Where Glaciers Melt, the Rivers Run Red
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
A glacier that normally melts a meter in thickness each year and gains it back during winter, has melted 4 meters.
We've lost 20 glaciers here the last decade.
It's scary.
https://www.nrk.no/klima/breforsker-sjokkert-over-hvor-mye-i...
It’s going to be a wild ride for our grandchildren.
Think Japanese stagflation but for centuries. Reiwa era 200.
This makes about as much sense to me as the idea that only the very richest people have access to computers, telecommunications, and software.
Or Xi of Mainland China...
I think it's a good thing: if the people continue to elect them, then obviously the people want those politicians to continue representing them for that long. Why should they be deprived of that? Objecting to this seems like objecting to democracy.
If this produces bad results long-term, that's the fault of the voters. Democratic systems are only as good as the voters who choose its leaders. When the voters are idiots, you get bad leaders. If the people don't like their 1000-year-old senator, they should vote for someone else. As we've seen in the USA, people don't have much trouble voting for a new President when they're mad at the current one for whatever reason (and the US also switched many seats in Congress in that same election).
>Or Xi of Mainland China...
Unfortunately, that's a possibility too, but by the same token, if Deng Xiaoping had been immortal, he could have stayed in that position and Xi might never have gained power and things in China (and worldwide in things related to China) would be a lot better right now.
Basically, your objection is one I usually see raised when the idea of immortality or radical life-extension comes up, but I honestly don't see how it'd be that much different either way.
It's a different sort of "climate denial"[1].
OK, my faith that we're totally fucked is also based on guesstimate, just in the opposite direction (it can be viewed as a denial of the idea that there's something we can do to rescue this extravagantly luxurious modern life).
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/20/...
I'd be curious about the actual stats, but I have the feeling it's a widely shared point of view, even in educated circles.
The alternative option which is consuming less in order to pollute less is pretty unpopular.
We’ve been using technology to solve our problems for thousands of years. If that streak stops now, we’re royally fucked.
Very seriously, without hyperbole, without exaggeration, we are looking at twice that by the end of the century.
Forget 2º. Think 4º in the lifetime of children alive today.
Next century, we are looking at 6-7º C or more. Possibly as soon as early 22nd century, maybe sooner. We are currently heading for 10ºC increase.
https://medium.com/@samyoureyes/the-busy-workers-handbook-to...
I can't tell you in ºF. I am 57 years old and they stopped teaching that in schools before I was in primary schools where I have lived all my life (Europe and Africa).
If you frame the problem like that, does it actually surprise you that no one will act on it? One has to either freeze or feel guilty of some kind of moral failing about the heat one consumes?
You might say: No, no, the problem is not consumption, it's the superfluous part of the consumption, the overconsumption that's the problem. Okay, but, then, who exactly stands in judgment of which part of the consumption is the overconsumption? The same moralising types who bemoan the melting of the glaciers?
Reminds me a bit of pre-enlightenment Europe and its juxtaposition of power and catholic moralising guilttripping. What's needed is a humanistic way forward, a way wherein man gets to fundamentally be the hero of the story.
If you come to me and say: Here is a way to reconfigure the economy through technological, economic, and political change, to make it so that one can feel good about consumption again, then I will go to hell and back to make that change happen. If you just tell me "consume less", then don't expect me to do anything.
Just don't spend too much time in hell, we need you to act here :-)
Actively doing enough against climate change will have very real and likely significant quality of life change now. And if lot of people don't think their quality of life is high enough now, why would they want it to go lower. And sadly rich are always insulated either way.
(Sorry, sarcasm... I've had immense battles with deniers...)
It's just not cost effective to do so.
It's also difficult to find good places to plant them. We don't want to destroy moors and wetlands that bind more CO2 than trees ever will or the bird habitats.
https://www.amazon.com/Climate-Wars-Fight-Survival-Overheats...
The author intersperses nonfiction summaries (from 2011, so a bit dated) with fictional accounts of geopolitical conflict.
Super scary but eye opening.
Like maybe problems like vast swaths of the world becoming both less livable and less arable all at once is somewhat to blame for all the refugee crises?
Not to be "political" or whatever
An aside:
Why bother submitting paywalled articles? Why bother upvoting paywalled articles? > 95% of readers probably don't have access.
Not being facetious, I genuinely want to know. Do people upvote without reading? Will almost everyone take the effort to throw the link into a paywall buster? Do many HN readers subscribe to paywalled sources?
Edit: if it doesn't work try again in a private/incognito tab to make sure it's all fresh cookies
So depending on the http-origin header the article is paywalled or not.
This is a trick I always use, it works for many newspapers.
It's not a big deal, I can use the archive link or just not read it, all those articles are merely of the "mildly interesting" category anyway. Not to mention that they are 90+% fluff and the core message could usually be summarized with a few sentences.
I am curious though, given that this is HN, does anyone know how they are doing that paywall tracking these days? It is not just NYT where the fresh incognito window no longer works to get around the restriction. Washington Post too, for example, at least for me.
Every time anyone complains you get the backlash of "if you want good journalism you have to pay for it", yet few can afford to subscribe to more than one or two publications and yet we have to suffer paywalled links from all of them. For me, the one UK publication I pay for is enough (and that one is, ironically, not even paywalled).
We solved it for music. We need the same for journalism.
Microtransactions never took off, so that leaves one option: journalism companies need to stop having their own websites and instead publish to an aggregator (or aggregators) that handle payment and monetization. Spotify or Netflix for news.
But perhaps that would turn them into an even lower margin business with no ownership of their own audience relationship. Doesn't seem like a fun business to be in.
Nevertheless, it's still a distribution and friction problem.
My cool idea would be an aggregator that charges people a subscription fee to participate and read stories. $100/month and extremely heavy (paid) moderation that forces people to engage with the articles. The price point helps get rid of anyone who is unwilling to participate constructively. Revenue-sharing for commenters as well.
Make it the place where real discussions happen. People are social creatures and want to join exclusive clubs.
They are explicitly permitted, as long as there are workarounds.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#:~:text=Are%20payw...
Though I wish submitters would provide the workaround (or gift link) too when submitting (I try to do so). It’s often someone else who does it. Though in fairness I guess someone may forget something is paywalled when they’re paying for it and have access.