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Comment by esarbe | Hacker News Reader

I simply fail to understand how, despite the rising mountain of evidence, some people still are able to deny the reality of the climate crisis we're facing.

Even if you have ideological or economical reasons for wanting to believe the climate crisis to be a hoax - at one point or another the drive for self-preservation simply has to kick in, doesn't it?

Ever and ever again when I see some new dire study about how our predatory exploitation of our ecological support system is degrading its capability to actually support us, I think to myself: "This is it. Now they just have to finally start supporting measures to stop killing ourselves." But I always get disappointed - there are still way too many people that absolutely fail to grasp how terminal a situation we're rushing into.

The human capability for self-deception is truly amazing.

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It's really pretty simple - the prognosticators of doom have a very poor track record. I posted this elsewhere in the thread, so apologize for the spam for any readers who saw it twice:

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyp...

Personally, I don't believe climate change is a hoax. There's ample evidence indicating climate change is real. But I am certainly convinced climate crisis is mostly nonsense. And I believe most "solutions" proposed are an antithesis to individual liberty.

And thus, statements like this one you made, from my point-of-view, are mostly hysterical:

> And I believe most "solutions" proposed are an antithesis to individual liberty.

I think this is the most telling answer any of us, who stand mouth agape at the inaction, will ever receive: rather than join together in any semblance of community to overcome a common problem, we have to walk headfirst into knowable horrors, so that some can continue with their myth of individual liberty.

All I can think of is the past few weeks where posters here on HN quickly wrote off any mention of covid-19 being anything worse than the common flu that no one ought to worry too much about it.

Authoritarian/collectivist governments have killed around 100M people in the past century; a number comparable to the predictions of climate crises over the next century.

There’s a reason people insist on societies based around individual liberty and citizen empowerment — they work! They’re what has led to the greatest increase in human well-being the world has ever seen.

Suggesting authoritarianism in response to climate change is simply creating a second problem — and one that’s unlikely to solve the first.

So yes, people resist you trying a repeatedly failed idea again, just so you can be seen to be doing something.

I don't know why people see the only way to collective struggle being through an authoritarian battering ram. I think this says far more about you than you realize: the only way in which you could possibly imagine yourself working with another person is at the barrel of a gun.

And your plans for those who won't work with you (for whatever reason) to address the collective struggle are...?

I'm in favor of any solution that even so much as attempts to price-in externalities into the market. Examples are carbon taxes and tariffs.

Now what's your solution that doesn't tread on my individual liberty?

I'm in the camp of climate change is real, the human impact is grossly overstated. More importantly, we have bigger, more pressing issues. #1 is pollution, especially water pollution. We're still dumping toxic chemicals all over the planet. #2 is water management. On the east coast of the US, we're tearing up millions of acres of farm land to build suburbs while California is trying to grow food in the desert. Aquifers are being depleted in several states. There's a real looming disaster and it's got nothing to do with CO2.

Well.

According to IPCC 2018, we're CURRENTLY between +0.75 and +1.25°C, with the very real possibility of reaching +2°C by the 2040. These effects are a direct consequence of our dumping massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

We thought that we had about 30 years to mitigate some of the worst damage. But now - holy shit! - the arctic permafrost is melting, about 70 years earlier than expected. And it's starting to release methane, a way more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Sure, it rapidly decays in the atmosphere, but not before kicking us to about +4°C. This is the temperature range where some Scientists fear that frozen methane from the ocean floor will start to be released.

(Did you know that at about +5°Celsius the phytoplankton will start dying off? )

So, we have a massive temperature increase at an unprecedented speed that makes huge areas of earths most populous regions inhospitable or even inhabitable. Do you think the Syrian refugee crisis was bad? Think about ~1 BILLION PEOPLE on the search for greener (literally) pastures. Do you think they will be welcome with open arms? Yeah, you bet..

Agriculture will be severely impacted. Not only by the heat, but also by the massive die-off that ensues. Most of the animals on earth have a lifecycle that's very closely tuned to the hum of the seasons. At +4°C you can kiss all that goodbye. The only things that will survive are generalist species that have a lifecycle not tied to the seasons. (Cockroaches maybe. Certainly not butterflies. Enjoy them while they last!)

So, yes, there are many other consequences of our predatory exploitation of our ecosphere. Many that are almost as pressing as the climate crisis. But just almost.

> These effects are a direct consequence of our dumping massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

And this is where this disconnect is. For every point you can produce, I can produce a counter point.

> And it's starting to release methane

Methane has been getting released for millennia (if not much, much longer) from the ocean floor.

> we have a massive temperature increase

I object to this statement.

> at an unprecedented speed

I also object to this statement.

> Think about ~1 BILLION PEOPLE on the search for greener

We're building a wall.

> And this is where this disconnect is. For every point you can produce, I can produce a counter point.

No, you cannot. This is scientific consensus, there's nothing to debate about it. Even if your 2 year-old denies shitting their pants; you can smell it. You are the authority on changing diapers, not them.

With climate change you are not the parent, you're the smelly two year old. You don't get to decide what's scientific fact, proven beyond any reasonable doubt.

Now, if you go ahead and actually produce valid criticism on the current climate models and their predictions, have some valid credentials with regards to climate modelling and have some credible research to show for, I'll take everything aforementioned back and put on the dirty diapers myself.

> I object to this statement.

If you want to raise an objection, you have to make an argument for _why_ you're raising an objection. Otherwise it doesn't count.

> Methane has been getting released for millennia (if not much, much longer) from the ocean floor.

There is drinking from a glass and drowning in a pool.

> We're building a wall.

Unfortunately, no empire in the history of mankind was ever able to hold back a migrating population with walls. Ask the Romans, ask the Chinese.

> This is scientific consensus, there's nothing to debate about it.

This is where you're wrong.

> proven beyond any reasonable doubt.

You're not the arbiter of what's reasonable doubt. It's not unreasonable to say that we used to have an ice age, now we don't, world was already warming, humans had little impact. You can stamp your feet all you wish, but nobody's buying it, except for a small vocal minority. Newsflash: you're not smarter than everyone else, we're perfectly capable of reaching our own conclusions.

> if you go ahead and actually produce valid criticism on the current climate models and their predictions

You should spend some of your own time researching both sides of the argument, like some of us had, and draw your own conclusions. Here's some basic facts: 1) Earth has been hotter in the past. 2) CO2 levels were much higher in the past. 3) There is evidence that CO2 lags temperature increase, thus isn't causative. 4) Solar output is highly correlated with temperature fluctuations.

We can get down into debating the temperature data itself, the revisions, for or against. To me, it comes down to some basic scrutiny. How accurate were the instruments used 100 years ago to record temperature? How often were the instruments calibrated? How much of the Earth's surface did we record the temperature for? How much mass of the Earth's temperature was recorded? For example, how much stratification in temperature is there in the ocean, and which depths were measured?

> If you want to raise an objection

You used non-specific and exaggerating terms to describe recent temperature changes. You have no factual basis for asserting that the temperature change is 'massive' nor that the speed of change is 'unprecedented.' First, a massive change would be more than a couple percent. Second, even without human induced warming, the models predict warming. What's the delta? As for 'unprecendented,' there's simply not enough data here. This all also implies that you trust the data, which many of us don't. At best, the data is a loose approximation, not a concrete set of facts.

> There is drinking from a glass and drowning in a pool.

Feel free to backup this claim.

> You're not the arbiter of what's reasonable doubt.

You are attacking a strawman, and boy, you are attacking it hard. I never said that I'm the arbiter of what's reasonable doubt is. I said that this is scientific concensus.

> You should spend some of your own time researching both sides of the argument [..]

At one point in time, there actually was a debate and I did research both 'sides'. But there are no two sides to the argument anymore. There is the scientific fact of climate change, that's it. There's nothing to debate about it. Let me put it that way; do you think you have to seriously argue with someone who says that the earth is flat? Because that's where you're currently standing, from a scientific view; denial of antropogenic climate change has about as much standing as a flat-earther. It might work as a hobby or a party-gag, but certainly not as an informed basis for policy decisions.

> To me, it comes down to some basic scrutiny.

It doesn't really look like that, to me. Because all of your points are either irrelevant or disproven. They instead sound like the typical sound-bites of deniers of antropogenic climate change.

> 1) Earth has been hotter in the past.

Yeah, so what? At some point in time, Earth did not exists. How are any of those two things relevant to antrophogenic climate change?

> 2) CO2 levels were much higher in the past.

See above.

> 3) There is evidence that CO2 lags temperature increase, thus isn't causative.

This is an old one, often explained. https://realclimatescience.com/2019/04/does-co2-lead-or-lag-....

4) Solar output is highly correlated with temperature fluctuations.

Yeah, this is an old one too; https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2910/what-is-the-suns-role-in-...

To quote myself;

> Now, if you go ahead and actually produce valid criticism on the current climate models and their predictions, have some valid credentials with regards to climate modelling and have some credible research to show for, I'll take everything aforementioned back and put on the dirty diapers myself.

What you bring up is not valid criticism of the models or the approaches of climate science but often and long discarded interjections that border on "But if the earth is round, what's keeping them on the ground on the other side of earth"?

> You have no factual basis for asserting that the temperature change is 'massive' nor that the speed of change is 'unprecedented.'

Yep, I do. There are many studies about it, i.e. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20530196166880... just to pick one. The change in atmospheric composition and temperature is unprecedented. Usually, these things take place over hundreds and thousands of years (yeah, there are super volcanoes and asteroid impacts that wreck havoc. But do you really want to compare humanity with a cataclysmic event?).

> Feel free to backup this claim.

This is pretty much self-evident, there's nothing to prove. Res ipsa loquitur.

I think you're pretty much the kind of person I mentioned in my initial post to this article. To quote myself, again:

> I simply fail to understand how, despite the rising mountain of evidence, some people still are able to deny the reality of the climate crisis we're facing.

> Even if you have ideological or economical reasons for wanting to believe the climate crisis to be a hoax - at one point or another the drive for self-preservation simply has to kick in, doesn't it?

I'll be there with you, on that day when you realize that this all isn't a hoax, that the climate scientists are not just in for the money and that humanity really is badly fucked. I'll be there with you, in that moment and I'll say to you;

Good that you see it. Now let's get to work and let's try to fix it, for all our children's sake.

> I said that this is scientific concensus.

Your consensus has been disputed elsewhere.

> denial of antropogenic climate change has about as much standing as a flat-earther

I strong, but ill-fated tactic. It's plainly obvious that the bulk of climate change has nothing to do with humans.

> It doesn't really look like that, to me. Because all of your points are either irrelevant or disproven

Right, because you disagree with them, they must be untrue.

> How are any of those two things relevant to antrophogenic climate change?

Based on your own statements that the temperature increase is 'massive' and 'unprecedented' it should be plainly obvious to you that there are mechanisms other than human which increase the global temperature. I realize you're not willing to consider all data available, climate change proponents never are.

> Yeah, this is an old one too; https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2910/what-is-the-suns-role-in-....

So convenient where the graph ends there.... so convenient. It's almost like there was a cool period right before hand, which would show rising temperatures over a longer period.

> Your consensus has been disputed elsewhere.

That's fine. Not every one and last climate scientist has to agree to this consensus. It's enough that the vast, overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree.

> It's plainly obvious that the bulk of climate change has nothing to do with humans.

If we're talking about the climate change that's been happening in the last 150 years, that's not what the scientific consensus is. Going back even further it becomes more obvious that humans have a massive impact on climate and weather. Did you know that the whole southern Mediterianian coast used to be woodland?

> Right, because you disagree with them, they must be untrue.

No, they are untrue because they are not supported by facts. They are irrelevant because they don't provide information to explore the topic. I don't have problem changing my conclusions when new relevant data are provided that would necessitate that. But your points are all either disproven or irrelevant.

> So convenient where the graph ends there. [...]

What data would you convince you otherwise?

See, that's what I mean. You give me some hand-wavy arguments why climate change is not related to CO2 or why the sun is the culprit or whatever else. Even if I refute your points, you just give more vague excuses without actually entering into a discussion about the points provided.

To me this feels intellectually dishonest.

I think it's antithetical to individual liberty to destroy our shared life support system. It's about as antithetical to liberty as you can get.

What we're currently doing is externalization of costs on a gargantuan scale. We're dumping humongous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and are ignoring the problems that causes for the whole ecosystem.

I fail to see how you can try to defend our current climate regime from a libertarian perspective. A libertarian should be outraged by this appropriation of the common good, an infraction on the freedom of us all.

And the damage done to our biological life support system is devastating!

We've wiped out 60% percents of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since the 1970 (https://s3.amazonaws.com/wwfassets/downloads/lpr2018_summary...).

We've killed about 30% of the insect population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations

Phytoplankton has been reduced by 50% since the 1950s https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09268 . You know, that's the stuff that produces our oxygen (https://earthsky.org/earth/how-much-do-oceans-add-to-worlds-...). An increase in temperature of about 5°C and more will probably kill off most phytoplankton.

Damages like these are infractions on our freedom to live healthily, they even encroach on our most basic right; the right to reproduce, endowed to us by our nature as biological organisms.

I don't think inaction on the climate crisis is supported by a libertarian worldview.

I think it's antithetical to individual liberty to destroy our shared life support system. It's about as antithetical to liberty as you can get.

You're creating a false choice - support action as you define it or be in favor of destroying Earth.

Indeed, if action only comes in the form of massive taxation and central control then yes, I'm willing to take my chances.

I believe any solutions that involve massive taxation and central control will result in massive warfare. Taxes and regulation might mitigate pollution in the first-world if you manage to get your way, but what about China? What about India? What about other emerging players?

Are you prepared to force China to dismantle its coal plants? Are you prepared to force India to cripple its means of production? Are you prepared to force Iran and Russia and Saudi Arabia to stop using petroleum? And if you are, how much destruction will be wrought in the process?

In summary I believe solutions that involve massive taxation, central control, and forcefully curbing human behavior will end in more misery than doing nothing at all.

Given that, of all the possible solutions I've heard curbing human behavior is the least likely to succeed. If a savior is necessary, it will be technology or nothing.

You're setting up a strawman here.

First, although it's besides the point, I never said that we're destroying the earth by inaction on the climate crisis. Earth will be fine. Life on earth will be fine. Earth has seen much worse and will see much worse in the future, so there's nothing to worry about when it comes to Earth.

What I'm worried about is that we're destroying our life support system by willful neglect and even malice.

But inaction on the climate crisis doesn't even necessarily have to damage the fundamental requirements for our own survival for a libertarian to be abhorred.

Let me put it into a libertarian parable.

Say we both own land, next to each other. We are both homesteading, can support ourselves and our families.

Suddenly, one day, you build a shit house on my ground. Sure, it's far enough from my house so I don't have to smell it. But still; you are shitting on my land! You don't get to shit on my land! Even if you claim that it's not as bad as I make it out to be and and that I don't even have to face the stink; you don't get to shit on my land!

It's the same with the atmosphere. It's a common good, so it belongs to all of us dependent on it. So you just don't get to dump CO2 into it. It's warming my planet, it's melting my antarctic, it's killing my corrals in my oceans. You just don't get to do that kind of things. As a libertarian I say; you must not infringe on my freedoms and my property.

Next, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, India: hey, these are good questions worth discussing. First, let's point out that each signed on the Paris Agreement. To put that in other words; every country you list has made public commitments to action on the climate crisis. These commitments are not sufficient, by far. Put in contrast to say - the USA - whose administration made no such commitment and that is actively trying to undermine federal actions and scientific discourse on the topic (not very libertarian, btw.)

Now, if for some weird reason the USA suddenly starts to take the climate crisis serious, there are many ways she could go about. Together with the EU it has the largest market for consumer goods. That's something we could leverage.

Beyond that; it's good that we started talking about how to address the problem and start having a discussion about feasible approaches!

First, let's point out that each signed on the Paris Agreement.

Mercy.

What for?

The Paris Agreement is non-binding, has no enforcement clauses, it is voluntary and simply a statement of willingness to action.

It is so primarily because the US was unwilling to sign anything binding.

With regards to your question: "Whatabout whatabout?"

Here's a map pointing out the parties responsibilities for anthropogenic atmospheric CO2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CO2_responsibility_1950-2...

So, it looks like the ball is firmly in the USA/EU/Russland/Canada/Uk corner. Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, India; not so much.

"climate crisis is mostly nonsense."

For comparison, what are examples of actual crisis (sic), past, present, or future?

"And I believe most 'solutions' proposed are an antithesis to individual liberty."

Do you oppose China's handling of COVID-19? Italy's?

If yes, how would you handle it?

Isn't this just survivorship bias? If the doomsayers were right, then you wouldn't be here to be smug about their predictions being wrong.

As a thought experiment, consider what would happen if a planet-killing asteroid were inbound. The doom-sayers would still sound like cranks ("in the 1970s they said the population bomb would kill us all") and normal life would continue right up until the point that everyone died.

Humanity is arrogant about its ability to survive crises because it has taken action and survived previous major crises, but the first time we get it really wrong will also be the last time.

You could use that argument to prove Earth is about to be demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. I mean sure, there is actual evidence that global warming is real whereas Vogons are not, but if you want to make a case, you need to point to the actual evidence, not just handwave about survivorship bias.

My point is that dismissing "doomsayers" just because we've averted actual doom thus far is specious.

The answers are quite sad but simple.

We rely on a thing. As a society our entire society is built around it. Regardless of why.

We later find out that thing is bad.

Lots of rich people will lose money and entire cultures have to change. This won't work. Deny.

If the problem will hit us in 50 years then we can procrastinate till we're dead. Then someone else will panic and deal with it.

The problem is there's no easy solution to this. None. It all takes decades to have an effect. And thus the problem.

I'm not sure there have been any studies on it but it makes sense that cognitive dissonance in humans would be a genetic advantage over other species. It allows us to acknowledge unfortunate truths like death and existentialism without driving us to insanity.

My personal cognitive dissonance is the optimism that we'll at least be able to slow climate change despite the mounting evidence to the contrary. If I lose that optimism, I would enter a very dark place in my own mind.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair

The whole climate denialism machine utilizes the same mechanisms and even the same people as the tobacco one before it.

Eventually it will happen. But then it might already be too late. People live in their filter bubbles and these can be really hard to burst. Especially, when you deal with ideology and an us-versus-them mentality, where the opposite party is for climate protection and you are in the climate change hoax camp.

Have you looked at the response to the virus?

Same deal really - we are so comfy deluding ourselves, have so very much forgotten that we are subject to the laws of nature, we have become unable to reject the delusions of infinite growth, infinite resources, perpetually funded pension systems - all pyramid schemes of lies perpetuated for generations now.

Covid19 is running for president by sending a reminder that reality still exists, outside of our carefully constructed fantasy of an economy and society.

If it's not happening in my back yard then it can't possibly be happening anywhere else. That's the level of delusion we're dealing with.

> But I always get disappointed ...

The best cure for disappointment and despair is action. Go out, join like-minded people, and rebel.

In three weeks we're having an Extinction Rebellion Exhibition next to our local grocery store where we sell cakes and cookies and show how much the local fauna and flora has suffered in the last 50 years. We will also feature a list of five local species that have gone extinct in the last 20 years.

We try to keep it 'local' so people realize that it actually concerns them.

Weather is so big that I, a small human, don't have any influence. My actions have no impact on the sky.

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