Ask HN: Does anyone on here think climate change isn’t a problem? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Does anyone on here think climate change isn’t a problem?

I’m absolutely convinced it is, but curious what the latest and greatest is in arguments that it’s not something there should be a massive, urgent, global scramble to mitigate.

Also - does anyone have anything like a holistic overview of why climate change is a problem, how it can be slowed, and what it’s impact will be?

Thanks in advance!

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I have not seen a serious plan to tackle climate change that wasn't just political rhetoric. I think almost nobody takes it seriously, they just see it as another hook to push their politics.

If we were serious about it, we would be focusing on technological solutions, not social control or politics. I've seen companies working on that, but otherwise it's barely part of the mainstream narrative. We need to reject political motivations and look for how to solve the problem (and mitigate changes that do occur) in real life with the technology we have available.

Isn’t there a poll option on HN that would be a better way to get this insight?

The way the question is phrased suggests you are spoiling for an argument, and the fact you would ask such a question in such a way in such a forum, with no supporting facts or additional content, suggests engaging in this post would be a waste of time.

When a single sentence includes the words “absolutely”, “greatest”, “massive”, “urgent” and “scramble”, it speaks more to the author than the issue at hand. For the same reason you move to the other side of the street when a homeless person is ranting, you will not get the meaningful engagement you are expecting from such a post. IMHO

I’m representing what I see as the general consensus amongst my echo chamber and am curious what’s outside it, if anything. And I don’t cross the street when a homeless person is ranting.

Climate changes - period. The question is to what extent are the changes anthropogenic. The key to understanding the current climate movement is recognizing who is advocating what solutions and who benefits from the proposals. One quickly sees that it is a political movement. And once one allows themselves to be convinced that the root causes are anthropogenic, it becomes a new religion. That’s largely where we are today.

Over the last 2 years, the west coast has seen:

- Consecutive days of record breaking heat waves

- Wildfires that turn the sky red

- Floods that briefly cut off road access between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

Considering that this is just at only +1.3 C is a scary thought. As the average temperature continues to rise, extreme weather events will become more likely and happen more often.

I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29110790

The costs of global warming: 2% of global GDP (marginalrevolution.com) 14 points by Bostonian 66 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 14 comments

I think it is a problem however, my country is insignificant in regards to global pollution levels. So any seemingly organic movements that want to work on our global impact as Canadians, are operating from a place of naivete at best or corruption at worst.

All these types of climate change policies will do is make it harder for small businesses to operate, while more and more bureaucracy and tax is applied to them. That the "too big to fail" companies can continue to ignore and skate by.

Point is, most of the first world countries are not significant polluters. It is China, India, who are contributing the majority of pollution. The more we pretend this isn't the case, and the more we pretend like putting our trash into two colored boxed is going to stop these beasts, the more sterilized we become.

As with anything important that the powerful can’t easily make money or increase influence by, it will only get their focus once it’s a red hot emergency.

I think it's a huge problem that we barely yet understand.

Politicians et al using it to cover their ambitions is another huge problem.

I think it is a scam to sell and buy carbon credits while China and India are the biggest polluters in the world and don't even get a slap on the wrist.

I believe climate change is real but political scams take advantage of it.

I want to see a technical plan to solve it. With carbon trading the one sure thing is that somebody is going take 1% of the money going by and spend a small fraction of that lobbying politicians so they can keep their privilege. Many cheap but unreliable schemes such as ‘not cutting down forests’ and grinding up olivine rock at the beach will waste decades.

Do you mean carbon footprint by consumption and per capita? Then it is the US by far and away.

No I mean the coal burning factories. Nothing is made in the USA anymore due to the economy of scale.

Why is it measured by the average person and not factories?

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