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Comment by jfnixon | Hacker News Reader

How to convince me there is an existential threat requiring huge changes? Stop flying. Period. Stop eating meat. Period. Move into high density housing, and forego cars and just take public transportation or bike. That'll work for table stakes if you want to lecture me about the sacrifices I need to make. Put up or shut up.

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Cool. Be sure to ask the next person who claims to be concerned about the national debt why they aren't paying 95% of their income to the government and living in a shoebox. I'd also suggest reading up on collective action problems.

Let me see if I have your argument down... one can ignore hypocrisy in personal behavior because collective actions are hard to do? Is that it? If so, it isn't a very strong argument. If not, what is your claim about personal hypocrisy?

My claim is that one shouldn't have to personally be a saint to be taken seriously when advocating for a policy position.

The original question was how climate activists could convince people, not lobby for policy. Of course non-saints can advocate policy, but animal rights activists who wear furs and leather should not expect to be taken all that seriously. Same for jet-setting climate activists.

Good news for you! Nobody with any power is taking them seriously! The activists have been ignored and derided for going on 25 years now, just like you hoped.

I'm sure that future generations (well, the fraction that don't die from climate-aggrivated famines, wars or diseases) will be pleased to know that wealthy software devs from the Era of 24/7 Electricity didn't ever have to feel uncomfortable about their choices.

No, you're going to ignore them anyway, since you're clearly not interested in the science. So why do it? They are better off using tools and resources in the short term to amplify their position and try and effect change.

Your crystal ball is cloudy. I am interested in the Science. I'm not interested in being hectored by some busybody who knows less about the Science than I do, espcially when their behavior is hypocritical.

Are you interested in the Science? Here's some test questions: how do you explain the lack of warming signal for the past 15 years in the gold standard temperature dataset from the USCRN? What percentage of change in global cloud cover would account for 2C of warming and how does it compare to the accuracy of the IPCC model ensemble in predicting changes in global cloud cover?

I'm not denying a warming climate, but I do think there are significant error bars surrounding calculations of Climate Sensitivity. Until someone can provide me with better answers than "what does it hurt to err on the side of caution" I'm going to be a skeptic of predictions of catastrophic warming.

Now are you going to ignore Science, or are you going to ask for hard evidence of extraordinary claims?

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