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Comment by gdubs | Hacker News Reader

I was walking the trash bins down our long drive to the road yesterday in a soup of wildfire smoke and fog when it occurred to me — we sure have a compartmentalized way of looking at the issues plaguing the world right now.

Part of that is the sheer complexity of our contemporary world. There are few polymaths — most are specialists. It feels like we’re sorely lacking people who see across many fields to synthesize everything that’s happening.

But it feels pretty clear that the system is on the fritz, has been for a while, and we’re incredibly stupid to not take bold action to fix it. Instead, we’re still having arguments about whether people are the cause. Of. Course. We. Are.

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But frankly, it doesn't matter if we're the cause or not, we're the only thing around that could potentially do anything to save ourselves. So ya know, we kinda should regardless of whose fault it is.

We would have to shut down 90% of the pollutants world wide to do anything. Will make the Covid shutdowns look like a long weekend. And even then it might not make a difference if climate change is out of our control. You willing to do that?

Yup, because in the mid-term, the alternative is basically the same anyway.

I don’t want to be uncharitable, but I can’t help reading your comment as, “we shouldn’t be inconvenienced to prevent ours and our children’s suffering.” That can’t be a correct reading, can it?

Yes. I prefer this planet in its habitable state.

This statement is hyperbolic and unhelpful at best. The citizens of countries all over the world have indicated, en masse, they are willing to make drastic changes. Their governments are either slow to react or beholden to the financial interests of the worst offenders.

Given that some 35% of global emissions this century have come from such unnecessary atrocities as the War on Terror[1] I am confident we have a good starting point for things to cut.

[1] https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/20...

"We would have to shut down 90% of the pollutants world wide to do anything."

This is vastly overestimated and straight up poorly informed statistics. There are dozens of solutions for pollution that involve energy efficiency, which doesn't require a single shut down and merely uses what we're already consuming more efficiently (think gasoline standards, heating, A/C, LEDs, insulation, weatherization, etc).

Alongside these simple and job-intensive efficiency gains, we can encourage the already massive growth in wind, solar, batteries, EVs, and other clean industries, which will vastly reduce the number of pollutants without shutdowns needed.

If we apply smart stimulus for Corona to encourage the many green tech jobs, we will see huge benefits on air pollution alone, never mind long-term climate impacts. Even if you think climate is a hoax, pollution certainly isn't and it's killing poor people by the hundreds of thousands every year. We have the solutions above, let's implement them, not throw up our hands in despair.

Making them sufficiently efficient to solve the problem WILL NECCESSARILY involve a tear down and rebuild with the efficient replacement. There are millions of small cook fires that aggregate to a large part of the problem. House insulation, electrify cooking, heating, transportation of all kinds will take 50-100 years to fully implement - We have to do all these things ASAP.

I agree that ‘better’ is worth doing and we could wait forever for ‘perfect’ to come along while the world burns.

However even doing these things won’t return the biosphere to it’s previous condition, we’ve extracted extreme quantities of energy from underground and dumped them into the atmosphere, and our ‘locked in’ climate change will not decrease with those measures alone. We need to restore balance and I can’t see a way of doing it short of significant carbon sequestration - vastly beyond what can be achieved by reforestation.

Wipe out 90% of pollutants or wipe out 90% of humans in a mass die off. The animals (except for rats and raccoons) will rejoice but I don’t think that’s what humans want.

"Not killing the planet would be too expensive."

Fred, Sooner or later the warming will force us to implement these extreme measures, even thiugh they need to be implemented ASAP.

If we can't agree on what the cause is, how can we agree on what to do about it?

Effective solutions to problems do not always depend on knowing the cause.

This is a great point, there were many gravity powered devices before we had a good understanding of how or why gravity worked.

Climate change seems to be one of the problems where acknowledging the cause is key to solving the problem. The only viable solutions we have right now involve mitigating the cause.

Well, there's cause and there's cause.

If you have a smoke problem you can put the fire out without working out how it started.

The smoke problem is at the end of a long web of causes and effects.

It is not possible to put out sufficiently large fires.

We need to act earlier in the causal chain. But where? And who pays?

Do we know areas at risk of uncontrollable fires?

Yes?

Do we know how to mitigate the risks?

>Yes? Do the things.

>No? Pay the experts to figure this out. Draft them if need be.

No? Pay the experts to figure this out. Draft them if need be.

Everyone pays proportionally. Nationalize assets if need be.

We have the knowledge, resources, and capacity to solve these problems. (Change my mind). We lack leaders with the spine to take necessary action.

If everyone agrees that the fire is causing the smoke and needs to be put out, we can do that.

The problem here is that we have a bunch of smoke, and a good chunk of the population is either saying that there's no smoke or that the smoke is unrelated to the fire.

How do you fix the smoke problem if you can't get enough people to agree to put out the fire?

we’re still having arguments about whether people are the cause. Of. Course. We. Are.

You seem to discount the anthropocentric argument (as it should be) and then promptly jump right in to it. Why does it matter what the cause is?

There is a large chunk of the US voter population that thinks that even if climate change is real it isn't human driven and therefor totally natural or by God's design.

So of course nothing should be done about it because either it isn't real or it isn't human caused.

This is also the group that often votes single issue or directly against their best interest much like What's the matter with Kansas. Surprisingly, Kansas itself hasn't read that book and seems to repeat history every time the GOP wants less taxes.

>This is also the group that often votes single issue or directly against their best interest much like What's the matter with Kansas. Surprisingly, Kansas itself hasn't read that book and seems to repeat history every time the GOP wants less taxes.

Oh please. Inner city minorities have been voting for gun control (good luck getting the cops to show up let alone promptly in some places) since long before climate change was a thing. The bases of both parties are rife with cognitive dissonance. You could probably count on one hand the number of people in the other country who agree with everything in an official party platform if you present each policy goal in isolation instead of as a platform.

Proclaiming that people are voting against their interest is just calling them stupid or saying you know what's good for them better than they do with some obfuscation thrown in to make it fit in better in "polite" conversation.

Unfortunately this is typical of the elites in bith sides.

They know whats best for you.

So they can give you Iraq, Credit Crisis, Vietnam, Covid19 in nursing homes, etc

==Proclaiming that people are voting against their interest is just calling them stupid or saying you know what's good for them better than they do with some obfuscation thrown in to make it fit in better in "polite" conversation. ==

Kind of like you do in this sentence: "Inner city minorities have been voting for gun control (good luck getting the cops to show up let alone promptly in some places) since long before climate change was a thing."

Are you calling them stupid or just saying you know what's good for them better than they do?

The implication that I thought was obvious was that in light of their voting patterns they're either stupid or there's something other than "what will benefit me personally the most" that's driving their voting and I know which one I'm betting on.

Inner cities often see escalated violent crime compared to rural and suburban areas. However I can't find a source suggesting inner city minorities are single issue voter for gun control.

I did find several where minorities refused to vote GOP due to racism and related issues but I'd consider that decency not single issue.

Meanwhile I can list my Grandma's entire church as mostly single issue related to abortion rights, or at least that's what the current leadership preaches.

By voting against their interest, I'm considering that the GOP has had platform planks, policy options, or new laws/rules related to reducing farm subsides, setting up tariffs that bring counter actions that destroy entire US farming groups, refuse to acknowledge climate change is real let alone human driven, curtailing regulations around safe pesticides or environmental efforts in general, and reducing rural outreach like cuts to USPS, voting access, and more.

It seems odd that a group of often rural and farm related folks would vote for a party that has succeeded in reducing their subsidies, axing their crop values internationally via revenge tariffs, refusing to acknowledge why droughts are sweeping the nation and doing nothing to counter them, and reducing their access to mail and levers of democracy would be against their core interests.

But hey, the rich have lower taxes and the poor can't get healthcare, jobs, retirement, home ownership, and the chances of preventing massive droughts and climate change related issues are nil so all is right for the GOP.

What's the Matter with Kansas is a deeper look into the Kansas aspects of this. It's an interesting read and very relevant as just back in 2016 they tried to ax taxes across the state and schools closed, hospitals started to shut down, roads fell apart, and more until the state supreme court ordered the legislature to fund basic services and the GOP dominated state legislature had to override the governors veto to pass higher taxes. At this point, cutting taxes seems to be the biggest right wing driver apart from protecting Trump.

Of course, if the GOP gets into office then floods you with more subsidies because their actions would otherwise destroy your entire national industry, perhaps its more about selfish people being selfish than voting against their interests. If US farmers didn't have tariffs shredding their markets and driving demand to Brazil and other nations, maybe they wouldn't need more bailout money than the US auto sector in 2009. So far I think they are up to about 2x the auto bailout but that was a year ago.

So much for person responsibility and fiscally conscious conservatives. The deficit hasn't mattered since Obama left office apparently.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/21/trump-teases-more-t...

https://www.freep.com/story/money/business/john-gallagher/20...

It’s generally more difficult to actually fix something without knowing the cause.

It's also a good idea to understand that the search for a solution can proceed independently of knowing the cause of the problem.

It's even more difficult when the cause has been known for decades but doesn't jive with people's means of income or religious views and is thus roundly ignored or debated in bad faith.

>Why does it matter what the cause is?

Are you being serious? The cause is a key part of choosing the most efficient response. Responses can potentially involve both reactionary measures to climate forcing and reductionary measures trying to reduce forcing. If the cause was, say, the sun getting brighter by 15% for some reason, well we can't just turn down the sun, so while yes we'd having just a much motivation to respond our range of actions would be purely on the reaction side, reducing incoming solar insolation maybe. And that'd further just be bringing things back into the comfortable range we and everything else have been living in.

But since instead the cause is human driven fossil carbon emissions, both different reaction measures and reducing the cause in the first place are possible and important. To take the above example, solar shading would be a bad idea because while yes it'd lower thermal input, it'd also reduce critical wavelengths used by primary producers below normal levels as well. That's a major side effect that's different from if the cause was different. And while we can mess with the sun, we certainly can treat net atmospheric carbon increases as the externality it is.

But if you don't accept greenhouse gas emissions are an externality, why would you support internalizing those costs? If they weren't the cause after all it'd be uneconomic and pointless to go after them.

I mean, I'm genuinely astonished to even be writing this on HN. Like if my "computer broke", well if the cause is a dead SSD that's quite different then a dead mobo or fried PSU or "5 year old knocked a potted plant onto it then 7 year old poured seltzer water on it to clean it off". Would you be saying "what does it matter what the cause was" there?

We have a problem and need to find the best way to fix it. Understanding the cause in order to find one possible fix is an obvious thing to do. So is looking for any other possible solutions. It is an unnecessary constraint that we need to solve the problem only by reversing its cause.

If the cause of the problem was a brighter sun but we could save the planet by internalizing the cost of our emissions, it seems like it would be wise to do that regardless of whether an earth umbrella might address the root cause more directly.

I can just imagine you as a doctor. "We don't need to know what's causing the disease - we'll just give you medicine, that has to work!"

The suggestion that we don't currently use medicines for which we don't know the mechanism made me smile. Thanks.

Because a majority of Americans will believe it most proper to do NOTHING about it if they believe that the cause is of divine origin. A politically powerful and obvious majority.

If I thought something was God's will, the last thing I'd do is try to stop it!

Is forest management, among other things, really that complicated in terms of what one has to do?

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), cites shrubs and live and dead vegetation as <the most important factor> in forest fires, 'being an easily ignitable fuel source that helps spread the flames quickly over vast distances.'

It's worth noting that NASA reports that global fires are down by 25% between 2003 and 2019. In other words, there has been a global decrease in the total number of square kilometers burned each year. Africa 'dominates in terms of the sheer number of fires'.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-l...

deforestation overall is not going down though.

deforestation overall is not going down though. And even if deforestation caused by fire went down for the last decade it doesn't mean reforestation outpaces it.

I've noticed that every issue ends with this exact post. Despite the actual complexity or circumstance of the issue, at the end is always a guy on a soapbox talking about exactly one thing. It's only ever one thing and it never has anything to do with the complexity of the situation. It is always, always always about anthropogenic climate change due to carbon.

It's like getting pamphlets at the airport. You do not read them but you know what they're about.

The problem is the prevention of forest fire.

It's normal for the west cost to burn. But we don't want that, so we stop it for as long as we can. But at some point the condition are just perfect: hot, dry, windy and then it burn like never before.

This is common knowledge among firefighter.

All I feel these days is despair. It's hard enough to get people to just wear masks, or not throw parties with active covid infection. I think and feel that we are doomed. I wonder if the polymaths have just given up.

Remember not to conflate the loudness and visibility of the idiots with their numbers!

Anyone who uses public transport can get a good idea of the percentage of noncompliance in their area. Here in Berlin, I see an average of four people not wearing masks or wearing them wrong on an average half-full train carriage or bus.

Vee häff camz in Hamburg. If the driver sees that, it's end of the line for them. If they are cought by "Kontrolletties" it's that plus 80EUR fine.

Winke, Winke :-)

edit: Written as experienced multiple times in the last few weeks. Fine was initially 40EUR.

in NL, we dont wear masks. and we are totally fine. ofc you dont get people to wear masks if its not necessary at all.

The point isn't masks per se. Masks do in fact slow transmission, but there are multiple strategies which can work if everyone abides by them. But that's the issue — people won't agree to even the simple rules, no matter how inoffensive, because the breakdown in social trust is so profound, and so the whole system suffers.

Interesting, looking at the data you're back at the same peak as in April.

dont lie. we have nearly 0 people.in the hospitals. close to 0 daily deads.

yes, we have a lot of confirmed infections but that doesnt mean shit. its a vanity metric that you a) can easily game and b) shouldnt matter as long as icus and death dont go up

> whether people are the cause. Of. Course. We. Are.

And that's how conversations go to hell. You just postulate your own correctness and the opposing side recoils from that. Do you really think it's productive?

Merry and Pippin spend the entirety of Two Towers trying to convince the Ents that they are not, in fact, Orcs (while the Shire burns).

We’ve spent decades just trying to get people to agree on facts, basic facts supported by the majority of scientific consensus.

So, forgive me my frustration, but at a certain point we have to agree the sky is blue [1] and move on to the “what are we going to do about it” part.

1: Well, normally it’s blue at least.

Are we the cause of Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn being on the fritz as well? They are experience major magnetic field changes as is Earth. Are we responsible for the changes on the other planets as well?

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