Climate change now detectable from any single day of weather at global scale | Hacker News Reader

Climate change now detectable from any single day of weather at global scale

nature.com

166 pointsnabla9133 comments

People's financial incentives are not aligned with the climate's necessary modifications. The two won't be aligned until climate passes over its tipping point and enters an irreversible feedback loop.

Currency can be printed electronically these days. Beings can't eat currency or shelter in currency.

xkcd climate timeline:

https://xkcd.com/1732/

I know there's a huge difference in data resolution, but worth pondering about nonetheless.

"When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money."

-- popular quote of unclear but probably native American origin in the 70s: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/20/last-tree-cut/

And, if anybody doubts, it's sure that we are losing forests as we speak:

"World losing area of forest the size of the UK each year, report finds

Chance of ending deforestation by 2030 seems lower than when pledge was made five years ago"

Guardian, Sep 2019:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/12/deforest...

When will incentives ever be aligned with one's own long term interests?

There is reason for despair, that competition to survive the day to day - everyone needs to get through their week, month and year - will always detract from the larger concerns about long term sustainability of our civilization and prosperity.

> When will incentives ever be aligned with one's own long term interests?

Once we've installed a good global governance system (imo some form of confederation of confederation ala Switzerland) that democratically aggregates preferences and can align the incentives.

People like to act like competition is inevitable, forgetting that the main hegemon of the last 50 years has competition as a large part of it's ideology (and all the runner ups are not democratically legitimised in the sense people in Europe or the US would consider enough). It's not a law of physics, it's part of a system that can be changed.

So I'd disagree. The time for despair is when you are dead, or can no longer try to improve things. Now there's work to do

> Once we've installed a good global governance system (imo some form of confederation of confederation ala Switzerland) that democratically aggregates preferences and can align the incentives.

This is wishful thinking with more than half the world not involved in democratic governance. But be of good cheer. There's profit to be made where there's crisis.

I worry that we have removed people's moral agency by normalizing huge debts for life's necessities. We have the technology to make housing and education cheap and plentiful, but instead create scarcities and credit to have leverage over the workforce and keep them working in ways they'd prefer not to. I mean, every day I think "but guys seriously shouldn't we use all these computers to work on the metaphorical asteroid heading for Earth??? guys??" But we don't, myself included, because bills.

I’ve thought about this a lot too. You feel stuck inside a vortex against your will at times.

Or laws/taxes are passed, which incorporate the externalities, and subventions for detrimental efforts are cut. That is "just" a matter of political will.

How much war are you willing to wage to force other countries to do the same? I think that's really the only question that matters when it comes to the "everybody pass laws" plan.

You can never know when the tipping point is because either you haven't yet hit it, or you already have but don't know at which point in the past the death spiral could have been prevented, if at all.

This is an ineffective approach. No country can assume any other will fall in line to "do the same". This creates a do nothing approach because it turns doing the right thing, by taking the first steps, into a game of finger pointing. War is definitely not the answer and is 100% counterproductive to the end goal.

If all countries, that are supposedly interested in being the best climate change affectors, all competed to truly be the best - we'd be in a far better spot. The war you allude to is not international in nature. It's national. If the US, for example, actually removed campaign contributions and lobbying allowances from organizations responsible for a majority of annual pollution we'd already be down the road. But instead it is national politics, and those legislators, that are the real roadblock to starting the snowball move towards clean technology.

The problem with this approach, which I was trying to highlight, is that as long as "doing better by climate change" implies "economic disadvantage" there will be major polluters who do not get on board. What will you do with them? If you really believe this is an existential crisis for humanity, you must be willing to destroy these countries. Choose your poison: bomb them to oblivion or sanction/starve them to death. That is why this is a failed approach.

Your logic assumes everything in the world to be equal. The world is messy. If we don't start we all lose. The Internet wasn't bootstrapped because the world's countries all agreed on exactly the right way to implement networks and protocols and there are countries that have both contributed very little opposed to those that have contributed a lot. Moving to clean energy has huge economic advantage. So, again, your get on board or be destroyed is counterproductive and irrational. Heavy, one off, polluters can be dealt with after the fact.

>If we don't start we all lose.

I didn't suggest we don't start. I suggested the "everyone pass laws" plan has a fatal flaw the size of China and India.

>your get on board or be destroyed is counterproductive and irrational.

That's not my plan, it's yours. "Laws" are the get on board or be destroyed approach. You can do it domestically pretty easy, but it's much harder across national boundaries.

>Heavy, one off, polluters can be dealt with after the fact.

China already emits more than twice the US CO2. China is on track to double its emissions by 2030. How far are you willing to go to stop them? It's a very simple question.

Why would you need to stop China? They have invested more into renewable energy and electric transportation than any other country.

If we accept the axiom that CO2 emissions are an eminent threat to the existence of humanity, then I think the answer is obvious. This isn't a friendly competition for who can invest the most in green tech. This is a life or death race to rid the world of carbon emissions. The world's largest polluter doubling its emissions over the next decade cannot be accepted under those conditions.

China will stop when they contracted to and not before -- although their rapidly declining air quality may influence more action sooner. They have had a "developing country" pass through UN climate agreements as did India. I suspect no one 30 years ago expected us to be little further forward, nor China and India having mostly developed past "developing" status. COP25 was a joke sadly, so, we're screwed...

I think China committed and signed on to start reducing emissions in 2025 or 2030, I forget which.

> Choose your poison: bomb them to oblivion or sanction/starve them to death. That is why this is a failed approach.

>That's not my plan, it's yours.

Really? If you want to try and give your argument legs at least try not to contradict yourself in the same thread. And please don't state I made a claim falsely.

Also...

>China is on track to double its emissions by 2030

This isn't actually true [0].

[0] https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/current-pol...

>Really? If you want to try and give your argument legs at least try not to contradict yourself in the same thread. And please don't state I made a claim falsely.

I was explaining how the "we're all just going to pass laws" plan is the plan which leads to violence. You even copied the part where I said "That is why this is a failed approach."

>This isn't actually true [0].

The report I was reading is from 2009. If you include its emissions from deforestation and farming (as much as 1/3 of its emissions) it's still very closely on track.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/China-to-Double-P...

More generally, enforcement of the agreed mandates, whether laws within countries, or treaties without.

Here in the US, the selection of laws receiving effective enforcement seems a rather small sample of the vast pile typed out in dusty books.

With just a few big markets making the changes the rest of the world could be steered in the correct direction surely? If the US/EU etc. required that products coming in from China (or other countries where we offload our carbon use to) were created with less than X carbon released (differing per product) and with independent verification then they'd make the changes I'd imagine. Prices would go up of course which is likely why the political will isn't there, but I think it's disingenuous to say that the only way is war.

You could take that further too, say a 10% tariff on products coming from countries that buy beef from other countries who are cutting down the rainforest. I realise it would quickly become legislatively complicated, but isn't this the kind of hard problem we elect representatives for?

This is a very happy path engineering design. What will you do with countries who refuse to comply? Will you bomb them? Will you sanction/starve them to death? Is this really an existential crisis for our species? I want to know what cards you're willing to put on the table.

>What will you do with countries who refuse to comply?

What are you on about? They can't "refuse to comply" in the above scenario, because it's a matter of pricing in carbon on imports. They can either comply with a process to verify that all carbon inputs have already been neutralized, pay the cost to neutralize them, or else America/EU/Japan/whoever else participates will simply slap on a very conservative carbon price themselves. No cooperation is necessary, if they don't want to bother their products will simply be priced somewhat higher than if they had and thus they'll probably sell less.

>Is this really an existential crisis for our species?

Well, yeah, but at this point a lot could be done just by the first world fixing its markets to properly internalize carbon emissions and make all fossil fuels carbon neutral, which will then also help make a path for ramping up of negative emissions. China is certainly one of the biggest economies, but even they aren't in a position to just give up on all exports to the first world without more expense than just participating in a proper free market. It's in their interest too anyway.

They will then create workarounds, as they already do for tariffs. The most common one is to find an intermediary country and ship the goods through there.

Tariff's don't have to be high enough to starve out countries to cause change, most people seem to agree that the Chinese people only tolerate the CCP because their economy is growing, if tariff's slowed that then they'd be under pressure to do something to fix it. There are similar situations in countries all over the world.

Personally I think it is an existential threat to our way of life - if you take the most conservative predictions then at the very least there's going to be disruption to the global food supply (maybe not enough to starve everyone, but there'll be much less choice than now) and mass migration due to drought which could very easily kick off WW3.

I do believe though that if the political will was there in the big Western markets the worst of this could be avoided without it having to come to conflict. Most experts seem to be of the same opinion, the vast majority say a carbon tax is the best method available to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Major nuclear powers have a significant portion of their economies tied up in fossil fuels. They will not go down without a fight.

China already emits 2x US CO2 and is on track to double its emissions by 2030. There is no scale of trade war/tariffs I can imagine that will derail this.

Let's turn this around, if the markets that China sell to implement tariff's dependent on fossil fuel usage what do you expect them to do? How do you expect them to "fight" that?

Do you expect they'll just give up selling to those markets entirely? That would lead to less manufacturing in China and a reduction in carbon output from the country. Manufacturing in the US/EU etc. would likely take up some of the slack, but at a much lower carbon output and higher price.

Do you expect them to just continue selling with the tariff? That would lead to a reduction in sales, a reduction in manufacturing, a reduction in carbon output. As before I'd guess manufacturing in the US/EU etc. would take some of the slack.

Or do you expect them to start a war over it? Do you think killing their customers makes sense to them?

Personally I think it much more likely that they'd make the required changes, increase prices accordingly and continue to be the manufacturing hub of the world. Currently they have no reason to curb their carbon usage, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't do it if they were given an economic reason.

I am genuinely interested in how you think they'd "fight" a carbon tax from the US/EU etc., because I can't see a way where it doesn't reduce the amount of carbon being released compared to a world without the carbon tax.

I expect China, Russia, India, the US and others to lie. I expect them to steal. I expect them to sabotage. I expect them to wage economic and kinetic wars. I expect them to do everything in their power, evil or not, to give themselves an economic advantage.

Tariffs of the sort you're talking about are a great way to nudge countries in the right direction. China is already the largest polluter and is on track to double its emissions over the next decade. Stopping that will take quite a bit more than a nudge. It will take destroying their economy. Except they have nuclear weapons. I'm sorry, but we already can't get them to stop stealing our intellectual property, stop sending us products laced with lead, stop mass murder for organs, stop putting Uyghur men in concentration camps and then assigning a rapists to live with their families, stop sending fentanyl illegally the US which kills thousands every year. The idea we're going to apply enough pressure to China to turn around this boat which is going to double its CO2 emissions in the next decade seems like a complete fantasy.

Oh don't get me wrong, I think it's a fantasy even that the US/EU would implement a carbon tax on imports like this in the next decade anyway. It's too easy for us to offload the problem elsewhere and then do nothing because "we're nothing compared to China" even though our consumption drives their emissions.

I'm just looking for more realistic methods to slow emissions, I think it's more likely a carbon tax will be implemented than Western nations going to war over emissions, so I'll push for the more likely scenario that will slow the problem hopefully enough that I won't have to suffer the worst of the consequences.

Honestly though, my wife and I have decided against having children because we believe there's a high enough chance they won't have the quality of life we've been able to enjoy, so I agree with you that nothing significant will be done in time to curb the problem.

As the EU has recently hinted, climate may (I'd say pretty much guaranteed, only question is when) become a key point in any trading arrangements. Others will follow. Whether soon enough remains to be seen.

Want to sell to us? Prove your climate credentials, carbon accounting etc. No? Ok, your goods get the carbon levy.

What's eventually left is only the rogue states that refuse where sanctions, blockade or ultimately war may actually be the answer.

Really only comes down to how deep is the abyss we appear to be staring into... Though this can sometimes prompt enough action to get international laws passed.

No war necessary. Make it a condition of trade, a carbon tariff. If a sizable block of countries requires this any country without a carbon tax will be at a significant trade disadvantage.

I'd say another question worth asking is whether waging war, or antagonism of any kind, is the optimal way to approach this problem.

This seems to be the overwhelmingly preferred approach, but my intuition tells me that seeking a mutually agreeable path of cooperation would be a wiser approach. Not that this is easy of course - heck, even getting people to realize that we aren't actually doing this seems fairly impossible.

Good. Something smarter than humans might come along next.

Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

We have in fact already passed a couple of those tipping points, unfortunately. But we can still make a big difference by getting our act together. But, some of those are already locked in, we might not see the effect for 1000 or even 10000 years, but still.

Or until we discover how many fewer billions Earth can support at +4C

Thing is the world's climate will not fail us gradually.

Past the 'tipping point' the 'Geo-engineers' will be let out of the asylum and get to deploy their crackpot hail-Mary schemes playing fast and loose with a runaway high dimensional complex feedback system they (or we) barely are beginning to understand.

There is no 'backup' on this planet. There is no 'safety net'. There is no 'oh shit, abort!' button.

An optimist would say we are just going to make sure to speed up the inevitable.

Because laissez-faire economics doesn't converge automagically on the best path.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1993/12/how-the...

Correct. I'd add that I don't think anyone worth listening to has ever really thought this to be true: rather, it is convenient for those with the majority of private capital for everyone to believe it is true so that they don't have to account for how they spend their money.

There are countless journalists and academics in the UK who believe this as surely as they believe the sun will rise tomorrow.

Touché. (Though lets be clear it's profitable for the individual in those situations to tow the line.)

Australia is burning, its government doesn't seem to think anything is wrong, they just want to dig more coal

They might not get the chance: latest news[1] this morning is that some of the coal seams have caught fire underground!

This is catastrophic. Underground coal (and oil) fires are near-impossible to put out and are generally just left alone to burn, usually for decades before/if they run out of fuel.

[1] https://twitter.com/maetl/status/1213420680579964929?s=20

Is there a source for this assertion?

It's a decently well-known phenomenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-seam_fire

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire -- Started burning in 1962. Still burning today and on track to burn for another 250 years.

I meant the news item, but thank you.

The oldest one is about 6,000 years old

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain

If that's the case then it's truly catastrophic. As an example, the Centralia (USA) mine coal-seam fire started in 1962 is extimated to last for about 250 more years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire

Assuming we have the technology, removing underground oxygen might help to put out the underground fires, though I can't imagine any process not involving either pumping sea water down there which would make the land sterile for vegetation, or slowly replacing oxygen with CO2 which would be even worse.

Carbondale, PA tried flooding and other techniques for the time (1950's), but ultimately the only way to extinguish it was by digging it out. It took about 10 years and it is estimated more earth than the Panama Canal was moved for the dig. It came within 20 feet of expanding into the core of the city and leading to what happened in Centrailia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbondale_mine_fire

Quite a lot of the coal mines in Australia are open cut unfortunately. That's just one underground mine of many.

Australia is burning every year. The main reason why it's burning so much right now is that not enough prescribed burns were done earlier in the season.

The reason it’s burning so much now is it’s hotter and drier than before?

I can’t imagine prescribed burns would’ve made it rain and stopped the temperature from reaching 48.9 in Sydney, can you ?

Prescribed burns reduce the amount of fuel available for wildfires, so logically the fires will be less severe if they are taken care of. It's an essential, if not the most essential part of wildfire prevention.

Although the following links focus on the recent, "It's all the greenies fault," rhetoric that has been sweeping through Facebook and other places the last couple of days, it does also provide information about hazard reduction burns from people who work in the field (AKA experts).

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/12/is-th...

https://nitter.net/jagungal1/status/1212937426034782208

Another source:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/prescribed-burning-key-to-co...

''Fire captain Brian Williams, 73, vice-president of the Volunteer Fire Fighters Association, supports the prescribed burn argument. He spoke after a 12-hour night shift fighting the Three Mile fire burning north-east of Wiseman's Ferry.

Mr Williams said: "The hazard-approval process is what is stuffing the whole process.

"It is bogged down by green [environmental] and red tape which makes getting approval for a prescribed burn a very slow and complex process.

"They have introduced a system that makes it virtually impossible to manage the bush in a sustainable way. I am just one of thousands of volunteers out there who are frustrated."''

Publicly funded and supported climate change detection method that is essential to communicate to the public...behind a paywall. Disappointing at least.

https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0666-7

Seems fake

Living in Eastern Europe right now. It's +6 Celsius for the last week. Earth hasn't frozen yet, so if any snow falls it melts in a few hours.

In comparison, when I was growing up here in the 90s; we had solid -30 Celsius winters for several months.

You had to prepare opposed to nowadays, where buying a winter jacket comes down to preference. Cold or not cold...

But climate change is a hoax, right?

I mean I live in Eastern Europe too, Hungary and it's -7c now. No snow but everything is frozen. I don't think our local experiences are a good indicator.

>we had solid -30 Celsius winters for several months

I'm curious, do you have any data source about that? -30c for several months sounds really extreme

Why would you ask me for data when you can look that up for yourself?

I speak from experience.

Maybe in Siberia? I can’t find anything for, say, Ukraine to suggest it averaged -30 for months

>I was growing up here in the 90s; we had solid -30 Celsius winters for several months.

Where? In your imagination?

https://weatherspark.com/h/y/148642/1990/Historical-Weather-...

https://weatherspark.com/h/y/148509/1990/Historical-Weather-...

https://weatherspark.com/h/y/148455/1990/Historical-Weather-...

https://weatherspark.com/h/y/148594/1990/Historical-Weather-...

Charitable, Ufa in Russia gets pretty close: https://weatherspark.com/h/y/148894/1990/Historical-Weather-...

And that is litterally as east in Europe one can go - I honestly didn’t realise how far into Russia you can go before crossing the Ural Mountains.

Temperature rising ~2°C/century:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Temperature+in+ufa

linear trend: 0.021 °C/yr±0.016 °C/yr (48 yr/°C)

low: -47 °C 1979 | average high: | 35 °C average low: | -35 °C | high: 39 °C 1952, ...

Please don't be a jerk in HN comments. If you have correct information, it's enough to provide that without crossing into personal attack. These threads are flamewar prone enough as it is.

Maybe I should have prefaced my last sentence in the original comment with a fat /sarcasm tag. I know it's a sensitive topic but I appreciate you pointing out the insensitivity in my reply.

Weather still isn't climate and while the abstract states their model detect climate change within a very small time-frame (a day), it still requires global data to do so.

I'm sure the converse is true too and that models should be able to detect climate change locally within a large time-frame.

I “feel” the same way about the east coast of the US, but I know that is super unscientific - comparing impressions as an adult to childhood memories, but I really don’t recall 70 degree days being routine. Now I live in the upper midwest, I learned in some class that the upper Midwest of the US was one of the few places on Earth not warming on average (actually anomalously cold) but this winter is like one of the “old” east coast winters, I just stepped out in my shorts and flip-flops

I think Buffalo specifically

weather isn't climate

climate /ˈklʌɪmət/

noun

the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period. "our cold, wet climate"

how can one copy paste an explanation without reading it?

"over a long period of time."

hot outside right now != climate is hot.

How is 25 years not a long time?

Climate change is not a hoax. Man-made climate change, on the other hand…

it would be naive/foolish to expect that the enormous technological progress and overpopulation by humans would not affect the environment. The question is how fast can people and ecosystems adapt. This is not the first nor the biggest change the earth has seen by far. It's also naive to think that politics is going to reverse that change - it's a technological problem.

the overpopulation mantra has been debunked so many times already.

edit: since i'm getting downvoted for pointing out the obvious, here's links pointing out that overpopulation is a myth, even a racist one in some circumstances:

wapo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the...

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/fee.org/articles/the-myth-tha...

https://www.pop.org/debunking-the-myth-of-overpopulation/

https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2019/mar/9/how-racist-...

kurzgesagt: https://youtu.be/QsBT5EQt348

the guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/19/overpopulatio...

nytimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is...

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/05/25/overpopulation-the-de...

Indeed, if we only think in terms of thermodynamics, the Earth could sustain trillions of people with ample private room (orders of magnitude more than our current average home+office size). And if you trickle down to implementation problems (agriculture, logistics, etc) and take mega-structures of the 25th century out from the equation (so, immediate future, 21st century) you still get a max figure north of 10 times the current pop.

The problem is one of contrast: e.g. there's nobody in deserts but people die everyday in overcrowded train stations in India. That's why people perceive "overpopulation" as a problem, but it has more to do with human inefficiency than the physics of our planet.

However GP's point about adaptation speed of our civilization to the changing ecosystem stands.

I sometimes wonder, between utopia and horror, how many people will have to die in the name of climate catastrophes for a global "survival instinct" to kick in at the highest level — like stability is a thing for the finance world, the military world, because we're so aware of how much these things may destroy or kill when derailed.

I'm pretty much convinced it's generational — boomers will never get to it, not enough of them; half of gen Xers might sway; but millenials (born 1982 and on) will enact the tipping point, politically and sociologically. So, that's 2030-2040 mechanically for that gen to become the dominant one (by then aged 50-60).

My question is, how many will climate kill or hurt deeply until then? Could the tipping point happen sooner due to catastrophes?

I don't know what's a reasonable fair estimate, here. Are we talking millions? tens, hundreds? a billion? How dire is the situation, really?

i think we've been adapting to our ecosystem since humans first came into the scene.

the only difference now is that we finally realised we're living on a planet that's not constant, but actually changing. this realisation is a positive in my book, as an extinction level event is always around the corner.

re. how many will die: the plague has been constantly killing humans for almost 1000 years now. and we're still here. yes, i'm an optimist.

I pretty much share all your views, here.

My everlasting-optimism is only tempered by a somewhat keen awareness of that Fermi paradox thingy, a Darwinian observation that species just disappear and the world just keeps spinning.

I think the greatest invincible filter — one we just couldn't overcome — is the idea of a fatal flaw in our genetic make-up, or relatingly in the evolution of our environment, that we simply couldn't fix in time (it could be hidden, insiduous, e.g. increasingly more 'cancers' until we become born with it in majority).

In many instances, species do not entirely die from such evolutionary filters, a few survivors with just the right genes may appear and spread their immunity.

But in many instances, species just die at those filters. We still don't really know why Neanderthal disappeared, iirc there are clues pointing at a possible genetic flaw, combined with environmental pressure (sorta contra-variant doom scenario).

Which is why I think we should massively spend to solve as much of the "bio" stuff as we can, grab all low-hanging fruits now and buckle up to kick off major projects spanning generations. The value and security to be gained, in terms of ultimate survival and progress, is just too critical to miss or delay. IMHO. And it's likely to take all of tech with it, a poster-child client sector to buy and fund all manners of extravagantly awesome technology.

I'd be curious to know how your optimism shapes things in imagination, regarding our past and/or future. :)

I think the Fermi paradox is BS. we're stuck on this small planet, never having set foot on another planet, nevermind another solar system. we haven't even encountered a single, no matter how small, alien life. and yet we come up with these naive theories. this tells me we're simply not ready for the possibilities that await us out there. maybe in the future.

and since you asked about the future, i want my "self" to be moved to a computer, set to sleep mode and then woken up once it reaches alpha centauri or something similarly far away. no body, no problems. right now that's pretty much the only way to discover anything light years away without our Earth-bound energy converter aka human body that comes with a billion dependencies and dramatically tiny life span.

but we're really discussing sci fi stuff. i hope that in the meantime the global warming fight will not drag the whole earth back a few hundred years instead of fixing by innovation.

Transforming the biological physical body into a biological 'pure information' 'energy-encoded' system (well, just software, but with incredibly specific rules) is one of my favorite ideas in SF. I tried to write a book including that 10 years ago, and while I'm a lazy fiction author, the thinking experiments were great.

I called this new species "energeans", functionally termed "Maxwell organisms" in a nod to the 19th century genius. Humans individuals become 'permanent, self-consistent' organized energy 'fields' of sorts (to preserve continuity, the sense of "self", as one's energy goes through machines (as electrons probably), space (as photons), etc.

It's totally whack physics as we speak outside some incredibly controlled lab, but it's fun to think about. :)

The Fermi paradox, I agree it's probably BS (but that's really just belief as we speak). I like to use it as a reminder of some "unknown known" (that we might not know, but others do), like

"civilization is possibly very, very hard";

or "we are so far away from big boys science that we grasp at space with tiny sticks like ants carry food, being silently observed by the equivalent of humans — so, so much above and beyond our very perception";

and my nagging favorite is a hypothesis that maybe, just maybe, what we think we "see" in space is really not what's actually out there — like Bohr's model of the atom with valency etc. was/is totally fine functionally (afaik we still do basic chemistry with it?), but not at all a "picture" of reality. Hence we'd be looking for caterpillars when all there is to see are butterflies — energeians? holo-trickery? nano-robotic swarms? blackhole farming? 5, 11, 23 dimensional space? And most being non-exclusive with others.

One thing seems sure to me: the most fundamental thing we might have right now is a quantum interpretation of Shannon's information theory, and going by that, there's a long way ahead of us until we reach "hard limits". It's crazy to think what this universe allows if you give it enough time and energy.

Here's to your last sentence being true. I must admit, I have confidence in the eventual resolution in a "decently near" future (~100 years at most), but I'm increasingly worried about the chaos/transition — if history is any indication, which it absolutely is imho, it's gonna cost too many lives and too much despair for too many people, whereas some will undoubtedly manage to turn the outcome to their advantage — even better off on the other side, like the "Great Heist of 1929", and it seems to me most majors periods of intense and prolonged chaos.

> It's also naive to think that politics is going to reverse that change - it's a technological problem.

The problem itself is technological, but do you believe the solution is (solely) technological?

Considering the technical aspect of the problem is well enough understood, if politics "can't" fix this, then what's plan B?

> but do you believe the solution is (solely) technological?

Largely yes. Technological solutions are definite and verifiable. Political solutions (behavioral coercion) is rarely so, you never know the adverse effects of pushing people to do X. Politics creates too much tension, too much expenditure of energy on things that have little effect, while technology multipliers can be huge. And they lose credibility easily because of the co-opting of environmental issues for political posturing (e.g. the twice-a-month-moving-to Strasbourg European Parliament declaring a climate emergency)

With China currently bringing more coal fired power plants online, Trump having a decent chance of being reelected, and nothing particularly awesome happening in Europe, I'm not seeing a technological path forward.

Whatever the solution ultimately is, it's surely going to need money, and lots of it, so how is this going to happen without public consensus?

Technological progress is not the problem! We have better energy efficiency than ever, overpopulation and especially "modern comfort" are the real culprits.

Moreover, bioplastics, fusion and next-gen battery tech could mitigate world pollution if they become cheaper than "dirty" tech.

Yes everything is completely messed up. Flowers blooming at wrong times of the year, animals are confused, crops are being beaten up by the biggest hail, Winds are getting stronger and this and that etc. Mother earth didn't even show the real teeth yet. When one of the the super Vulcanos wakes up we'll see the real hell on the earth. There is also super hostile environment outside earth but this is for some other space debate.

It’s likely to kill everyone of us. From the rich to the poor, strong to the weak, through famine, war and drought. Natural disaster after natural disaster. Horror after horror. Tragedy after tragedy.

Yet we’re all in state of paralysis, watching our impending doom draw closer and fates unfold. Entrusting those who will do nothing about it. Half of us are still in denial.

I really wonder if we possess the survival instincts we think we do. Do we really have the drive to go on ?

Were humans just lucky to be installed on this beautiful blue spaceship. Do we deserve any merit for our past success? We are just limp and powerless to do anything about it all it seems.

Such a strange time to be alive, what a peculiar situation we’re in. Quite the nightmare indeed.

500 million animals wiped out in the blink of an eye and we look the other way. When humans start dying, I think we will continue to look the other way.

Hardly a whimper for them.

> Half of us are still in denial.

One half is in denial about climate change itself, and the other half is in denial about the solution to the problem. Almost everyone is guilty.

I think it's generational, and it will get better in the 2030-2040s at the latest, when millennials become the dominant generation. The ethos of climate awareness is simply not present enough in previous generations, the seeds were simply too few, too weak, too late. They quite literally were not born in a world where 'it' was a thing.

Here's my other comment below for details.[1]

This is compoundd by the fact that "professional politicians" feel compelled/incentivized to lie over and over again in their career, and it becomes easier and easier to lie as you do it — kind of a psychological response to cognitive dissonance, a defense mechanism. Survival instinct, at this level, is definitely individual, internal, and may completely shut down or even oppose the survival of the country, civilization, species. You just lie your way out to save yourself and your family and friends, and to hell with everyone and everything else because you're not super(wo)man. So human.

The kind of collective instinct for survival (what Jung would probably have called a collective form of consciousness, that is opened to others, bigger-than-each-of-us) that is required for such higher-level evolution (civ, species) is more generational, imho.

This is all mostly deduced/hypothesized from sociology and political science studies, with a tad of psychology etc. I mean, I haven't found much contradictory arguments to these apparent "truths", however unable we feel to explain them. It takes generations to meaningfully evolve civilizational paradigms, there's just no speeding up history in that regard. We merely leap forward big time when conditions are ripe and a particularly exceptional figure (or group thereof) manages to steer things "the right way" — one of these.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955196

It will be too late by then, way too late.

This comment is such shrill alarmist rhetoric that is not founded in reality. I think taking this approach is more harmful to your cause then you think.

No, the rich countries can easily get away with it. They will move, install bigger air conditioners and reinforce their borders. A large farming corporation may feel a sting when X% of their land becomes worthless but they have enough money to buy land somewhere else.

Does anyone have a link to the paper?

Also climate change is undeniable. At the risk of stirring the controversy, the real questions have always been: how much of it is because of human activity? and if that's significant, how much power do we have to change it further?

Based on the evidence so far, I personally think modern civilization has triggered initial conditions for the warming cycle but is no longer the majority force for the continued change.

What do you base that opinion on?

Feedback cycles and runaway change wouldn't be an issue otherwise. Things like melting permafrost [1] releasing methane would be an example of something we triggered and now has taken over as a majority contributor in those regions.

1. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2785/unexpected-future-boost-o...

You can "personally think" whatever you want. You can "personally think" that 0 is 1, that frogs are a kind of cat, that the moon is made of cheese.

Just please don't make decisions that affect other people based on what you "personally think", when it's about facts that have actual truth values.

What is the fact around the exact impact that humanity has had vs natural conditions, and what is the derivative of that impact as the climate has changed? For there to be a runaway effect means that humanity is no longer the significant factor so how is this calculated? I've never found this explicitly stated anywhere.

By the way, every human makes decisions based on what they "personally think". Please share the "actual truth values" if you have them.

If we pulled the trigger, surely the cause of the bullet firing must be us then?

Where did I say it wasn't us? I'm talking about the majority factor today still being human activity or whether it's been eclipsed by something else.

That is almost reasonable. But it's still naturalistic thinking, i.e. whatever happens without humans is good.

The real questions should be: what climate do we want and how much power do we have to effect it?

If the climate changes naturally but we don't want it and can stop it, maybe we should. For example, we expect this interglacial period to end between years 10k - 30k, corresponding to about a 10°C drop.

Also, the way best way to reverse current climate trends might be different then stopping the major cause.

> "how much power do we have to effect it"

This is entirely predicated on understanding how much we have affected it so far and how that effect has changed over time. How do we know we can stop it? Are efforts toward stopping it (given the Earth has gone through cycles before) more useful than adapting?

Blindly saying we can reverse something that we can't and instead should be adapting for is just as bad. Unfortunately any discussion around this is constantly devolves into emotional dispute rather than rational debate.

> This is entirely predicated on understanding how much we have affected it so far

Obviously, this isn't true. It's possible to have a future effect on things you haven't yet changed and visa versa.

I never said it's not possible. I'm asking how do we know how much we can effect it in the future if we're not entirely clear on how much we've affected it so far and how that effect has changed itself?

Or do you already have an answer to the 2nd question you posed?

Just because you know how much effect you’ve had doesn’t mean you know how much control you have.

They are related but the relationship is not clear.

And only the second question matters.

So whats the answer?

To be clear, any forecast requires a model based on previous historical data. Otherwise it's not a forecast, it's just a random guess.

I'm quite tired of the framing of the climate change discussion, whether it exists or not. It is like you pondering whether your house is going to actually burn next year or not when you think about purchasing insurance. Completely idiotic question. What you are thinking is the risk (i.e probability times loss) of your house burning. So no, I am not going to tell you that the climate catastrophe is going to happen. What I do say is that even if after reframing the discussion from dichotomy to probability discussion, if you really think that the probability of the scientists being collectively wrong is so small that the science can be ignored, in my books you are so f$&king stupid[1] that you should give up your voting rights.

[1] pardon, I think my french is a bit rusty here.

I don't think that's a very apt analogy because it still frames the question as to whether something is _going_ to happen.

It's more like you contemplating whether your house is going to burn next year while a fire fighter is telling you it's on fire right now.

Yes well, those so-called "firefighters", what do they know about fire anyway. I see no evidence that my house is burning, and all the fire coming out of it is due to its natural warming cycle.

It is important to distinguish the basis of the change. Whether anthropogenic or of other causes (or, likely, a mix of causes). The same change in weather could have different responses based on the cause. It is also important to talk about what to change. Some governmental/industrial changes could cause the deaths of millions or billions of people (doing absolutely nothing might do the same), it is important to have a civil conversation where the ideas and rights of all are respected, understood, and considered. Oversimplifying is not useful. I'm not arguing for any specific reason or changes, only for civility and all around thoughtfulness. It is a very complex issue that may impact a huge number of factors in society. Great caution, civility, and thought should be given. Even to those who disagree with some conclusions. Advocating for the removal of voting rights for those who disagree so that we can arrange their future for them may be counterproductive.

It is important to distinguish the basis of the change

Why does that do anything but confuse matters? The cause of the change doesn't affect anything else you have said about how to address it.

> Advocating for the removal of voting rights for those who disagree so that we can arrange their future for them may be counterproductive.

I disagree slightly. Not "may be" but "is" counterproductive. Occasionally you just need to vent out actual opinions and ignore the productivity...

Well if we are talking about risks and probabilities. There are events with non-trivial probability that can negate the effects of this such as major volcanic eruptions or nuclear war etc.

I don't think many people ignore the science. Quite a few of us do ignore the over-the-top doom saying and fear mongering, and the patronizing tone.

It's fine to ignore those parts as long as you still vote and advocate for increased funding to renewable & no-carbon energy deployment and reduced tax incentives for legacy fuel generation (i.e. the depletion allowance, which is solely afforded to fossil fuel extractors).

As someone who's not up to date on all the climate research. Are most the scientists in agreement that climate change is a result of our actions? And do they all agree on how dangerous changes to our climate are?

The IPCC summary is available to read: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-wg1-spm-...

> very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, with a radiative forcing of +1.6 [+0.6 to +2.4] W m–2

> Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.

> The equilibrium climate sensitivity is a measure of the climate system response to sustained radiative forcing. It is not a projection but is defi ned as the global average surface warming following a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations. It is likely to be in the range 2°C to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C, and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C.

That's from AR4, not the most recent AR5 report. In AR5, the IPCC is back to a range of 1.5C to 4.5C for climate sensitivity (very unlikely to be below 1C or above 6C), which is pretty much what the uncertainty in estimating climate sensitivity has been for the last 50 years. A rather remarkable lack of progress...

The only way to get out of this situation is a green dictatorship. It's the least painful solution. Democracy and freedom are great things, but consumerism abused them, and it's leading everyone to their own destruction. I'm tired to end discussions with "but you cannot confiscate things from people, it's against basic human rights". Ignorance and failure to listen to reason are very dangerous.

I want to hope people will adjust deliberately, but advertising has too much power over people. I cannot let myself gamble with the idea that humanity will be courageous enough to avoid destruction of this scale. The stakes are too high.

History always worked like this. It's a collection of new lessons that adjust the collective consciousness.

The future will progressively look like some Hollywood dystopia, until something will break politically, but it will be too late. Don't forget that the new deadline is the melting permafrost, which will snowball climate change into something that will make temperature rise much faster.

If you really want to kick off another civil war/world war, something like this seems like the perfect way to do so. If people tried to enforce environmentalism via a dictatorship, the rest of the population would like fight back hard, and they'd end up in a very awkward situation very quickly. Remember, the people who would want to limit other people's consumption for environmentalism sakes are significantly outnumbered and outgunned by those who don't.

It would also likely inspire an awful lot of anti intellectualism and anti 'ivory tower' resentment, which could have terrible consequences for the future.

Basically, any attempt would go about as well as someone walking into the middle east and trying to set up a secular dictatorship in the style of the USSR.

Of course, a cynic may say that's the only way to deal with climate change and they may be right. It's just that trying to fix things via force would probably go even more poorly than trying to persuade people to live less comfortably would.

Unfortunately, the most likely fixes right now are probably:

A: Some sort of miraculous new technology is invented that can cheaply do carbon capture and provide enough clean energy that fossil fuels are made completely obsolete.

B: Somehow, a huge push is made for mastering space travel, and people are incentivised to leave Earth. A sentient species with an advanced civilisation may simply be incompatible with other life on a planet.

C: Society gets wrecked enough that humanity somehow ends back in a pre industrial revolution state, perhaps due to the side effects of climate change.

D: Humanity simply decides they can't fix Earth, doesn't try and edits themselves/civilisation to deal with rampant temperature increases/disasters/whatever.

>Basically, any attempt would go about as well as someone walking into the middle east and trying to set up a secular dictatorship in the style of the USSR.

Maybe I'm not getting your point, but Assad regime is secular dictatorship, more or less? So if you wanted to say that this is something completely impossible, well, the metaphor is not quite correct. And Iran before 1979 revolution could be considered secular dictatorship as well.

Might have not been the best example. Either way, the point being, trying to enforce environmentalism by force would probably annoy the majority of the population enough that your government wouldn't remain in power for very long.

The problem is that what is required to do will annoy everyone, no matter the angle. Withdrawal from abusive consumerism is going to be ugly, that's the issue, but it's necessary.

A green dictatorship would signal that everyone is given equal treatment. It's also an emergency measure.

Of course the word "dictatorship" has a very bad connotation here, because it implies oppression and violation of human rights, but that's not what I am advocating.

I am advocating for the revocation of the right to emit co2. It is a very strong restriction when look around you, because consumers are really friendly towards their lifestyle which directly finance lobbying efforts to avoid a carbon tax.

What is needed to do, while the industry adapt, is to allow the minimum, necessary items people needs to live: food, water, hygiene, shelter etc. while diminishing co2 emissions to their most lowest possible, and let industry to work without emissions to gradually change their process.

You cannot trust the industry to reduce emissions and do a slow switch because it's going to be too slow, and you cannot trust liberalism to find quick solutions if there is no strong enough incentives. Lobbies are never going to let change happen. It's going to be too slow and chaotic, not to mention fraud and people who will disagree with human responsibility.

Look at Tocqueville. Democracy is great, but when there is urgency about a complicated problem, democracy can be a problem.

The issue isn't that drastic action is not/may not be necessary, it's that the vast majority of the population will not just 'give up on consumerism' for a perceived long term benefit, and any political attempt to make them will be met with a huge amount of backlash and instability.

If a political party or politician proposed what you're saying, they probably wouldn't get elected. If they tried it when in power, then the next party who gets elected would probably withdraw said restrictions. If they tried to 'turn off democracy' to do this, then people would get extremely angry, probably revolt and there would be a huge debacle. Especially given that worldwide, it'd be seen as an authoritarian coup in a democratic society, and responded to with economic sanctums, anger on the international stage and perhaps a war/support for overthrowing the government.

The problem isn't that such a dictatorship or authoritarian rule is necessarily against the long term interests of the population (though many authoritarian regimes (including China) would argue the same thing for their countries). It's that it's not democratic, not backed by most of the population and (perhaps rightly) seen as an alarming development in a country's history.

It's not democratic, so what? It doesn't mean it's not necessary. Democracy doesn't always work for the public interest.

> seen as an alarming development in a country's history.

What do you mean? How would "an alarming development" be problematic? Democracy or not, action is required, and despite knowledge of the problem, I don't see any progress. I have nothing against democracy.

> and any political attempt to make them will be met with a huge amount of backlash and instability.

I think there is enough support for drastic measures, I don't think instability is a big risk. And if there is not enough support today, there will be more at each new heatwave and forest fire.

There is no need for a dictatorship. You just need a president that focuses on climate change for 4 years, makes all the painful changes at once and then is thrown out and forgotten after his time is up.

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