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Comment by simonsarris | Hacker News Reader

The doomsayer crowd should be ashamed of themselves for promoting this kind of emotional burnout.

Even the worst IPCC projections don't speak of anything remotely like humanity being wiped out within 15 years. Panic does not jump start change nearly as much as it seems to jump start despair, bitterness, and contempt for anyone with doubts, which apparently now includes people who do not think we are doomed.

These things that are very orthogonal, or in the way of, solving any actual hard problems that lie ahead of us.

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And it will be self-defeating. I doubt that we will really do anything in the next 15 years to fight of climate change and then when these youths are alive 15 years from now, they will be easy to convince that this was just all an example of chicken little screaming that the sky is falling.

> they will be easy to convince that this was ... chicken little screaming that the sky is falling.

But that's exactly what's going on. Climate change is a serious issue but the climate change elite have decided that the rest of us are too dumb to understand and react to what's really going on. Instead the working plan is to scare the shit out of everyone with click bait hoping to elicit some kind of response. Instead this promotes disbelief and complacency.

In 15 years the effects of climate change will be much more pronounced than they are today, and today as a millennial, it is already possible to recall how the local climate has changed. So if anything in 15 more years, these people will be much more convinced than they are now.

And in fifteen years when humanity still exists, how will these no longer young folks react? Will they feel mislead and turn against those who promoted the ideas? Turn their backs on such issues forever, no longer entertaining the possibility that it is a problem but longer term? Or just move the goal posts?

They will understand human nature if they are bright enough, and live the rest of the life with healthy skepticism.

And the high-schoolers will be angry at them for not understanding that the end is nigh and will organize weekly demonstrations, etc

In fifteen years, there will be a fresh generation of young folks who have no memory of this failed doomsday prediction to indoctrinate.

We just had a generation that grew up thinking the world might end any second in nuclear armageddon. And look where that got us: We still have more than enough nuclear weapons to wipe out all major cities, even more countries have those weapons and neither US-Russia relations nor India-Pakistan relations are particulary good. But nobody even thinks about it because nothing ever happened.

See: Recurring Christian End Times prophecy.

It is nothing like that. Predictions about climate change, while often imprecise, are largely evidence based. Religious prophecies are not. Regardless of if you believe the doomsayers and the timeline, we are clearly trending in that direction.

> Predictions about climate change, while often imprecise, are largely evidence based. Religious prophecies are not.

"The world will end in 15 years" is fundamentally based on faith, whether that is faith in science or in a prophet of some form. Saying "but MY faith is in something real" isn't a valid argument.

(and since the actual climate scientists say that the world is NOT going to end in 15 years...)

The worst IPCC predictions on arctic ice melting are totally incorrect.

https://static.skepticalscience.com/graphics/sea_ice_predict...

Therefore the effect of climate change could be far greater than their worst predictions.

I'm familiar with that graph; I used to have it posted on my wall with a great big "You are here" arrow on it.

Its pretty dishonest to post today, though. Its based on models that are obsolete, and is missing 6 more years of arctic ice extent. Using an anomalous minimum is just as bad as the deniers use of an anomalous maximum temperature from an El Nino year.

There's plenty of reason to be alarmed at the state of the climate and cryosphere, but it is important to be honest about it.

https://greatwhitecon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-graphs/

https://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/09/models-are-improving...

I think you're assuming that the low point on that graph is the 2012 low outlier. It isn't, it's 2007. The graph would look much worse if stopped in 2012.

The third link I submitted has the variant of this that stops just after 2012.

Because I found this interesting, I dug a bit further, and here's what I found.

This graph only has observed data out to 2009. I'm unable to find a graphic with updated data, but this year the September minimum was 4.15 million, or about tied with that lowest point on the graph.

I am also not sure of what revisions (if any) have been made to those IPCC projections.

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/ has September minimum figures up to 2018, and you've already found 2019.

Fun fact: one of the drivers of warming in the Artic region is the decrease in pollution due to “clean air” policies in Europe. https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2673

IIRC, that's because the IPCC's "worst case" winds up being the worst case everyone can agree is possible. So it winds up being more moderate than the actual worst cases.

However the number was agreed upon, the arctic ice reality is very bad for humanity and possibly catastrophic.

If I was an insurer and the Earth was a house, I would not be offering a policy.

I agree that thinking humanity will be wiped out in 15 years is over the top.

I think though, that anyone that has fully grasped the IPCC reports, has to go through a grieving process that begins with despair.

Climate change is unlikely to kill me (unless through secondary effects like war), or even my daughter. But it's probably going to make my life more challenging towards the end, even more so for my daughter, and if she has any children they will probably be starting to face the real challenges (note: first world countries, for the global south, those timelines will be accelerated).

The despair though, is rooted in knowing that the natural world of my youth is gone forever (on human timescales). My daughter will never experience the same number of insects, fish, and birds I saw as a child[1]. Diversity is lost as millions of species are already going extinct. Coral reefs will be lifeless ghost towns. I can never share that world with her or my future grandchildren. Because the damage we have already done will take thousands of years to repair, that world only exists in my memories now.

On the other side of despair is acceptance and personal action. I do what I can, but I realize I'm only one among billions, and I have to accept that I can't fix a global problem, no matter how bad I think the impact is.

For anyone interested in further reading, I recommend the book _Being the Change_, by Peter Kalmus (https://smile.amazon.com/Being-Change-Spark-Climate-Revoluti...)

[1] She'll never even touch dirt, drink water, or breathe air that doesn't contain thousands of microplastic particles.

>The doomsayer crowd should be ashamed of themselves for promoting this kind of emotional burnout.

The humanity must go through a few rounds of hysteria and emotional burnout before it realizes that click-driven advertisement and dopamine-driven social media is destructive to it and prevents from clear, rational thinking. It's the way it adopts to a new technological era. Nothing can be done here.

    Every generation has its way (Joe Cocker)

The question wasn't specific to climate change

You are right. Specifically, the question was:

> ENV17: Within the next 10-15 years, how likely is that the earth will become uninhabitable and humanity will be wiped out?

The other questions were directly about climate change, so presumably that framing had an effect. But on that short a time span, I think nuclear warefare has a more likely (though distant) chance of wiping out humanity than climate change (and I'm no climate change denier), and I could imagine some of the respondents reasoning similarly.

Instead of criticizing another perspective, you should put effort towards convincing people of another view point.

Why should someone be ashamed of themselves for having an opinion? Projections are not facts so why are you treating them as such and saying “sorry you’re wrong”?

> Instead of criticizing another perspective, you should put effort towards convincing people of another view point.

That just doesn't work. Anytime someone dares express a view contrary to the group, they're shouted down and insulted into the ground.

I'm very optimistic about the future of mankind, which is funny to me, considering how cynical I am about interactions with other people.

So instead we have a meta conversation about how one group is wrong and one is right?

I don't see how that would make things better. For me, I think the answer is to try and keep my mouth shut and just live a decent life. That's a work in progress...

> Why should someone be ashamed of themselves for having an opinion?

They should be ashamed for irrational fear-mongering.

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