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Comment by AbrahamParangi | Hacker News Reader

I think article is a good example that current events and world news is basically bad for you.

What can we say about this article?

- it’s alarming, particularly if you already happened to hold the view that it’s all going to hell

- it’s not actionable, there’s nothing you can or should do differently as a result of this article

- it’s probably not even meaningful, the world is a random event generator and the worse event or piece of news on any given day is terrible! But that says nothing about how things actually are

The last point bears repeating. If you read a news article and update your understanding of the world to think “X is more common than I thought” after reading an article on X - you often end up less informed than if you hadn’t read the article at all. Replace X for any rare event that occurs in the news. The availability of the news on a thing is not the rate of the thing happening.

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The number of displaced persons globally is not a random event distribution. There's clearly a trend over a couple of decades at least.

The causes are maybe numerous and arguable but the trend isn't. It seems important as a society to be aware of?

Defeatism at its worst. What better way to not have to fix a problem than to choose to be unaware of it?

The articles that make you uncomfortable first inform you. Then you think. Then you make personal choices to reduce pollution, pick sustainable ways of living and transportation etc. You talk to your relatives and friends about it to spread awareness. If you live in a democracy, effect policy change through your representatives. Etc etc.

There is no way any individual action will affect climate change.

Advocating for the shutting down of oil and gas is the most effective way to combat it

Taking the subway or not flying often or not eating mear won't change much if anything at all, its just virtue signaling.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-empty-gestur...

> Advocating for the shutting down of oil and gas is the most effective way to combat it

Which requires advocating for nuclear power, of course.

It's rather strange that the most ardent Climate Crusaders are against nuclear power, too.

Absolutely. Nuclear is one of the cleanest sources of energy, if we are talking lots and lots of energy.

Advocacy for nuclear power would have made sense back in the '80s and '90s, but it's too late now; renewables cost half as much and come on line ten times faster. The ROI just isn't there for nuclear.

Wind/solar are always wind/solar + something else. That something else is usually pipelined gas.

That's true, but I am talking about the economic problem: who is going to spend $30 billion on a decade-long project to build a nuclear plant, when the same money could buy twice as many megawatts' worth of renewables and start returning on the investment in a year?

Of course it would be a good thing for us all if someone would replace all those gas plants with nuclear, but it's hard to see why anyone who had the money to do that would choose to spend it that way.

If our safety requirements for wind and solar were as onerous as they are for nuclear power, then the economic equation would be completely flipped around.

(Plus we currently don't have the wind/solar providers pay for the gas plants -- and the costs of ensuring a constant supply of gas. That cost is currently measured in leopard tanks and stinger missiles... and in Ukrainian soldiers but that's an externality we are not paying for.)

How do we change that? Advocate for nuclear power. Tell every nasty little "green" politician that we hate them and their lies.

I don't really want to debate this. I think you chose your wording advocacy instead of just nuclear for a reason.

I would just add every environment is not equally suited to each type of power generation. Each environment needs a different peak load. Batteries can get you through a single peak when sized well, at large expense. We don't want natural gas to be the fallback for renewables universally.

No it doesn’t. Shut down the oil and gas, and let the utilities figure out the cheapest way to get us energy. Choosing which technology to use is their expertise.

Do they currently have the freedom to do that? Not in my country. The anti-nuclear lobby won that battle decades ago... and there is huge government interference in our energy infrastructure.

The Paris Climate Agreements never addresses nuclear in France which last time I checked was around 70% of their energy. Obviously something is very backwards with the setting of these agreements. Everyone knows nuclear is our best option right now except advocates for wind and solar since they lose money. It should be the Paris Nuclear Agreements end of the day...meh.

100%

Reread. It starts with making individual choices, goes to informing others and effecting policy change. Reading uncomfortable articles is prerequisite for this process to even start.

For an example where individual choices eventually cascaded into big changes to human environment see anthropocene.

Even if your whole family switched, it won't matter.

False. It's my family and friends and whoever they in turn talk to about it, and their friends and family. And all of them can also do their part in effecting policy change.

So much misinformation on this topic. It's more comfortable to be complacent.

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