The worst impacts of climate change are starting to happen faster than expected | Hacker News Reader

The worst impacts of climate change are starting to happen faster than expected

rollingstone.com

50 pointscryptoz31 comments

I'm sorry, but an article that invokes arbitrary heat waves, fires, rains, and droughts implying a "shit [has] really started hitting the fan" narrative in the first paragraph is pure link-bait and fear-mongering, regardless of the state of global warming. It's no more accurate than saying "Record snows in Germany, global warming clearly fake".

> "Heat waves. Fires. Rains. Clearly We Are All Doomed"

Please don't make something look like a quote if it isn't a quote. That may sound minor but it's important for charitable, substantive discussion.

Re-worded, I thought it was obvious enough it was quoting my summary of the paragraph but I guess not.

Thanks. That's much better.

I don't see that. I see "some snapshots" which points to real world examples of things that are happening, and then I see a quote from a respected panel of scientists issuing a dire warning. Is it not okay to quote scientists studying climate change in an article about climate change these days if the quote is a bit edgy?

There's a difference between "Here are specific bad things that will happen in the future" and "Some weather happened, it rained here and it didn't rain there, therefore global warming". I don't trust reporters who try to ignore/hide the difference between these.

The problem with using those types of anecdotes is that they empower people to use the opposite anecdotes. This winter was incredibly cold on the US east coast. Boston had record breaking snowfall. If you let the conversation drift into that territory, then you will not convince anyone that global warming is a threat. They can point to a couple things that "disprove" the whole thing and stop caring.

Isn't that why it's called climate change and not global warming? I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be hard to drop us into an ice age. We're very much on the edge of a knife here.

And you are surprised? This is Rollingstone, not one of the Economist, NYT, WSJ, or WP.

Referencing their less than rigorous journalism track record recently: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/04/06/rol...

Recently, Will Dana, RS's editor at the time of the UV story has left:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/business/media/will-dana-r...

Yes, that was a massive fuck-up. Yes, it exposed bad practices. It still strikes me as a case of being manipulated by a source bent on deception to whom excess deference was given, not intent to deceive by RS itself.

Rolling Stone runs a lot of articles on difficult topics like the economy and climate change that those other rags should be publishing but don't because they won't risk offending their owners/advertisers. Matt Taibbi and his editors are journalistic rock stars.

Maybe libertarians are right when they say individual actors act rationally for their own self interest. But what they didn't understand was the actors were nations composed of millions of irrational actors and there own self interests generally include moving far too slowly to make a difference before something catastrophic happens when it comes to climate change.

It seems to me, no one I even know, really even cares. I make a point of at least separating my recyclables and being annoying and bringing it to the attention of those who don't, but from there I'm at a bit of a loss on what to do. I request no utensils when I order from seamless, but they give them to me anyway. Half the time I open my cans recyclables can here in NYC someone has shoved cardboard in there (I wish I could figure out who, it's really annoying).

There just seems to be a general level of apathy regarding the whole thing. And then I see people on facebook who complain about their or my generation but all they're doing is complaining.

I guess I'll get back on my representative writing game and start at least trying to feel like I'm doing something.

There is little federal movement on climate legislation, but there are a decent number of state-level campaigns to price carbon. The goal of many of these organizations is to establish a model that can then be replicated nationwide. (As the saying goes, "states are the laboratories of democracy.")

Economists [1] and climate scientists [2] agree that internalizing the "social cost" of climate change--in terms of ocean acidification, depleted crop yields, stronger storms and wildfires-- is the single most effective way to mitigate its worst effects.

I personally skipped out on the startup world to volunteer for one of these state campaigns, Oregon Climate [3]. We advocate a specific policy, the carbon fee and dividend, where a scientifically-set price is levied per ton of CO2 at point of source, and all resulting revenue is distributed as a yearly check to individuals. Naturally, a price on carbon means carbon-intensive goods cost more, which is the point: to alter consumer behavior at the point of purchase disfavoring carbon-intensive goods.

These campaigns, like Oregon Climate and Carbon WA, operate on shoestring budgets, so if anyone can throw coin our way, it would be greatly appreciated. We only have two poorly paid staffers and the rest of us volunteer in our free time.

1. https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/809307552415176?fref=... Robert Reich, Economist at Berkeley

2. http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/07/26/dr-james-hansen... - James Hansen, former director of NASA Goddard Institute

3. http://oregonclimate.org

Practically, how do you get China on board with this approach? Do you think it matters?

China seems to be moving in the right direction through self-interest, although a billion people is a lot of momentum to fight.

They still open coal plants, but they've brought more wind generation capacity online then any other country. They continue to deploy solar energy and thermal water heating across the country.

To push them harder, you'd need to engage the entire population.

Recycling should be a last resort; "reduce -> reuse -> recycle" is a hierarchy. Plastics aren't really worth recycling due to poor yields.

While climate change is definitely a problem, there are more problems associated with rampant consumption; I'm actually more concerned by plastic pollution. Most plastics break down into tiny particles that get eaten by small and micro-organisms, which inevitably contaminates our food chain. The workaround is to rely even more on industrial farming, making sure to isolate arable farmlands from any organic contamination.

Industrial farming, of course, introduces massive nitrogen run-off, which gets into the oceans, which disrupts those ecosystems and food-chains...

Both climate change and plastic pollution could have been avoided by reducing consumption, but there are too many perceived benefits to the individual and society for people to just stop. And no-one wants to be called a Luddite.

On the plus side, we're in historically one of the longest periods of peace (it might not seem like it, but that's partly because we just got better at distributing information).

When economists state that actors are rational, all they are is saying is that people act purposefully. Whether you water your plants, or pray to the magic unicorn in your closet for rain, both actions are purposeful, though both may not have the same result.

You are correct when you say that individuals are "moving far too slowly" with regards to anthropomorphic climate change, but that's rational since it makes virtually no difference if you, as an individual, change your habits and produce less pollution. Nothing you do will change the outcome. This is similar to voting, where most people don't vote because in the US national election, you have a much greater chance of dying on the way to the voting booth, than affecting the outcome of the election. It's irrational for an individual to vote (unless they're doing so to demonstrate to those around them what their values are).

Now, a libertarian might say that economic freedom is not utopic, there are plenty of market failures. However, if one looks at a situation of economic freedom, and decides that the incentives in place are sub-optimal and don't produce favorable results, it's usually suggested that government should step in and regulate somehow. Individuals in government are however, made up of the same rational actors as those in the free market. So while more mainstream economists may end their analysts there, public choice theorists on the other hand demand a more consistent application of economic principles. Namely, they want to know what incentives are in place for individuals in government, and if those incentives will provide better or worse outcomes than a situation of economic freedom. If you're interested, here is a short 10 minute video by Mark Pennington where he introduces this form of analysis i.e. Public Choice Theory.

Edit: I might be useful to include the link. :/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAbDrP7whqw

individual actors act rationally for their own self interest. But what they didn't understand...

I always liked the line from MiB:

A person is smart; people are dumb

"individual actors act rationally for their own self interest"

But they don't even do that.

Aggregate group behavior is even worse.

See Mancur Olson, well-known economic fallacies such as savings, fallacies of composition, emergent phenomena, and more.

Libertarianism is utterly bankrupt as a model. It's an appealing mythology, quite possibly a cover for highly monied interests.

Non-free market regimes have had worse effects on the environment than free ones, for example the USSR.

From the FAQ:

"Please don't delete and repost the same story, though. Accounts that do that eventually lose submission privileges."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Deletion is for things that shouldn't have been posted in the first place, such as revealing something personal that you later regret. It shouldn't be routine, and using it as a device to help a story get attention is an abuse of deletion. a small number of reposts are ok if a story hasn't had attention yet, but you might need to use a slightly different URL.

Also, link shorteners are banned on HN. Please point to the original source.

Hi dang,

Sorry about that. I'm curious, though, if you see a lot of user flags on the initial submissions I made for this article. I suspect that there are users here who will flag every story that discusses climate change, thus preventing HN users from ever discussing the topic. The initial submissions got 10+ points in less than 30 minutes, far more than other stories on the front page - but they never made it to even page 3 of HN. I'm wondering why.

Sorry again, and thanks.

Edit: Source article is http://rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-point-of-no-return...

No, those posts weren't affected by flags at all. There is a penalty on rollingstone.com by default, though, as is the case with many sites that produce occasional substantive articles along with a lot of fluff. We review most of those and take the penalty off on the substantive ones.

Oh, okay. Thank you for the information on that, I was wondering why such a popular story was being so heavily penalised. Would you consider unpenalizing this submission with the correct link? The article is very high quality and well worth a discussion on HN. Thanks.

I've done so, but with misgivings. First, HN hasn't been capable of having much substantive discussion about this in the past. Second, Hansen's announcement was discussed recently at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9927099. Third, this article is written in an alarmist style. You can defend that by arguing that it's an alarming situation, but it sets the discussion up to be even more polarized. However, let's see what happens.

Thanks, I appreciate your flexibility and care on this issue. I'm aware HN has trouble discussing this topic, but I think that's one reason we very much need to keep talking about it.

The HN community has some of the best skills needed to help solve our climate problems, and more discussion of the urgency and scale is (hopefully) useful. Thanks again

> I suspect that there are users here who will flag every story that discusses climate change,

Stipulating that's true, I'm not sure "I will overwhelm them with resubmissions" is the best response.

That's wonderful!

Can't wait to get my beach front property once I finish shoveling all this snow.

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