

> Engaging in rational debates with these individuals proves challenging, as they often dismiss any evidence presented as a sign that you are 'woke', deluded, or part of a clandestine group intent on their destruction.

I would debate you, by pointing out a lot of "green" policies disproportionately affect the working class, including AfD voters.

> frustrated and resistant to evidence that their meat consumption contributes to climate change

Start with banning private jets and asking the very wealthy to curtail their carbon footprint. Then asking everyday people to change their habits might be less than hollow words. Once the very privileged start leading by example, then others might follow. But of course, they won't do.

Germany's energy policy, eschewing nuclear, has not brought in a stable renewable energy system. It has destabilised Germany's political standing and made Germany overreliant on Russian gas.

I consider myself an environmentalist, which is why I don't spend time asking people to wear hair shirts.

I appreciate your thoughts and it's clear that you're engaged in this critical issue. Let me take a moment to address your objections and share a different perspective on some of the points you've raised.

1. *Impact of Human Activities:* A preponderance of scientific evidence supports the conclusion that human activities are causing climate change. A meta-study by Cook et al. in 2013 revealed a 97% consensus among publishing climate scientists that humans are causing global warming. This is supported by organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and NASA. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) and deforestation increase the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to global warming and resultant climate change.

2. *Impact on Working Class:* While it's true that some green policies could disproportionately affect the working class, it's also crucial to recognize that inaction on climate change will ultimately have severe socio-economic impacts, including on the working class. Rising sea levels, increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, disruptions to food and water supply, and an increase in climate-induced migration and conflict will have widespread impacts. Thus, a fair transition to a low-carbon economy is needed, ensuring that the costs and benefits are shared equitably. Government policies could help in achieving this by offering subsidies for renewable energies, facilitating job transition, and implementing progressive taxation.

3. *Carbon Footprint of the Wealthy:* You're absolutely correct that wealthier individuals have larger carbon footprints and should lead by example. A study in 2020 reported that the richest 1% of the population produce double the combined carbon emissions of the poorest 50%. Advocating for the reduction of carbon footprints at every socio-economic level, starting from the top, is integral to combatting climate change.

4. *Nuclear vs. Renewables:* While it's true that Germany's shift from nuclear power has led to some reliance on natural gas, this should not be viewed as a failure of renewable energy. Rather, it highlights the complexities of energy transitions, which are often fraught with political, economic, and technical challenges. Renewables, in general, have seen significant advancements, with solar and wind power becoming increasingly cost-competitive. They have also shown great potential in reducing emissions if deployed properly and coupled with adequate storage solutions.

5. *Individual vs. Systemic Change:* It's not about wearing "hair shirts," but rather promoting sustainable choices wherever feasible. Nevertheless, systemic changes are indeed needed to address the scale of the problem. Governments, corporations, and institutions have significant roles to play in facilitating this change. This doesn't exempt individuals from responsibility, but rather emphasizes that both individual actions and systemic changes are essential in mitigating climate change.

Addressing climate change requires a multifaceted approach that incorporates social justice, economic stability, and environmental sustainability. It's a complex issue, but the evidence is clear: human-induced climate change is real, and action needs to be taken now to prevent its most catastrophic impacts.

This is why I sometimes push back against posts that say people who vote Brexit or AfD are knuckle-dragging morons.

Because when you fail to hear what they are saying, issues get left unaddressed, and the ranks of the discontented continue to rise.

Can you ask it to provide references as well

It's a bit amazing to me how quickly we have all become experts on what is generated text and what is not. Part of it seems to be that the (extreme?) politeness of much generated text seems inhuman. Do humans have an edginess that LLMs cannot impersonate well?

I know that HN has a policy against generated text, and I learned about the policy by violating it unknowingly. A comment of mine voted to about 80 was then rapidly downvoted after @dang explained the policy to me.

On the one hand, I often prefer a good summary by an LLM to reading a lot of comments, and I like to share what I learn. On the other hand, banning generated text helps prevent a takeover by bots, and keeps the mission of HN focused on humans. After reflection, I found myself in favor of the policy. I can take what I learn from an LLM and write what I've learned in my own voice.

Sounds like the MAGA movement in the United States. I share your sentiment of losing hope.

It’s that the green movement is completely off the rails.

Remember that they caused the stopping of nuclear power plant.

Climate change is not a pressing issue, with the rise of renewable we will clean up our act way before it cause serious issues.

With regard to conservative voice (as a former liberal) I can tell you it’s the left voice that doesn’t understand the conservatives and the value they bring.

Changing things imply destruction, and the desire to change everything fast has consequences, thus a return to traditions has a lot of merits. I encourage you to look past your prejudice against them and see what is missing in your vision.

> Climate change is not a pressing issue

Where are you getting that image from? We're on a path to 2.0 Kelvin warming which will make large parts of the earth uninhabitable and displace billions of people. How is that not a pressing issue?

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> Remember that they caused the stopping of nuclear power plant.

In Germany they didn't. The plan to exit from nuclear power was enacted by a conservative coalition of CDU/FDP in 2011.

Funnily enough the year before they had dismantled the original exit plan from the year 2000 that was enacted by a coalition of SPD and the Green Party. But Fukushima happened and the old conservative position of "nuclear power good" suddenly became very, very unpopular in Germany.

> Climate change is not a pressing issue, with the rise of renewable we will clean up our act way before it cause serious issues.

That's not the scientific consensus on the issue and could not be further from the truth. We're already experiencing serious consequences from a changing climate. When we don't change now this will escalate to catastrophic consequences.

> it’s the left voice that doesn’t understand the conservatives and the value they bring.

Oh the left likely understands those values pretty well. They just happen to consider the promise of "everything will remain as it was" not so valuable when there is a high price to pay for refusing to change and adapt to a changing world.

> Changing things imply destruction, and the desire to change everything fast has

We would not have to move fast if the mostly conservative governments running Germany in the past 30 years would have used their time to gradually enact sufficient change.

> consequences, thus a return to traditions has a lot of merits.

There really never was a traditional world view or a way to live where everything was okay for everyone. But I'm not surprised you'd say that. Looking backwards and not forward is the core value of conservatism.

For green energy look at Tony Seba, everyone underestimate the progression of renewable (expodential growth, expodential reduction in cost)

For the priority for the world look at Bjorn Lombergs work. He used to be about super green policies but the more he digged the more he found that things didn’t add up. His work calculate what we should do, how it will cost, what effect it will have and when.

The point is to be effective in our policies. If we tax carbon (seems like a good idea) what effect does it have on the poorest of the planet? If we spend 1T$ on climate change how do we spend it, what impact will it have, when?

My view (by looking at Tony Seba work) and seeing the developpement of tech (Internet, AI, new plants varieties, etc) is that it 10-20 years will be in a much different world, and at this point with the current trajectory climate change will not be a concern anymore and we will wonder why didn’t we took care of the lives that were both easy and cheap to save. If anything population aging and collapse will be a far greater problem.

But it’s mostly a question of priority and effectiveness, I still think we should care about co2. If fact if we do we should be in China and India right now tryin to help them have more cheap and clean ernergy, they are those who are going to move the needle going forward. But I don’t think this is what we want to do. We want to put our plastic things in the recycling, ban plastic straws and plastic bag and feel good about ourselves.

I don’t know much about Germany, mostly french movement that failed to stop the nuclear and Greepeace that succeded greatly in the US and globaly to paint a dirty picture around nuclear.

I think in a sense those things are similar. Do they want to stop harm: yes. Are they misguided and doing more harm that good: probably at this point.

> But Fukushima happened and the old conservative position of "nuclear power good" suddenly became very, very unpopular in Germany.

Yea I don't get this, what are chances of a tsunami hitting the German nuclear power plants? Put them higher or build a sea wall around them if they are so worried. Today they restarted coal power plants! Moronic!

> Yea I don't get this, what are chances of a tsunami hitting the German nuclear power plants?

- Funny. Quite obviously the issue was not the possibilities of tsunamis in Germany. It was the fact, that this particular power plant was not constructed in an area prone to massive tsunamis without sufficient tsunami protection. In Germany you would replace tsunami with different natural disasters. For example earth quakes. Yes, parts of Germany experience earth quakes. Usually they are very light, but every few centuries there's one able to level cities. The same style of organizational failure which left Fukushima unprotected against major tsunamis could have left German nuclear power plants without insufficient earth quake protection.

- The public witnessed that a nuclear power plant cut off from external power supply and without emergency power generation can run out of control just from the decay heat. Very few people knew before that incident that nuclear power plants don't have an off-switch and don't necessarily fail safely in exceptional situations.

- Also everybody got to see (once more) what failure of containment meant and that Japan got a big break because much of the radioactive plume was blown out to sea. Something like that happening in the middle of densely populated Europe would be very ugly and very expensive.

- Nuclear was already quite unpopular in Germany since Chernobyl and its nuclear fallout over Germany and Fukushima was just another big nail in its coffin.

Interesting, thank you.

>we will clean up our act way before it cause serious issues.

There is already enough CO2 in the atmosphere to cause serious issues. It's not an instantaneous process, but at this point it will happen.

I understand your views and concerns. It's true that change, especially rapid ones, can have unexpected consequences. Traditional values and methods can often provide stability and a sense of continuity, which are important. However, I'd like to provide some points for your consideration.

1. *The Green Movement and Nuclear Power:* While it's true that some green advocates have opposed nuclear power, it's not accurate to say the entire green movement is against it. Many environmentalists see nuclear as a necessary part of the mix to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially in the short term, while renewable energy capacity is being built up.

2. *Urgency of Climate Change:* Climate change is indeed a pressing issue, according to a consensus of climate scientists. Rising temperatures, increased frequency of extreme weather events, loss of biodiversity, melting polar ice and rising sea levels are all current realities. While the growth of renewables is encouraging, current projections suggest we are not transitioning quickly enough to avoid severe impacts.

3. *Understanding Conservative Voices:* I agree with you that understanding and appreciating diverse perspectives is essential for a functioning democracy. It's not about left or right, but about finding common ground and working collectively for the common good. Climate change is a shared problem that requires cooperation across the political spectrum.

4. *Change vs. Tradition:* It's not about destroying traditions but evolving them to meet current and future challenges. Traditions can provide valuable lessons and a solid foundation upon which to build. Yet, we should also be open to new ideas and solutions that align with the scientific understanding of climate change and its potential impacts.

I believe that it's essential for us to look past our preconceptions and work together to address climate change, an issue that affects us all, regardless of political or ideological leanings.

Please don't use ChatGPT for this, it's transparent and kind of ick.

Wait a minute, we already have serious issues. If you live in a wealthy country and have enough money to get around those issues, it is just harder to see.

> With regard to conservative voice (as a former liberal) I can tell you it’s the left voice that doesn’t understand the conservatives and the value they bring.

As a recovering conservative (of 25 adult years) I can offer that any deafness is not only mutual, one side is currently bullhorning it as a virtue. As far as bolstering our energy supply, it isn't at all clear how revenge-based, hostility-flavored culture wars achieve this.

My observation is that one side has conjured up a boogey man from the worst possible perceptions of the other and now models all of it's own behavior on it. I can not see how this advances one worthwhile goal.

The warming of the oceans could lead to the following consequences:

- Coral reef collapse and loss of marine biodiversity.

- Accelerated sea-level rise, resulting in coastal flooding and displacement of populations.

- Ocean acidification, harming shell-forming organisms and marine ecosystems.

- Disruption of ocean currents, leading to altered weather patterns and increased extreme weather events, potentially causing massive oceanic dead zones leading to

- Release of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from warming ocean sediments and decaying organic matter, a potential extinction event.

---

Peter Ward: “Oceans - What’s the Worst that Can Happen?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eM1aakTzMw

ME: "Release of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from warming ocean sediments and decaying organic matter, a potential extinction event." Is this a realistic possibility?

GPT-4:

The phenomenon you're describing is associated with an event referred to as a "Canfield Ocean" or "Strangelove Ocean." The hypothesis is named after paleoceanographer Donald Canfield, who proposed that several mass extinctions in Earth's history might have been caused by an increase in hydrogen sulfide (H2S) produced by sulfate-reducing bacteria when the oceans became depleted of oxygen (anoxic).

Under certain conditions, this is a theoretical possibility. If global warming were to result in widespread anoxia (lack of oxygen) in the oceans, it could potentially trigger a large-scale release of hydrogen sulfide gas. This gas is poisonous to most forms of aerobic life (those that require oxygen), and a significant increase in its concentration could lead to mass extinctions.

However, it's essential to note that while this hypothesis is theoretically plausible, it remains highly controversial, and the conditions required to trigger such an event are extreme. It's not a certainty that global warming would lead to widespread ocean anoxia, and even if it did, it's not clear that this would necessarily result in a large-scale release of H2S.

Moreover, our understanding of the exact causes and progression of the various mass extinctions in Earth's history remains incomplete, and there's ongoing debate among scientists about the role played by hydrogen sulfide. Other factors, such as volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, and changes in sea level, have also been implicated in these events.

To summarize, while the scenario you're describing is theoretically possible, it's still highly speculative and there's a lot we don't know. It's not something that's likely to happen in the near future, but it underlines the importance of taking ac

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canfield_ocean

Also, this: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/no-strangelove...

"Sepúlveda's team was able to tell that the carbon in these post-impact sediments could only have been assembled into these hydrocarbons (and other compounds) in a functioning open ocean ecosystem with plenty of algae photosynthesizing away at a pretty good clip. Since these sediments were deposited right after the impact, the "Strangelove" ocean theory, with a vast lifeless sea, is highly unlikely."

We simply don't know. I recommend Peter Ward's video for more info.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturnin...

"The impacts of the decline and potential shutdown of the AMOC could include losses in agricultural output, ecosystem changes, and the triggering of other climate tipping points."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturnin...

"The possibility that the AMOC is a bistable system (which is either "on" or "off") and could collapse suddenly has been a topic of scientific discussion for a long time."

https://www.livescience.com/gulf-stream-slowing-climate-chan... (2021)

"The Gulf Stream — one of Earth's major climate-regulating ocean currents — is moving slower than it has in thousands of years, a new study suggests. Human-induced climate change is largely to blame."

"If the Gulf Stream crosses its tipping point, it will continue to weaken even if we have managed to stop global warming," Caesar told Live Science. "Afterwards, it will slow down by a lot, coming close to a complete shutdown of the circulation."

Maybe controversial, but still possible.

ME: "Release of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from warming ocean sediments and decaying organic matter, a potential extinction event." Is this a realistic possibility?

GPT-4:

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) release from ocean sediments and decaying organic matter is indeed a plausible mechanism that could cause significant environmental changes. This process is often associated with a scenario referred to as "Canfield Oceans" or "Canfield Ocean events."

Paleontologist Peter Ward, for instance, has proposed that hydrogen sulfide emissions from stagnant oceans could have contributed to several mass extinction events in Earth's history. In such scenarios, increased oceanic warmth and decreased circulation might have led to anoxic conditions (lack of oxygen) in the deeper ocean. These anoxic conditions, in turn, would allow sulfur bacteria to thrive, which would generate hydrogen sulfide as a metabolic by-product. The hydrogen sulfide would then be released into the atmosphere, where it could cause significant environmental disruption, affecting life on both land and sea.

However, it is important to note that these scenarios are not straightforward, and various factors would need to align for such an event to occur. There are many potential feedback mechanisms in Earth's climate system that could either amplify or dampen the effects of increased hydrogen sulfide production.

In the context of contemporary climate change, we are indeed witnessing warming oceans and increases in oceanic dead zones (areas of low oxygen that can support sulfur bacteria). However, whether this could lead to an extinction-level hydrogen sulfide release is still a matter of scientific debate. Current research suggests that while an increase in anoxic conditions and dead zones is cause for concern due to their direct impact on marine life, a Canfield Ocean event is not considered a high-probability outcome of current climate change trends.

Release of methane permafrost

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

Not all ice is made from water. Some ice is frozen methane. If you melt it, you'll release methane.

Atmospheric methane is good a trapping heat (aka greenhouse gas). That heat warms the atmosphere, which melts more ice, which includes methane ice, which in turn releases methane, that heats the atmosphere more.

In this way you have a self-reinforcing effect where before you know it you have an exponential release of methane/exponential temperature increase and an extinction event like the Permian–Triassic one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z6RIQ0Bw-E

Scuba diver here. I highly recommend the documentary Chasing Coral about coral bleaching, a direct result of high ocean temperatures (and, I highly recommend taking up scuba now before it's too late :))

It is not just record, it is well above all the previous records, including some strong El Niño years (that didn’t started yet).

At least renewable energy generation is still following a nice exponential growth curve. It's too slow to prevent dire climate change, but it might be fast enough to prevent complete collapse of technological civilization.

I see 3 semi-distinct bands in the data, where there are dense clusters of lines, and gaps in between where the lines are a bit more sparse. It looks to me like the line jumps from the bottom band to the middle band in 1997, then back down, then up again in 2001, and then stays there until 2014/2015 when it jumps up a second time. You can see them better if you remove the mean/+2sigma/-2sigma lines. I wonder the reason for that? Could be I'm just seeing patterns where none exist of course.

Edit: the jumps kind of correspond to moments in time when the solar insolation was on its upswing and the periods when it temporarily slowed kind of correspond to periods when insolation was declining, I think however I'm exceeding my training a bit, perhaps an actual climate scientist could tell us more precisely what's going on.

The oceans normally undergo a cycle of patterns in ocean currents which also manifest surface temperature warming and cooling. You've probably heard "El Niño" and "La Niña" during weather forecasts.

The cycle is very irregular and I doubt we have good prediction models for it. However, the observations of the ocean currents line up very well with ocean surface temperature readings.

On it's own, the ENSO cycle would not cause an overall trend of warming. However, it is very capable of being the cause of the "bands in the data" that you noticed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o%E2%80%93Southern_...

Interesting! Thank you

When some scientific organization comes out with a survivability index map for future locations by year, I'll like and subscribe.

Probably something like this but the red bits are "bigger and there's more of them": https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06083-8/figures/3

Every society is 3 meals away from total chaos.

What provides those meals is a system built on top of topsoil, fresh water, fish, oil, pollinators, and atmospheric conditions of humidity, temperature, precipitation, etc. And the absence of pollution.

Topsoil is not dirt, it's an habitat for organisms that make soil fertile. It takes many years to regenerate 1 inch of topsoil. Agriculture consumes topsoil faster than it regenerates.

Fresh water is water with low saline content. Desalination does not work at scale, and if it did, it would still make food prices rise. Fresh water is only 2.5% of Earth's water. Rivers are being polluted, groundwater is being pumped faster than it is replenished. Rainwater is not enough to sustain agriculture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjsThobgq7Q

Sustainable fishing requires harvesting only fish above reproductive age. Fisheries do not care about this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trawling

Pollinators everywhere are dying due to habitat destruction and products used in agriculture.

And on top of that we are changing the composition of the atmosphere via pollution, causing it to trap more heat, and causing oceans to become acidic, which in turn causes climate to behave differently in ways that affect agriculture.

In short, it's an ecocide. We are in the middle of an extinction event: the Anthropocene extinction, an extinction event caused by humans. Animals above certain weight are dying and that is an excellent indicator that we are next in line.

Each human has a stomach which is a chemical reactor, and food is its fuel. And as more humans are added to the population the rate at which we process (destroy) the environment accelerates. We are already beyond the point of sustainability and heading towards a predictable collapse.

Putting a single-use plastic container into a recycle bin won't do shit for the environment. Our civilization is just a giant ant death circle following each other's pheromone trails until we collapse collectively.

Not much can be done other than downscale your lifestyle, avoid traveling, go zero waste, stop buying from ecocidal corporations. But this will only delay the inevitable: more environmental impact, and ultimately, global conflict.

Remove the 3 meals from people's tables, and you'll get conflict over the resources that are left. The strategic pieces in this conflict are already being placed on the board.

> The strategic pieces in this conflict are already being placed on the board.

This is interesting to me, could you elaborate what the pieces are? I’m guessing natural resources like freshwater?

You mean switching to paper straws did nothing?

So it all boils down to how https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/optimum-interpolation-sst is created.

The NOAA 1/4° Daily Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature (OISST) is a long term Climate Data Record that incorporates observations from different platforms (satellites, ships, buoys and Argo floats) into a regular global grid. The dataset is interpolated to fill gaps on the grid and create a spatially complete map of sea surface temperature. Satellite and ship observations are referenced to buoys to compensate for platform differences and sensor biases.

Do take note, Siberia will thaw and this will give great opportunity to Russians to farm and dominate in future. So at least from their perspective this is good for them. Of course the rest of the world will suffer with USA destine to be dustbowl as foretold in Interstellar.

What does 2σ mean here? Is that referring to a normal distribution with the given mean, i.e. if temperature were following a normal distribution with a mean like from 1982-2011, then 95% of the temperatures would fall into the 2σ range?

Yes, that’s my understanding.

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It's certainly a strange time to be alive. I was explaining to my child my work in AI, showing him images of himself as a character from his DnD campaign and at the same time am gently introducing him to the increasingly dire state of our climate. For parents of my generation "the talk" is not about sex, it's about the reality that we might not have a future to offer our children.

It feels like I am very literally living the life depicted in sci-fi novels of my youth. Equal parts wonderful and terrifying.

"it's about the reality that we might not have a future to offer our children."

But wasn't that always the case?

War was always around the corner and nuclear missile threat amplified it.

Btw. it seems the war made russia change its stance and some official "scientific" commitee has decided, that climate warming comes simply from radiation inside earth that follows a natural pattern. So no need to not burn coal then. So the hope is, that china who does believe in human made climate change will push them to still reduce CO2 somewhat. Indeed strange times.

> War was always around the corner and nuclear missile threat amplified it.

All sides showed remarkable restraint in actually following up on the threats. While the possibility of nuclear war was part of the backdrop, at least the impression was made that everybody tries to be as reasonable as possible to prevent it from happening.

Compare to climate change where people actively try to sabotage stuff like renewables build out (e.g. "In 2019, the state tried to further penalize solar users by implementing a law that levied fines against solar users." [0] which was struck down eventually - but still, people considered that a good enough idea to propose, successfully vote and implement that?!?) to stick it to The Man (or something).

[0] I don't care too much about the specifics, so not naming and shaming anybody, but the source is: https://todayshomeowner.com/solar/guides/states-that-outlaw-...

"All sides showed remarkable restraint in actually following up on the threats. While the possibility of nuclear war was part of the backdrop, at least the impression was made that everybody tries to be as reasonable as possible to prevent it from happening."

Yes, but still all it takes is one crazy guy at the wrong position and time.

I am not ok with that and rather would have all the nukes directed towards the sky against asteroids.

And I am also not ok with producing tanks and artillery instead of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. But it is, what it is. Too many short sighted people in position of power.

The need to not burn coal goes beyond CO2, the particulates and radiation coal plants put out is terrible for health.

Coal has, and continues, to cause more deaths then nuclear ever has and produces radioactive ash while at it.

I did not debate that, but russia has also a history of not really caring about pollution.

In general, socialist regimes have not cared about the environment. The Stasi records museum in Berlin has a mention of this in the courtyard. Lack of private property leads to government pollution.

We were lucky nuclear war didn't happen, and it still might.

I think the risk of nuclear war is higher now, with more nations having more weapons, fewer treaties preventing profession, and an increasingly multipolar power dynamic in international affairs.

I highly recommend this video:

https://youtu.be/jG8LJ0QkBo4

I too thought we were closer to nuclear war now. But really with US second strike capability, and the fact that many of the nuclear warhead numbers don’t take into account usable missiles, among other factors, makes me sleep a bit easier at night.

Yea there currently exists a plausible risk of the Taliban taking control of an ailing Pakistan and its 11 nukes.

Thank you Mr Kissenger

> But wasn't that always the case?

Nope and it isn't the case now. End of the world cults are a common feature of human societies, pretty much all of them have/had them. My personal guess is that egos are so big that people can't imagine a world after them so it's easier to say the world is going to end.

Yes but climate disaster isn't a cult. There's the crazy guy who thinks Zeus is going to strike us all down and then there's the oceanographer out there with actual thermometers and log books saying hey this water is getting really damn warm.

Will be the end of life on earth? Not at all. Will it be the total extinction of humans? Probably not. Will it be far more war, starvation, death, and human suffering than we have collectively ever witnessed? Yes.

There is absolute nothing to suggest catastrophic or even rapid climate change. Yes we can detect human activity that is changing the planet and will have impacts on the climate. Preaching that it will result in any more suffering than the current or a previous state of the world is completely faith based without evidence.

Every credible scientist who studies this says the opposite, that climate change will increase the frequency and magnitude of events impacting millions of people. Yes, things like natural disasters, famines, or wars caused by resource competition aren’t new but we’ve been seeing them intensified for at least a decade and there’s no reason to believe that trend will reverse.

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That’s a very different claim then that climate change will not “result in any more suffering than the current or a previous state of the world”. As that editorial acknowledges, even the 2 degrees we’re tracked for will have plenty of catastrophic outcomes:

> We will have caused incalculable damage to ecosystems. We will have worsened droughts, floods, famines, heat waves. We will have bleached coral reefs, acidified the ocean, driven countless animal species to extinction. Millions, maybe tens of millions, of people will die from increased heat, and more will be killed by the indirect consequences of climate change. Far more yet will be forced to flee their homes or live lives of deep poverty or suffering.

It’s also worth remembering that the 4-5 degree predictions were the worst case forecasts assuming that we did nothing, and the more optimistic tone of that piece is recognizing the benefits of having made changes. While it’s true that we don’t want to give up hope it’s even more important that we don’t use the successes we have had to support the fossil fuel industry-funded siren calls for inaction. Our goals for the world we leave our children should be much higher than “humans are not reduced to roving post-apocalyptic bands of survivors”. A world where the population equivalents of large cities are dying from unprecedented weather events is still one where they’re going to wish we’d listened to climate scientists decades earlier.

Saying humanity will be extinct in X years is completely unsupported by even the most dramatic predictions. If you believe it, you are on equal footing with the people waiting for the four horseman to show up. Teaching that to children will probably be seen as child abuse by the children who are being taught it today.

Did you even read my comment?

> End of the world cults are a common feature of human societies,

The different tech that can make good on the apocalypse are a relatively recent addition to the equation.

We've had the ability to lay waste to the planet for just a handful of generations.

Another feature of human end of the world predictions is its always different this time.

Okay. So make the equation equate. How could humanity make most of the planet uninhabitable 1000 years ago?

Lots of reasons, by having sex or praying the wrong way were common. The wrong way being the way some other out group does it. Now we can end the world by doing things like driving the wrong kind of car (but not by flying around the world to "broaden the mind" as in group members like to do that). You can even buy indulgences.

None of those things are responsive to the question: What existed 1000 years ago that humanity could use to make the planet uninhabitable?

If you don't have an answer to the actual question at hand, it's okay to say so.

Human kind is not able to exterminate itself full stop. It couldn't then, it can't now.

Okay. Answering different questions is one way to signal you don't have an answer to the actual question. We can accept that and close this thread. Thank you for participating.

War has indeed always threatened to take away our children's futures. Yet the possibility of peace is ever present.

The difference with climate change is the "peaceful" analog is vanishing. Humanity has always been able to choose peace. But we may soon not be able to choose to live on a healthy planet.

China doesn't care one bit about climate change. China is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report finds: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-...

China's CO2/kWh is going down reasonably quickly for a growing economy. They could do a lot better of course (couldn't we all?), but they're not just building coal plants; they're also building renewables and nuclear. "China does X Y-times more than other countries" is a headline that can be recycled for almost every topic. There are 1.4 billion people in China.

I think they do care (they are also number 1 in rollout of most renewables), but they care more for social stability, that they can only sustain with high economic growth.

How to reconcile the above article with this[0]?

[0]https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...

I think that’s a bit dramatic and airing on fear mongering. Other comment responses of OP have better sources, but I do not agree the “future is at risk” because of this.

I’m more inclined to closely watch geopolitical events unfold, as US hegemony becomes slowly unstable and potentially untenable.

If climate change were really really as dire as some say it is, we wouldn’t be half-assing our way via renewable energies which don’t have a power grid or power store nearly capable enough to handle a “fully electric future”

We’d be spending more money than the likes of other world powers on proven nuclear energy (unlike Germany who has decommissioned theirs in favor of coal)

I think I read the nuclear waste of nuclear power stations we have today could fit in a big Walmart? That’s an insane amount of energy density. That doesn’t include the potential for nuclear diamond batteries to reuse the spent fuel rods, or other upcoming technologies to reuse the waste.

Don’t get me wrong, we should look into truly renewable energy. But needing vast amounts of rare-earth minerals for solar panels and batteries from China, or nickel and cobalt from child-labor mines in the Congo doesn’t seem to line up with the ethos of “going green”

We should “go nuclear”

> If climate change were really really as dire as some say it is, we wouldn’t be half-assing our way

Yes, this is why people are worried. It is dire and we are half-assing our responses.

> I’m more inclined to closely watch geopolitical events unfold, as US hegemony becomes slowly unstable and potentially untenable.

Wait until you see what millions of people displaced by rising sea levels are going to do to political and economical stability worldwide. That's not going to happen in a far distant future, that's within 30 years. Bangladesh for example is expected to lose 17% of its land by 2050, displacing millions. Miami-Dade county will be 60% under water by 2060 when current projections come to pass.

> If climate change were really really as dire as some say it is, we wouldn’t be half-assing our way via renewable energies which don’t have a power grid or power store nearly capable enough to handle a “fully electric future”

The realities of climate change and its dire consequences aren't some doomsayers internet theories. We're completely half-assing our response to it despite the scientific consensus on the brutal consequences of our doing.

> We should “go nuclear”

That ship has sailed at least 20 years ago. Starting now with average construction times of 10 years plus they would come too late to make a difference.

Renewables are cheaper to build and faster to construct so that's were the world is heading.

https://www.iea.org/news/renewable-power-on-course-to-shatte...

I do wish we could overcome our squeamishness about nuclear. Because our climate circumstances are indeed dangerous. And in my opinion, they're quite a bit more dangerous than nuclear power would be, if we committed to scaling it up with a reasonable balance of safety and cost-effectiveness. It is only expensive because we hold it to a much higher standard of safety than any other power source. And understandably so, to some extent, because the tail risk from operating nuclear is greater, but we are facing tail risk from fossil fuels warming the planet as well, and I think that tail risk is much greater and much harder to control than that from nuclear.

I think we need less moralism and fear of complex systems, and more hard-headed, engineering-led cost-benefit analysis.

If we're not moralizing, shouldn't this be if the cost-benefit analysis comes out sufficiently positive then we should commit to scaling it up?

Yes. I am not certain. I have the opinions I've given in my post, and a perception that a legitimate cost-benefit debate has been cut short by moralizing.

The thing is, today it is not dire enough for people to care enough. When corona was only in china, we were not very worried. When it came super near, it got us worried enough to take drastic measures. I'm afraid the same will happen with the reaction to climate change. When we feel we could die, we will take drastic measures. No way we will get extinct, but it will cause a lot of suffering and death.

My children aren’t going to care because I don’t care and there’s no reason to fill them with unnecessary doom and fear.

Yes it is outside of our sphere of influence. It’s bad parenting to make kids worry about things outside of their control.

And before you criticize me, know that I’m a cloth diapering, organic food growing back-to-land hippy. I’m happy to compare our carbon footprints.

Well said. I have two small kiddos and difficult to know how to engage with them on topics like AI and climate change.

As a related experience, I picked up my son from a birthday party and the birthday consisted of a rented massive trailer with big screen TVs and 7-8 different video game consoles for couch coop gaming. All powered by a generator. Very cool and very frightening all at the same time.

I would love to discuss these topics in detail in person with someone like you. I am completely unconcerned about climate change or AI yet very concerned about how my child will interact with your child when their concerns are vastly different.

Why not frame it as „Major challenges ahead“ instead of „no future“? That sounds like a recipe for learned helplessness and defeatism.

Kids are the key to shaping the future, but kids is also the reason we are here. Generations upon generations of children being produced, who with each generation "produce" more CO2.

Our planet needs strong leadership that dictates what can and cannot be done. Instead we have leaders making up solutions that are not solutions, but are presented as such.

The problem is less the children than the fact that lifestyle changes made things enormously more CO2 intensive. India has far more people and far lower CO2 emissions because they didn’t change their lifestyle to involve huge increases in beef consumption, daily individual travel in massive gas powered vehicles, and heavy use of climate control systems. A significant chunk of those changes and the CO2 emitted happened after we knew that global warming was happening, too, so it really comes back to the ability of rich people to buy their way into being allowed to ignore externalities.

I'm confused, what do you mean there's not going to be a future for them? No doubt there's going to be some challenges, but I thought all that carbon was in the atmosphere and oceans before it was sequestered by plants and alagae.

I thought the major issue was the speed of change, but we really don't know what life is thing to do in response.

According to this article, during the Cambrian, the earth was 10C hotter than it is today.

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2022/09/20/you-asked-dinos...

We're going to need to adapt, and things will be harder, but I believe it's totally doable.

When all that carbon was in the atmosphere, dinosaurs weren't even around yet.

That's not true is it? There was much more CO2 during dinosaur times than today.

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2022/09/20/you-asked-dinos...

A lot of the coal we burn today dates back from the carboniferous period, which predates dinosaurs by a lot.

I wouldn't characterize ocean ecosystems dying from the bottom up as "totally doable" but, sure, the resource wars probably won't kill off the entire human species.

When I say totally doable, I mean humanity surviving is totally doable.

I guess I was thinking after the current ecosystems are wiped out, it will open up the niche for something else to take hold and evolve in their place. Isn't that what the geological record shows during mass extinctions?

OK, so this is fine? (No, I do not believe that)

I didn't say that fyi, your statement here does not reflect my feelings.

The headline doesn't either, because Earth has been very hot in the past.

Pretty much yes

Vanuatu might disagree.

In Vanuatu, sea level rise is a very real concept with a number of communities already being inundated during high tides

(2016) ref: https://www.spatialsource.com.au/sea-level-rise-mapping-reac...

Yeah but we went from “oh no we’re all going to die and we have to prepare our kids for that eventuality” to “oh no Vanuatu is sinking” in just a few HN comments.

In that light I’d like to underline that in the “this is fine” meme, things are actually on fire. It’s an apt comparison.

> Vanuatu is sinking

This implies that Vanuatu's absolute elevation is decreasing. I can find no reference for this. If this decrease is true, please supply your sources.

Pfff come on, it’s a figure of speech.

Upvoted. You're right. It was clearly written but I misread the tone+content anyway.

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What I find strange is that people are actively building a zoo for themselves.

The population could have been very happy and rich with around 1 billion people — less garbage, less pollution, less extinction of species, less monocultures and farms, more biodiversity, sustainable resources, and not as much pressure on ecosystems.

But we live on an exological credit card.

If this world with a billion people existed, most likely (7/8th chance) you wouldn't exist. How does never existing make you feel? Unless in this fantasy you'd survive and enjoy the extra resources which comes off as extremely selfish to me.

People can have children below the replacement rate

They already do, in tons of countries

It might take care of itself, if not for AI and nukes humanity could be fine. But they just can’t resist, humanity seems to be acting like a rapacious child because of competition across countries.

As for your question… look ul the Doomsday Argument. 7% of all people who ever existed are alive today. If the population constantly increases then given the fact that you are alive means you’re more than likely living in the last days before a major population crash. The only question is what will be behind it — birth control or some ecosystem collapse?

I guess we should also ramp up industrial livestock production because otherwise those extra billions of animals would never exist.

The worst case scenarios of climate chanve are grim but still leace room for humanities future. It will be tumultuous, but not catacalysmic. Alarmism does nothing for us. We should try to stay level headed

small children do not have the grounding to deal with existential threats -- IMHO it does no good to have a "logical,serious" talk about such things in the first 10+ years

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> They have been making so many doomsday predictions that all turned out to be completely false.

Citations needed. Remember that we’re aware that the 1990 IPCC report’s predictions were accurate and that the mid-1970s “global cooling” thing was a handful of papers which never had mainstream scientific acceptance and were disproven by the end of that decade, so there’s no point in repeating false claims about either of those topics even if it is popular in certain circles.

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For an alternate take on this: https://twitter.com/ethicalskeptic/status/166465744222596300...

His data suggests that the rate of rise in ocean temperatures can not possibly be due to man made circumstances and is instead due to earth core leakage.

He seems to believe that humankind will have a smooth and linear effect on the climate, and that if we've had a smooth and linear effect in the past, it will always remain smooth and linear. The climate is complex enough that tipping points can exist.

This is such a poor interpretation of the data that it almost seems intentional.

They're cherry-picking an arbitrary year for comparison over an arbitrary time range. There's many years you can select to draw similar bad comparisons. For example, select 2021 & 2015 and look at Feb 28 - March 5. Are you going to believe a sensationalist claim that "90% of SST rise between 2021 & 2015 arrived in 2 weeks"?

Hopefully not, because that's a bad comparison and ignores that temperature fluctuates up and down

This is a classic math pitfall, described by mathematician Jordan Ellenberg as "Don’t talk about percentages of numbers when the numbers might be negative" because they're more often confusing than illuminating.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/06/how-not-to-be-wrong...

How does the earth have a core if it’s flat? Taps head…

It’s not the core that’s leaking, it’s the underfloor heating…

It's interesting all the responses below here go full ad hominem.

At this point he mays as well be refuting gravity

That's called a dogma then, and no you can't compare gravity to human-made climate change.

Clearly the lizard people from Earth's hollow core are responsible.

Yes, let's shut down the contrarians by making fun of them or calling them words, there is clearly no room to discuss complex phenomena, as we have learned in the last few years dealing with COVID-19 "misinformation".

There certainly is no room to discuss them on Twitter. If the Twitter person has real data they should try writing a paper. There are about eight billion people who would love to see the CO2-theory of climate change falsified. They'd be a hero, trillions of dollars of unnecessary investment prevented, everybody rejoices.

> If the Twitter person has real data

His data is the data from the website this HN thread links to.

He's just pointing out that 32% of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) warming since 1995 arrived in a mere 3 weeks of 2023 and asks the question how that is possible.

Right, and then they propose an alternative theory. Time to collect evidence, perhaps code up a model, compute some errors bars and submit it to peer review. You know, build a case why your theory is better than what we have so far. Right now they have about as much substance as my suggestion with the Lizard people has.

OP wouldn’t be so skeptical except for the fact that 99% of scientists have been raising the alarm bells about climate change for 50 years and mainly politicians and commentators, often with little to no expertise and significantly biased due to fossil fuel connections and donations, have been questioning and undermining the science.

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I think that just demonstrates the point that maybe scientists put too much emphasis on the science itself when what really matters is influencing people.