
The Uninhabitable Earth - yuvadam
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html
======
RcouF1uZ4gsC
A few observations:

Trying to scare people into behavior does not work very well. The Catholic
Church spent centuries threatening people with eternal hell if they had extra-
marital sex, and people still had extra-marital sex. Studies have shown that
abstinence only sex education results in more teen pregnancies. Thomas Malthus
saw an impending famine and begged people to have fewer children. People did
not listen.

What works is "magic science." A solution that allows people to behave the way
hey do, and we come up with a solution that just works. Birth control has
resulted in a decline in teen pregnancies and population stabilization where
it is available. The green revolution is able to feed people, without most
people having to do anything different in how they eat.

The other thing is that people don't really think this is a true emergency. An
evidence for this is the quote "What if global warming is wrong and we made
the planet better?" If it is a true emergency, we should be doing stuff that
make the planet worse if it is wrong. We should be pushing nuclear power -
even to the the point of reducing existing safety regulations. A Chernobyl
every decade is preferable to global warming. Politically, we should be
willing to trade existing environmental regulation for those which reduce CO2.
For example, what if we traded the Endangered species act for a carbon tax?

Third, we should be pushing for research and funding for climate adaptation at
his point. The focus has been on mitigation, but it should switch to
adaptation. We should be working on scaling up and testing models of carbon
sequestration and Geo engineering.

EDIT: Per cbennett's comment, changed prevention to mitigation and mitigation
to adaptation to be more in line with official terminology.

~~~
sanxiyn
I strongly support nuclear power, and although I kind of understand their
points of view, I can't stop thinking those opposing nuclear power is not
serious about climate change.

~~~
gorkonsine
>I can't stop thinking those opposing nuclear power is not serious about
climate change.

They mostly are I think, they're just completely ignorant and naive and
unrealistic about all the solutions. The strongly anti-nuclear people (esp.
those a decade ago and longer) seem to really think that everyone's going to
suddenly stop driving cars and start walking and biking everywhere.

However, that said, it's getting more and more realistic to forgo nuclear
power while still reducing greenhouse gas emissions, thanks to renewables,
especially solar power. PV power is getting cheaper all the time, and Germany
for instance produces a large fraction of their power with it despite Germany
not being an especially sunny country. So it's getting more and more realistic
to oppose nuclear power while still supporting policies to reduce climate
change, and not be completely naive and ignorant as in the past. The main
problem with solar is storage, due to its transient generation nature.

~~~
anigbrowl
They are ignorant, but nuclear power proponents have most done a _terrible_
job of selling their argument. They keep selling the benefits while
downplaying the safety concerns. The correct strategy is to treat the safety
concerns as being of primary importance and treat the benefits as an
unfortunate necessity.

It _does not matter_ what the actual risk incidence and hazards are. You do
not overcome bias by talking people into submission to the evidence. that
works great in peer view and in school but it does not work in the real world
because the population you need to convince does not have sufficient spare
intellectual capacity to process that.

If you want to sell nuclear power you offer reactor designs that are new, you
over-engineer for safety, you say you're taking profit out of the equation,
you fire anyone who makes even the smallest mistake, and you drink a glass of
any wastewater (or equivalent depending on reactor design).

The public believes, with some reason, that anything nuclear either explodes
or contaminates things. No amount of reasoned argument is going to change this
perception. The way to change it is to make the plants look different and have
the operators and sponsors of the plants live next to the nuclear plant _with
their families._ Not _say_ that it's perfectly safe, _show_ that it's
perfectly safe.

------
latch
It's pretty hopeless. I used to think we'd adjust in time, but that was when
the decline looked more linear (or at least I thought it looked more linear).

Of the many people who I know who are seriously concerned re climate change,
I'd say 2 have taken truly meaningful steps .

It's not the handful of climate change deniers that's the problem. It's the
overwhelming number of people who want to say they're green, but still own two
cars, never take public transport, eat meat daily, live in big houses, and buy
buy buy.

If you think climate change is a serious issue. If you're concerned that
scientists are now talking about the low single-digit years we have to change.
If you have kids. Why the *@#! aren't you taking drastic change?

~~~
dota_fanatic
What kind of drastic change should one take? Not having kids, OK, drastic but
doable. Cutting out meat, driving less, etc, OK.

But what about the rest of the production chain that assumes you're the same
as everyone else (whom continues to use and depend on that production chain),
which is an ocean of waste compared to what any single person can do? We can
individually push the needle very slightly, but it does nothing to push the
needle on our behalf within the bigger economic machine. All those wasteful
international processes are pushing forward faster than ever. It's like we're
bleeding out and you just recommended dabbing the wound with a string of
thread.

What are some realistic things that an individual or group of individuals can
do to prepare?

~~~
cagenut
The energy consumption (and therefore carbon emissions) per capita in the
west/US comes almost entirely from the feedback loop between single-family-
detached housing and the car-or-two it takes to live in that kind of sprawled
out lifestyle. Put another way, Transportation and Housing (heating & cooling)
are the #1 and #2 sources of carbon emissions for suburban, exurban and rural
dwellers.

People who simply live in urban cores automatically cut their carbon emissions
in half:
[http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps](http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps)

If you live in a 5+ unit building, do not own a car, rarely fly, sign up for
your utilities low-carbon supply option, and cut out red meat, its possible to
be a full order of magnitude below the american average.
[http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/01/Am...](http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/01/American-carbon-footprint.gif)

So the #1 thing an American can do to fight climate change is be "pro-city".
Move there. Encourage building/density there. Help fix the schools. Use, vote
for, and demand more and better public transit.

People who insist on having a yard and several feet of air-gap between them
and their neighbors are the real climate change deniers.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
> So the #1 thing an American can do to fight climate change is be "pro-city".
> Move there. Encourage building/density there. Help fix the schools. Use,
> vote for, and demand more and better public transit.

This seems nearly as impossible as direct political action against climate
change. Effectively, none of the current residents of cities want anyone else
to move there, let alone allow more development, especially of greater
density. Cities themselves seem to be pretty uniformly terrible at scaling-up
to support larger populations. NYC's subways seem pretty close to crippling
failure as-is.

I don't _prefer_ revolution, but some kind of significant 'shake-up' seems
pretty inevitable given the ossification of all of the relevant 'systems'.

~~~
sosodaft
This is another area where technology is hugely beneficial. Not everyone can
move to a city, but people who drive to work could work remotely one day a
week. Hell, let's make it Friday, who wouldn't like that? There are few
office-type jobs that one just CAN'T do remotely at least one day a week, so
you've cut a significant part of the emissions of a significant part of the
American population.

And this can be instituted as an economic incentive; employers could get a tax
credit or something in exchange for the proportion of work they allow
employees to do remotely.

------
grondilu
If you feel like watching more hopeful content on the subject, there is Allan
Savory's TED talk about how to stop desertification[1], and Freeman Dyson's
speech called "heretic thoughts about science and society"[2].

Basically, those speakers suggest climate change is an issue that can be
solved with better _land management_. Soil is extremely good at absorbing
Carbon Dioxide. Isn't it why there is so little CO2 in the atmosphere (0.04%)?
We just need to make sure the process does indeed happen.

When one looks at the map of Earth, the vastness of the desert areas is scary.
Yet there are reasons to believe this is relatively recent. The Sahara was wet
few thousands years ago, the American deserts became so mostly because of the
considerable environmental changes brought by Europeans.

Desertification is much scarier than climate change, and it did not wait for
the industrial revolution to happen. Reversing desertification is probably not
impossible (after all it is being attempted already in many places around the
world, like in Africa[3] and China[4]), and it might very well reverse climate
change as a bonus.

I personally wish more effort and public attention was diverted to it.

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI)

2\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xFLjUt2leM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xFLjUt2leM)

3\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall)

4\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-
North_Shelter_Forest_Pro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-
North_Shelter_Forest_Program)

~~~
vram22
Re. reversing desertification:

Came across this technique - imprinting - recently - seems interesting:

Imprinting soils – Creating Instant Edge for Large Scale Revegetation of
Barren Lands:

1) [https://permaculturenews.org/2012/09/19/imprinting-soils-
cre...](https://permaculturenews.org/2012/09/19/imprinting-soils-creating-
instant-edge-for-large-scale-revegetation-of-barren-lands/) Excerpt:

[ Imprinting is a method for instantly adding what permaculturists call the
‘edge effect’ to soils, utilising a heavy and dimpled/wedged roller to
‘imprint’ soils with patterned depressions. The bottom of these depressions
then become collection points for all the crucial elements needed for seed
germination and soil building: seeds themselves, water, organic matter
(including plant debris and animal manure) and wind-blown silt and clay
particles. ]

Check the before and after photos in the article.

2) [http://imprinting.org/](http://imprinting.org/)

Bio of Dr. Robert Dixon, who started this:

3) [http://imprinting.org/biography.htm](http://imprinting.org/biography.htm)

~~~
Bartweiss
Woah, that's very interesting.

It's pretty well-established that analyzing land based on gross regional
characteristics is a disaster for reasons like these - the relevance of a
given patch of soil to erosion resistance or vegetation support can change
massively over miles or even yards. Sometimes protecting 100 acres of exposed,
average land is less useful than protecting a single acre of liminal ground
that holds back stream or wind erosion, or helps to germinate the next 'stage'
of vegetation.

What's totally new to me is the idea of going out and _making_ seminal land
like this. Finding it is hard, protecting it is harder, but making it? There's
an idea that could actually be compatible with the sort of bulk-analysis
development governments are capable of.

This seems to at least have the potential to really matter, and be far more
usable than most grand environmental schemes.

~~~
vram22
Yes, it does seem so. Also, though I haven't checked the financial aspects, it
seems like it could be done at somewhat low cost, and still be effective to
some extent - e.g. not only the machine-driven imprinting, but might be
possible to do it manually by humans (using some hand-operated tools, like
even just spades/shovels, or something a bit more sophisticated). And that
could be decided on a case-by-case basis depending on availability and cost of
the human labor vs. cost of the imprinting machine (the tractor with an
attachment or whatever it is).

------
state_machine
I did not realize the physiological effects would be as severe:

> The fraction of carbon dioxide is growing: It just crossed 400 parts per
> million, and high-end estimates extrapolating from current trends suggest it
> will hit 1,000 ppm by 2100. At that concentration, compared to the air we
> breathe now, human cognitive ability declines by 21 percent.

~~~
_rpd
This level of impairment conflicts with data from military studies, for
example ...

> CO2 at 40,000 ppm for 2 weeks did not affect performance on multiple tests
> of cognitive function in physically fit young airmen

[https://www.nap.edu/read/11170/chapter/5#54](https://www.nap.edu/read/11170/chapter/5#54)

but it is something certainly worth further investigation.

~~~
antisthenes
> Twenty-four volunteers, ages 18-23, were selected for their motivation and
> their excellent health.

If only we were all 18-23 years old in excellent health. The amount of abuse
sustained and the speed of recovery my 20 year old self could sustain compared
to my 30 year old self is truly astonishing.

When you're young, your body can compensate in a myriad ways you aren't even
thinking about, that obviously weren't measured in the study.

It's a good start but not really relevant to the possible scenarios.

1\. Dubious sample selection (perfect health, probably above average cognitive
ability as well)

2\. High levels/short term exposure rather than moderate levels & long term
exposure (1+ year)

3\. Tests were likely too simple and did not require a high level of
abstraction/cognition in the first place.

I know sample n=1, but I've experienced increased anxiety and lower energy
levels at ppms as low as 2000-3000, which you can easily encounter in a poorly
ventilated room.

~~~
_rpd
Here's the LBNL study behind the article claims for comparison ...

[https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104789/](https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104789/)

------
gambiting
Why the hell is the author mixing Fahrenheit and Celsius degrees?

Paragraph one: " for instance, where humidity routinely tops 90 percent,
simply moving around outside when it’s over 105 degrees Fahrenheit would be
lethal"

Paragraph two: "At 11 or 12 degrees of warming, more than half the world’s
population, as distributed today, would die of direct heat. "

Same paragraph: "At present, most regions reach a wet-bulb maximum of 26 or 27
degrees Celsius; the true red line for habitability is 35 degrees"

Paragraph three: " As I type that sentence, in the California desert in mid-
June, it is 121 degrees outside my door. "

Just....why?

~~~
dmm
I'm an american and if you told me it was 27C outside I wouldn't know whether
that was hot or cold until I reflected for a moment and compared that number
to cpu core temps.

Ignorance on my part, certainly, and not excusable but perhaps typical.

~~~
ancarda
Out of interest, why don't you capitalize "American"?

Edit: I'm genuinely curious and not asking to annoy anyone; I might be
misunderstanding grammar rules or rules of HN. I ask because I'm not sure this
was a mistake; all over the web I see people who write with good grammar, but
never capitalize "American". Is it considered rude to capitalize "American"?

~~~
YCode
HN frowns on meta discussion.

For what it's worth, it should be capitalized but I suspect Americans don't
formally discuss themselves in the third person enough to have that grammar
rule down.

------
awjr
This always reminds me of this cartoon
[https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/514325219919218393/](https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/514325219919218393/)

"What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"

I think the key point that the article makes is that fossil fuels have enabled
much of the industrialisation of the 20th and 21st century but it is also
beginning to make certain areas of the world uninhabitable and yet we still
seem to want to ignore the warning signs. A shift from fossil fuels and a
focus on carbon capture technologies is hopefully not too late.

PS: I do keep reminding my dad that he should sell his house on the Indian
River in Florida.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Your quote demonstrates that global warming is either not all that bad or you
are not advocating enough stuff to fix it. If it really is an emergency and is
that bad, we should be doing stuff that would make our world worse if we are
wrong.

~~~
Brakenshire
Well, a lot of scientists do advocate to keep warming to below 1.5 C, but that
is not seriously pursued because it is not considered to be economically
realistic or politically viable. The Paris trajectory is aiming for 2C, and
hoping that it won't end up being significantly more. That is, not making the
okay the enemy of the good, or good the enemy of the perfect.

------
panic
An analysis of possible solutions: [http://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-
by-rank](http://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank)

~~~
rdtsc
Number 1 based on plausibility is refrigerant management.

I have a story about that. Someone I knew in Eastern Europe working with large
refrigeration equipment hoarded the bad kind of Freon knowing it would go up
in price as the supplies dwindle. Then they charged an increasingly high price
for it on the black market. Eventually equipment that uses that king of
refrigerant will break down beyond repair but that might take a while.
Industrial equipment like that often built reliably and is pretty
maintainable.

This is just one individual business owner. I am sure there are more. So
officially on paper it might look it's all good and "we've eliminate CFCs" but
with corruption mixed in things are not that simple.

~~~
yardie
Guys like the one you describe are a rounding error in modern industrial
refrigeration. Like a major company may use him they transition to modern
equipment but at the scale they need he would raise all sorts of red flags not
just in government regulators but insurance and investors doing their
diligence. They are going to want to know why an expensive line item is going
out.

TLDR; you're friends business model doesn't scale and relies on very unique
edge cases.

------
m777z
I wish articles like this that are backed up by tons of research, interviews,
etc. would cite sources inline (in a manner similar to Wikipedia). I want to
at least skim some of the background research, but I'm reducing to copying and
pasting sections of this article into Google.

------
sosodaft
What we really need is WWII-style, society-wide action on this count--remember
the days of Meatless Mondays, saving your cans to make bullets, mailing your
binoculars to the Navy. Even if it's confined to the parts of society that
actually believe global warming is a serious threat, making pro-climate living
a social norm could have a tremendous effect.

~~~
erikpukinskis
How about we just take the step and say that eating beef, in any circumstance,
is morally wrong? Even if you can find some beef that you think is
ecologically responsible, your are promoting the practice which is perhaps
most central to global warming, after driving a large gasoline car.

------
Animats
Right now, some very hot areas are becoming uninhabitable, and low-lying
coastal areas are being flooded. In the US, this has already hit a few areas
hard, such as Phoenix AZ [1] and Miami FL.[2]

Phoenix is breaking heat records again this week. The number of days of
extreme heat each summer keeps increasing. Phoenix also has limited water
sources; it's a city in a desert, after all.

Miami now floods regularly. Levees and berms don't help much; the ground is
too porous. Pumping helps; at least a dozen huge pumps have been installed,
with many more to come. This is a stopgap measure, the mayor of Miami admits.

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-phoenix-climate-
adapt-20...](http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-phoenix-climate-
adapt-20170327-story.html) [2]
[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-
agains...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-
level-rise)

------
sluggg
The article worked... I am alarmed.

Is there anything I can do with software that would make a difference?
Currently, the only things that are coming to mind are simple carbon footprint
calculators or infographics/visualization of data, which imo would not be that
impactful. I would love to hear ideas

~~~
gasbag
Bret Victor has a page on his site about this.[0] The first hit when I
searched for "visualization" was:

"The core technologies in energy storage tend to be physics-based, but
software plays essential roles in the form of design tools, simulation tools,
and control systems. My favorite example is the inexplicably gorgeous
Materials Project, a database and visualization tool for material properties,
funded by the Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Program to help
invent better batteries."

It's a lengthy page with lots of good ideas, and seeds that might germinate
more ideas of your own.

[0][http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/](http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/)

~~~
sluggg
I will give it a read, thanks so much!

------
acjohnson55
And in the USA, we are led by people who seem almost uniquely incapable of
grappling with our societies hard problems. Sad.

~~~
crush-n-spread
Elon Musk leads America more than Donald Trump does, trust me. Don't get
discouraged because Donny has become President. They hardly do anything
interesting.

~~~
acjohnson55
I meant "led" on every level. Our president is a symptom of a much larger
problem of know-nothingism and myopic greed. We're in a social tailspin, with
no clear way out.

And it's absurd to think that Elon Musk has more power or influence as an
industrialist than the POTUS, Trump or not.

~~~
crush-n-spread
We're in a social tailspin because no one is willing to step up and make
solutions for our enormous problems. Elon Musk is coming up with solutions,
and if you exist in the sphere around him, the social tailspin is much, much
less, because there is a purpose to life and a reason to commit yourself to
your work.

Donald will have a much, much smaller impact on the future of the USA than
Elon will.

~~~
acjohnson55
I share your enthusiasm about Elon Musk's projects, but that strikes me as
painfully naive. I'm skeptical we'll manage to exit the Trump era without
irreparable harm. But it's beyond clear that the work that needs to be done to
address our numerous ongoing crises isn't being done, and that's what's
problematic, even if Trump doesn't launch the nukes.

That's the worst-case scenario, and every official source indicates that it's
Trump's prerogative alone to decide whether to unleash a nuclear assault. So
unless Elon Musk has the ability to shutdown a nuclear war, your assertion is
based on blind faith, and not on a rational evaluation of the situation.

But even that's beside the point. We need a society that's oriented around
bold ideas to set us on a sustainable track. In your language, far more Musks
in business and government. One of them is not going to do the trick.

------
dustinmoris
Average person's priorities:

I > My family > My home > My life convenience > My country > Other human
beings > Planet Earth.

This is what the average person expects from other people:

Planet Earth > Other human beings > Their country > their family > them

And you wonder why we fail to combat climate change?

~~~
Brakenshire
Because a lot of people seem to think that doing the best for themselves will
end up as the best thing for society, or for the planet. Adam Smith dealt with
this from the start, there is an amazing moral alchemy in capitalism which
allows for improvements in your own life to drive improvements in society, but
there are caveats and limits. And ideologues do not like dealing with that
kind of nuance.

------
AndrewKemendo
_the climate window that has allowed for human life is very narrow, even by
the standards of planetary history_

I remember when I was little, reading the Carl Sagan Cosmos book. It was based
on the TV show, and had this really interesting section where it had pictures
of what will happen on earth as the sun expands to a Red Giant [1].

That really stuck with me and ever since, it's clear to me that we humans live
in a temporary golden period for the possibility of our form of life. Whether
we burn ourselves out or wait for the environment to do it, the end result in
a billion years is that there aren't humans in our form around anymore.

So whenever climate action comes up I ask: What is the end state that you are
seeking? Is the goal to permanently solidify an undefined homeostasis? For
what group? Are you trying to make northern Africa green again?

Again though, seems to be in vain cause it's all going to burn up in a few
million years anyway. Climate action isn't TRULY long term thinking.

We have a tiny window that we can possibly engineer ourselves into a new form
of intelligence. Lets work on that so that these biological issues, and our
fate as a (transitional) species aren't issues anymore.

[1][http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/398013/24076923/138732...](http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/398013/24076923/1387327371437/Sun.png?token=lBgC8gzFnsUMWh0mHw9WbSpxy4Y%3D)

~~~
mfoy_
Well, I'd argue it's all about buying time. Obviously nothing lasts forever,
but that's no reason to throw the baby out with the bath-water.

If we can buy our species another couple centuries on this planet, we can
probably start looking at leaving. But if we continue on this accelerated
doomsday course we won't have time to re-imagine the "form" of our species.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Also agree. I think we can practically do things that make sense economically,
as well as environmentally that are no brainers like transitioning to
renewable resources, solar, geo etc...

The challenge is the lifestyle changes that transitioning economies expect in
terms of total household energy expenditures. I think the biggest thing is
helping developing and transitioning economies continue to raise their
standard of living but through renewable resources, and not just piling more
coal onto the fire.

------
jessaustin
Commentary from a noted scientist:

[https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMannScientist/posts/14705390...](https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMannScientist/posts/1470539096335621)

~~~
kerbalspacepro
He quibbles a single data point and says, "Don't panic."

------
anon1253
It's silly to think we're unable to change. Nearly all of the CO2 emissions
were done in just a generation. Post-world war 2 industrialization, automation
and globalization caused the vast majority of CO2. There are still people
alive today who lived through WO2. Why are we talking like this is an
insurmountable problem, that the momentum is just too big? It literally took
/one/ average human life span to get where we are. It could take less than one
to go back to pre-industrial levels. And it's not just a matter of better
technology, it's mostly a matter of social adaptation. If we're dead set on
infinite growth (in terms of consumption, GDP, population) we're going to have
a problem with or without climate change. The fix is: a smaller population,
less consumption, and less production. But that's contrary to /everything/
capitalism stands for. The problem is thus not so much technology, but rather
the socio-economic paradigm we're in. How to change this without going all
"you dumb communist beta cuck snowflake"? I don't know. But here are some
ideas:

\- Incentivize less spending by "anti-ads" (could be interesting to add as an
ad blocker), basically ads that signal that you /don't/ need what's
advertised. Interesting AI problem that can piggyback off of all the stuff
that's being done in the ad space itself

\- Implement economic incentives for CO2 scrubbing, by carbon-tax, subsidies
or secondary effects (e.g. useful non-fuel biproducts, or things like greener
living spaces / habitable deserts)

\- Stop subsidizing fossil fuels, agriculture, etc. Will it hike up the
prices? Sure, but that's kinda the idea.

\- Look at the big picture first. Driving your car less, LED bulbs, sure…they
kinda work. It's somewhat of a moot point with cargoships that almost burn raw
oil, equivalent to the CO2 output of a small city. This is an optimization
problem: try to do the big things first.

\- Slow down. We define the pace at which society moves. Do you /really really
really/ need that stuff in 24hours door-to-door? Do you /really really/ need
to commute 8 hours each day? These are human choices. The natural world is
kinda reluctant about our endeavors. There's no reason why everything must be
done /yesterday/ … helps with mental health issues too.

\- Incentivize a culture where "moon-shot" ideas are given a chance. There are
many ways we can make a big dent, but often costing billions to build. We have
no problem building 250 million dollar warplanes (and buy hundreds of them),
no problems building half a billion dollar coal plants. Really, no problem
with billion dollar sports matches. In fact, we seem to applaud these things.
But when talking about rooftop solar, heliostat installations, CO2 scrubbing,
planting trees it's all "cost cost cost". We need to rethink that.

And be kind to all living things. We're in for a tough ride either way. Just
try to show some compassion and help those who need it more than you do.

Or that's what I try to tell myself when I'm utterly depressed about it
[https://joelkuiper.eu/change](https://joelkuiper.eu/change)

~~~
gorkonsine
>It's silly to think we're unable to change. Nearly all of the CO2 emissions
were done in just a generation.

We _are_ unable to change. You're talking about change for the worse there (in
environmental terms), not change for the better.

Show me one instance in history where a human society avoided disaster. It
hasn't happened. Every human society has peaked at some point, and then
collapsed. Ancient Rome didn't go from controlling most of Europe and northern
Africa to being a stable power among many; it collapsed entirely. Other
earlier Middle Eastern societies didn't even fare that well; all that's left
of them is a few ruins at best.

Humans are pretty good at going from nothing and building up a society in a
short time, but they aren't any good at dealing with problems that arise in
that society over time, especially if they're compounded by environmental
problems. So human societies are always "upwards or bust". What makes you
think it'll be different this time?

As for all your ideas, ask yourself this: will the voting population vote for
candidates who tell them they're going to enact these policies?

------
good_vibes
Wish for the best, prepare for the worst.

I've grappled with this for the last 7 years. I wanted to build a platform to
address this problem but I eventually realized self-interest is the strongest
force in the world and that most people are not ready to consider that they
may be part of the problem AND own up to it enough to change their day-to-day
lifestyle. It's much easier to point a finger at world leaders, corporations,
or the developing world's use of coal.

I've finally let go of eating meat. I don't buy things unless I need them and
I use them until they are no longer usable. My hobbies are exploring the
outdoors, improving my fitness/meditation routine each day, and creating
brands, experiences, and campaigns.

I am saving money for a cabin in the Rockies and a camper van to explore all
of North America. I am building an agency to work remotely and accept clients
that I feel I can help in a substantial way. I've given my ambitions of
'saving the world' or being a part of the world of SV or NYC.

------
stevebmark
Well, it worked. I'm worried, and I'm turning off some electronics I normally
leave on.

~~~
Daishiman
Are you going to stop eating meat?

~~~
sluggg
is there a way to significantly cut down on my carbon footprint by only eating
certain animals?

~~~
philipkglass
Ruminant meats (beef, lamb, goat) have a higher GHG impact due to enteric
fermentation producing methane.

Numerically, you can't cut a lot of your GHG impact by reducing/switching meat
consumption if you are living an ordinary middle class first world lifestyle
in other respects.

[https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-
gases](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases)

Methane accounts for about 10% of warming from anthropogenic US GHG emissions.
Enteric fermentation in ruminants accounts for 25% of that 10%, and
agricultural manure another 10%. So you can cut maybe 25% of 10% (2.5%) from
baseline-American emissions by eliminating red meat from your diet, or 35% of
10% (3.5%) by eliminating animal products altogether.

It's similar in the European Union:

[http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/Greenhouse_gas_emission_statistics)

Agriculture accounts for 10% of emissions, and meat production is just a
portion of that.

Personal dietary changes are at least quick and inexpensive, even if they
don't lead to deep emissions reductions. I stopped eating red meat a few years
ago because of a family history of heart attacks. It actually saved money on
my grocery bills.

------
ancarda
It sounds very grim, is there any chance/hope of us getting out of this
situation or is it just beyond any action at this point? I get the feeling
from the article we're doomed.

~~~
phkahler
Don't worry, this is a pure climate alarmist. You can tell by this quote and
others:

"But no matter how well-informed you are, you are surely not alarmed enough."

This person is literally saying we need to be alarmed.

I really didn't understand the part where they said methane has 34 times the
greenhouse effect as carbon _over a period of time_ and then changes the
timeframe to bring the multiplier put to 84 times. To me it felt a lot like
when congress talks about deficits over a decade - well actually they talk
about reductions over a decade so it's times 10 and increases are just annual.
Anyway, there is a difference between methane and CO2 but to try to make it
sound worse by talking about time is just another alarmist tactic.

Regardless of your stance, this article is intended to be alarmist and even
says so. IMHO it is not worthy of HN.

~~~
cbennett
>> This person is literally saying we need to be alarmed.

And why shouldn't we (he) be doing that? Actually the author's goal is
transparent, to shake up perception, to provide fodder in the imagination of
folks to ultimately change how urgently we treat this in public forums. I
thought this was a quite trenchant point (from the article):

>>Over the past decades, our culture has gone apocalyptic with zombie movies
and Mad Max dystopias, perhaps the collective result of displaced climate
anxiety, and yet when it comes to contemplating real-world warming dangers, we
suffer from an incredible failure of imagination. The reasons for that are
many: the timid language of scientific probabilities, which the climatologist
James Hansen once called “scientific reticence” in a paper chastising
scientists for editing their own observations so conscientiously that they
failed to communicate how dire the threat really was; the fact that the
country is dominated by a group of technocrats who believe any problem can be
solved and an opposing culture that doesn’t even see warming as a problem
worth addressing;

Back to you: >>I really didn't understand the part where they said methane has
34 times the greenhouse effect as carbon over a period of time and then
changes the timeframe to bring the multiplier put to 84 times.

I also thought this statement was scientifically unclear, but I think the
author was trying to say that the rate of methane release increases, thus, the
impact on climate systems multiplies relative to an equivalent release of CO2
in that period (100 yrs v 24 yrs). If someone else can mention exactly how he
got from 34x to 84x though, id love to hear it; i didn't get it.. I do want to
mention, however the 30x GHG effect number is not set in stone. In fact,
depending on the rate of release, there may be 'force multipliers' depending
on how (quickly) ecosystems can absorb and use these gases. Ominously, this
multiplier seems to go up anyways as temps rise. [1]

[1]
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v507/n7493/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v507/n7493/full/nature13164.html)

~~~
epall
Methane deteriorates in the upper atmosphere fairly quickly, whereas CO2
sticks around. Methane is a dramatically better insulator than CO2, so in the
short run its impact is higher, but when you stretch out the timescale, your
methane is deteriorating while the CO2 sticks around, so the relative impact
tilts slowly toward CO2.

~~~
cbennett
While you are right that methane wont naturally stick around for ever, and
that it breaks down sooner than CO2. After googling around a little, I finally
managed to find the source of the author's two numbers, and in the end I am
more troubled than ever :/

>>At issue is the global warming potential (GWP), a number that allows experts
to compare methane with its better-known cousin, carbon dioxide. While CO2
persists in the atmosphere for centuries, or even millennia, methane warms the
planet on steroids for a decade or two before decaying to CO2. In those short
decades, methane warms the planet by 86 times as much as CO2, according to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But policymakers typically ignore
methane's warming potential over 20 years (GWP20) when assembling a nation's
emissions inventory. Instead, they stretch out methane's warming impacts over
a century, which makes the gas appear more benign than it is, experts said.
The 100-year warming potential (GWP100) of methane is 34, according to the
IPCC.[1]

Doesn't 'reducing' (really, normalizing) the GWP for the ~80 yrs of the 100yr
period (when it is not existing) seem sort of like an accounting trick? In
other words, if 20GT of CH4 were released next year from the Bering Sea into
the atmosphere (this would be spectacularly bad), the overall shock to the
climate/atmosphere systems is precisely the same.

[1][https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-
gree...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-greenhouse-
gas-is-methane/)

------
DanielBMarkham
This is an article to save and come back 20 years and read.

~~~
buckbova
And in 20 years there'll be a whole new set of doomsday predictions and
this'll be forgotten.

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=earth%20day%20do...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=earth%20day%20doomsday%20predictions#hl=en&q=earth+day+wrong|worst+predictions)

~~~
Oletros
Funny thing is that NONE of the links are scientific papers

------
golergka
Why is a world war, swiftly reducing populations and industrial output, is
never considered among the solutions?

While horrifying, it is still better than total extinction.

~~~
mac01021
It's not better than total extinction for those who die in the war.

Also, how do you know it is never considered among the solutions?

~~~
golergka
> It's not better than total extinction for those who die in the war.

But it's better totally.

> Also, how do you know it is never considered among the solutions?

Never seen it discussed.

~~~
mac01021
Say we want to reduce our emissions 1/10 of their current rate. This would not
be enough for long term climate stability but, if we did it soon, would
greatly push back our deadline on elimination the other 10% to avert the bulk
of the forecasted catastrophe.

There are two ways to reduce humanity's rate of CO2 emissions:

1\. Reduce the number of people emitting CO2. 2\. Reduce the amount of CO2
that each person emits.

You're complaining that noone ever considers option 1 which, as an approach to
our desired 90% reduction in emissions requires that we kill off 90% of the
world's population? Even for those lucky enough to be among the surviving 10%,
fallout from the war and the loss of the other 90% will constitute a
tremendous cost in terms of their standard of living. And it won't leave those
survivors in a great position to figure out the (still necessary) elimination
of their remaining emissions rate.

I, for one, am unlikely to be in the 10%, and hope this approach is dismissed
by those with the power to enact it.

------
thesmallestcat
Well, one of the clearest consequences of global warming is that an entire
continent becomes habitable as well as a large part of the northern Canada and
Russia. Everything I've read about global warming indicates an _increase_ in
arable land even when accounting for desertification.

~~~
gilbetron
From the article:

"Pollyannaish plant physiologists will point out that the cereal-crop math
applies only to those regions already at peak growing temperature, and they
are right — theoretically, a warmer climate will make it easier to grow corn
in Greenland. But as the pathbreaking work by Rosamond Naylor and David
Battisti has shown, the tropics are already too hot to efficiently grow grain,
and those places where grain is produced today are already at optimal growing
temperature — which means even a small warming will push them down the slope
of declining productivity. And you can’t easily move croplands north a few
hundred miles, because yields in places like remote Canada and Russia are
limited by the quality of soil there; it takes many centuries for the planet
to produce optimally fertile dirt."

~~~
thesmallestcat
In the very long term, how can you dispute the benefit of human expansion in
Antarctica? Humans have thrived in times when there was little glaciation and
suffered in times of increased glaciation. The only benefit of glaciers is
that we're accustomed to the climate they promote. I have no doubt that
mankind could adjust to and thrive in a world without glaciers. It's
ridiculous how afraid humans are to engineer their planet compared to a
century ago.

~~~
sgt101
I think Antarctica is 1/2 the size of North America. You have a house of
400m^2, I present you with a house of 100m^2 and invite you to consider the
upside.

~~~
thesmallestcat
It's not a trade though, especially with most/all of Canada and Alaska
becoming livable. Not to mention unrelated benefits. like year-round arctic
navigation and safer navigation around Antarctica

