Comment by PeterisP | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PeterisP | Hacker News Reader

Part of the blame lies in lack of resources for understanding the impact properly. This article is a good example - it includes an infographic (https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5c1a989924000019008c883...) listing vague global effects such as "Heavy rainfall up 7%" or "sea level rise 50cm" or "Crop yields in tropical regions down x%". That's not anything that's going to get a common person to think "oh, that's absolutely horrible" - 7% of heavy rainfall or 50cm sea level rise doesn't sound scary, and they don't care about crop yields in tropical regions if they don't live there. What is needed is publicly available information on how climate change is going to affect them - not global averages, but local impact. If you just say "oh, it's going to be vaguely really bad after a long time on the other side of the globe" then people reasonably won't choose to make any sacrifices to prevent that.

Let's assume the currently likely scenario of 4 degree C average warming by 2100. The article quotes Ed Maibach, director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, that he finds it "to be nothing short of terrifying". Okay, let's elaborate and present the actually terrifying predictions to the people - where can I get them? Given that 4 degree global warming scenario, what's the predicted local warming in Texas? Given the global sea level rise, which parts of Florida are going to flood by 2100? Given the predicted changes in rainfall, what is going to be the effect on crop yields in Midwest? 2100 is too far away to be meaningful for most people, what is the realistic bad case scenario by 2050 or 2070, what are the mid-term impacts?

Don't just say "it's terrifying" but actually terrify people with data! And not just any data, but data that's relevant to them personally; a Midwest farmer doesn't care about crop yields falling in tropical regions (or might even prefer it, less competition=higher prices) and vice versa - to meaningfully convince a person living in Florida you need data about how Florida is going to be affected; to convince a person living in London, you need data about the expected impact on London. Is there such data available?

If you want to scare people you can tell them that Phytoplankton is sensitive to ocean warming and has been declining over the last century [1] (and the situation has not improved since 2010 [2]). On land, plants don't really like global heating either [3]. Together these effects directly threaten not only the food chain, but oxygen supply itself.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09268

[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/ocean-p...

[3] https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...

That's a prime example of what I'm talking about - vague statements ("sensitive", "decline", "threaten") about global effects on complex systems ("the food chain").

What is the expected specific, immediate, local effect of that? Can you tell a particular person (the abovementioned Midwest farmer) some particular clear consequence of phytoplankton decline he's going to personally experience in his lifetime (say, 2070) or the lifetime of his kids (say, 2100) if he doesn't do the utmost to prevent climate change change ?

The articles you quoted make no really scary (to the target audience) claims whatsoever. The third includes an expected impact on agriculture (https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/figure/image?d...) which shows neutral or even positive effects on agriculture in much of first world (and horrible effects on Brasil and SE Asia, but that's not relevant to the USA consumer whom we're asking to change habits).

Timely data is available for the US. The fourth National Climate Assessment just released its report on impacts last month (https://nca2018.globalchange.gov).

This “impacts” report is based on the science NCA report from last year, so if you want the science drivers, see that one. For the first time, both reports are highly regionally decomposed (again, across the US).

One example if you want alarming:

“Recent economic analysis finds that under a higher scenario (RCP8.5), it is likely (a 66% probability, which corresponds to the Intermediate-Low to Intermediate sea level rise scenarios) that between $66 billion and $106 billion worth of real estate will be below sea level by 2050; and $238 billion to $507 billion, by 2100.” (https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/8/)

The report has much, much more.

The report doesn't seem that scary, actually. The sections on particular impacts list reasonable mitigation actions (that don't have the tragedy of commons problem that climate change prevention does); and the particular impact of sea level rise you quote isn't that large or scary - the listed uncertain, faraway damage is much smaller than the certain, immediate cost of CO2 reduction we'd want. It's large enough to motivate local politicians to plan for mitigation activities - since no matter what they do (and in the absence of global coordination) they'll still be needed, we'll face some global warming and sea level rise even in the most optimistic scenario; but losing 2% of national real estate value over 80 years isn't economic justification for, say, meaningful reduction of consumption; sacrificing 0.1% GDP growth per year (which isn't nearly enough to combat climate change) is a much, much larger cost than the $500 billion tag.

As I skim it, nothing in that report has anything to convince people that "we're all going to horribly suffer if we don't act NOW". Yes, the effects are bad, but any personal impact I can derive from the descriptions in that report are on the same scale as the affected people would see in any major economic downturn.

The regional chapters in particular seem to have very little alarming content; it seems to center on "yep, this area is slowly to get worse, so we need extra infrastructure and preparation" - the described effects sound like sufficient justification for an 1% tax rate hike and doubling of insurance premiums, but not sufficient justification to mandate serious lifestyle change to try and prevent the consequences.

For me, the prospect of $500B costs in just one sector (coastal property damage), which will be in effect transferred to the major stockholders in oil/coal companies, is maddening.

If the prospect of $500B costs until 2100 ($6B/year) in the future seems maddening, then what would people say about an immediate cost of more than $1000B/year, which is what the expected costs of rapid greenhouse reductions (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/527196/how-much-will-it-c... , $13T until 2030 recent estimate) would be, which wouldn't still prevent much of that sea level rise and coastal property damage?

A long-term disaster that needs massive short-term action to avert is really kind of a perfect storm for killing humanity.

You are absolutely right that the discussion needs to be far heavier on what the concrete consequences will be, not in abstract numbers, but in how it will actually affect the lives of their children and grandchildren.

The messaging needs to be ubiquitous. Climate change should be the main topic every single damn day.

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