
Obama on Climate Change: The Trends Are ‘Terrifying’ - smacktoward
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/us/politics/obama-climate-change.html
======
Analemma_
What's really terrifying to me is all the positive feedback loops inherent to
warming.

Melting permafrost in tundra regions like Alaska releases methane: more
warming. Less snow/ice coverage reflects less sunlight: more warming.
Desertification and dying rainforests mean less CO2 absorbption: more warming.
Warmer air temperatures mean the atmosphere can hold more water vapor, which
traps longwave radiation: more warming. Some of these haven't even hit the
hockey stick portion yet.

Between that, the "time delay" between atmospheric CO2 and climate (i.e., that
we're probably seeing the climate effects corresponding to the CO2 levels of
many years ago), and 2016 breaking temperature records every month so far,
it's hard not to conclude that we're fucked and it's way too late. Sigh.

~~~
friendlygrammar
>Melting permafrost in tundra regions like Alaska releases methane: more
warming

If it makes you feel any better, the methane disperses in about 12 years. So a
bunch of animals will become extinct and then 12 years later everything will
go back to normal!

Yeah it doesn't make me feel good either.

~~~
astrodust
That could be twelve years of utterly apocalyptic weather we might not
survive. Just saying. Nobody knows how bad that could get, but do you think we
could survive over a decade where the outdoor temperature is, on average,
200°F?

One of those animals could be the human species, or at least our idea of what
that represents.

~~~
zaroth
What is this nonsense? The worst case models predict a 10-20 degree increase
by 2100.

~~~
astrodust
A) That's 10-20°C, not °F. We're already seeing temperatures of 120°F (49°C)
in parts of the world, so another +20°C puts that at 156°F (69°C). I'm not
exaggerating all that much.

B) The projections keep getting more pessimistic as more data is accumulated.

C) We're talking about the theoretical worst-case scenario where everything
spirals completely out of control and Venus starts to look like a temperate
climate.

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ralusek
Climate change is one of the most interesting issues in politics because of
how pure and overt the motivations of the opposition are.

It's so hilarious to me that you can have a politician with major donations
from Coal/Fossil Fuels try to legitimately discredit a trend that 98% of the
scientists in this field have agreed is proven by data. I also can't think of
another issue where 98% of experts in a field have empirically demonstrated
with data that trends are occurring, yet we're still allowed to just "believe"
or "not believe" in its occurrence.

~~~
khattam
>you can have a politician with major donations from Coal/Fossil Fuels try to
legitimately discredit a trend that 98% of the scientists in this field have
agreed is proven by data

Which politician? What data?

>98% of experts in a field have empirically demonstrated with data that trends
are occurring

I would think those experts would have better things to do, but any source?

What is hilarious to me is to see ignorant pseudo intellectuals who believe in
political propaganda without even considering what the implications are. So,
yeah, climate is changing, it always has and yes human activities affects it
too. So what do your politicians do about it? Collect money from people who
have no other alternative but to use the same fuel and give it to their
friends, move manufacturing to different parts of the world causing more
resource usage in transportation instead and pushing inferior, impractical and
just as environmentally taxing technologies by subsidising them. How is any of
it helping the cause again?

~~~
woodandsteel
Subsidies have encouraged the renewable energy industry to explode and drop
prices radically, and soon unsubsidized renewable energy will be cheaper than
fossil fuel energy.

------
haberman
I sometimes wish descriptions of climate change would include one or two
potential positive benefits, no matter how small.

This would give me more faith that the discourse coming from climate
scientists is entirely objective and descriptive. Even if we accept that
climate change is overwhelmingly negative for human life _on the whole_ (which
I do), I still find it hard to believe that there aren't one or two minor
effects that could actually be beneficial.

Much of the left seems to view climate change as a crime that humans commit
against nature. This view seems as morally blind to me as the right's view
that God gave humankind the Earth to have dominion over. The objective view is
that the activities of humans are changing the climate, and the effects are X,
Y, and Z. Changing the climate is not wrong because it makes an
anthropomorphized Mother Nature shed a tear, but because X, Y, and Z are
harmful to animal and plant life, including us humans.

Unfortunately if I get what I want (an objective account that includes
possible upsides of climate change), climate change deniers might seize on
that as an excuse to do nothing.

~~~
infinite8s
How would you positively describe an impending comet strike on the planet?
Sometimes there are situations in which there is absolutely no positive
benefit.

~~~
haberman
I don't think climate change is comparable to an impending comet strike on the
planet. If you argue that it is, I'm going to distrust you unless you can make
a pretty compelling case about it.

~~~
infinite8s
I wasn't trying to say that climate change would be as catastrophic as a
meteorite strike - just that maybe the reason no one is talking about the
benefits of dramatic climate change because there aren't any?

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jobu
Based on the title I was hoping for more actual data about the trends, but
this is mostly a political puff piece about Obama's efforts toward reducing
greenhouse gas emissions.

~~~
legolas2412
And yet US produces 66% electricity from fossil fuels. And yet US would sue
India in WTO over local sourcing of solar panels. It's all business to the
american politicians and companies. All the green talk is to keep the voters
happy.

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lossolo
Reading things like this [1] every couple of days it seems we are standing on
the train tracks hearing the train is coming but we choose to cover our ears
instead of stopping the train. There will come a time and we will need to pay
the price for covering the ears, we just postpone it but train is coming
closer and closer every day. Soon we will feel vibrations on the tracks but
then I am afraid it will be already too late to stop the train.

[1] [http://phys.org/news/2016-09-unprecedented-atmospheric-
behav...](http://phys.org/news/2016-09-unprecedented-atmospheric-behavior-
disrupts-earth.html)

------
rdoherty
Aside from companies working on electric cars and solar projects, who else is
working on large-scale projects to ameliorate climate change? Any truly
massive projects akin to putting a man on the moon?

~~~
lukifer
I can't speak to what is actually being done but here's an interesting and
quasi-comprehensive write-up of what engineers, developers and designers have
to offer in the climate change fight:
[http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange](http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange)

------
lifeisstillgood
The link to
[http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/](http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/)
below was good and lead me to think what are the basic philosophical
underpinnings of, well, an HN point of view?

    
    
      Equality
    
      Externalities
    
      Empiricism
    

A good start?

------
sqeaky
This is gonna get me totally downvoted, but...

What if I said I was pro-global warming....

I am buying property that will be at or around beach level when _all_ the ice
melts. In the mean time just a couple of houses and I rent them out
reasonably. But in time when all the snow stops and the climate here is
subtropical the warm waters of the bay of Texas will lap onto the shores of
what are hills today. And the property will have increase many-fold. These
properties will have been netting me and my family money the entire time.

/what if

I have not actually done that, but not shoveling would be nice.

~~~
mikeash
The problem with that is the high value of beachfront property is based on
having a civilization with a great deal of consumer surplus, where a large
number of people can afford to take time off to go to the beach for vacation.
The worry for climate change isn't just that it'll displace people, but that
it'll severely disrupt civilization due to massive refugee problems and
agricultural failures. By the time the seashore reaches your inland property,
people may be too busy trying to survive to care about beach vacations, or you
may have lost your property and/or life in the turmoil.

~~~
pavlov
It's kind of like stocking up on sunscreen and iodine pills in the hope of
selling them for a tidy profit after a nuclear holocaust.

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jfaucett
For anyone interested in this topic I would recommend reading "The moral case
for fossil fuels". It gives a big picture look of this problem in the context
of human flourishing. As someone who had only ever been exposed to the gloom
and doom predictions like this article it was a refreashingly clearly thought
and precisely structured counter argument.

~~~
Analemma_
I looked up that book's author, it's a guy named Alex Epstein. Who is he?

> Alex Epstein is an American author, energy theorist and industrial policy
> pundit. He is the founder and President of the Center for Industrial
> Progress, a for-profit think tank located in Laguna Hills, California, and a
> former fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute.

Sounds like a reliable source to me!

~~~
kafkaesq
All those so-called researchers in academia just have an axe to grind. Think
tanks are definitely what you should bank on, intellectually. Especially the
for-profit ones.

