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Comment by gustavus | Hacker News Reader

Here's the thing I can be sympathetic to the plight of climate activists, but many times it strikes me as having a lot of uncomfortable parallels to the end of days Christian millenialists that got big in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Both meet the criteria of

- Believe that we are rapidly headed for an end of the world catastrophe

- Believe the only way to avert catastrophe is by everyone in the world suddenly making massive (unrealistic) changes to the way they live and how society functions.

- Seem more interested in evangelizing and catastrophizing than actually convincing people.

- Want to use the power of the state to force others to live in the way that will avert the imminent crises.

- Get incredibly upset when anyone questions, (even well intentioned) their beliefs and proposed solution.

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Like that guy from the government who told us that our building was structurally unsound and we all had to leave. What a drastic solution and he was completely dogmatic about it. He reminded me so much of the other guy who went around telling everyone the sky was going to fall on our heads.

This is what op is talking about

While I can see that you might experience these as uncomfortable parallels, there is a big difference you could consider: That climate activism is based on scientific research.

based on scientific research, much like communism and scientific management and phrenology and racism. meanwhile climate models are not capable of predicting the past given current conditions, produce wildly incompatible results, and operate on a model of the earth that is pathetically simplistic, ignoring cloud coverage (which has 3-20x the magnitude of effects of carbon) solar variability and wind patterns. the world might end as we know it for it is clear that crucial features of the earth are changing at a rapid pace, especially oceanic currents, but it will happen in a way that completely surprised most people, if not climate scientists that are aware of the limits of their models.

You grouped a lot which is not equivalent.

Communism is not based on scientific research.

Racism is real. And crt provides good insight with high degree of predictibility as to how our system of laws work to assist existing racial inequalities.

In any case, this feels like you're building a strawman.

> ignoring cloud coverage (which has 3-20x the magnitude of effects of carbon)

This is like complaining that tidal models are useless because they ignore waves, which have a larger effect on water height than tides.

(The same analogy applies to claims of the form "how can we possibly predict the climate decades ahead of time when we can't predict the weather 2 weeks from now")

> climate activism is based on scientific research

Yes, but often “based on science” like biopics are “based on real events.” Activism presents no error margin whereas the actual science does, and very often activism extends into alarmism where it presents end of the world scenarios which the science doesn’t present. Activists too often present the future scenarios assuming no adaptation whatsoever, like a flooded Miami where no one has moved to higher regions. The science itself is increasingly skewed too, such as the recent forest fire study where larger drivers of forest fires like arson are ignored in order to make publication more likely.

The cigarette lobby used science to question the link between smoking and cancer. Try looking up "Most Doctors smoke Camels" to see how much we can trust the experts who only have our best interests at heart and would never tell falsehoods for a payday

Braj I spent 9 months surrounded by bushfire smoke and I live in a traditionally no fire rainforest region. Imma get the shits if you don't take this as seriously as I do because the consequences of not doing so have reared their heads to me far more than they have to you.

But you'll keep brushing it off as not as serious as it is despite the facts saying otherwise. It's pretty frustrating to deal with. Hence the amped up responses.

Even assuming (and that's a big if) we're able to keep this planet within 'safe operating conditions', consider 2 scenarios:

a) We minimize our impact, keep well within that range, limit global warming, protect biodiversity, don't fish the oceans empty, etc etc. Or

b) We do as we please, f* up things big time, leaving it to future generations to deal with the fallout of an uninhabitable planet.

Don't you think we have at least some responsibility to hand over this planet to future generations via scenario a) ?

Our generation is 8 billion currently. Generations that follow, are some unknown multiple of that. Potentially trillions of people (if humanity survives long enough).

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" - Spock

So I have considerable sympathy for -especially young- climate activists, given how much we're bashing away at their life support system. And that of their children, grandchildren & great-grandchildren.

We don't own this planet! We're just short-term guests here. Caretakers at most. Even for those who consider humans 'owners' of this planet, it's still shared with other humans & animals.

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