
What Changed My Mind About Climate Change - smacktoward
https://thebulwark.com/what-changed-my-mind-about-climate-change/
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ggm
I'm interested in this because the Cato institute along with Koch, is one of
the main reasons AGW is disputed outside of the competent scientists.

Having somebody from inside the tent walk out and say why they changed their
mind is informative.

its as informative as (say) a Blockchain fanatic coming up for air and saying
"nope. nothing there" or a ML person saying "nope"

I found this interesting.

Obviously, its charged. I wonder if they will flip back too, but I take it on
advisement.

A public commitment/mea-culpa is actually interesting.

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wrs
I don’t know what to say about this except: duh. If you weren’t thinking about
risk management, what _were_ you thinking about?

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Agustus
Politics and graft.

Look at California, the state claims to have climate change risks, yet when
they apply for bonds, this is not listed. Politicians will bend over backwards
for easy political points especially if it is for a golden goose political
moment, looking at Solyndra and Tesla’s buffalo plant. And if a donor gets a
ton of money then win win win, still Solyndra.

The point is that you have a very sensitive issue that has politics in it that
cause money to be wasted. If we are going to be honest about climate
affectation then we need to be honest about solutions in the engineering
profession: nuclear until fusion arrives, because renewables are not going to
work from a storage perspective.

Then finally, what do we do about developing nations, if you are going to tell
China “no coal plants.” Explain the enforcement procedures to solve this
issue, are we willing to go to war to stop a risk versus the risk of nuclear
Armageddon or societal collapse?

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xbmcuser
Exxon correctly predicted global warming and by how much in 1982 so people
still making excuses about the science are being dishonest.
[https://earther.gizmodo.com/exxon-
predicted-2019-s-ominous-c...](https://earther.gizmodo.com/exxon-
predicted-2019-s-ominous-co2-milestone-in-1982-1834748763) Very smart people
predicted correctly what was going to happen but they buried it for making
money. So an article about how the calculations might still be wrong or on the
high side is bullshit being spread by the same people that have been denying
global warming for decades. First it was the climate is not getting warmer
then it was the warming is not caused by humans now it is that the
calculations are wrong and the climate wont get as warm as being predicted.
Oil companies like Exxon have spent billions to fuck up the debate on climate
change by different arguments to be able to sell as much oil and for as long
as possible.

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nkurz
Could those who helped flag this submission to death please add a comment
about why they feel the article is inappropriate for discussion on HN? I
thought it offered a good explanation for why a precautionary principle is
appropriate for "nondiversifiable risks".

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jgamman
can't speak for the people who flagged it but for me personally - someone who
made their living for many years denying climate change has now flipped to a
new narrative of 'risk'. i just assume that he's shilling for the status quo
in a new way i haven't got the energy to figure out - probably some sort of
predatory delay or hawking a financial con.

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JeanMarcS
I agree with most comments here on the hypocrit side of this particular
person, based on their history.

Yet, I think this is a pretty good way to try to make climate change sceptics
to stop being so close minded.

Not on a political level, of course, but more on daily basis discussions.

I can’t count the number of time I hear / read « The earth already had warming
cycle, this one is not different » from people, perhaps less educated.

Here in France, we have a protest that started 6 months ago because government
wanted to add a « Green » tax on oil. The « climate change doesn’t exists so
there is no need » was heard several times...

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pintxo
TLDR: Value at risk is humanity as we know it. Probability of occurrence is
significantly above zero. Cost of unmitigated occurrence is >> cost of
unnecessary mitigation. Therefore we should act now.

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pintxo
It’s pretty much my view on GW from the beginning of me thinking about it.

The stakes are high, acting now and reducing our impact on the environment
would be costly, but provide immediate health benefits (clean air, water ...)
and reduce the long term effects of GW / reduce the probability of severe
outcomes.

Never understood why this was not a standard argument.

