Comment by curiousity | Hacker News Reader

Comment by curiousity | Hacker News Reader

Defeatism is endemic to comment threads like this. I'm not sure what the purpose of these comments is, to be honest. If anything, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let me offer an alternative point of view. Yes, the climate will be irreparably damaged. Yes, lots of humnas will suffer. These things seem to be unavoidable. The harm to both our planet and its citizens is happening as we speak. However, the scale to which this occurs is in our control.

This is an all-hands-on-deck sort of scenario. Everyone will need to pitch in, whatever they can, however they can. Travel less internationally. Reduce (or eliminate if possible) your meat and animal product consumption. Buy less. Vote for candidates that support renewable energy and environmentally friendly initiatives. There's a thousand ways an individual can help by voting with their wallet, their time, and their participation in their political system.

Everything you do, every choice you make today and for the rest of your life, potentially affects the lives of future generations. In my opinion, the most harmful thing you can do, is choosing to do nothing.

Edit: Seeing this is Hacker News, I know a lot of people are going to be commenting with technical suggestions - lab grown meats, renewable energy sources, carbon capture, geoengineering etc. I am very much in favour of these solutions. However, (as far as I know) none of these currently exist at such a scale or level of sophistication so as to make my initial point irrelevant.

> In my opinion, the most harmful thing you can do, is choosing to do nothing.

I disagree. Millions of Americans and one of two major political parties are actively obstructing action to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Doing nothing is better than doing things to actively hamper positive efforts.

I was orienting my post more towards the commenters who would rather comment "we are doomed" and "nothing will change", but you are absolutely right to point out obstructionism.

That said, I think my initial point still stands: Everyone needs to do what they can to both reduce their own impact, and to pressure governments and corporations to reduce theirs.

You can't control what others do. You can control what you (and perhaps your immediate family) do.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Seriously? Do I have to list countless individuals who fought multinational corps and won b/c they were being screwed? Telling your family to put the hamburgers down aint going to help this situation.

As the article pointed out, we are entering a new territory that the global temperature rising is irreversible. And this was posted on HN more than 4 years ago.[1]

Even if it was reversible, that would require a negative carbon economy and completed rebuild energy structure that rely upon massive scale zero-carbon energy sources (currently only hydro and nuclear qualify at that scale but either not practical or facing opposition, solar/wind/tidal/geothermo don't). And, a massive scale carbon collecting infrastructure to significantly capture the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Unfortunately that technology doesn't exist (at least not outside of the labs or proven scaling massively yet).

There is only so much everyone can do - using LED lighting, reduce energy consumption etc. but without a coordinated political will and a major driving force in technology, it's fruitless. And most importantly, it's too little too late.

Put it simply, there is simply no technical solution and daily habits can change the trajectory of an extinction event. Now it's clearer than ever why Musk and Bezos are exploring space and Mars colonization given their tremendous amount of fortune and resources behind their teams of smartest people working for them - rather than say saving our planet and happily ever after.

Lastly, I still believe in doing something is better than nothing, that's the only positive aspect of this story.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7777869

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