Comment by gettodachoppa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gettodachoppa | Hacker News Reader

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There's various positions from the other side. Essentially people on your side of the divide spent the last decade burning their goodwill, so when they're asked to sacrifice even more "but this is for real", they're not convinced. People are noticing patterns, they are noticing who is always criticizing them and blaming them and asking them to sacrifice, and they're simply fatigued and shrugging.

1. Constant crying wolf about climate change. I've been told we're "10 years away from climate catostrophe" since I was a kid in the 90s. But this time it's really about to happen, right?

2. There's people who agree with you that global warming is a serious threat, but refuse to be "economical cuckolds" by sacrificing their economical safety, while countries that pollute far more are given breaks. The argument is why should they, as members of the western middle and working class, be the ones to sacrifice and suffer while the Chinese and Indians don't have to? All because decades ago the elites of their country profited off industrialisation? The same elites that keep screwing them over?

"Oh but the Indians don't produce as much CO2 per capita" so? They would if they could. The average Indian makes almost zero conscious decisions to be environmentally-friendly compared to a westerner. As globalisation keeps making the western worker poorer and the rest of the world wealthier, so will the Indians' CO2 production rise.

And the only reason CO2 per capita is lower is because those countries left their population growth completely unchecked. You're asking western people who can't even afford to have a kid to sacrifice while those on the other end of the world don't have to.

3. RE Greta, people see Greta Thunberg as the typical propaganda mascot of the elites: privileged, pretentious, attention-seeking Twitterati nepobaby who only seems to call out westerners, even though westerners make more conscious environmental choices than any other demographic. People have seen this playbook many times before, she's just a newer model on the assemblyline of insufferable leftists that the average person changes the channel as soon as their mug is on the screen.

> 1. Constant crying wolf about climate change. I've been told we're "10 years away from climate catostrophe" since I was a kid in the 90s. But this time it's really about to happen, right?

A large part of the problem is that it's "we have 10 years to fix stuff, otherwise it will get really uncomfortable in 100 years". Followed by "ok, we didn't do anything and we will be kind of screwed, but if we don't correct course now things will be even worse in 90 years". But the big bad is always too far away for people to feel the consequences, so they feel like nothing happened.

Of course the other part is people running with fringe scenarios like "Europe will freeze over in a couple years".

Never forget that 20% of Americans reject the concept of evolution outright, up to and including admitting they believe the earth to be less than 10k years old

https://ncse.ngo/just-how-many-young-earth-creationists-are-...

American christianity refuses to acknowledged reality, so of course they don't care that scientists say the earth is warming because all of science is a Devil's plot to make them stop believing in God.

Seriously, it's that simple. As many as 20% of Americans simply have no fucking clue how the earth works and refuse to accept anything from any "expert" because they legitimately believe it to be a test of their religion. No evidence will ever convince them because they abandoned reality and evidence from the very beginning!

Yours is a pretty common take I see among climate skeptics, and it's getting downvoted without serious rebuttals, so I'll try a serious rebuttal.

1. If you're not seeing how it's already happening, maybe you don't want to see it? Forest fires, extreme heat waves, coral bleaching, flooding, escalating storms, ... For sure there are denials of those things all over the internet ("it's always been this bad", "it's not actually that bad"), but those denials are wrong when you fact check them. And this is nothing really, we've barely had any consequences of global warming. If you go back and look at the IPCC predictions even from the 90's you'll find they were pretty accurate with where we are today. The current IPCC report is pretty much settled science, and the outlook is not good.

2. The BRIC countries definitely need to do their part, but "what about tommy" is not a defense in kindergarten and for sure is not one for grown up countries. Most of the carbon that's up there was put there by the west, and the west is still putting more up there year by year than ever before. The notion that the west already did its part is provably false. Western countries carry the largest responsibility because they're the ones that "spent" the carbon budget preventing others from industrializing in the same way. If and when they are doing their part, then and only then will they have the moral high ground to start demanding the same from other countries.

3. Greta Thunberg has a solid handle on climate science, a more solid grasp than most of her critics, and is mostly right about climate facts. She is also very extreme in her climate opinions, which has allowed others to dismiss her as a wacko. Usually her speeches when read in their entirety make a lot of sense, but the distortion that gets reported by popular press makes it easy to dismiss her. What I would suggest is to go straight to the source and read her climate book. It contains her actual views and the facts they are based on, and if nothing else it will allow you to empathize with her point of view, even if you don't end up agreeing with it. If you think she's a puppet or a wacko I feel confident in saying you know nothing about her at all, and have been forming your opinions based on misrepresentations of her in the media.

Sorry, but every one of those reasons is stupid.

None of them address the fact of: is this problem real? We're seeing evidence everywhere that it is.

I understand the problem sacrifice and "fairness" in how to address the issue but making it all about personal resentment is pathetic.

> And the only reason CO2 per capita is lower is because those countries left their population growth completely unchecked.

Poorer countries have more population growth. This is not because rich countries decided to "act responsibly", but that people choose to have fewer kids for other reasons, which is well document across the board. And access to contraceptives.

Moreover, poorer countries run the most CO2-intensive parts of the global supply chain: production. Rich countries also send them their trash because they don't want to burn it themselves.

Is it true that we've been wasting time with signal politics in the West? Yes. Do other countries, like China, also have a responsibility? Yes. But, pointing fingers and whataboutism is exactly the type of "twitterati" style non-action that got us absolutely nowhere in the first place.

> But this time it's really about to happen, right?

Hate to break it to you but it's already happening.

This, "been hearing about it since the 90s."

If only there were some quantitative data that tracks trends over time over the last century; like temperature, growing season, ice core consistency.

If only there were some climate disaster with 3 intersecting 100 year storms in 1993 that impacted the entire US East Coast, it could even be made into a movie with George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and Diane lane.

"100 year" flooding events in New Orleans, Houston, Germany, Spain, England, Mississippi, Italy.

"100 year" drought events in Spain, Mississippi, US West.

"100 year" forest fires in Siberia, California, Canada, Greece.

Gee, the climate isn't changing at all.

I was thinking about subtle ways we've adapted as I watched a classic car event in the South East United States, recently. Wow, just 50 years ago, air conditioning was an option (still not on USPS or UPS trucks); 30 years ago we didn't have window tint. Our houses now have low e windows, we have better insulation, better polyurethane foam sealing, bigger and more air conditioners. But the climate isn't changing?

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