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Comment by ipaddr | Hacker News Reader

What a tangled web of fears we create and pull everyone into. Less shipping in 2021 caused less pollution which caused a rise in temperature. If we keep polluting the ocean enough perhaps we can reduce global temperature so we can protect the ocean/creatures from a global percentage of a degree increase.

We are not saying the global temperature has gone up 1.5 degrees since you or anyone else you know has been born. We are saying we want to return to a time 150/200 years ago. The weather you experience now may go up .5 degrees. Why is everyone acting like the end of the world is near? We've already gone up 1.5 in the 1800s and we are better off for it.

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Well this year we're up 2.5 degrees here in Austria compared to the climate between 1960 and 1990. That's neither 200 years, nor 1.5 degrees. The last year below that 30 year average was 1996 [1].

This is a big deal. The mountains are thawing and crumbling [2].

1: https://www.zamg.ac.at/cms/de/klima/klima-aktuell/klimamonit...

2: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65926381

This summer in Austria was very unusual. From May to October it was continuously hot. Everything dried out except for the things that were watered continuously. Last winter we had basically zero snow in a country that makes a substantial amount of its income from winter tourism. There will be hell to pay if this doesn't stop.

My kid is three, and I'm debating whether I should teach him how to ski or not; most of the northern/eastern Bavaria ski areas didn't open at all last winter, and the big one (Arber) barely did. Cross country was a write-off everywhere.

Kitzbühel in early March looked like it usually does in May. I didn't bother trying after that. For those not familiar with skiing in Austria, that is a relatively expensive area that has loads of snow-making capacity.

There was snow, especially in higher altitudes, but not much: https://www.zamg.ac.at/cms/de/klima/news/februar-2023-mild-u...

The schools have learning to ski in their agenda, I really don't know how that's going to happen.

A deep freeze occured between those dates many thought we were going into an ice age. Many books were written on it.

"The mean annual temperature has increased by 1.6°C between 1864 and 2008"

https://www.climatechangepost.com/austria/climate-change/

On target with everyone else.

We were mistaken on a lot of things in the past and in general we're getting better at figuring it out.

Scientific consensus is that climate change is real, is impacted by human activity, and shows no sign of abating. We're seeing weather patterns that are breaking records and seasonal changes that correspond with a warming planet.

The denial of these concerns seem to be either from those who are directly profiting from factors contributing to it or those whose political beliefs associate it with a hoax by the enemy.

Fossil fuels provided cheap energy to transform civilization but it's not the only game in town anymore. Transitioning away from them brings significant benefits that are worthy enough regardless of "saving the planet" (e.g., cheaper power, less pollution, energy independence, less environmental destruction, etc).

Scientific consensus is as accurate as theory of the luminiferous aether.

Seems like we are not much better at figuring it all out if we believe scientific consensus is anything but a political activity.

There is a group who believes the climate is changing but question those who selectively use dates to make the situation appear more dramatic. There is a financial motive in many cases and others have had too many glasses of koolaid

Better off for it? You'd have to be insanely delusional to believe that, given some of the weather extremes we've seen in the past decade.

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