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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

> Climate change and the collapse of global ecosystems can absolutely manage that and according to every serious scientist we are pretty much on the worst case scenario path according to any peer reviewed model.

Except that most models are piss-poor at predicting anything and that they only cherry pick the ones that happen to make it with new data.

On top of that, climate change is a slow moving disaster, and we are typically good at mitigating long term changes (at least way better than urgent crises). Scientists calling for the end of the world at every opportunity will look ridiculous 100 years from now.

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Please don't spread false information like this. With any model you choose, we are way over the line where we could mitigate long term changes.

The science is absolutely certain on this one: the only way to prevent disastrous climate changes, including massive rises in sea levels, extreme temperatures and drought in many highly populated areas of the world etc. is to stop emitting CO2 TODAY, literally. Or, well, to be more accurate, a few years ago, more likely.

Either way, urgent overhaul of our whole global economy is the only option, but it remains of course an absurdity in the current political climate.

> stop emitting CO2 TODAY, literally.

Given that there's no chance at all of this happening, what's Plan B?

Plan B is active removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, converting it to CaCO3 and sinking it into the ocean.

It will require the deployment of direct air capture tech at a total-war level of industrial mobilization.

An adequately priced carbon tax could make it profitable?

> On top of that, climate change is a slow moving disaster, and we are typically good at mitigating long term changes (at least way better than urgent crises). Scientists calling for the end of the world at every opportunity will look ridiculous 100 years from now.

I wish I could share your optimism. Climate change may be a slow moving disaster, however it is more a "high latency" moving disaster. In the sense that once the symptoms start hurting us, it will not be possible to administer any control inputs that will effect the course of climate change within an acceptable period of time.

And while we may be good at mitigating long term changes, I think "existential crisis" kind of long term changes may not have any modes of mitigation that would be acceptable to the current generation of humans (like accepting that 90% of world population just won't have a chance of long-term surivival).

>On top of that, climate change is a slow moving disaster, and we are typically good at mitigating long term changes (at least way better than urgent crises).

That statement is laughably incorrect, in fact the complete opposite of what is pointed to by the evidence. Humans are much better at dealing with urgent crises than long term threats due to our evolutionary history. We even have three branches of emergency services and the military that are trained to deal with urgent crises.

You know what the science doesn't show? That we're "typically good at mitigating long term changes". The history of the earth is a story of alternating periods of relative stability and momentous upheaval. Even though we've gotten "smart enough" to become a thorn in nature's side, nature has a nasty habit of rearing its head suddenly and biting back with overwhelming force.

Don't make the mistake of thinking this is something you can safely ignore. If you do, your children will pay the price.

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