
Europe has had five 500-year summers in 15 years - tegeek
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/europe-has-had-five-500-year-summers-in-15-years/
======
pier25
This is a great video that explains how climate change is slowing the jet
stream and how that is affecting the climate:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQliow4ghtU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQliow4ghtU)

~~~
edejong
This kind of rhetoric is _fueling_ the opposite camp. It really doesn't matter
which camp you are in: we should admit to the vagueness this video is full of:
"some scientists believe...", "this scientist thinks...", "there is at least
some influence of...".

It reemphasizes the climate sceptists standpoints. They (most) are not denying
there is a problem, but claiming there is widespread misinformation and
propaganda around this topic and a strong exaggeration of the scale of the
problem.

We have a kernel of truth around climate change. Let us cherish the kernel,
instead of watering it down by popular media and scientists trying to jump the
bandwagon by making vaguely substantiated claims.

~~~
pier25
There is no misinformation or propaganda in this video.

The indisputable observable facts are:

1) The polar jet stream is slowing down.

2) This creates meandering air currents which produced the current heatwave in
Europe and the so called polar vortexes in the US.

~~~
edejong
"Scientists are finding that as temperatures in the arctic rise, changes here
may be contributing to extreme weather thousands of miles away."

keyword: _may_. This statement tells us nothing new. Everyone already knows
that local changes in climate have global effects. That's why we have global
climate models.

(cue: extreme forest fires, partly caused by mismanagement of forests)

"Temperatures are rising in the world, but the warming is strongest in the
arctic."

Nothing new.

"Here the warming is twice as fast as the global average."

Interesting: we know that the polar jet has been slowing since the 60's, but
the warming of the arctic seems to be equal to global warming in the first
part of this graph. Also, very shoddy time-series analysis, imho.

"And that's causing the ice to vanish."

"...international group of researchers who've come North to see how it has
been rapidly changing."

So here I really wonder. Why would you do that? We've got great sensor
networks and satellite measurements.

"Without the ice, more water evaporates, contributing to more greenhouse
gasses."

True, but locally. Increased cloud cover also has a net negative effect. It
really depends on a complex interplay and requires a sophisticated simulation.

"Some scientists think this is supercharging extreme weather across the
world."

This seems highly hypothetical. Why not make a factual claim, such as:
"Scientists have proven this actively contributes to the number of extreme
weather events."

"Call atmospheric scientist... who explains how the polar jet stream effected
the US this past winter."

"There was a huge northward swing in the jet stream over the west coast,
bringing lots of warm air over Alaska."

So, this is true, but the jet streams are not constant, and have never been.
Connecting it with a slowing down of that stream is intentionally left to the
viewer.

... news report ...

"Took a southward drive over the rockies and dipped way down into Florida."

... another news report, claiming that such events have happened in the
past??? Wouldn't that debunk this line of thinking? ...

"At times 20 degrees above average, and warmer than NY city."

These local fluxes of temperature are normal in this region.

... more claims of the jet stream, causing problems. No scientific claims,
however, just news reporting. ...

"Tokyo had its coldest day in 48 years." So what happened about 48 years ago?

"Some prominent climate researchers are skeptical."

Good for them. We'd better be.

"Scientists can't definitively say whether any one weather event was caused by
the warming Arctic, conditions elsewhere, or by random chance."

So, this is one of two scientific claims. At this point I am wondering why I
just watched 4 minutes of melting ice bergs.

"But Francis and others think the warming Arctic is loading the dice for
extreme weather."

Think? What does that mean? They don't agree with the other scientists? Have
they found proof?

"FRANCIS: We can confidently say that some amount of the increase in extreme
weather that we're seeing, is because of climate change."

So... eh, what about the jet stream? The arctic? I agree with this statement,
because... it is obviously true! When global temperatures rise, we obviously
get more droughts and more extreme temperatures.

KINTICH: "One thing is for sure, extreme weather in North America is occurring
more often."

And the relationship to the Arctic? The jet stream? Tell me more!

"Climate scientists have given this phenomenon a new name: cold arctic, warm
continents."

But, this has always been the case! This does not automatically prove the
opposite.

... summary ...

So my conclusion: nothing new has been said! The only true statement is that
we cannot conclude anything yet.

Now, multiply these kind of videos by hundreds, and you might start to
understand why certain people are getting tired. Stick to the facts! The facts
are scary enough as they stand.

~~~
tempguy9999
> keyword: may

Because saying 'they do' is setting an extremely high bar. It would be saying
the matter's settled, and some people will not accept any level of evidence.
Even a very few climate scientists don't, as you yourself recognise.

> Why not make a factual claim, such as: "Scientists have proven this actively
> contributes to the number of extreme weather events."

Ditto. If you are saying these things, what 'proof' would you find
incontrovertible?

I don't understand your post, it talks about 'proof' in a way that scientists
would be very wary of doing outside mathematics.

To "Temperatures are rising in the world, but the warming is strongest in the
arctic." you respond "Nothing new" so you seem to be accepting climate change
is happening

You then quote "Some prominent climate researchers are skeptical" and respond
"Good for them. We'd better be" so you seem to think strong doubt is
appropriate about climate change.

Which is it?

I can't even tell if you've any qualifications in this area (you may well
have), and whether you accept or reject anthropogenic climate change, could
you elaborate please?

~~~
edejong
I intentionally leave my position on climate change out of the discussion,
because it is irrelevant. Also, my qualifications on this topic, how little I
might have, should not interfere with finding common grounds. However, if it
helps, I do not have any ties with scientific research, pro, or contra groups
wrt climate change.

The situation is painted black and white by popular media and social websites.
There are, however, many shades of gray. Most climate scientists are not on
either end. However, due to duplicitous media coverage the discussion is
quickly polarizing.

The polarization is the bigger issue. For example, we can agree global warming
is happening and we can agree this causes increasingly extreme weather
conditions. However, there are many secondary and tertiary effects. These,
alleviating or contributing to global warming, are not part of our climate
models.

Instead of jumping to conclusions, we should acknowledge the limitations of
our understanding and our scientific findings. The foundation (IPCC climate
models) should be discussed. Where are they accurate? How can they be
improved? Does it help us predict local climate change, so we can prepare
migrations and structural changes?

~~~
tempguy9999
Thanks for the answer. I notice that you have not stated, per my request, what
type or quantity of evidence you would need before accepting climate change as
incontrovertible ie. _proof_ of climate change.

> Also, my qualifications on this topic, how little I might have, should not
> interfere with finding common grounds.

You tell me which is more valuable: the testimony of an expert, or of someone
with no qualifications? I think the former - do you disagree?

> The situation is painted black and white by popular media and social
> websites.

My fear is we're quite possibly terribly damaging the planetary ecosystem.
That's pretty black and white to me.

> Most climate scientists are not on either end.

If you are going to claim this, please back this up when you say it. Claims
without references are useless.

[https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-
conse...](https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-
intermediate.htm) \- "Depending on exactly how you measure the expert
consensus, it’s somewhere between 90% and 100% that agree humans are
responsible for climate change, with most of our studies finding 97% consensus
among publishing climate scientists."

<[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-06-15/97-per...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-06-15/97-percent-
consensus-on-climate-change-it-s-complicated>) \- a more careful look at those
figures.

> due to duplicitous media coverage

duplicitous - please justify that.

> However, there are many secondary and tertiary effects. These, alleviating
> or contributing to global warming, are not part of our climate models.

These being...? Specifically? I actually need to know these because I take a
(non expert) interest in climate models. It's actually tangentially related to
my current job.

> Instead of jumping to conclusions

At some point we have to accept or reject a hypothesis that we're putting
ourselves at enormous risk. Or we can keep putting it off until we find out
for sure whether that lump is or isn't cancer, by which may be too late.

~~~
edejong
There does not need to be a 'quantity' of evidence. Merely that the evidence
can be refuted (not taken at face value). A 'proof' is what I associate in
popular media with scientific evidence. 'Think' is code-word for:
hypothesizes. Especially when the weasel words 'may', 'might', 'could' appear.

W.r.t. qualifications I think the answer should be obvious. I am addressing
(as a layman) the mode of communication as it appears in popular media, and
try to distance myself from the contents of whatever is communicated.

> My fear is we're quite possibly terribly damaging the planetary ecosystem.
> That's pretty black and white to me.

Yes, that fear is on my mind as well. There is irrefutable evidence in coral
bleaching and there are other globally occurring phenomenon. And because of
that, we need to be extra careful on how we convince our fellow earthlings.

> > Most climate scientists are not on either end.

> If you are going to claim this, please back this up when you say it. Claims
> without references are useless.

Well, it depends on how you define 'the ends'. There are those who believe we
are all going to die within a decade. There are those who reject _all_
evidence. There are those who believe it is irreversible and those who think
we are able to cope.

So, this is on the predicted effects of climate change and its extend. Most
models are relatively accurate globally, but subcontinental predictions can
still be way off (2-5 degrees either way).

In my opinion, the media goes either way: left wing brings us doom and gloom
scenario's, while right wing paints a rosy picture. That should be a clear
sign that we are not making progress. We should be finding common ground! I
believe the viewership still has common ground, but the media is creating a
Babylonian tower.

Then there is the whole discussion about what to do about it. People come up
with all kinds of ideas, such as carbon tax (how to deal with CO_2 from
imported products), solar panels (could be a real option, but requires heavy
investing in infrastructure), biomass, political and diplomatic approaches,
underground storage, etc.

And each of these approaches comes with another doom-and-gloom story,
connected with these 'solutions'. Consider what it does for the non-scientific
oriented population. Climate is now seen by many as a means to push products.
Many switch to ignore mode.

Take this [1] article in National Geographic for example. It's all due to
climate change! Not a word on bad forest management, bad water management,
increased population density and more. It's outright duplicitous to not
mention the other factors. And it's also sad, because the 'opponent camp' can
now point at these articles and say: "You see! This is what they feed you!".
Global warming is calculated to be around 24% accountable for these wild-
fires.

> > However, there are many secondary and tertiary effects.

> These being...? Specifically?

Precipitation is still very difficult to model. Increased temperature means
increased evaporation, increased cloud cover and increased precipitation. It
depends on what kind of cloud cover is generated whether this will have a net
cooling or heating effect.

Another factor is the mixing of salt and sweet water, which due to the melting
of the polar ice has effects that, if I'm not mistaken, is not yet precisely
modeled.

We can accept that we are putting ourselves at risk. However, I am sure we
will come to the right conclusion faster if we let people make their own
conclusions and not make this into a polarizing shouting match.

[1]
[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/clima...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/climate-
change-california-wildfire/)

------
sytelus
I am really starting to worry about climate change but not because of sea
level rising or other popular reasons. The big issue that no one is talking
about is that the world’s densely populated areas closer to equator are having
agriculture yields starting diminish due to high temperatures and land
becoming more and more dessert like. In places like North America, Europe and
even Siberia, the weather is becoming much more pleasant longer parts of the
year and farms are appearing on scene where it was unimaginable few centuries
ago. The most productive agriculture band is moving more north up leaving
massive population it previously helped grow behind. This is certain to create
crises we have never seen before.

~~~
A2017U1
Also a schism between those who benefit somewhat and those who don't.

For many countries this is also a domestic divide rather than the traditional
nationalism soaked debate that most people or news orgs focus on.

Southern US stands to lose a lot more from the charts I've seen. Surprised it
isn't raised a lot more by their representatives.

~~~
pas
"Charts" don't matter much in politics.

------
FreeFull
It feels like we're at a point where simply dropping emissions down to 0
wouldn't be enough, we need to outright start pulling CO2 out of the
atmosphere and have negative emissions. Given the way politics is right now,
catastrophe feels inevitable.

~~~
reustle
On the topic of CO2, I recently learned some surprising numbers in a reddit
thread [0] about a nonprofit hitting the 250 million planted trees mark.

One top comment said "Over the next 40 years, (those 250 million tress) will
absorb about as much carbon as the United States emits in a week."

[0]
[https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/c6lj7u/nonprofit_pl...](https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/c6lj7u/nonprofit_plants_250_million_trees_to_combat/)

~~~
ForHackernews
So what? Trees don't live forever. As soon as they die and rot, that CO2 is
right back in the atmosphere. This is not a real plan, it's some feelgood
video clickbait.

~~~
javagram
We can chop down the trees and landfill them to prevent the carbon from being
released back into the atmosphere. Of course, with that we are talking about
re-doing millions of years of prehistorical carbon capture by the earth.

~~~
NikkiA
And how much carbon does the forestry and digging equipment to do all that
generate? That's one of the problems. Yes, growing trees and 'discarding' the
wood is a way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but we have to do it in an
efficient way, and we're not there yet.

------
NeedMoreTea
The whole idea of normal and the basis on which 1:500 and 1:1,000 events are
built is starting to feel well past expiry date. We've had no end of them in
the 21st century, whether cat 5 hurricanes, flood, fire or as in this case
summers. It's not normal now, it's before we broke it, and normal is starting
to sound and feel archaic.

After 5 in 15 years, and on course for a sixth, the benchmark looks way off.
At what point should it simply become a 1:3 year summer, or just "summer"?

How deniers can experience it and keep acting like nothing's happening beats
me.

~~~
yjhoney
> How __anyone __can experience it and keep acting like nothing 's happening
> beats me.

I look around my workplace, nobody seems to be compelled to change their
lifestyle. Nobody seems to mind using a disposable cup every day, buying
latest gadgets they don't need, talking about traveling to new places, etc.

I bought people on my team reusable coffee mugs to reduce the amount of
disposable waste, but inevitably they get too lazy to clean it and they are
back on disposable cups.

~~~
konschubert
Using a re-usable cup in the face of climate change is like passing by a
burning house, spitting into the fire and feeling good for having helped.

We need political action and economic incentives. Individuals changing their
lifestyle isn’t going to accomplish anything.

~~~
edejong
What would happen if we would publish each individual estimated CO_2 emissions
of the past year? You'd be obliged to place it under your emails, on your
Facebook and LinkedIn account and it'll be placed squarely on your WhatsApp
photos. No way to hide it.

Published CO_2 emissions would include an estimation of the total CO_2
emissions estimates of the complete production flow of each product you buy,
the distance you travel for work and all other energy consumption.

Would that incentivize people?

(for the purpose of this argument, assume we can actually make such an
estimate)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
I'd be delighted if that were to happen, impractical though it might be. Only
if every product and company had to do the same, including all their
externalities. That would both incentivise and _enable_ people to shop and
invest wisely. Colour code and grade them just like EU energy efficiency
labels - which were so successful in pushing to higher efficiency they had to
re-rate them all.

Right now it's almost impossible to know the impact of what you buy, or which
is better. Or how the impact of some produce available year round varies
across the year. I _know_ buying a lettuce in winter is going to have larger
impact than in summer, but I have no way to quantify it.

It would also be an excellent starting point for building a carbon tax, that
could slowly escalate to punitive.

~~~
edejong
There is complete accounting in the food chain. It is precisely known where
your lettuce was grown, when and how it was transported, stored, frozen,
thawed and placed in the supermarket. It is even known who's picking it up
from the shelves and paying for it.

The only problem is: the general public knows nothing of this!

~~~
NeedMoreTea
I'm sure that's the case in most industries. They know what they buy, sell,
who they outsource to etc. Lenovo and Apple know where their laptops were
made, which bits and what raw materials or suppliers they used.

All we need is to derive the impact from each step, and some helpful way to
present it. For presentation we know approaches that work. So it's really just
requiring the carbon/impact accounting - and penalties for fraud. :)

Then we can decide if we're better off, environmentally, buying a Thinkpad, a
Macbook, or a Mac Mini with LG monitor. Whether to pass on those out of season
lettuces, or should really be concerned about something making more impact.
All we can do right now is guess for just about everything.

------
spookybones
And the award for best headline goes to ...

~~~
mhh__
It made sense to me?

Is it an obscure idiom (Native English speaker, so hard to tell)?

~~~
baal80spam
I'm confused, how do you know the summers in question have been the hottest,
not the coldest for example?

~~~
happytoexplain
Assumption - corroborated by reading the article. That's often unavoidable by
the nature of headlines. The fact that the headline writer successfully
communicated the correct assumption means they did their job.

------
djohnston
Pessimistically, global warming is going to kill us. You might as well install
that window unit in Munich and be comfortable for the next few decades.

~~~
mshook
Except there's another wide cultural gap when it comes to windows: in Europe
you almost never find windows which open by raising a pane vertically...

And that means window units are not an option.

~~~
hombre_fatal
There are wall mounted duct-pipe and ductless air conditioners. They aren't as
efficient, but they work. They are the most common A/C units I've seen here in
Mexico.

So if you don't have A/C, it's certainly not because you physically can't. I
personally get by with a fan.

Though I definitely have culture shock when I return to Texas and remember
people will have their A/C on 24/7 at 69F.

~~~
zw123456
I live in Seattle and I finally broke down and bought a window unit but my
windows open horizontally (Honeywell MN10CESWW), the unit I got is actually
floor one with rollers so I can stow it in a closet when not in use, and it
has a duct that connects to a vertical thing that goes in the window. I never
thought I would need one, I have lived here my whole life but now we have 3 or
4 weeks a year where it is just unbearable so I use it to cool my bedroom.
Just Crazy.

------
KyleOS
It's scary seeing the evolution of the effects of climate change over time.
How anybody can continue to deny it is unbelievable. This [1] plots out global
average temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, month by month.

[1] [https://kyso.io/KyleOS/temperature](https://kyso.io/KyleOS/temperature)

------
point78
Overpopulation is not helping either. Would it be this bad if there were only
500million people?

~~~
f_allwein
Depends on which 500 million... Wealthy people in industrialised countries
tend to produce much more CO2. Compare e.g the us versus India at
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions)
. With China, I guess a lot of the CO2 comes from making stuff for everyone
else.

------
jammygit
I wonder what one could do to help with this as a startup. Most of the green
tech is expensive and/or can’t compete with oil and gas subsidies. Education
will take too long at this point.

Who would pitch in to help me build a giant Mr Burns sun blocker in space?

~~~
zapita
I think we (the tech and business community) need to face the uncomfortable
reality: that the world needs us to be better citizens more than it needs us
to be genius entrepreneurs.

If everyone on this site simply 1) exercised their right to vote fully, 2)
invested enough research time to make sure their vote helps fight global
heating, in even a tiny way, and 3) made one change per month, no matter how
small, in their individual routine in a way that diminishes their contribution
to global heating...

... That would contribute more to saving the world than all our “world-saving”
startups combined.

But that would require admitting that we’re not as special as we think we are,
which is hard.

~~~
zaroth
What makes you think this? Can you give even ballpark numbers for how many
tones of CO2 your #1/2/3 would save over ten years?

Compared to a visionary engineering team raising let’s say $100 million to
push forward new methods of sequestration?

YC has specifically called for startups in this field. Startups like SKH are
pushing to get sequestration under $100 per tonne — compared to US per capita
average of 20 tones, of which 8.5 tones is considered “innate” just for living
in the US...

So while the absolute maximum personal impact an individual can have is around
10 tones, cost effective sequestration is _the path forward_ to pricing and
taxing carbon.

Once we have a reasonable sequestration cost, we can charge everyone and
everything for their own emissions and use that money to actually negate it.

At current rates it would be ~$3,000 per capita which is still politically
untenable. But at $300 per capital it becomes trivial. Somewhere in the middle
in there it becomes economically and politically possible to actually
eliminate the entire carbon emissions of the US, without even having to ask
anyone to change their footprint.

So the question is what’s more important to you? Moralistically preaching to
everyone how they should be living their lives, or actually reaching zero net
emissions?

For example, you don’t need to eliminate international travel in order to
eliminate the carbon footprint of international travel.

~~~
zapita
Your reply is actually a perfect illustration of the problem.

Sure, we need to ramp up carbon capture capabilities, and we need to do it
fast. That is a great challenge for the tech industry to tackle.

However.

Carbon capture is not a silver bullet. At best, it is a short-term fix which
can buy us time to actually fix the root cause of global heating. To state the
obvious: the root cause is unsustainable extraction and ignition of fossil
fuels. Carbon capture does _nothing_ to address that root cause! In fact, it
may end up making things worse in the long run, if we insist on over-selling
it as a silver bullet - like you're doing right now.

Did you know that when you build more freeways to alleviate traffic
congestion, you actually make traffic worse? And did you know that after
decades of scaling up "plastic capture" capabilities in the form of consumer
recycling, we have basically nothing to show for it? There's no evidence that
it has made a dent in the production of new plastic. In fact plastic
production has accelerated: we've produced as much plastic globally in the
last 13 years than in the 54 years before that.

Building more freeways, over-selling plastic recycling, and over-selling
carbon capture are all examples of the same flawed reasoning. They are short-
term patches to fundamentally unsustainable systems, and when we allow them to
become substitutes to an actual solution, they actually make our problem worse
down the line.

Which brings me to my criticism of the tech industry's priorities.
Collectively, we are one of wealthiest and most influential groups of people
on the planet. Our resources are immense, therefore our responsibility to
allocate our resources wisely is also immense. And we are failing miserably in
that responsibility, because although we are investing plenty of resources in
short-term fixes like carbon capture, our investment in fixing the real
structural problem (again: unsustainable extraction and ignition of fossil
fuels) are basically ZERO.

The reason we're failing is simple: carbon capture can be solved with
technology and venture capital. Those are things we understand, and
conveniently they allow us to keep doing what we like to do while telling
ourselves we are saving the world. On the other hand, solving the root cause
of global heating requires dismantling the fossil fuel industrial complex. The
biggest obstacle to doing that is political corruption, which no amount of
technology or venture capital can solve. The way we fight corruption is by
becoming better citizens. That requires things like: voting; researching
issues and candidates thoroughly; protesting; calling our representatives;
showing up at town hall meetings; informing our friends and family about
important political issues; getting other people to vote; etc. Unfortunately,
most techies do none of those things. Political apathy is the norm. Even
worse, remember that the tech industry played a direct role in Brexit and
Trump's election, both of which are catastrophic setbacks in the fight against
global heating.

I am not "moralistically preaching" as you call it. I am simply describing a
pragmatic strategy to solving global heating. Unfortunately it's neither fun
not profitable to make the effort to be a better citizen, so techies just
don't bother. This makes us collectively part of the problem rather than the
solution, and I think that's a shame.

 _PS: for the sake of completeness, here are other catastrophic consequences
of fossil fuel emissions which carbon capture won 't solve:

\- rampant plastic pollution (remember, plastic comes from oil)

\- mercury poisoning of the entire oceanic food chain (did you know that most
of the mercury accumulating in the ocean comes from the fumes of coal plants?)

\- the rise of fascist regimes in the US and Europe, bankrolled in great part
by the Koch brothers in the US and Putin's oligarchs in Russia - in both case
that is oil money

\- the rise of violent Salafist groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Boko Haram,
bankrolled by Saudi Arabia - also oil money.

\- countless oil spills;

I could go on._

