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Comment by rspoerri | Hacker News Reader

RCP8.5, the scenario defined in the article as "worst case", is that the global air would have >1000ppm, looking at the referenced graph i'd guess it could go up to 3000ppm or more. A co2 detector warns if you have 1500+ ppm, where some people start to get headache and you should start ventilating your room. Imagine that 24h a day, on every place on the earth. Not to mention the effects of heating of 3.0°C to 5+°C .

https://climatenexus.org/climate-change-news/rcp-8-5-busines...

RCP 4.5 is really bad as well. In our last project it was kind of the worst case scenario we considered. It means that rich countries will have problems adapting to the changing environment. The changes will happen so fast (20 Years), no new infrastructure can be built to prevent natural disasters (for example dam's). Poor countries have even less possibilities to adapt. For example countries like Kazachstan completely rely for it's water resources in summer on glaciers. In Switzerland we already know that all glaciers will disappear or melt by 80% to 90% in all likely scenarios.

https://ethz.ch/de/news-und-veranstaltungen/eth-news/news/20...

edit: please correct me if i'm wrong, i am a designer that worked in climate visualsation research projects. However my short searches for the outcomes of rcp 8.5 are disastrous and no relief at all that it's now unlikely to come.

View on HN

You are correct. RCP8.5 is such a nightmare scenario, it was always quite unlikely to happen even if we were tracking it for a while. So its not a real surprise nor consolation we are not tracking that path anymore. The best possible take on this article is that change is in fact possible, that it always matters, and we need more of it.

Because, like you said, we do need to step up our game. The middle of the road is not good enough. We must resist both the naivety of the techno-optimists as well as the doomist fatalism. Any perspective that leads to inaction is wrong.

One of the top things that could be done to help the climate is to remove the stigma around veganism and its promotion. It would have a tremendous impact if a significant proportion of the population stopped using animal products.

Vegetarianism, yes. Veganism, no.

The CO2 emissions from a world full of vegetarians vs a world full of vegans are pretty close to indistinguishable.

Do you have data on this? My understanding is that dairy cows are pretty resource intensive, taking a lot more water and crops than equivalent plant based alternatives.

what do vegans feel stigmatized in doing these days?

gotta say i see the challenges between animal-free and car-free life as much the same: most people around me generally agree we’d be better off with both these lifestyles, but the issue is practicality. best way to promote veganism around me in the past couple years has literally been to cook vegan meals with friends. if the stigma you’re talking about is “vegan food stinks” or “vegan food’s hard to prepare”, then that’s an easy way to address those two.

My experience is that people virulently and irrationally fight against the idea, to the point of misrepresenting facts. It's difficult to bring up, at least online, without raising a lot of hackles. Over 95% of the population uses animal products, and are accustomed to them, so it's considered an afront to say that their behavior is suboptimal in one way or another.

I can't speak for others, but at least for me, an omnivorous diet is not suboptimal.

It may have higher emissions, but that's not the sole metric I use when deciding what to do. I think that would result in clinical depression, because I could always ratchet down my emissions by, for example, buying fewer board games, until I just don't really do anything.

Can't even go camping with a gas stove!

In everyday life I don't generally discuss my diet beyond small talk.

So you'd probably lump me in with that 95% of irrationals, because in person, I'd just try to change the subject.

You are correct, you are entrenched in your beliefs about animal products, and you even admit to being unwilling to discuss them, wanting to change the subject, and (likely unintentionally) misrepresenting facts by comparing animal agriculture to camping and board games.

The fact is though that board games and gas stoves are nothing in comparison to animal husbandry.

"Animal agriculture produces 65% of the world's nitrous oxide emissions which has a global warming impact 296 times greater than carbon dioxide.

Raising livestock for human consumption generates nearly 15% of total global greenhouse gas emissions, which is greater than all the transportation emissions combined. It also uses nearly 70% of agricultural land which leads to being the major contributor to deforestation, biodiversity loss, and water pollution.

Ending our meat and dairy production could pause the growth of greenhouse gas emissions for 30 years, new study suggests."

https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomf...

I agree with your quoted section.

I'm happy to discuss it, but almost always, including now, it seems to be a waste of time, because I agree with you! I think you're correct in identifying that a vegan diet has lower emissions and externalities than an omnivorous diet.

Veganism is not the same as low emission. There are plenty of vegan food that has unsustainable levels of emissions if all of earth was to eat it.

The top thing is for people to consider emissions and allow emissions to become part of the decision process. In terms of diet that could be to introduce and consider food outside of the cultural limits, like shell fish and sea weed. A related issue are that a large number (majority?) of Europe and northern American lakes has major issues with eutrophication with mostly fish that people refuse to eat because of culture. Eating those kind of fish would solve two problems at the same time, feeding people and removing uncontrolled overgrowth caused by artificial fertilizers.

Right now it is also cheaper to operate heavy machinery that run on fossil fuels to control plant growth in nature reservation and around power lines, rather than raising animals that would do the same job and create food. Same thing with Lawn mowers. One of the most ecological method to keep grass cut is (real) free range hobby scale chickens. Produce food, cuts grass and keeps pests away.

As with everything else, everything change if people allow emissions to be part of the decision process.

> allow emissions to become part of the decision process.

A carbon tax would do so. Unfortunately it's hard to get anything done nationally, much less globally

I tend to agree, in that it would be wonderful if, say, food packaging had resource usage and emissions printed on the label.

In lieu of that, despite variance in environmental impact across foods, on the whole, the average vegan diet is almost certainly going to be far better for the environment than a non-vegan diet.

And this is not even getting into other positive elements such as health and animal welfare, but those are unrelated topics likely to spark additional argument, so I won't go further.

The average right now is terrible for pretty much everything in the world. Fishermen in Greenland can send their fish to china to have it gutted, then sent to Norway to have it packaged, and then sent to USA to be sold. An avocado can have a piece of rain forest burned up, grown using fertilizers produced in Germany, which in turn is using natural gas mined in Russia. The avocado then get shipped to be packaged in the Netherlands, and then shipped again to be consumed in Norway.

Emissions are not a significant consideration in this global economy. The key factor that everyone cares about is cost.

I understand your point, but animal agriculture alone accounts for more emissions than all transport combined.

https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomf...

Different time scale, and different form of emissions. Most of animal agriculture consider methane that are produced by cows eating grass that has grown by taking out co2 from the air. They are just as green as biofuel is green.

Climate change is primary caused by humans burning fossil fuels, and humans extracting fossil fuels to be used in chemical processes like artificial fertilizers. In the short term it might be beneficial to reduce the number of animals that eat plants that has sequestrate carbon from the air, but in every case it would be worse if we humans use fossil fuel to burn the same plants.

Some people has argued that in the very short term, reducing methane while increasing emissions of fossil fuel emissions could beneficial be a better strategy if we can know for sure that carbon capture will save us in the future. I am doubtful to that strategy.

It should be noted that methane leaks from fossil fuel industry is larger than that from cows. A primary source of those methane leaks are the production of artificial fertilizers, but of course all steps between extracting natural gas to producing the fertilizers has large amount of emissions and leaks.

A very large portion of the world is already vegetarian. Making clear what you choices are communicates to your neighbors and eventually elected reps what your inclinations are. The big picture is fundamentally a communication and multi party negotiation issue.

Solving that faster, is what is needed. Maybe instead of having everything be handled at the top level inter community personal outreach is needed.

A large portion doesn't use toilets and these groups intersect. What you eat is personal not a multiparty negotiation.

I believe that is what I am saying ?

What you eat is personal - having an impact on emissions/environment is not solved at a personal level, it requires nation level negotiations.

What you eat is at best a signal to higher level political groups of your inclinations.

Habits are not always preferences.

Political groups are lazy and/or inept and will assume such.

It most certainly is a multiparty negotiation. You eat things that can be reasonably obtained from vendors in your area, who in turn stock things they think they can sell. You order from the items available at the establishments you visit with your friends and family, who have input into where you go. You recommend foods to others, and eat foods that others recommend to you. In short, eating is a cultural activity you participate in.

As far as veganism is concerned, it is notable that it is much easier to be vegan now than 20 or even 10 years ago, as vegan ingredients are more widespread and higher quality, and "vegan options" are essentially standard in restaurants. This didn't happen through legislation, but by the application of social pressure by vegans - if vegans can't eat at your restaurant, they won't just go somewhere else, they'll take their friends with them. It is the output of a massive multiparty negotiation.

Does veganism have a stigma? It certainly doesn't in my circles, it's super common and every restaurant in most major cities has vegan options now. I was vegan for a year and had no problems with it.

If you're talking about "convincing people to go vegan", most people don't like being preached to regardless of the topic, that's not a stigma.

For example, drinking alcohol has its' negatives, but if I'm in the pub with friends and some teetotaler decides to go off on a mission to convert me, my response is going to vary from smiling and nodding to telling them to piss off depending on the mood I'm in that day.

They have the stigma of bringing up veganism out of the blue and proselytizing people about it when it isn’t the subject being discussed.

Like, uh, the comment you replied to.

Gotcha.

Maybe there's a way to fix this with language? If someone says that they use the metro or cycle to work, I'm like, cool man, trains are sick, let's chat.

If someone says they "support a car-free lifestyle", I'm probably already starting to think about something else and glazing over.

See, there is irony in your comment, because I didn't bring it up out of the blue. It's very related to the subject being discussed.

Yes, to a vegan, veganism is relevant to every discussion. That’s what I said.

Thanks for providing more evidence for my original point. Animal agriculture are one of the top emitters of greenhouse gases, even more than all transportation combined, so to imply that it's irrelevant is ignorant at best.

Well that’s not even close to true.

https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector

5.8% vs 16.2%

Read your own link again. That's just one aspect of it. Several percentages are listed for agriculture besides livestock, which are relevant, because 70% of crops are used to feed livestock. Furthermore, the page you link yourself directly encourages eating less animal products.

Here are the rolled up stats, which indeed show animal agriculture using more than transportation:

https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomf...

Wouldn't an increase in co2 in the atmosphere spur a massive plant growth, both on land and in the oceans? I have no qualifications nor merit in this field as well, so anyone please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Yes, we expect increased some degree of photosynthesis. However, we hardly expect to see an proportionate increase of photosynthesis (or plant mass?) - if nothing else, we'd expect there to still be a bottleneck from nitrogen.

Logically, yes. The energy will be transformed by nature if humans don't do it. However, this might not happen in a timely fashion for us to survive as a specie. Remember, earth timelines are wildly different than human ones.

> for us to survive as a species

An incredibly strong feedback mechanism exists (see article above).

Societal problems, yes. Extinction to the human species? I think that’s extreme hyperbole. What would the mechanism even be, to eradicate all humans, across the globe?

Climate change is real, things will be bad, etc, but the possible end of the species is an incredible claim, that doesn’t follow logic.

Okay so it won't make us go extinct. What if it makes life full of significant suffering. I find this kind of argument quite annoying. It's the same thing was happened with COVID19. Sure, I'm not going to die from it. That doesn't mean I want to live a life without my taste or smell. I enjoy those things. Likewise I want to live on a good Earth and leave that to the people after me.

> I find this kind of argument quite annoying.

What is "this kind of argument"? Something ridiculous was stated, and I pointed out an apparently annoying reality. The argument that you seem to want to have is unrelated to what was said and my response to it. I don't think hyperbole has a place on meaningful discussions. Relevant points should be made without theatrics.

No one justified lockdowns based on people losing taste or smell though. If the justification turned out to be incorrect, it is reasonable to be mad about that. While you personally may be fine with lockdowns based on whatever percent of people lose taste or smell permanently, if that was the justification provided for lockdowns instead of risk of death I think a majority would have been opposed, don’t you?

It probably would, but if you're implying this would absorb a lot of CO2, I don't think so, plants die and when they do they decompose and release the CO2 back into the atmosphere. The conditions are not really met for a new carboniferous era right now and it took millions of years.

... ideally, during a carboniferous epoch, you have lots of bogs and places where plants can decompose into oil for future civilizations to enjoy... And re-release I to the atmosphere.

From what I've read that can't really happen again. In the prehistoric past, plants could die and would build up into massive layers. Over time those wound up in various geologic processes that caused them to become oil. Nowadays the Earth has plenty of microbes that will quickly decompose the plants into something that is not oil and that's the end of the process.

Until fungi discovered ligninase enzymes, when a tree fell in the forest, it just… sat there. For eons. Got covered up. Got smushed. Became coal.

Now we got these fungi chewing things all up. Thanks a lot, fungi.

No because plant levels settle at a higher equilibrium. Plants may decompose but there are more plants growing at the same time, so it still ends up being more.

Higher CO2 levels are said to have led to a "global greening", in which crop yields have gone up a lot. This is especially true in Africa, so that reduces global hunger and increases wealth. The idea that more CO2 = less life is not as simple as it's made out to be. Climate doomers ignores this type of thing because they are convinced society can't handle complexity, so have to insist that CO2 is always bad even when it's not.

https://fee.org/articles/rejoice-the-earth-is-becoming-green...

Some people can handle complexity, but I think they're in the minority. I'm not sure that tacking on "oh, but also climate change will be good in a few ways" is helpful in getting people to take action. So there are sure to be some misinformed climate activists out there who don't know about greening, but that may be a preferable situation to everyone being very informed about the nuance and therefore feeling like this is a smaller problem than it really is.

No one actually argues that CO2 is “always bad.”

The argument is that the total effect of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is net negative for most people.

Oh my.. few serious educated persons would refute the increased greening, yes, but there it stops already.

Crop yields have gone up a lot? Unfortunatly our farming has even more problems, but let's leave it at the increased greening: How much have crop yields increased by that please, any numbers? Or at least how much the increase of greening is?

Do you know our crops vs the plants that mostly benefit from this and will also thrive in the future weather conditions, that is more than the CO2 level?

Hunger in Africa has already reduced? Please wtf, any numbers?

And that this will outweigh the other bad consequences.. no comment.

Even your reference doesn't get to anything more concrete than wishful but hilarious extrapolation based on ... just opinion (vs facts of.. but I think it is not worth continiueing, right? :/ )

The link I already provided has the numbers you're asking for.

Yes, but in the worst way. Giving large amounts of CO2 to plants is kind of like giving huge doses of steroids to athletes. They grow abnormally and become unhealthy and short lived.

My cannabis plants flower with 15 to 20% yield improvement and no abnormalities at 1500ppm CO2. Edit One of the side effects of CO2 infusion ironically, is tolerance of higher temperatures.

This is not about your cannabis yields. In high concentrations CO2 is a pollutant: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/12/more-co2-in-the-a...

Depends whether that's a bottleneck; hard to imagine much improvement in a plant that's short of nitrogen.

Yes it already has. Earth has greened considerably, agriculture, forests have all been boosted the last forty years.

Here chat 4:

Piao, S., Liu, Z., Wang, Y. et al. (2020). Plant phenology and global climate change: Current progresses and challenges. Global Change Biology, 26, 1928–1940. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15004 This review paper discusses the impact of global climate change on plant phenology, which includes effects of elevated CO2 levels.

Zhu, Z., Piao, S., Myneni, R. B., Huang, M., Zeng, Z., Canadell, J. G., ... & Zeng, N. (2016). Greening of the Earth and its drivers. Nature Climate Change, 6(8), 791-795. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3004 This article provides evidence for the 'greening' of the Earth over a period of 33 years, attributing roughly 70% of this greening to increased atmospheric CO2.

Smith, P., House, J. I., Bustamante, M., Sobocká, J., Harper, R., Pan, G., ... & Popp, A. (2016). Global change pressures on soils from land use and management. Global Change Biology, 22(3), 1008-1028. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13068 This article discusses the effects of global change pressures on soils, including the impacts of increasing CO2.

Just to makes sure no one things that this means that extra CO2 is good because of this: Elevated CO2 levels drastically change the climate and will make Earth inhabitable for humans at some point if not reduced. It's good for some plants in some places but their growth does not fix the underlying and future issues with CO2 in our atmosphere.

Please stop "making sure" when it comes to MY thinking. Also on behalf of everyone who doesn't like being told what or how to think, please stop "making sure".

If you really need to "make" something "sure" please pick something real and not a political football.

In the early 70's alarmists were "making sure" everyone was panicking about an ice age.

See..no ice...

Wait a while....I predict the alarmists will change to something else when people no longer buy the current looming disaster.

Please stop participating in the most recent fashionable doomsday fantasy.

In the 70s the gradually forming consensus was still that global warming was real. The popular press just ran with cooling more, so the lay person believed it. The modern "the 70s predicted cooling so can we believe anything these 'scientists' say?" talking point is based upon a false premise.

https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.ht...

NY Times, 1976:

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/18/archives/the-genesis-stra...

But there is considerable evidence that this warm period is passing and that temperatures on the whole will get colder. For example, in the last 100 years mid‐latitude air temperatures peaked at an all‐time warm point in the 1940's and‐have been cooling ever since.

[Climatologists] are predicting greater fluctuations, and a cooling trend for the northern hemisphere.

The most imminent and far reaching [danger] is the possibility of a food‐climate crisis that would burden the well to do countries with unprecedented hikes in food prices, but could mean famine and political instability for many parts of the non-industrialized world.”

So writes Stephen Schneider, a young climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., reflecting the consensus of the climatological community in his new book, “The Genesis Strategy.”

If you're using that as evidence that media over-represented bad science, then I think that's a great example. Even before 1976 Schneider had already apologized and said that his assumptions regarding global cooling were overestimated and heating underestimate. Wikipedia also mentions that the book considers both global warming and cooling, it seems like the review was aiming at a particular popular angle. I don't know if I'd use a book review as an indicator of the actual scientific consensus of the time, but rather the media's understanding of the scientific consensus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schneider_(scientist)

Every time I post that story here someone quickly reads Wikipedia, doesn't think about what they just read and then immediately attempts an AI-quality refutation.

Yes Wikipedia claims that "Having found that recalculation showed that global warming was the more likely outcome, he published a retraction of his earlier findings in 1974". Yet there he is in 1976 - two years after this supposed retraction - telling the NY Times that there's an absolute scientific consensus on global cooling.

Wikipedia isn't reliable for anything climate related or on many other topics. Their citation for this claim of a retraction doesn't go to any retraction, but rather a book written by a Guardian journalist.

It's really depressing how systematic this problem is. I'd try to fix Wikipedia with a link to the 1976 interview but there's no point, it'd get reverted quickly for sure.

For the wider point here see my other comment. According to present day understanding not only the media but also scientists were massively misleading the public about the climate and what other scientists believed. So how do you know it's not still happening?

> AI-quality refutation

Cool, we're going to be like that. What's depressing is that I made the effort when you tried to pull things off into a rabbit trail of to a single book review.

To be clear you didn't refute my initial argument here which looked at the state of the scientific community, you threw out a (from the sounds of things favorite cherry picked) book review from the New York Times.

> So how do you know it's not still happening?

Because it's much easier for scientists to have their own independent voices and easier to hear from the scientific community directly. Our ability to communicate these points, much like the science itself, is greatly improved from the 70s.

There are two book reviews on the page I linked, both about global cooling. This is what I mean. You're trying to argue using sources but not reading those sources.

This point is relevant because you can't directly measure what the scientific community believes. It's not even a well defined group to begin with. So in practice everyone relies on summaries, articles, assertions by scientists about what other scientists believe and so on. If you read HN discussions on climate you'll see all kinds of things stated with 100% certainty that everyone believes those things, but it's easy to find research papers refuting them or providing contradictory evidence. Whilst communication abilities are indeed better than the 1970s this does not lead to more rational discussion because attempts to bring up the complexities and contradictions of the actual evidence base are invariably suppressed, along with people pointing out the unreliability of the climatological community. Many scientists today in climate will tell you point blank that their views are never brought to public attention and even actively suppressed.

I see you still didn't read MY SOURCE, which highlights it wasn't 100% consensus by looking at papers throughout the decade. As you're not trying to engage with my information in good faith, I'm going to have to say good day to you.

I did read it, but I mentioned it in a reply in a different sub-thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36079311#36087598

See the sentence starting "Even the attempted refutation"

It's not a "talking point." It's my point of view because the preponderance of evidence seems to indicate that the media, as a group, cannot be trusted.

It's not a debate. Wake up. Much (most?) of the info going into your brain is not just false, it's deliberately manipulative.

> the media, as a group Is a ridiculously false assumption. You are also consuming some media, who are you to decide which publications fall into the bad group and which into the good group? Feelings of trust? Feelings of familiarity? Feelings of reassurance of existing viewpoints?

> It's not a debate. I am glad you do realise that human-induced climate change is real and a threat.

> Much (most?) of the info going into your brain is not just false, it's deliberately manipulative. You might want to find better sources of information then.

I imagine one must spend most time running in particular self-confirming circles to expect to be taken seriously when retorting with "in the 70's 'they' said there would be a new ice age, yuk, yuk, yuk", especially around HN. It's been refuted repeatedly, and I see someone already got to it while I was typing this.

I mean, in the 70's people had leaded gasoline in cars, lead paint in the walls, washed their hands with DDT, blew a hole in the ozone layer and doused countries in unknown chemical blends, so relying on the things that were common ideas at that time as signs of good ideas may not be the right call.

I wonder what the future will say about the 2020's.

Future Person 1: "They did the best they could with PCBs in their bloodstreams, a credit card sized hunk of plastic in their brains, breathing 60% more carbon dioxide with every breath than their great grandparents, having their food so processed and imbalanced that it lead to a multitude of diseases while wildy disrupting their gut biomes, and random chemicals in every drop of water on the planet disrupting their hormones and causing all manner of endocrine disorders."

Future Person 2: "Wow! I'm glad they got all of that fixed! That must have sucked living through!"

You forgot...

Future Person 3: "I'm so glad they finally threw off the mental chains and ran the shills out of town on a rail so we could finally see what was really happening."

Future Person 2: "Yeah, some people were seriously deluded by conspiracy theories back then. I am glad we reached a scientific consensus where misguided hate and fascism are not a thing anymore."

Some, but most plant growth is nitrogen limited, not CO2 limited.

wouldn't the models already take that into account? I thought we were having problems with deforestation also.

Let's assume that the world is incapable of solving this problem.

What can an individual do to not suffer?

Invest in oxygen masks and a mountain cabin?

> What can an individual do to not suffer?

You should be asking what an individual can do to not starve to death or die of over heating.

Most answers are: move to a rich, powerful country not in the danger zone

> Most answers are: move to a rich, powerful country not in the danger zone

There might not be any. Migration pressure from uninhabitable areas will keep mounting, and some of the countries in the "danger zone" have nukes.

New Zealand is always the obvious "lifeboat". It's a long way from populated area so difficult to get there, and it's fairly easy to sink any ships that try. It's in the southern hemisphere so will be protected from the majority of nuclear war which would be in the northern hemisphere.

Unless someone with nukes decides to threaten NZ to open up the borders for their people, or else.

With global changes this big, we can't expect the usual MAD Mexican Standoff a couple big powers to keep everyone safe. It may be that all nuclear powers (or all that remained after a brief nuclear war) will decide together to politely ask NZ to open up or else.

Or else what ? They half nuke the place they intend to escape to ?

Have you ever seen a child smash a toy they tried to steal rather than give it back?

Can't say that I have.

I say the people threatening with nukes here would turn to more subtle methods of invasion, that's their objectives. They won't destroy it because they can't have it. That'd be a waste of nukes.

Now is there someone threatening another country with nukes at the moment but not using them because he knows that'd be useless anyway and would it prove my point ?

> Can't say that I have.

Then I recommend you spend more time around people. Grown men have been convicted of throwing acid in an ex-girlfriend's face because "if I can't have you, no-one can."

> Now is there someone threatening another country with nukes at the moment but not using them because he knows that'd be useless anyway and would it prove my point ?

It doesn't prove your point because no country today is facing imminent extinction. Rationality changes when desperation comes into play.

> > Can't say that I have.

> Then I recommend you spend more time around people. Grown men have been convicted of throwing acid in an ex-girlfriend's face because "if I can't have you, no-one can."

You come up with a stupid analogy based on children behavior and now you invoke people throwing acid ?

This is nickelodeon level debate here.

> It doesn't prove your point because no country today is facing imminent extinction. Rationality changes when desperation comes into play.

You are making the extraordinary (and quite childish considering you started with an analogy based on children behavior) claim that a country would nuke another one to go and settle there, it's up to you to prove it. So far, in the real world, no one has used nukes like that.

I'd follow the argument but if a guy would throw acid and was in position to throw a nuke over a country they were denied access to it's most likely plausible they have the means and resources to get into this country in a more discrete and safe way (safe as in: he's in a country that wasn't nuked).

> You come up with a stupid analogy based on children behavior and now you invoke people throwing acid ?

It’s called an analogy. Given we’re talking about nuclear war, it’s not an insane analogy.

> claim that a country would nuke another one to go and settle there, it's up to you to prove it.

I never said they’d try to settle the wasteland. I think you’re struggling to understand the analogy.

> > You come up with a stupid analogy based on children behavior and now you invoke people throwing acid ?

> It’s called an analogy. Given we’re talking about nuclear war, it’s not an insane analogy.

It looks more like a slippery slope bias to me. You can "prove" any dangers with that analogy but it's running against what history and reality have shown us so far.

> > claim that a country would nuke another one to go and settle there, it's up to you to prove it.

> I never said they’d try to settle the wasteland. I think you’re struggling to understand the analogy.

True, true, somehow the "threaten to" stayed in the keyboard. I still stand by the fact that this analogy doesn't scale to the real world.

> It looks more like a slippery slope bias to me.

I have no idea what you’re talking about.

I’m simply making a point that humans don’t always behave reasonably in a way that would achieve their stated goals. I tried to use an analogy to make this easier but you seem confused. I could have replaced “acid” with “murder.” Would that have helped?

> > It looks more like a slippery slope bias to me.

> I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Sorry, I reread the definition from the bias list and it's not the good one. Read the whole line, it's too small an illustration to fit a bigger picture:

> It looks more like a slippery slope bias to me. You can "prove" any dangers with that analogy but it's running against what history and reality have shown us so far.

> I’m simply making a point that humans don’t always behave reasonably in a way that would achieve their stated goals.

This, I agree with. But:

> I tried to use an analogy to make this easier but you seem confused. I could have replaced “acid” with “murder.” Would that have helped?

No. I understand your analogy but it happens that I disagree with how it is an argument in favor of your opinion (which I also disagree with but that's for another paragraph).

If anything, I think it undermines your position because it reduces the many more complex steps leading to nuking another country to a petty and cruel behavior from one individual. The analogy doesn't explain the reality behind a potential revengeful nuclear strike (geopolitical moves leading to that decision, climate disasters, consequences stemming from the reaction of other nations, etc.). All it is saying is "there are humans who would do crazy things so it follows that we are always at risks from one human doing the most crazy thing like nuking another country" but nuking another country, for the sake of the argument, requires more than one human (no matter how petty he is) and so far it hasn't been done yet (unlike people throwing acid at exes, which breaks the analogy). This is skewing proportions ("this analogy doesn't scale").

I'd rather we discuss the likelihood of such an event happening based on real world data and information, not using illustrations.

To follow on the analogy: unlike the guy with the acid bottle, the guy with the nuke has certainly the means to hop on a plane and buy his way into NZ rather than nuking it.

Of course we can always make the argument "but what if someone crazy comes and do the crazy thing" but how likely is it ? Adding "but what if he's under a lot of pressure ?!", that's still a what if scenario that would be better validated through real world examples/data than an analogy boiling down to "there are crazy people" or the single argument "people don't always act rationally so anything is possible. Well, duh.

On analogies, I like this blog post: http://itdept4life.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-analogies-suck.h...

> To follow on the analogy: unlike the guy with the acid bottle, the guy with the nuke has certainly the means to hop on a plane and buy his way into NZ rather than nuking it.

That assumes money matters any more. It’s not unreasonable that we go past that point, leading to the irrational scenarios.

It’s hard to apply regular probabilities to this, since we’re discussing a situation where the best option for all humans is to get to New Zealand! We have no frame of reference for this scenario.

claim that a country would nuke another one to go and settle there

You have misunderstood the entire argument. Perhaps instead of calling other people stupid you should review your own reading comprehension.

I never called anybody stupid, I called the analogies and the arguments stupid.

They won't destroy it because they can't have it. That'd be a waste of nukes.

If your civilization is on the verge of extinction then you are not concerned about wasting nukes. You are way overestimating human rationality under extreme pressure.

I think I'll be keeping my nukes to defend myself from the next bigger bully (which would allow me to keep my country) rather than waste it on the smaller one (which would give me no advantage and less nukes).

> You are way overestimating human rationality under extreme pressure.

Ironically, pretty sure the people with the power to launch nukes won't feel the same pressure as people suffering from climate change consequences. So.. keep the restless and angry gods content and they won't wage war and spread destruction.

Have you heard of brinkmanship?

A hypothetical country threatening NZ with nukes in this example would be presenting an argument: either let us in, or else we will nuke you - in hopes that NZ prefers being overcrowded but surviving, over being glassed. NZ will not take the deal - at first. The other country can insist more and more, until the situation is so tense that any random event could trigger launching the missiles.

And then, if NZ acquiesces and lets people from one country evacuate to their land, another nuclear country would ask for the same deal. Or they may even point half the nukes at the first country early on, to make sure that either they get the deal or no one else.

Thing with brinkmanship is that at no point anyone wants to actually use the nukes - but at every point it's locally optimal to up the threat, and there is no obvious stopping condition until someone trips over a cable, hits a launch console, and the nukes starts flying.

Or spit in its food so no one else grabs it.

child? that tactic still works as an adult. even with strangers in a restaurant, besides who wants to eat "inside" that stupid restaurant anyway.

somewhat ironically, widespread nuclear war might actual pare back human population to a point where emissions dramatically declined.

Its the first place I'm sending my shelter vent seeking drones so don't bother.

much or all of it is under water...

If you are invoking rather insane scenarios - why rule out the use of bioweapons? Why rule out geoengineering?

What's insane about those scenarios?

Because if large-scale nuclear or biological war is reasonable likely then climate change really doesn't matter anyway. End of the world scenarios are always an easy "sell" but they are usually not helpful for constructive progress.

Before nuclear war, lots of constructive things like geoengineering could happen.

Single countries will have a hard time doing geoengineering at scale. It will be much easier to start a war over local resources, like water.

You're looking at it from the wrong end. Nuclear war seems unlikely now, but it might become reasonable once half of the world's population is banging on the borders of the other half.

Do you think if e.g. India or Pakistan start experiencing lethal wet-bulb temperatures and people there decide to mass-migrate to survivable lands, only to be stopped at the border and denied entry, will those people and these countries just throw their hands up in the air, seeing there's nothing they could do, and accept imminent death? Or maybe they'll try to threaten or force to be let in, using any means available, up to and including nuclear weapons?

(This applies to all nuclear-armed countries - I mentioned these two, because AFAIK they'll be the first nuclear powers likely to experience lethal wet-bulb temperatures - but that's not the only way climate change could make a country mass-evacuate, and such other factors could hit other nuclear powers first.)

So they commit suicide to escape deadly temperatures? If they nuke the countries they want to move to - how does that play out? The choices of providing local cooling, putting more sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, shades in space etc. will all look more attractive than extended suicide. That also includes negotiating solutions.

See my comment on brinkmanship elsewhere in the thread.

Nuking your desired safe haven is obviously a stupid idea. But threatening them with nukes so they accept you in, that's a reasonable negotiation tactic when you're otherwise up against the wall. If they refuse, making a stronger threat is an obvious next move. There is, however, no obvious stopping point before tensions are so strong that a small mistake - or someone at high enough level getting irrational - will cause the nukes to be launched.

As I pointed out, it's not a reasonable negotiation tactic as following through on the threat would accomplish nothing - and both sides know that. Even if you succeed with your threat and some of your people are allowed in and then the border is closed again - what then? Nuke your own people?

All cooperative moves are much better than extended suicide - for both sides.

> it's not a reasonable negotiation tactic as following through on the threat would accomplish nothing - and both sides know that.

It's effective, because the other side is forced to bet their own lives on you eventually accepting defeat and agreeing to die, so that they may live. It's not an easy bet to make and stick to.

All cooperative moves are indeed better than suicide, but when we're at the point everyone wants to get to NZ, we're way past the time of cooperative solutions.

There is no indication that it will be even an effective tactic in the situation described. Even in simple cases, the other side could assume it might intercept some of nukes, some might not work, it might get some with conventional weapons on the ground - it will never be so clearcut (even ignoring any preemptive moves).

Also, assuming that there are only zero or negative sum moves left is a really big assumption.

>Why rule out geoengineering?

If there was a viable geoengineering technology available, we'd be using it right now. Assuming that something will pop up is wishful thinking.

There are a bunch of carbon sequestration technologies that work right now. The question is who is going to pay for them to be deployed at scale?

What counts as a rich powerful country in this instance?

China? Norway? UAE? I feel like they will all fare very differently

> Let's assume that the world is incapable of solving this problem.

Incapable not, but unwilling most certainly - just look at the state of politics across all Western countries and that doesn't even include China and India who're hell-bent on growth.

> What can an individual do to not suffer?

Move to somewhere high up north, these places are going to be those where climate change will at least not cause them to get uninhabitable.

> Incapable not, but unwilling most certainly - just look at the state of politics across all Western countries and that doesn't even include China and India who're hell-bent on growth.

Unwilling and incapable are sort of two sides of the same coin. Our political and economical systems are set up as a greedy (in the CS sense) optimization process.

This makes solving long term global scale problems all but impossible in any case that would entail any sort of short-term inconvenience, and anyone seeking to solve such problems by such means are (by definition) politically and economically irrelevant.

I think in general there's a somewhat unfounded notion that someone is actually in control that's getting harder to defend in the light of what's been several decades of fairly public failures to address obvious problems in society. You to look very hard to find examples of public policy successfully addressing any sort of problem, and even in that case it's questionable whether the problem was actually solved or whether it's just a case of regression to the mean.

> I think in general there's a somewhat unfounded notion that someone is actually in control that's getting harder to defend in the light of what's been several decades of fairly public failures to address obvious problems in society. You to look very hard to find examples of public policy successfully addressing any sort of problem, and even in that case it's questionable whether the problem was actually solved or whether it's just a case of regression to the mean.

I think it's obvious by now when all that began: with the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia in the early 90s. With the corrective against capitalism lost, everything defaulted to greed in the following decades.

Before that, humanity showed many times over that it could cooperate on critical crises and to ban dangerous stuff: sulphur in fuel was banned after "acid rain", lead and asbestos were banned, CFCs were banned after the ozone hole, nuclear weapon tests were all but abolished, biological and chemical weapon developments as well. Even the right to wage wars of aggression was under pretty solid control.

Do we have the technical capabilities? Probably yes Do we have the organizational/coordinating capabilities? Maybe

> What can an individual do to not suffer?

Does "suffer" take into account "transitive suffering" from children? (from future generations, our offspring)

i.e. if I'm physically fine but my child is suffering, I suffer too.

Now, for what one can do, there are always two ways: one is, as suggested, to find a better spot for oneself and let the others go to hell for all I care. But what about the children?

other is to become millitant, and force action. Worse outcome for oneself, but potentially a better outcome for the children.

Please consider this is not a problem that we either solve or not solve. We are at 423.70 ppm CO2 today*, which is 2.43 ppm more than last year. It is not that every increment above 0 ppm means we failed to solve the problem.

Let's say we reduce that 2.43 ppm increment to 1 ppm at some point. Or even to 2.41 ppm. Does that mean we failed? In a way, yes. But was the effort meaningless? No, the 1.43 ppm we didn't put out in the atmosphere really had an impact, and in a similar way, the 0.02 ppm we reduced also had a real impact on actual people. Both would translate to less sealevel rise, less floods, droughts, storms, heatwaves, biodiversity loss, etc. Which means a reduction of death, migration, hunger, suffering, extinction, chaos, economic loss, etc.

I know your question is about adaptation and not mitigation, but we need to get out of the either/or mindset. Every single action we take to reduce our emissions matters. I mean that in a very matter of fact way, not as a call to action. It is just technically incorrect to think it does not matter (though by no means I am implying you specifically think so).

* https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2

As they say “Collapse now, avoid the rush.”

Be independent in all your supplies as much as possible (food, water, basic necessities). Cyclical gardens, Biosphere-2 like systems, etc. Then scale up and do the same with a small community. The bigger the community, more chances to repel an attack of cannibals.

Individuals should join or form diverse groups to build a resilient empathetic community.

There’s nothing you can do strictly by yourself in my estimation that will help over the long term.

The only way out is through as a team

This is why you fail. If you are relying on the team for success then you will not be motivated to personal success. You must decide what you do counts and you must do it. If you don't your team will fail. Because in the end success requires each team member to own the problem or failure is always the result.

Why? 1+1=2 2+2=4 3+3=6 And 0.5+0.25=0.75

When two people don't give it 100% you can't get the results you are looking for. Just ask anyone who has been divorced...

You’re talking about effort, the parent comment is talking about alignment.

Good luck living any semblance of a good life without a team.

You will be ok based on the fact that you are asking about it on HN. Tech workers in the US move their entire lives just to do something like snowboard more.

I watched a documentary about bread bakers in Afghanistan and there was a whole ecosystem of wheat growers, millers and bakers who were all centered around a river and had been doing the same work for many generations. They are screwed.

There is only one way to be free. Believe in the truth. Acts 16:16-40

Beyond that you are supposing based upon bad data and conjecture which results in a scenario where worry will kill you.

But let's say the worst happens and you can't live in a city anymore. Can you grow your own food? Can you grow all of it? How many resources does that take near where you live? How about in the mountains near where you live? Now go learn how to do it.

That's somewhat like asking how to win a fight if you get knocked out.

I call these sort of arguments Climate Optimism and I consider it a form of climate denial.

The central thesis is that the climate crisis has already been solved with technology and capitalism. The worst offenders (like Max Roser of Our World in Data https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser) overemphasize success in western countries and hint the problem lies in China and India not doing enough.

A more run of the mill climate optimist claims that the efforts we’ve done so far are enough to avert disaster, and we just need to do more of the same. The YouTube channel Kurzgesagt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw) is guilty if this form of denialism.

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