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Comment by orf | Hacker News Reader

> It takes a special kind of hubris for someone to think they understand climate change with the minute dataset we have.

And an even greater hubris to ignore the pretty vast dataset we do have and go diametrically against the conclusions it suggests.

It's also pretty funny how that greater hubris is exhibited mainly in a particular country, and a specific party in that country which has a lot of ties/donations from oil companies. Especially when other branches of the government are preparing for the results of man made climate change. Makes you think, doesn't it.

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In a certain state in said country, the majority of people are very much not a part of said party, recycle by law, and claim to live with minimal carbon footprint.

They also prefer to buy gas-guzzling SUVs, use millions of gallons of water to maintain lawns in the desert, redirect water to their large population centers to do so, and line up to buy the new iThing each year (tossing out the perfectly good old one in the trash).

> They also prefer to buy gas-guzzling SUVs, use millions of gallons of water to maintain lawns in the desert, redirect water to their large population centers to do so, and line up to buy the new iThing each year (tossing out the perfectly good old one in the trash).

All whilst maintaining the third lowest CO2 emissions per capita. Incredible!

I’m seriously trying to figure out what state you are talking about. Definitely not California (cities aren’t very near the desert, even Los Angeles is in a semi humid basin), Arizona doesn’t have lawns mostly, Utah SLC wouldn’t really qualify as desert either. So then I thought you might mean Saudi Arabia?

> Definitely not California (cities aren’t very near the desert

The coastal cities aren't, but the southern central valley cities (Bakersfield, notably) are in the desert.

Sure, but that isn’t many of them. A drive through the desert finds it is mostly unpopulated. Definitely “desert” doesn’t define most of California’s population, it isn’t related to the Bay Area, Sacramento, etc....

You can find a list of California’s largest desert cities at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deserts_of_California, and it’s pretty marginal. Note Bakersfield isn’t even on that list.

A drive through the desert looks very different if you don’t take the 5.

I’ve taken highway 395 all the way from LA to Susanville (afterwards took an even more obscure highway to crater lake). Very nice drive if you can afford the detour. The only big desert city I went through was Reno.

> You can find a list of California’s largest desert cities at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deserts_of_California, and it’s pretty marginal.

The list is incomplete; it seems to include only cities in the named deserts, not cities in desert climate; much of the San Joaquin Valley, especially the southern part, is desert—but not in a specifically named desert—that is irrigated for agriculture.

That still doesn’t make sense, those people primarily vote Republican and are agricultural. GP was hinting about vast liberal desert cities...so they must mean some other state.

That dataset is limited, it’s vast and accurate for around 100 years then the quality and data points drop exponentially the further back you look.

Plenty of people agree that there is not enough data to draw conclusions about such a complex issue. Way to make this political for no reason.

It's an inherently political issue, one that has pretty clear cut lines. I'll give you a dollar if you can guess which side of the line has more funding from oil companies and other vested interests.

Can you imagine why that particular line might be the one espousing climate change denial and skepticism, uniquely in the developed world, whilst simultaneously preparing for it?

Should you not be skeptical of where your skepticism comes from?

> Plenty of people agree that there is not enough data to draw conclusions

What people, climate scientists?

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