The worst predicted impacts of climate change are starting to happen (2015) | Hacker News Reader

The worst predicted impacts of climate change are starting to happen (2015)

rollingstone.com

112 pointskawera24 comments

I'm always unsure how to react to claims of 10 foot rise in sea level in 40 years. Considering how many cities and regions are within 10' of sea level. I understand how awesomely devastating to the world this would be.

Should we all be freaking out? Does like every single person need to start taking it seriously? Are the powers at be doing enough to hopefully curb it enough? Is there anything we can really do aside from vote for the right people?

Or are we utterly screwed and likely millions+ will die within by end of this century for our species negligence?

In my more tinfoil moments, I do wonder how much of the terroristic furore is a smokescreen to distract populations from a harrowing truth, and to allow the implementation of more authoritarian systems of control, which will be needed if climate change displaces billions of people.

We are pretty much screwed. Anything we do now will be too little, too late. If we really get our shit together, maybe we can limit warming to 2 degrees. To do so we need to completely stop producing GHGs. At current rates we have about 22 years. The rate is rising, not falling.

http://www.trillionthtonne.org/

> Should we all be freaking out? Does like every single person need to start taking it seriously? Are the powers at be doing enough to hopefully curb it enough? Is there anything we can really do aside from vote for the right people?

No. Yes. No. Yes, trust the scientists, make this into a political issue, support carbon tax (Hansen's proposal).

> Or are we utterly screwed and likely millions+ will die within by end of this century for our species negligence?

I think best is to be pessimistic about the default outcome but optimistic about our ability to prevent it.

P.S. Article is from mid-2015, and this year is no more sane so far.

I have to wonder if claims of extreme sea rise like that are reality-based or pure fear-mongering. From a simple geometric analysis, it seems unlikely that the most outlandish claims could be correct - it takes an unbelievable fuck-ton of ice melting to raise sea levels even a little.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/worried-about-...

Uh, you do know that sea level rises for several reasons, right? Thermal expansions. Oh and ice melt of glaciers and sea ice isn't linear. Why not read some peer reviewed science?

Sure, you don't have to call me an idiot. But claims of sea level rises of 10' are between three and five times higher than what any reputable source I've been able to find would posit in their worst cases for the next hundred years (e.g. [1]).

The difference between a two-foot rise in sea levels and ten feet is the difference between something we could realistically do something about, and an apocalyptic vision.

[1] http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/en/communication/climate-faq/how-mu...

> "I'm always unsure how to react to claims of 10 foot rise in sea level in 40 years."

That is not considered likely. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fifth Assessment Report, Synthesis Report, at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/SYR_AR5_FIN... on page 11 has a plot titled "Global mean sea level rise (relative to 1986–2005)".

The highest end of the worst case given is 1 meter rise by the end of the century. By 2050 the high end is only about 30 cm, or 1 foot.

> Global mean sea level rise will continue during the 21st century, very likely at a faster rate than observed from 1971 to 2010. For the period 2081–2100 relative to 1986–2005, the rise will likely be in the ranges of 0.26 to 0.55 m for RCP2.6, and of 0.45 to 0.82 m for RCP8.5 (medium confidence)[10]

> 10. Based on current understanding (from observations, physical understanding and modelling), only the collapse of marine-based sectors of the Antarctic ice sheet, if initiated, could cause global mean sea level to rise substantially above the likely range during the 21st century. There is medium confidence that this additional contribution would not exceed several tenths of a meter of sea level rise during the 21st century.

How you should react is to read the IPCC report and learn what it is that people think is likely to happen, rather than worry about hyperbolic statements like a 10 meter rise in a few decades.

Although you should also bear in mind that the IPCC reports have been considerably "watered down" in response to governmental pressure.

Talk to a climatologist, and they'll tell you all sorts of things you don't want to hear.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/m...

Climatologist in radio said in an interview the other day that sea level could rise 3cm to 10m in the next X years. Follow up question was, of course, "What happens at 10m sea rise." There is definitely some tendency all around to be hyperbolic.

Even then the level is more like 2 meters by 2100, not 3 meters by 2060.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/rising_waters_how_fast_and_how_...

> In the face of all these uncertainties, some have taken a different predictive approach. Instead of trying to model the physics behind every process contributing to sea level rise (from thermal expansion to melting ice), they argue, why not instead simply look at how sea levels have corresponded to temperature over hundreds of years and extrapolate? These so-called 'semi-empirical' models tend to top out twice as high as the 'process-based' models, making 2 meters of sea level rise feasible for 2100 — enough to flood the homes of 187 million people. But the IPCC says it doesn’t have much confidence in these results. "They’re interesting," says Chambers, "but I don’t think they should be given as much weight as the process-based models."

> A few scientists disagree, including Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, who works on semi-empirical models. "We have two different approaches, and they give different results," says Rahmstorf. "I don’t know which one is closer to the truth. But I object to the IPCC selecting one type and dismissing the other." Other reports, notes Rahmstorf, including a 2012 assessment by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, give more pessimistic sea level predictions, going up to 2 meters by 2100.

> likely millions+ will die within by end of this century

That's business as usual. The key is to realise that it won't look like climate change, it'll be superficially other things that look economic or political but are related to either fossil fuel economics or changing agricultural productivity. Several million dead or displaced? Already happening in the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars. Watch out for Egypt and Turkey possibly being next.

The US (and other countries) is seeing a rise in fire and flood due to exceptional weather conditions. Fort McMurray in Canada got both. The immediate casualties may not be high but the economic damage is lasting.

The sibling comment details that sea level rise won't be that bad globally, but it's important to realise that sea level and its rise is not as uniform as you'd expect. Florida is already seeing the rise coming up through its groundwater.

I will upvote any HN article about climate change! I really want the tech community to start seriously panicking about this stuff. They after all have the skills and the influence to do something about it.

1. Do you think that the efforts should be to reverse it. How much of this is tech vs political?

2. How to handle it when it arrives?

3. how to survive the after effects of an apocalyptic scenario?

>Do you think that the efforts should be to reverse it.

Yes, that's our only realistic chance to restore a remotely healthy and diverse ecosystem on this planet.

Likewise, but doing anything about it requires regulation and governmental intervention, which is something the tech community are generally dead against - there's a big intersection between technocratic thinking and libertarian/minimal government thinking.

Most argue that "the market" will solve this. I'd argue that it got us here, as we continue to treat the habitability of earth as an externality, with no economic cost.

I find it hard do believe that most would argue that the market will solve this issue, unless they're deeply ignorant of mainstream economics. Pollution is a classic example of a negative economic externality [0], and markets generally don't "fix" externalities unless:

- merger costs are low enough that the people afflicted can buy out the polluter;

- transaction costs are low enough that they can reach a mutual beneficial bargain (as per Coase)[1];

Both of which are impracticable. I won't even talk about the first solution. As for the second one, Global warming affects everyone across legal boundaries, so bargains are off the table.

But I don't think the third solution is currently applicable either, which is the government stepping in. Who would step in? There isn't a world government yet, and the interests of national governments are much more likely to align with the polluters located in their territory than with with an Indian peasant whose crops just died because of the heat. Even if several governments committed to an agreement, it could be profitable to deviate from the agreement by enforcing and requiring lower environmental protection standards in order to attract investments from polluting industries.

It's kind of a hard problem.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem

You may find it hard to believe but the market "taking care of itself" is at the core of the neo-liberal ideology peddled by the powers that be from Obama, the Clintons, the EU, IMF, World Bank, ECB etc. They don't care if it destroys the planet or drives people into poverty. As long as it works for them, it's all good. Technology will fix it so no need to worry.

Well said. Letting corporations and financial institutions regulate themselves has been disastrous on so many levels. But so long as they are protected from the effects of climate change the SV libertarian "tech delusionists" will keep their heads buried firmly in the sand.

Not that it makes the article less important or relevant, but it came out in 2015 and should be noted in the title.

>If emissions aren't cut, "We conclude that multi-meter sea-level rise would become practically unavoidable. If this article isn't full of fear-mongering and assumptions...

no wonder when you have people that needs a Brian Cox to remind them they know nothing. (see http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4499754.htm)

(2015)

In Star Trek there is a holiday planet, with climate controls. Change the weather and the temperature with the press of a button.

Today people are scared of the planet getting too hot. People are even more scared of the planet getting too cold. People have serious trouble, when it is not sunny enough or rainy enough, to support food production.

Seems like this would be more useful right now, than the warp drive...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com