Scorching Summer in Europe Signals Long-Term Climate Changes | Hacker News Reader

Scorching Summer in Europe Signals Long-Term Climate Changes

nytimes.com

76 pointstchalla98 comments

This seems as good a place as any to tell HN about my business:

We provide systems to banks to help them include activities which mitigate climate risk into credit agreements, and evidence of compliance into credit scores. It provides a nudge for bank clients to adopt practices which both mitigate climate change and build resilience to climate-related weather shock.

We're a fintech biz built on the fundamental insight that environmental damage, including climate change, is hardwired into the design of the credit system, because issue of credit is blind to resource overuse/abuse, creating a systemic perverse incentive for environmental degradation.

If you're interested in finance, tech and concerned about climate change, I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.

2 further points:

1. HN was the community that gave me the confidence to launch this business.

2. Through our learning experience, we have discovered that banks are already reducing exposure to agricultural lending due to concerns about weather shock. Where farmers can't get access to credit, their production can drop 75%. Although we are only in the foothills of climate change, our financial system will amplify its impact. There may be technological fixes for high value cash crops grown in controlled environments. Not so sure about staples.

> There may be technological fixes for high value cash crops grown in controlled environments.

Can you expand on this? I have felt the same way, and have a good understanding of the tech problem to be solved, but I'm having trouble selling the idea to any buyer. Would you attempt to anticipate crop price spikes and plant ahead of time?

By technological fixes in agriculture, I simply mean greenhouses and fertigation systems. Control the environment in which plants grow more closely and thereby mitigate risks associated with weather shock. Works great for things like capsicum, high value lettuce etc. I don't see how this can be replicated for things like wheat and maize, although admittedly GM crops potentially offer some route to solving this problem.

For wheat and maize it can't and it doesn't have to. Both are stable after picking and can be transported. Lettuce cannot be transported as well after being picked. Maybe shipping containers with live lettuce?

Re wheat and maize, it's what happens before they're picked that is the concern. Where banks project high rates of loss, they simply withdraw from the sector - understandably.

Re lettuce, I think what we will see is 2 things: firstly highly capitalised vertical farms close to where the lettuce will be consumed. Secondly, smallscale contract farming again close to point of consumption. Imagine a small greenhouse in your back garden. You pay for the infrastructure and have Uber like aggregator linking you directly to buyers. Oh god - I can see the pitch now: it's like Uber for Romain lettuce...

The problem with Uber for romaine is that it takes at least a month to fill the demand for romaine. Anyone with a car could, potentially, sign up and fill a ride request. In practice, this might not be a big problem if the shortage is longer than the time it takes to grow romaine. This is where my mind was going with this but it would require people to have equipment sitting idle or be growing romaine lettuce anyways and sell it when the price is high enough.

I work in insurance, which I imagine faces similar challenges to banks. I’d like to know more about what you’re working on and your approach.

I think you're right, insurance and banks are both looking at a similar problem. In our approach, which is agri-specific, we work with banks to include requirements for climate smart agriculture into loan agreements. Farmers must do x, y and z if they want a loan. From an insurance perspective, this is the equivalent of requiring drivers to wear a seatbelt. We use a remote-sensing system to verify that farmers are in compliance with the system, and if they are we pass a score back to the bank for inclusion in their credit scoring algorithm. Compliant farmers have an improved risk profile and should be able to access credit on improved terms to reflect the improved risk.

That makes sense, and I like your level of focus.

How are banks responding to your services? In insurance, we’re having a very soft market due to all the capital sloshing around the system. I imagine it can be challenging for lenders to impose significant risk controls when there’s alternative financing so cheaply available.

My wife works on climate change advocacy on the nonprofit side. Are you working with any advocacy organizations? Presumably they’re an important part of your approach.

TBH - climate silos and finance silos are difficult to merge. Different language, KPIs, incentives and concerns. We're trying though to reconcile the two! That said, banks are increasingly paying attention. The two drivers for this are: (1) Ratings agencies including climate factors in their ratings, and (2) G20 Financial Stability Board, Bloomberg Committee calling for voluntary disclosure of climate risk and mitigation steps by company boards.

And sorry to answer the other question: we work with NGOs, although not necessarily advocacy NGOs.

Do you know what the effects of this "on the ground" are? Is it getting farmers to change what they grow to better adapt to the new local conditions? What affect does it have on agri-business as opposed to family farms, where the former might simply move or have the capital sufficient for large scale change in practices that the latter does not? Also are there any effects on corporations further along the supply chain - for example reducing food waste might have a greater impact on the volume of food needed which in itself would reduce environment damage?

What’s most striking in this article is the disconnect between the gravity of the situation and the ecological impact of “economically efficient” local solutions such as flying in workers from Thailand and lettuce from L.A.

Seriously, flying in 30000 heads of lettuce from half the world away to honor a contract with a supermarket? I can understand that it’s the “right” local solution (most likely the only way to avoid bankruptcy for the farmers), but from a global perspective this is utterly crazy.

But I like lettuce.

Too bad. the environmentalists know better than you and lettuce is killing the planet.

Do you think bananas sold in Europe are grown locally?

Compared to all the stuff flown around, one extra shipment is a drop in the bucket.

Greece produces bananas. (source : https://en.actualitix.com/country/wld/banana-producing-count... page 10)

Iceland used to produce bananas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_production_in_Iceland

https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/bananas_en:

European citizens are major banana consumers, making the European Union (EU) the world’s biggest importer of bananas from Latin America (nearly 70%) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries (around 19%). The EU's own production of bananas amounts to around 11%.

Yes, and to add to that a vast majority of this 11% is grown at quite a distance from the continent:

Of the total banana volume marketed in Europe, which amounted to 6,122,898 tonnes, 11.3% is of EU origin, with the Canary Islands accounting for more than 60%, followed by the French Martinique and Guadeloupe (36%) and by the Portuguese Madeira (3%).

Bananas are picked green and have a long shelf life if stored correctly. They are transported by sea. Lettuce has to be transported by air. Importing lettuce is more harmful.

I’m well aware of what produce is grown locally; I live in France and try to purchase local, seasonal fruits and vegetables as far as possible. But that’s just my point: we’ve grown used to this type of behavior, to the point that it’s become normal to fly lettuce around the world. Just another drop in the bucket as you say, but the article makes depressingly clear the fact that the bucket is overflowing.

What we need is for carbon sequestration to become a profitable industry.

Is there even a viable approach for this on a large scale?

Yeah plant forests instead of cutting them down. Also it doesn't matter when the high albedo ice on the poles melts.

You need to cut them down to sequester them and also to make room for new trees. The carbon remains sequestered as long as you do not burn it or let it decay.

Interesting. So a forest in equilibrium emits (dead trees rotting) the same amount of co2 than what it uses via photosynthesis?

Yes, growing and composting is part of the natural CO2 cycle. The problem is not CO2 in it self, but all the extra we humans add to the natural cycle.

I like to think of it as having a glass with a hole in the bottom, as long as the stream in is the same as the stream out the level stay the same. Adding to the stream in or making the hole smaller will change the level and in the end overfill and spill

At the moment Colorado is going the opposite direction, forests are turning into grasslands.

What parts of Colorado? If you look at a picture of Boulder from 1900 and one from today, the difference is striking. True tallgrass and shortgrass prairies are among the most endangered ecosystems on the planet.

It's the Front Range that's badly affected, winters aren't as cold as they used to be, and as a result the Montain Pine Beetle is expanding its range. The weakened pine forests are a fire hazard.

Yes. We can realistically capture and store permanently many Gigatonnes of CO2 per year. It involves capture of CO2 from concentrated point sources (power plants, chemical plants, metal and cement factories etc) and transport to permanent geological storage. We have all the tech and know how to scale up. The only problem is that it's pure cost, no short-term benefit, so no company will do it voluntarily.

This would slow the rate of emissions, but not eliminate them or suck any extant CO2 from the atmosphere, correct?

Right. But it's a start.

How much sequestration would we need to do to actually reverse the effect, and why can't we?

I know why we won't, at least...

To actually reverse climate change (as opposed to simply slowing or stopping its further progress), we'd need to go back to pre-industrial CO2 levels. That's not physically impossible, but it is (almost certainly) politically and economically impossible, at least with current technology and politics.

Cheap solar and coming to our senses about nuclear power (i.e. promoting it) could make a big dent. So it's not hopeless. But it's sure not going to be easy.

Ah, wow, pre-industrial? So there's no leeway at all? You mean we'd have to go back to pre-industrial emissions levels, or actually sequester all the carbon we emitted all these decades?

Luckily, cheap solar seems to be coming, and electric cars are hopefully becoming more widespread as well. Nuclear is a different story, unfortunately that one doesn't seem to be very palatable to the average person, even though it sounds like a silver bullet.

Pretty much. It's a matter of degree. The more CO2, the warmer.

So, if we could wave a wand and get to 310 ppm, that would be great! But 280 would be even better. Realistically we've got some warming baked in from feedback effects (less snow, etc) so lowering to industrial levels wouldn't get us back to preindustrial temperatures immediately.

If we magically stopped emitting immediately, we'd still see warming because of lag in the effects, feedback, etc, and we'd find it uncomfortable. With more emissions it will be worse.

So, sequestering emissions is a very worthy goal, and why stopped remains important even though we're past a point where damage begins. Damage can still get worse and we should try to avoid that.

Figuring out some way to actually reverse them is the holy grail though. We would need nuclear or solar for that, most likely.

A bit of nuclear waste in the ground is better than carbon waste in the air.

Do you have any references for how to do this? How do you transport and store gigatons of anything?

You capture and sequester on site underground.

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/20...

"The world is going to hell, almost literally"

"We just need to figure out how to make money while avoiding it"

Which pretty much sums up why we are here.

Well if you can give up your job, say no to money, then we wouldn’t be here.

It does, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

"We just need to figure out how to make money while avoiding it" is just other words for "To achieve X, we need to figure out (and implement) an incentive structure so that people would benefit from doing stuff that facilitates X, which is pretty much the only way to get them to do it".

That's what I was trying to say. So how do people benefit now from preventing likely future disaster?

Right now they don't, but the major governments can set up incentives so that e.g. carbon sequestration would/could become a profitable industry.

I get that. And I was hoping for something purely economic. But maybe that's impossible. Which is why governments.

No they cant.

After talking to many people over many years - its getting increasing clear that we cannot afford to stop our economic systems.

Even meager impacts of these systems result in huge shocks to the political systems which result in politicians getting un-elected.

This means that the people talking about actual change will never get the floor - the requirements are too high- profit margins will take too much of a hit, GDP growth will become anemic and wage growth will be stunted.

The things we need, are too expensive, and its FAR too cheap to just abuse the commons, than to let people know the actual full price of the cheap and convenient goods we use.

Put this on our species' eventual planetary gravestone -- as a warning to others.

Think about it this way: how you make somebody to do something? There's only two sure ways to achieve it - make them afraid not to do it or make them rewarded for doing it. What would you prefer - people getting executed for going over their carbon quota or somebody making money from carbon sequestration? What you would prefer to happen to you? I think I prefer the money solution over the fear solution.

> I think I prefer the money solution over the fear solution.

A carbon tax/ETS is also a money driven solution, a proven one at that. No need to execute anyone.

Proven to do what? Stuff the pockets of some well-connected people? Sure. Finance a variety of pet projects that end up in nothing but money exchanging pockets? You betcha. Suppress the economic growth? Of course.

Solving anything related to what they purport to solve? Nope.

Check this out: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-08/co2-emissions-hit-...

US does not have carbon tax. Many European countries do. You tell me how that happens.

> Proven to do what?

Proven to reduce emissions, just like the Montreal protocol did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol.

> Sure. Finance a variety of pet projects that end up in nothing but money exchanging pockets? You betcha. Suppress the economic growth? Of course.

All those same arguments were said about the Montreal protocol, but the sky didn't fall.

> US does not have carbon tax. Many European countries do. You tell me how that happens.

According to your own source European emissions dropped 1.5% from 206 to 2016 while the US dropped 1.2%. Even this isn't a fair comparison as Europeans emit much less already, there is less fat to cut.

Additionally you seem to think we can reward people for sequestering carbon, where do you propose this reward comes from?

> but the sky didn't fall.

You are trying to confuse two things - suppression of economic growth and total collapse of the economics, and claiming since the latter didn't happen it proves no claim of the former could be ever true. It doesn't work that way.

> Additionally you seem to think we can reward people for sequestering carbon, where do you propose this reward comes from?

If you think it's important to do it, and many people like you do so, you could all chip in. We have some very wealthy people, billionaires, and more than one, that support doing something about this. Surely paying some money is the easiest way for them of doing something one could ever imagine.

The problem is that carbon sequestration costs more now. Although it would arguably reduce future costs, there doesn't seem to be a workable economic mechanism for linking that to the present. I'm certainly no economist, but the current situation seems clear enough.

Korea is experiencing the hottest summer ever in recorded history, but Korean summers have always been hot, humid and uncomfortable, so while it's definitely more uncomfortable than usual, it isn't causing too much turmoil.

For parts of the world like Europe where such extreme temperatures have been relatively rare, it will be extremely interesting - not to mention super unfortunate - to see how long it will take for individuals and societies to adjust to what very well may be a new normal and/or how it may impact migration (both in and out) patterns.

How is the hot summer in Europe indicative of a long-term climate change more than Donald Trump saying "see, it's snowing outside! I told you there's no climate change!"

You have a point, I could have qualified my post with an 'if these hot temperatures continue in Europe' to hedge since the effects of climate change don't necessarily appear as super-linear phenomenon - there is scope for significant variation.

The extent of the heatwaves is the difference. I saw a map showing that basically the whole world has above average temperatures this summer - past heat waves tended to be local. Much like a local record snowfall.

If you want an amusing (and yet depressing) perspective, I recommend Peter Watts' Echopraxia. One of the background themes is how much energy they need to pump sulfates into the stratosphere, in order to prevent catastrophic GCC-driven wildfires. Given the current heatwave around the northern hemisphere, it seems that reality is catching up.

> catastrophic GCC-driven wildfires

Is that an undocumented option?

Isn't that gcc? ;)

But yes, I ought to have said "global-climate-change-driven". Rather a mouthful, though.

In the last 12 months we've had tropical storms, siberian-like snowstorms and now a long hot summer. It's certainly been more interesting than our usual grey wet summers and grey wet winters.

And over here in Greece, we get sudden rains every day, whereas we used to not get a drop for three or four months. The change is really striking, and it does not bode well at all.

Yes it's a bit scary wondering where it will end (except to say I wouldn't mind if all our summers here were like this one.)

Yes, increasingly chaotic weather is expected with GCC. There's more water vapor in the troposphere, and so more energy is available from condensation.

It does seem as if when it rains it rains heavier than it used to.

Is there anywhere on earth where the weather can be considered normal or not changing much from the norm? Just curious where the best or last habitable areas would be? Perhaps New Zealand?

I bet Sahara is pretty constant all the time :)

EDIT: Spoke too soon:

https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/videos/sno...

It's actually really not. A few thousand years ago, it was a tropical forests and it will be again within a few thousand years.

Yeah, I've read that too. So maybe the US Southwest will go total desert. And maybe even the Amazon. But the Sahara could become tropical forest again. I don't recall mechanistic details. Something about atmospheric standing waves, I think.

Brazil.

If the global economy shuts down, then you would get eaten in New Zealand.

Anywhere with mountains should be OK since temperature drops x degrees for every y meters above sea level.

cool story incoming: I'm new here, and i was wondering if there would be climate change denier accounts here, just like the shitty news aggregation\commenting site that i left behind. sure enough they are here! commenting as they will on how the Titanic is doing 'just fine' and insisting we 'wait and see' how it turns out.

i suppose I'm not surprised, but i had hoped things would be different.

And as someone commented on a previous thread here, their presence with trolling arguments causes the thread to become 'contentious' so the HN algorithm knocks it off the front page. I've no doubt that for some of the trolls that is the objective.

It's a pity because this is probably the most important issue of our time and it's going to take an engineering/scientific approach to solve it - so I think it's highly relevant to HN. There are some sharp minds on here. It should be hotly debated and the ranking algorithm should be able to take the heat.

We have the technology and solutions. We’ve had them since the 80s.

We need to change the culture to make the necessary sacrifices to get things done but, as you can see, human nature is hard to change.

It didn't used to be that way. The change happened 2-3 years ago. I think a lot of this ultimately comes down to poliitical polarization - people feel that if they don't agree entirely with progressive policies, then they must be conservative, and the climate change denial follows. I think there has been an effort to "de-Bay Area" hn for better or worse (there was a time when general SF news was somewhat germane and topical here, but no longer)

I'm surprised that today I read at least 3 comments and some articles about "denialism". Is it the new frontier of the "fascists against anti-fascists" war?

I do believe that there is a lot of things coming from mainstream media we have to dismiss, and it seems some of these things are now been publicly defended against public discredit. The same way the mass media lie to us today, their ancestors lied to ours. It is natural and healthy to pursuit lies of the past, it is a shame that some people are trying to put it as a negative behavior.

It's a public forum; people of all points of view are free to comment, but everyone else is free to downvote and flag comments that degrade the thread, which has happened with the comments you've complained about here.

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