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Comment by thewebguyd | Hacker News Reader

It’s honestly terrifying. I’m in the PNW and we haven’t had winter yet. Extremely low snowpack in the mountains and not even a single day below freezing where I live.

I’ve been observing the change for the past 10 years or so here and this is the first year that’s it’s been so “in your face” obvious instead of just subtle changes and effects.

If this is our new normal winter and/or gets rapidly worse we will have a major water crisis sooner than anyone is ready for.

Climate change needs to be the number one focus and policy for every nation on earth right now. Not AI, not economic growth, not wars.

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Here in the Seattle area, plenty of sub-freezing days (which is itself unusual for the area, in 25 years of living here), just no precipitation. And you know what Seattle is known for, especially in the winter? But when we do get precipitation, it’s warm enough in the mountains that it comes down as rain, not snow. Rough year to be a ski area.

>If this is our new normal winter and/or gets rapidly worse we will have a major water crisis sooner than anyone is ready for.

This is a certainty.

Scientists have been ringing the bell since at least the late 60's and our only reaction was to laugh at them and floor the accelerator pedal and continuously increase our emissions over 5 decades. It is unlikely to change with the AI boom.

There are many things in the world that happen slowly right up until they suddenly don’t. It’s very possible the climate is one of these.

Climate change will probably solve itself within 10 years due to exponential growth of solar panels, batteries and electric cars.

That is delusionnal. The growth is globally way too slow and too late to have a major impact, especially when the climate is already provoking chain reactions like the large emissions from melting permafrost.

Check this comment in 10 years!

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