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Comment by gardenfelder | Hacker News Reader

"Escalating rhetoric comes as new study shows there’s just six years left to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius at current CO2 emissions rate."

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I’m not denying climate change is real. But we’ve been hearing “just x years left until catastrophe” for decades now. It always results in higher taxes, fewer freedoms, and the crisis never abates. If you live in a constant state of emergency, eventually people become numb.

The crisis doesn't abate because people haven't implemented any solution. The topic remains relevant because the future will still be worse if we don't implement sufficient changes, as compared to living with the changes from ~today onwards. That's my understanding anyway

I believe the government had one “Oh shit!” card where they could require dramatic changes for the good of the people and they used it on Covid. I cannot see the general populations accepting the changes needed for climate change.

(I’m cynical of peoples behaviours but do know climate change is real)

The "general population" didn't accept "dramatic changes" for COVID, either. Except in places like China where the government has far more power than democratic republics. And even in those places there was pushback.

The government has never had an "Oh shit!" card, except in scifi movies. It has always had to make a sales pitch for population buy-in. And it did a crap selling job during COVID because of polarized media companies and fractured government.

Literally billions have been, and are being, spent on electrification. Solar, wind etc have had a ridiculous amount of investment.

Yet the one technology that could actually solve this problem (nuclear energy) is off the table for some reason. We have unlimited clean energy at our fingertips. But instead of discussing it as a solution we’d rather resort to doom and gloom emergency language.

Solar and Wind are now much cheaper than nuclear has ever been.

Germany has been adding 1GW of PV every month in 2023. That's one typical, large nuclear every month.

While I don't see nuclear energy as the folly I used to, I don't think it's the answer either.

Solar and wind are great, we should continue to build that stuff. But also "have ever been" is the key part of your message. The cost of nuclear is based on technology from the 1960's. There have been no new reactor designs since then. New reactor designs could be built and operated at a fraction of the cost of old designs and would be many times safer as well.

Despite billions in subsidies, nuclear reactors have not become much cheaper to operate in the last 40 years. They have become safer and more efficient, sure. But not cheaper.

Compare what PV has been able to achieve with way less subsidies and it becomes clear that nuclear - from a cost perspective - is a dead end.

Nuclear power is great, on paper, but in the real world humans have demonstrated over and over again that they cannot be trusted to a) Build it on time b) On budget c) Without corruption, skimping on materials, or taking shortcuts d) Regulate it properly e) Hold those involved accountable f) Design and implement a robust plan to store the resulting waste in a responsible manner

Just look at the medical isotope shortages that have occurred. As a species we can't even see the need to have redundant sources of life saving materials that can only be produced in specialized reactors. What if something happens to them unexpectedly or they need maintenance? Shrug... is the answer we get.

So tell me why China and India aren't installing more nuclear power plants than they currently do.

In the US electricity production accounts for ~25% of greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear may be able to help with some of the other ~75% as well, but certainly not nearly all of it. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

You're talking to the wrong person. I'm not spreading doom and gloom while leaving a good option off the table, as you put it

Fair enough, I'm just generally frustrated at the doom and gloom. I don't think putting everyone into a constant state of panic is the right approach at all, we need to be inspired to build and be creative, not fearful and depressed that the world is going to end.

Yeah, it's also not the feeling I'm seeking to convey. More just to convince that, "eh, wake up y'all, we have something important to do". If there's something concrete I can/should change in my wording, feel free to propose

We've spent a lot on nuclear and it's still too expensive for all but the largest countries to afford. We've spent a lot on wind and solar and every country can afford them.

How does nuclear energy solve your problem when a huge faction of the US population says you can pry their ICE vehicles out of their cold, dead hands?

Also, when you do the full analysis, we only need a 10% bump in generation to accommodate every single US household have 2 EVs - and that's if they don't shift to charging at night and insist on charging during the day during peak load.

Add in the fact that the average US household can produce 50% of their power using solar power and you realize there's no need for any bump-out of generation at all.

Why promote nuclear with all of its attendant complications when you don't need to?

We all get to watch "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" play out in real life!

Just that in this case, the wolves have been true the whole time.

We've known that climate change is a problem for more than 50 years now. Just because we chose to ignore it doesn't mean there was no climate change.

Except the wolf is measurably real and so far has behaved as predicted

Oh how I wish you were right about it being a false alarm

In that story the wolves ultimately did come, and the sheep were lost (along with the boy). Maybe if the town had invested in having two watchers, or in fences and barns, they never would have lost their herd.

Yes, which is precisely why I made the comment! The wolves are coming, but this person has seen "crisis" and "emergency" called for every little thing and now they just don't believe it anymore.

What is it the fault of this crisis that we have been ignoring it for 50 years?

Climate scientists have for years warned that we were running into a catastrophe and now you blame them for... trying warn us?

What other strategy for publicizing would you have preferred? That climate scientists sit on this knowledge until the problem is a crisis right here and now, so that we would take it really, really serious?

That doesn't seem like a rational strategy. But that's just my understanding of your argument.

In the original comment I interpreted this:

> But we’ve been hearing “just x years left until catastrophe” for decades now. It always results in higher taxes, fewer freedoms, and the crisis never abates.

Not as "[creating policies to address climate change] always results in higher taxes...", but as "[creating policies to address whatever hyped up crisis] always results in higher taxes...".

In other words, a history of alarmism and bullshit has this person jaded and eroded their trust in policymakers. I'm probably wrong. Anyway...

For climate change specifically, I see lots of people crying about alarmism, and I've made basically the exact same comment you're making now. What are you supposed to do if there really is something alarming goin g on, meekly suggest a diet and hope people realize it's existential? I personally think governments aren't doing enough and we are totally fucked despite ample warning from scientists (doing the right thing) because we'd rather die than lose some modern conveniences.

Not sure why I can't edit my comment to say this, but yes I do understand the moral of the story, though I also see in hindsight how this was confusing.

The wolves are coming, but this person has seen "crisis" and "emergency" called for every little thing and now they just don't believe it anymore. And we get to be eaten by wolves now!

> But we’ve been hearing “just x years left until catastrophe” for decades now

Sure; and every year that number as been getting smaller.

Just because you ignore it doesn't mean that it will go away magically.

I’ve also been hearing “we have x number of years left to abate catastrophe”. My observation is that X keeps getting smaller

And for decades the response has been to double down and increase production of GHG's and extraction of more oil. But at some point, someone does have to pay the bill for the mess and higher taxes are not good or evil but a tool. I doubt it means fewer freedoms as we already control the vehicles/uses of oil and this is just an extension of that, just like we don't let people use dynamite for stump removal anymore, common sense. The crisis has never been addressed.

> higher taxes, fewer freedoms

I would be interested to hear how freedom (presumably personal liberty) have been in recession due to climate change discussions.

if the government increases taxes for a specific scenario/use-case, how is that not a restriction in freedoms and liberty? taxation is forced with punitive coercion.

Irrelevant if you agree with the purpose or not, this seems pretty straight forward.

Well the original formatting of having taxes and freedoms as different items in a list, separate by a comma indicated to me that there are freedoms restricted other than just being taxed. I agree with you but also, what other freedoms?

Guy, some men wouldn't stop beating their wives, and that's why there were (recent) laws where this is is a punishable offence. Or people dumping their garbage on the street. Or medicine companies cornering the market, filing a patent, and then rising prices.

That's why we have laws and taxes; so people can't be too much of d*ks towards one another. If even a minority of people can't be decent human beings on their own will and still behave like in the middle ages, punitive coercion in form of taxes or incarceration has been known to do the trick.

Things like "my freedom to burn piles of car tyres in my front yard" are or will definitely be threatened, but most would not see that as a bad thing...

Or "my freedom to have a stash of 20 luxury cars that I never use because I fly with a private jet everywhere. I also own 20 mansions in 10 different countries, and a zoo (just cause)"

This is probably not going to go well because good-faith discussions on this topic are pretty hard to have, but here goes.

Government regulations often represent losses of liberty when applied to individual citizens. The government has a monopoly on violence, they can forcibly make you do things, with guns.

e.g. California now forces people in buy and install solar panels on their house if they are building a new house. What do I do if I try to build my own house without solar panels? They cost tens of thousands of dollars so it is realistic that someone wouldn't be able to afford them. Well the government will not give me a certificate of occupancy. What happens if I just live in my house anyway without solar panels? The government will condemn my house and show up to demolish it eventually. What happens if I try to stop them from demolishing my house? They will arrest me and put me in jail, if I resist they will shoot me.

This is a loss of freedom: before I was allowed to build my own house without being forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a thing, and now I do not have that freedom.

This type of thing plays out in a million ways: cars, generators, gas stoves, etc.

Green versions of technologies are better, a first-principles understanding is that more efficient things are better and cheaper and should naturally succeed in a market. A good example is lawn care products: gas-powered mowers edgers, blowers, etc are being phased out naturally because their electric alternatives are better and cheaper. This same thing will play out with electrification of other things given enough investment and scaling-up. Which we are currently seeing already. Take cars: the % of electric car sales is going up on its own without the government needing to force people to buy them (though yes, government incentives are accelerating this). This is by dint of the technology just being better and more efficient, companies like Tesla investing in the technology has proven it to be better.

My example of the solar panels is only a small one, there are other things like the ULEZ cameras in London which literally restrict freedom of movement for people, which are even worse, but those types of things are not happening yet in the United States so I won't dwell on them here.

The catastrophe is upon us now. Just look in the number, frequency and scale of wildfires, tsunamis, floods, etc.

It's too late to put the genie in the bottle now, but if anything, the government of the world haven't been strict enough in the regulations, haven't taxed enough the top earners, haven't done enough to curb the giant corporations.

As for fewer freedoms, I am not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean by freedom the manner in which large corps exploit their own workers, other countries, and eventually throw the whole world under the bus in the singular pursuit of profit? Or the freedom of cowboy bank-boys destroying the life savings and retirement funds of millions and putting yet other millions out of housing, just so they can satisfy their own gambling habits? That kind freedom, if anything, has become much much more and has gone unchecked for far too long.

> If you live in a constant state of emergency, eventually people become numb.

We share a finite world and its finite resources with one another. The freedom of rich douches to buy a Lambo to compensate for the gaping void in their soul comes at the expense of others, and luckily, more and more people start realizing this.

Not everybody stays numb in the face of a never-ending crisis. Some people, like me, get progressively angrier at the state of things. You can see it by the tone of my writing, you can see it by the millions on the streets protesting the oil giants, old dudes sending young boys to fight their wars, old dudes racking massive profits with 310:1 the salary of their own workers. I hope new generations are even angrier than us, and fight for a lasting change, because if they don't, they might be the last ones.

How is tsunami frequency established to be influenced by anthropomorphic climate change? Also, over a hundred years ago wildfires and floods were more frequent than they are now and the historical deaths per capita from natural disasters was much higher.

What we are seeing recently in Maui, California, PNW, and elsewhere are primarily the consequences of an artificial blip of decades of over-protection of adjacent forests and waterways because of misguided environmental activism. When you refuse to allow forest culling or occasional fires and hinder development of dams and levees, later fires and natural movement of rivers becomes uncontrollable. While more land was developed and the population exploded, the resource management expansion was missing. Climate change may have an effect on these recent incidents, but thinking of it as the main cause is misleading.

>How is tsunami frequency established to be influenced by anthropomorphic climate change?

The connection between the frequency of tsunamis and global temperature is mediated through several mechanisms such as sea level rise, glacial melting, ocean acidification which affects seabed stability, and the destruction of natural barriers such as coral reef systems.

You are confusing two different things. Most of the models show that the worst of the worst impacts are a few decades down the road, at which point most commentators on this site will either be very old or dead. But there is active debate about how soon we need to act to prevent those bad things from happening. Some people seem to think we have time, and that a gradual reduction in emissions will be sufficient. But more recently, concerns about tipping points and feedback loops is pointing to a scenario where we may have little time left or may have even passed the point of no return, to prevent some worst case scenarios.

So yeah, saying that climate change will be really bad in 30-50 years, and also saying that we have less than 5-10 years to prevent it are not incompatible with each other. I hope that clarifies it for you.

Moreover, climate modeling is hard. While most scientists agree that climate change is caused by man made emissions, there is still a lot of debate as to how much time we have and how bad it will be. So if you are seeing contradictory headlines, that's because the science is a work in progress. If that bothers you, maybe just ignore the headlines for now and understand that we will never have 100% certainty about how long or how bad or when things will happen, but we do know the general direction of where things are headed and we do know that we need to act soon.

> Most of the models show that the worst of the worst impacts are a few decades down the road

You're out of date.

It's much, much worse than that now.

No I am not. "worst of the worst" was intentionally vague. We are dealing with probabilities. There is a small chance We could hit a tipping point tomorrow and things could spiral out of control. Or a dampening effect could emerge that we did not account for that could delay things for a while. It is hard to overstate just how uncertain things are. Predicting the future is hard. But drastic sea level rise is almost certainly a few decades away, most models predict it won't get really bad till the end of the century. And things like heat stress or hurricane frequency are all likely to increase, but it will be a few decades before they make certain areas uninhabitable.

And for the record, I don't think we are taking this issue seriously enough. Even if the most likely outcome is a slow "boiling the frog" type of scenario, if there is even a 1% chance that a series of tipping points could result in cataclysmic climate catastrophe (which I believe to be the case), then we should absolutely be prioritizing this issue.

You misunderstood. We've been X years away until we can't avoid a catastrophe that's going to happen decades later. That's our reality. The catastrophe itself was always decades away. And largely still is, but the downside effects of global warming are happening faster than the models predicted. At the rate things are going, the problems we thought we'd have in 2100 are going to be had in 2050-2060. That's not good.

Are we all going to die by 2030? No.

Are we going to have significant impacts by 2100? Absolutely.

Will warfare exacerbate the problem and kill off even more people? Certainly.

Will civilization collapse? Maybe, but probably not. Regional collapse is likely.

Will humans go extinct? Almost certainly not.

> fewer freedoms

You can't buy incandescent housebulbs any more?

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