Hacker News Reader

Comment by formerkrogemp | Hacker News Reader

> love seeing the resistance to this period of peak centralized control of lives

I'm not sure what you mean, exactly. Climate change is and will happen. One of the central questions is how much we choose to act to mitigate its consequences. If we, as you seem to imply, apply a hands off approach as we have done for decades, then you can have negative externalities that compound uncontrolled and unchecked to blow up in everyone's faces to the detriment, decay, and possible destruction of society. The world is unfortunately not so simple as the "resistance" and "centralized control of lives" as you make it out to be. Actions and lack thereof have consequences. We're feeling them now.

I tire of discussing the consequences of climate change with those in denial. I hope your disillusionment with reality doesn't harm your future.

View on HN

"Close down your ancestral farms and do as we say or these horrible tribulations and curses will befall you, your cities will be drowned into the ocean, your lands will glow a fiery red, pestilences and disease will succumb you... probably in about 30 years from now when I'm dead and wont have to answer to you when I am wrong.". This is essentially what you are saying and what you believe. What did it take to put you and so many others into this mindset?

I for one, will be alive for another 50 years if you go by how old my grandfather and father are(both still quite alive).

As long as the farmers are made whole if their farms are indeed shut down. Right now that is a 'fear' not an actuality of any policy. Times change, things change. I am pretty confident in saying that these ancestral farms are not run the same today as they were 100 years ago. So their impact is much different.

Also, I feel the same about people that do not want to leave the environment cleaner on all levels. "Who cares about climate change, I'll be dead when the worst of it comes to pass."

> What did it take to put you and so many others into this mindset?

For me it was looking at the data and learning more about geology as well as systems thinking.

It was about a decade ago now that I was curious what the big deal was about CO2 ppm rising so high, and then again a few years after that when we reached a new minimum for global sea ice. Looking into the details of these problems and then learning more about how our global energy economic works I started to realize the situation at hand.

The more you understand the data as well as ways of viewing climate modeling from various different scientific communities the more you realize how dire the situation is and how often our models under estimate variance, and how that variance is more likely to be on the "worse than expected" than "better than expected" side of things.

But, I'm also of the perspective that it's far too late. We can't even tackle nitrogen pollution in a relatively progressive area of Europe, we'll never be able to touch on the larger problems we're facing. On top of that the time for action was around 30+ years ago.

I've done the same thing and come to different conclusions about the degree of severity and about how hard economically it will be to overcome. Not saying I'm right but I do think the debate needs to be had, be open and be free from censorship. If the 'other side' can't offer that, then you'll see more extreme reactions.

> "Close down your ancestral farms and do as we say or these horrible tribulations and curses will befall you, your cities will be drowned into the ocean, your lands will glow a fiery red, pestilences and disease will succumb you."

This is happening now. Regardless of closing the "ancestral farms." Subsidence and storm surges happen every few months globally. Sea levels are rising. Have you been to Venice, Miami, Bangkok, among other cities lately? Flooding and erosion are a constant issues. New Orleans has not and most likely never recover its pre-Katrina population levels in our lifetimes. Recordbreaking wildfires in Australia, California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Wisconsin have all happened in the last five years alone. COVID-19, monkeypox, avian flu, orange trees succumbing to diseases, valley lung, Lyme disease, dengue fever, etc. I hope the rock you're living under is a pleasant place to live.

Multigenerational farms become incorporated groups with familial ownership or multinational corporate control. I don't know of many bucolic countryside farms these days, but if you look at the numbers they've certainly been consolidated and controlled by fewer groups over time. 'Independent family farmers' are a dying group in developed economies.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com