Hacker News Reader

Comment by 1827162 | Hacker News Reader

It appears to me that fears over catastrophic climate change are yet another moral panic. Amplified by social media this time.

As with other moral panics (e.g. child abductions, pedophilia), the problem exists, but is blown way out of proportion by the media.

In reality, I believe there of course will be changes in the weather patterns due to a relatively small increase in temperature, but it's not going to be the end of the world and there certainly won't be any mass drought or famine from the change.

I kind of intuitively know this, and mostly disregard the opinions of those saying that there is impending doom. As I have likely seen this type of hysteria play out before in my life many times already.

It will be interesting to see if I'm right about it or not, over the coming decades...

View on HN

I agree somewhat, in the sense that climate change will have happened slow enough and on a wide enough scale that its impact on human geographic dispersion, social organization, and reproductive patterns will be imperceptible to those feeling its effects.

It won’t be a catastrophe simply by nature of lacking the sudden violence necessary to qualify. Will it suck, will it transform things for the worse, and will our successors envy us, if not outright loathe and resent us? Definitely.

I'm not sure what the source of your doubt here is. There is piles and piles of evidence that we are in for a world of hurt in the coming several decades.

No there isn't. There isn't a single scientifically proven consequence of climate change we don't know how to deal with.

That's a big claim. Too big to assert without evidence. Got any?

Well provide me with a scientifically proven consequence of climate change and I will tell you how we deal with it.

> I kind of intuitively know this, and mostly disregard the opinions of those saying that there is impending doom.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truthiness

> It will be interesting to see if I'm right about it or not, over the coming decades...

You are wrong. No need to wait, the effects are already starting to be visible.

It's the same intuition that tells me something's wrong when I read things that end up being conspiracy theories or pseudoscience.

I trust it, because for me, it seems to have a track record of being correct in the end.

Well everyone has the right to their own opinions, and I might be completely wrong.

And I have every right to be a heretic, and not subscribe to things I think might be orthodoxies. That might be arising from bandwagon effects and social conformity. Which is what I suspect when it comes to climate change doomsaying.

And that's strictly my own opinion only, which can be simply disregarded by other people. But it still adds to the discussion. And such things can be proven wrong too, which might strengthen the case for catastrophic climate change actually happening?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com