
Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think - kawera
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/opinion/climate-change-costs.html
======
chris_va
(disclaimer: I work in a Climate&Energy research group)

I just want to remind everyone that there _are_ solutions to climate change.
We know how to produce clean energy and sequester CO2. The current free market
does not make those solutions profitable for investors, though, and we will
have to change that.

Solving climate change can be as simple as getting a carbon price adopted. It
needs to ramp up over time, allow a secondary market for offsets, and create a
cross-border network effect (e.g. carbon free trade zone), but it can actually
be that simple.

A "carbon tax" may be infeasible given current political norms, but a revenue
neutral "carbon dividend" would have the same effect while being more
progressive.

So, if you are curious what you can do to solve climate change, consider
contacting your representative.

~~~
chrisco255
Before any tax is issued, I'd like to know the exact percentage breakdown
between man-made climate change and natural climate cycles? Can anyone break
the percentage down for me, between man-made CO2 and natural CO2 being
outgassed by oceans, and then breakdown the difference between CO2 induced
warming and variations in the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation, the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the
cosmic ray flux and it's impact on cloud cover as a result of variations in
solar magnetic cycles, volcanic activity, and the El Nino Southern
Oscillation? Can anyone break that down by percentages for me?

~~~
imtringued
Here is a video that adresses some of your points.
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FBF6F4Bi6Sg](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FBF6F4Bi6Sg)

~~~
tito
Nice, the video addresses myths such as: "Climate Change -- Isn't it natural?"

Made by a former geologist, science journalists for 25 years.

------
tito
I'm fascinated by this graph of the growth of solar as compared to
International Agency Predictions.

Year after year, the IEA massively underestimated the growth of solar. Last
year, at a workshop with the World Bank I heard an expert in energy
investments say "even just 5 years ago none of us ever thought the price of
solar could go this low this fast".

GRAPH: [https://steinbuch.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/iea-vs-
reality...](https://steinbuch.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/iea-vs-reality-
photovoltaics-2018.png?w=1102)

I'm curious if there's something similar for the changing climate. Just how
much are we underestimating the changing climate? Has anyone seen a graph like
the one above, but regarding climate predictions?

For example, the rate of Greeland's massive ice melt was as high as the worst
climate predictions for 2070, decades into the future. [1][2] It seems even
the scientific predictions can be too conservative.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/xavierfettweis/status/115648786895048294...](https://twitter.com/xavierfettweis/status/1156487868950482945)
[2]
[https://twitter.com/xavierfettweis/status/115648786895048294...](https://twitter.com/xavierfettweis/status/1156487868950482945)

~~~
maxerickson
That melt isn't as unprecedented as the Forbes blagger makes it out to be.
Follow the chain and you find out that it is reasonably comparable to one that
happened in…2012:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/08/01/greenland-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/08/01/greenland-
ice-sheet-poured-billion-tons-water-into-north-atlantic-july-alone/)

If it ends up part of even a 2 year pattern, that's already concerning, I'm
not dismissing the issue, I'm just slagging Forbes links.

~~~
tito
Following up here:

The reference to 2070 seems to relate to the rate of melting (ablation rate),
which was greater than the 2012 melt.

The rate of the recent melt was modeled as the average daily melting rate in
2070 in SSP585:
[https://twitter.com/xavierfettweis/status/115648786895048294...](https://twitter.com/xavierfettweis/status/1156487868950482945)

Oh so this looks interesting. Here's what SSP585 refers to, it's a hardcore
model for 2000 ppm by 2200: [https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Relation-
of-C4MIP-simula...](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Relation-of-C4MIP-
simulations-to-CMIP6-DECK-and-historical-simulations-and-the-
ssp585-and_fig1_306920281)

I haven't found the source for linking that to the ablation rate besides the
above xavierfettweis tweet tho. But he has a followup tweet in that thread
saying it was related to the melting rate overall.

------
BurningFrog
Without criticizing the article at all, I want to point out that headlines
like this go viral and make money, while the opposite ones would go nowhere.

In other words, the news you see is selected by virality, not by how well they
describe the real world.

I have no cure or even complaint for this. I just think it's a very important
thing to keep in mind.

~~~
hychoi99
I may have seen this exact headline maybe once a month for the past 10-15
years.

~~~
mavhc
Maybe soon someone will take notice and do something

------
pstuart
It's going to happen faster than we've been told. I expect in 10 years global
panic will set in.

~~~
all2
Can you support this opinion?

~~~
tito
Greenland's massive ice melt wasn't supposed to happen until 2070.

It seems even the scientific predictions can be too conservative. The changing
climate isn't a linear system, it's more like a step function. Once the ice
melts it's much harder to get back.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottsnowden/2019/08/16/greenla...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottsnowden/2019/08/16/greenlands-
massive-ice-melt-wasnt-supposed-to-happen-until-2070/#73bd18274894)

~~~
all2
It is interesting to note that just about 1000 years ago the Vikings were
growing barley in Greenland [0].

> “Now we can see that the Vikings could grow corn, and this was very
> important for their nourishment and survival,”

Barley seems to do ok in late Spring conditions in the NE United States [1].
I'm not certain you could grow barley or corn in Tundra conditions.

I bring this up when people mention warming global conditions because the
planet has, in the past, been much warmer than it is now.

[0] [https://sciencenordic.com/agriculture-archaeology-
denmark/vi...](https://sciencenordic.com/agriculture-archaeology-
denmark/vikings-grew-barley-in-greenland/1447746)

[1]
[https://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/ccpg_horde.pdf](https://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/ccpg_horde.pdf)

~~~
Sharlin
It was a well-known and understood roughly 300-year _localized_ warmer
period[1] in Western Europe and the North Atlantic. The planet has been
globally warmer than what it is now but that was long before _H. sapiens_ and
has nothing to do with the Vikings or barley.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period)

------
chrisBob
I am trying to find the source I read a few years ago where climate scientists
are intentionally scaling back their predictions so they aren’t discounted as
crazy doomsday predictions. I think that there are many accurate predictions
out there but we mostly see the most mild ones because they figure some action
is better than being written off completely.

~~~
tito
Would love to see that! See my post above about IEA solar power predictions,
interested to learn more about predictions over the years.

------
zzot
Dropping in here just to say: if this got you worried, come work with us over
at [http://climateaction.tech/](http://climateaction.tech/) We are a global
community of tech professionals using our skills, expertise and platforms to
support solutions to the climate crisis.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
Looks interesting but what are you actually doing (projects)? I couldn’t find
in your site.

~~~
zzot
The core of the climateAction.tech at the moment is in a Slack, where
different projects are moved forward by the community. There are a bunch of
different things happening but recently some of our members where behind the
[https://digital.globalclimatestrike.net](https://digital.globalclimatestrike.net).
A couple of things I know are being worked on include putting more pressure on
AWS to switch to renewables faster and an idea for a green open-source license

------
mooneater
Im not sure why anyone expects these estimates to hold any water at all.

From what I gather, pressure from the establishment has systematically caused
scientists to lowball impact estimates and ignore second (and higher) order
effects. Meanwhile the complexity and far reach of impact is beyond anything
we can model.

Consider how all the experts were surprised in the 2008 economic crisis. That
was just an economic crisis, primarily involving things we can easily count
(dollars) on a very small timescale (years).

Now we are talking about many interlocking systems we cannot model well, on a
timescale we cannot fathom. How good could those estimates ever be? Maybe +/\-
6 orders of magnitude.

~~~
mooneater
Downvoters please help me understand your angle here

~~~
tito
I upvoted, FWIW. Maybe help explain your perspective some more? It sounds like
you're just kind of saying "we can't model anything so why bother?".

We can model what we can. Sure, the big recession catches the world by
surprise, but people are working constantly to model these systems, and it
seems to be better than doing nothing.

Climate models for example tell us that carbon dioxide is indeed a greenhouse
gas, and gives us an idea of the amount of warming we'll see at various
levels.

+/\- 6 orders of magnitude seems like a lot. Like that seems like we don't
know whether we'll have 400 ppm or 400,000,000 ppm in the future?

~~~
mooneater
Thanks! My order of magnitude range is extreme, but I was thinking of "total
cost to humanity" estimate not ppms.

I do think trying to put a price tag on climate change's "total cost to
humanity" is truly a hopeless task, and results are bound to be meaningless,
due to sheer complexity combine with subjectivity.

How can we meaningfully price biodiversity, the anguish of future generations,
permanently escalating geopolitical stress, and the vast flock of black swan
events that will result from these changes, in a single dollar amount? I
believe such efforts are pure hogwash.

~~~
tito
Glad you responded! Lots of thoughts on this.

The estimates are sure to be not exactly right. But I don't let that hold me
up!

I see sooooo many people get stuck because they can't figure out "Well is it
700 billion tons of carbon in the air or 900? Will the the warming 4 degrees C
or 5?". "I can't do anything if I don't know exactly what it is".

To me it's all just an excuse to do nothing. And I understand it, it's a
relief to feel powerless sometimes, "I can't do anything about this, oh well".
But we have to fight that. I know there's more carbon in the air than we know
what to do with, and we have to take it out. Current capacities are so much
smaller than any estimate of the order of magnitude, that my role is building,
not predicting.

We do need more modelers and monitors. However, there is a diminishing return
to modeling and modeling and modeling. So we need 10X more modeler and
100,000X people building and taking action.

~~~
mooneater
I think we agree, all Im saying in addition is, "total cost to humanity" is
extremely hard to model, far harder than a physical climate model, so hard its
near meaningless.

------
tito
Every time a climate change article hits the front page of HN, I cheer a bit.
Are there any other awesome tech + climate communities around?

------
olivermarks
This is a very wide ranging piece by the two academics Naomi Oreskes and
Nicholas Stern.

Oreskes: '...contrary to popular belief, there is no single scientific method.
Rather, the trustworthiness of scientific claims derives from the social
process by which they are rigorously vetted against'. It comes down to
trust...

[http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/event/why-trust-
scien...](http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/event/why-trust-science-a-
talk-by-professor-naomi-oreskes/)

------
crb002
I still think many models are missing volcanic winters. We know they have
crazy cooling effects, but they are something we don’t yet control.

More $$$ money needs to go into Vulcanering. Crazy, but if we can make ash
spread 20% more that’s years of cooling.

~~~
korpiq
If I understand correctly, currently anthropogenically accumulated extra CO2
takes some hundreds of thousands of years to return to geological circulation,
while the faster biological circulation won't withhold it all, and seas are
getting saturated (and will acidify beyond supporting current lifeforms in the
process). [see eg. Hot Earth Dreams]

Also, if I understood correctly a single article I'll try to dig up a link to
later, the kickback effect of stopping a temporary cooling measure and
returning to the warming trend caused by the CO2 still in air will have
stronger harmful effects. If these hold, it might prove tricky to keep up a
moderate, safe cooling effect long enough, even if some technical measure to
cause volcanic winter was found.
[[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0431-0?utm_source...](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0431-0?utm_source=commission_junction&utm_medium=affiliate)
via [https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-
features/devi...](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-
features/devils-bargain-why-aerosols-pose-a-deadly-climate-change-
threat-126855/)]

I would hope this or some other measure would prove successful. but I'm not
yet able to put all my faith on any of them.

------
iikoolpp
Opened the article expecting it to be a more abstract cost. Turns out it's
about economics. Christ alive.

"Yeah, billions are gonna die, but what really matters is my house prices are
gonna go down."

~~~
Udik
Who said that billions are gonna die?

Frankly, if the solution to climate change will slow economic growth, I think
that the highest human cost will come from the lack of growth. To put it in
clear terms: lack of growth means that a sewage system, or a hospital, don't
get built. This _will_ cause victims.

~~~
ben_w
Eh. While I’m optimistic that solutions will be found, in principle a shifting
climate can radically alter food production. Billions could die. I don’t think
they will, but in principle they could, and I lack the necessary background in
agricultural science to tell what “likely” is.

~~~
Udik
I doubt that climate can shift so quickly that humans can't adapt at least
their most important cultures. We're very good at this, and very quick, and we
don't need to produce food anywhere near where it's consumed.

Although of course the ships that bring immense amounts of food across the
globe have been built, and are operated, with fossil fuels. As is our
agriculture. Again, increase the cost of the fuel that makes both possible,
and people will die.

------
joyjoyjoy
We always had climate change. Not having climate change is the exception. Is
it man made? Is it caused by CO2? Ist it getting warmer? Is this a good or a
bad thing? Can we and should we do something about it? This are many questions
and climate change is one of the most complex phenomenons. I have a STEM PhD
and would not be able to make a quick judgement.

"Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think"

Given that all the statements are true, something that is seldom discussed,
who is "We"? People with real estate in NYC, Amsterdam and Miami? Maybe.
People in super hot climates? Probably.

How about people in Greenland? Russia? Canada?

~~~
tito
That the climate is changing is not a complex question. The impacts are less
known, but an unstable climate seems net negative for the average person on
Earth.

Heat wave deaths in Serbia and Canada:
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/07/02/climate-
chang...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/07/02/climate-change-
heatwave-strikes-serbia-central-and-eastern-europe/1627412001/)

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-
canada-1.4...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-
canada-1.4878263)

------
tito
Climate change will create the first trillionaire.

Find every machine that eats fossil fuels and electrify it. Find every crop
that requires stable land and predictable weather and farm it in a shipping
container. Find every underlying infrastructure that requires decades to pay
off and decentralize it.

Instead of water line pipes, pull water out of the air. Instead of fiber optic
cables make LEO satellites. Instead of refrigerated transportation, grow food
in your pocket or your stomach. Instead of roads, take to the air. Instead of
high power transmission lines that cause fires and burn down trees, build
island-mode ready microgrids.

Build a better world, a template for all worlds to come.

~~~
pstuart
> Climate change will create the first trillionaire.

Is that a good thing?

~~~
option
everything described above is a good thing. Why do you care that someone will
become insanely rich by improving lives for millions?

~~~
pstuart
It's funny how my comment questioning the concentration of wealth as being a
condemnation of business in principle.

