Hacker News Reader

Comment by lumberingjack | Hacker News Reader

I am a farmer, was a net admin earlier in life but from what I have seen and heard myself and talking to my tribe from up north climate change is a natural event and there is nothing we can do to stop things like Earth's axis slightly changing making the sun way hotter. People that want to fight climate change should start in the cites with smog it is man made, it changes the climate in a localized area, it kills, and you can do something about it. Yet I never see these Climate change fighters completely giving up smog making devices.

View on HN

You do tell them the sun isn't getting hotter right? Have you seen this? https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-wo...

I'm partial to this graphic... puts things in perspective and puts paid to the notion that what's happening now resembles natural climate fluctuations.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

> puts paid

I think you're being downvoted because of a typo.

I think people don't understand English.

The graphic makes it very clear that what is happening now is very different in velocity and scale from historic climate swings. In other words, the climate change we're currently observing is man-made.

It's not a typo, but a common English phrase.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/put-pai...

I don't think it's exactly common - at least not when compared to the usage of other idioms using Google search.

There's also not a single match for that phrase in my entire ebook library...

Idioms like "as it stands" and "at the best of times" see like 50 times more usage. Those are common.

You learn something new every day though! Now I can use it too and add to the pile of people googling for that phrase's meaning that show up on Google Trends.

Electric cars have no direct smog production.

They do tend to emit disproportionally high smug levels though.

It's just passing the buck to the companies providing the electricity so the consumer can pat themselves on the back and order vanity plates that say "0 MPG" and "OIL HAHA".

This is not a good take, especially given the steady improvement in both cost-efficiency and the availability of renewable energy.

As an example: my girlfriend and I are putting enough solar on the roof to give us the headroom to charge an electric car, when it's time to switch.

and NOC024U https://www.flickr.com/photos/denisgobo/48075951728/in/photo...

They get 120 mpg equivalent, the battery metals are recyclable in a closed loop, and they can be powered by renewable energy.

It’s passing the buck to companies that do a pretty good job avoiding smog and produce a lot of electricity with no emissions at all.

> I am a farmer, was a net admin earlier in life but from what I have seen and heard myself and talking to my tribe from up north climate change is a natural event and there is nothing we can do to stop things like Earth's axis slightly changing making the sun way hotter.

Oh, well. That settles it! I guess the climate scientists who have been researching this for half a century should go find other jobs.

Economies of scale exist; urban dwellers generally pollute less on a per-capita and on a consumptive basis. And your whataboutism is misplaced--air pollution in cities has been improving steadily since the 1970's. (The Trump Administration is rolling back regulations related to this, which is fun, but that has likely not had significant impact yet.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com