The sad truth about our boldest climate target | Hacker News Reader

The sad truth about our boldest climate target

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28 pointsdmontero13 comments

This is one if the best writings on climate crisis I’ve read recently. To add my two cents

"I am a pessimist by nature. Many people can only keep on fighting when they expect to win. I'm not like that, I always expect to lose. I fight anyway, and sometimes I win."

-- Richard Stallman

Fuck hope and optimism. I am gonna go out and fight no matter what. Doing nothing makes me sick.

Hey God bless you, me too! If there is anything inspiring about watching David Attenborough films, other than our gorgeous Earth, it is that nature has the processes to recover. Even in the worst of conditions. Just look at Chernobyl. A whole ecosystem returned and is thriving better than the ecosystem on the outer perimeter of it.

Talking of Attenborough, it's difficult to stay hopeful after seeing his one hour Climate Change - The Facts, despite Attenborough's optimism at the end. The time lapse sequences from satellite of deforestation, destruction, pollution etc to an extent rarely seen really puts our species' suicidal, destructive tendencies in context.

For me it was far more "we're fucked" than inspiring call to action. Haven't given up trying yet, though I am not at all hopeful now.

> They believe that without that public optimism, the fragile effort to battle climate change will collapse completely.

I can imagine this being true.

If a meteor is going to destroy Earth you probably aren't spending your last few days doing the dishes and sweeping the floors. You're only doing that if there's a > 50% chance that we'll be able to divert it.

And better than "being optimistic" is rapidly developing the technology and passing the law to make it realistic.

Man if Al Gore was elected we may have had a shot in 2000. But I guess Florida voted to grow gills.

I knew someone who lived in Broward county and voted for Bush in the 2000 election. His reason: Gore was boring.

Not everyone sizes up the issues.

Yeah I didn’t think Gore was all that exciting either so I can understand. But unfortunately everything has to be one side or the other. Even science.

Yeah, for some reason that explanation really bugged me. If the vote was for policy reasons I wouldn't have felt as upset.

Remember when Bush senior had a climate policy. This change really shows how money can manipulate public opinion and politicians’ “decisions”

I don't understand this about politics - what needs to be exciting? What does it mean for a politician to be boring? Even back then, I thought politicians are elected to be boring. I am ESL, is this word used differently in politics?and how was Bush exciting? Is it some flashiness he maintained? I think I misunderstand.

Politics has become entertainment. It's like a reality show where contestants gradually get kicked off.

In one election someone even proposed a litmus test "who would you rather have a beer with?". In other it's been "who would you invite into your home". Neither are ever going to happen, but it's easier to tug at people's emotions than get them to listen to information.

That type of litmus test is hardly new, even in UK politics which tends to trail the worst US "innovations" in politics and campaigning.

Blair got a fair few votes as he had a nice smile, the Tories tried to demonise him with their "demon eyes" campaign. Go back further and there were elements of the same in Michael Foot losing election against Thatcher. He famously attended a national event in very poor weather and wore a brand new coat, chosen by his wife, that the right wing press tried -- very, very successfully -- to brand as a donkey jacket, and him a bottom of the heap disorganised type, when it was just a normal, formal and supposedly very expensive duffel coat.

Or Attlee against Churchill at the tail end of WW2. Churchill was going around in style, using an election train and limousine. Attlee was going around casually mixing with the troops who were starting to come back from Europe, and talking to the people, as one of the people. Thus Britain's great war winning leader was resoundingly kicked out, in a Labour landslide in July 45 -- between VE Day and VJ Day.

Few people have lifestyles as environmentally damaging as Al Gore, with his huge energy-wasting estate and private jet.

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