Warning Signals for Collapse of The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation(nature.com)

269 pointsby Kaibeezyقبل 5 سنوات248 comments

nature.com

Warning Signals for Collapse of The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01097-4.epdf

264 comments

macintuxقبل 5 سنوات

Discussed here:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28078575

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28082887

vaylianقبل 5 سنوات

The current thread seems to point to the underlying paper.

ghcقبل 5 سنوات

Ironically I submitted a link to the original paper but the mods (in their infinite wisdom) changed my submission to point at a guardian article.

koheripbalقبل 5 سنوات

Only the first page is visible with the current nature.com link.

Kaibeezyقبل 5 سنوات

Nature must have changed it. Worked fine when posted.

I'm curious as to why this primary source post was flagged/dropped as a dupe, yet several secondary news articles remained posted. I usually scan or search HN before posting, didn't see any of those.

In any event, it's clearly a story of real interest to this community.

nynxقبل 5 سنوات

What do I even do with this information? Something I haven’t seen articles or research about is how to psychologically cope with the slow collapse of our ecology.

EDIT: To the people saying to get a house where climate change will be as minimal as possible: As a young person, I probably will never be able to own a house. I rent. If I’m living in a place where climate change has less effect, landlords will raise the price of rent dramatically and I won’t be able to live there anymore.

Lutgerقبل 5 سنوات

I'm not sure, honestly. I don't have any references but there definitely is research about anxiety and depression caused by climate collapse. I know at least one psychotherapy professor (Netherlands) who specializes in this. There's a lot of literature. One of the terms often used is eco-anxiety.

The single best advice is to put limitations on your consumption of climate news. But it's highly personal, some people turn to activism to cope, facing the problem head-on. I did that, but it's very depressing honestly.

A powerful image my wife likes to use is sitting at a loved one's deathbed. You don't have hope, you know he or she is going to die, but that makes the remaining time extra special. We are all sitting at the deathbed of the world as we know it. That makes the time we have left extra precious. And we're running out of time.

jjoonathanقبل 5 سنوات

Powerful image but bad analogy. The climate does not have a well defined "death" state, unless you water down the definition of "death" so much that it becomes meaningless, i.e. by defining death as change. If you insist on doing this and then get mired in fatalism... realize that the fatalism was rooted in this choice, and maybe reconsider it.

Since we don't have the collective willpower to stop pushing the climate, it's definitely going to change, so we're just going to have to adapt. The bad news is that it will involve a staggering amount of destruction and violence as everybody tries to avoid bagholding. The good news is that humans are really, really good at adapting. Staggeringly good.

If you look at the history of doomsday predictions -- I'd suggest the Malthusians, since they were rooted in science and rationality but still managed to be very wrong on a large number of issues -- you'll note that their biggest mistake is underestimating adaptability. It's reeeealllllly easy to extrapolate some lines and say "this can't go on, it's going to break, the world will end" and be correct on the first 2 points but wrong on the 3rd. Don't underestimate human adaptability. It's not an optimistic long shot to think that we will adapt. Adaptation is who we are, it's what we do, and we are good at it.

Lutgerقبل 5 سنوات

Well, the imagery is intended more as an emotional way of coping with grief than a precise conceptual tool. But to be a bit more exact, the way I interpret death is not literally extinction of us as a species, but the deaths of many individuals, animals and our way of life 'as we know it'. Reducing this to mere change seems wrong - it ignores the aspect of loss which isn't exactly the same as change, so I don't find that meaningless or watered down at all.

Honestly I personally don't really care about whether humans go extinct or not. I don't find the existence of us as a species intrinsically valuable, even though I do find individual life, when it's there, very valuable. It's the suffering I'm concerned about. That's why the adaptation story doesn't do very much for me.

toss1قبل 5 سنوات

I used to be there on adaptability too, and thinking that (on a historical or geological timescale) this is just a bad spot we're going though before we get to more sustainable technologies.

And we WILL get to more sustainable technologies because we must, by the laws of physics - that which cannot be sustained, will not be sustained.

My much more open questions now are whether we will get there in time. Humans really suck at understanding systems, and responding in appropriate timescales - especially when the effects involve exponential growth/decay or tipping-point phenomena. Add to that entrenched commercial and political interests who actively poison the well, and we could be doomed.

As a small example, just look at what the Republicans did over COVID - literally spoke out against scientifically based vaccines and countermeasures as a political ploy to make the other side fail - even though the risk, and now the fact, is that it will literally kill thousands of their own constituents, and even with record hospitalizations and deaths, the R FL gov is threatening school funding for any school that requires masks. Scale this up to decades of climate disinformation and anti-progress lobbying... Even Toyota is lobbying to slow progress because they bet on the wrong technology.

So many links in the ecological chain are being broken that it is looking ever more likely that several tipping points will be reached before we reach sustainable economies. Once a tipping point is reached, no amount of sustainability will reverse it -- we'd have to actively repair all the damage more rapidly than it can spread. Think permafrost melting and releasing gigatons of methane into the atmosphere ~22X more powerful a greenhouse gas vs CO2. It's already happening.

I'm not sure, but I'm no longer as optimistic as I was.

chiefalchemistقبل 5 سنوات

> Humans really suck at understanding systems, and responding in appropriate timescales - especially when the effects involve exponential growth/decay or tipping-point phenomena.

We're capable of understanding. What we continue to fail at is priorities, as well as focus. That is, it's difficult to imagine the future and how you as an individual can make an impact when the systems are designed to keep you on The Distraction Diet. Whether that's Keeping up with The Kardashians or some other form of random low-relevance events presented as news.

toss1قبل 5 سنوات

Sure, the top few percent of the intelligence scale get systems just fine. The average college educated person finds complex systems thinking, well, complex. Huge swathes of the electorate find it so confusing that they are easily fooled by BS arguments, disinformation and lies, and vote emphatically directly against their own self interest.

Id say that once it gets down to a level of intelligence where the person can tolerate the existence of the distraction diet (well-said!), they are below the level of systems thinking.

As Einstein said: "Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is why so few people do it.".

cmurfقبل 5 سنوات

My takeaway from the metaphor is not the end of earth, or even the human species. But a significant reduction in population. Anytime habitat is lost, people starve and migrate. Not all starve. Not all migrate. We will have migration induced conflicts, not everyone who migrates will survive. Not everyone who stays in a comfort zone will be immune from the reality of resource shortages.

Our economics and political systems have no answer to long term negative growth. They assume growth, the occasional recession is a big problem but can be mitigated.

theplague42قبل 5 سنوات

tl;dr just ignore it?

rytisقبل 5 سنوات

> The single best advice is to put limitations on your consumption of climate news.

I'm not sure if this is a good advice. It's like hiding in the woods, but once you're out, you'll be in for a massive shock.

May be that's better than gradual adaptation? I don't know.

Lutgerقبل 5 سنوات

That's why I said limit, not ignore. If you update your knowledge once or twice every month you know enough of what's going on.

Robotbeatقبل 5 سنوات

Let it spur you to action. I’ve started to reduce beef consumption, eat more vegetarian, replaced fossil fueled cars with electric, replaced flights with my family to see extended family with road trips in an electric car (at high occupancy, this is an extremely efficient mode of transport). Next steps are adding some solar power and transitioning my house’s gas heater to electric heat pump. Started planting trees and offsetting the rest of my carbon with planting trees. (I already live in a dense housing area, which is helpful.)

Of course, as one person, this does little. But I’ve convinced about 5 other people to go from gasoline to electric for their cars. And taking solid personal steps to address climate change (without the highly ascetic lifestyle, which isn’t as attractive to many) helps give your calls for policy action more intellectual and moral authority. Taking action, beyond “flee for your lives!”, is effective in mustering the political and mental energy we’ll need to address climate change, both in the preventative sense and in the adaption sense.

Burning fossil fuels right now for our society is a choice. The biggest struggle is convincing everyone, from the public to activists to politicians and other leaders, that it really is a choice and that real, attractive alternatives exist.

It is actively important NOT to cast the solution as something that requires massive societal sacrifice but instead firm, decisive action and hard work. Ultimately, our action sets the stage for luxurious abundance for all, to a level not possible with fossil fuels, while also rewilding the Earth and making most of the Earth’s surface into beautiful National Parks and reserves.

We’ve delayed action at this point that climate change will cause damage, but it is absolutely in our hands to what extent we’ll prevent more and then heal that damage and set the stage for both human abundance and a thriving Gaia.

dvhقبل 5 سنوات

If you replaced your car with electric one, your consumption is at least 10x bigger than mine (assuming you bought $40k Tesla). In 2020 I've spent €4112.09 on everything. Every dollar spent is eventually converted to carbon dioxide, if you spend 10x more, you produced 10x more carbon dioxide. Lower your consumption, that's the only way to save this planet.

_huayra_قبل 5 سنوات

I really wish there was a cost-effective way to rent some of these low-usage, but high-carbon items like cars. I really don't want to own a car. I barely use it because WFH + public transport + company shuttle handles most of my day-to-day. However, it is difficult to do some outdoor sports in the US without one (e.g. rock climbing, mountain biking, skiing). I have a Subaru in my garage on a trickle charger to keep the battery fresh only for these kinds of things.

I wish I could avoid having to insure, register, and worry about this stupid investment, not to mention the guilt from having this barely-used thing expanding my carbon footprint.

However, the math on renting a car every weekend that has all-wheel drive still just doesn't work out, not to mention the hassle of retrieving and returning it.

I don't like the "you will own nothing and be happy" way things are going, but I could definitely do that with a car if the economics wouldn't be so rapacious.

thomas2718قبل 5 سنوات

Probably I could spend less and still have a relatively big impact on the climate. I would just buy a lot of methane and release it into the atmosphere. Assuming [1] is correct, I could get 4t of CH4 for less than 4000€. According to the IPCC AR5, 1t of CH4 is equivalent to 28t of CO2. So I could "easily" have a climate impact of 112t CO2e. This is more than 22 times the global average of CO2e emissions per capita.

My point is that one Euro can have a huge or a small impact on the climate. Nevertheless there are some studies that wealthy people produce more CO2e because of their higher consumption. Everyone should reduce their consumption to what's really necessary. For a real change though, we would need better laws, and people that lobby for them. You could help, too! [2]

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/807688/average-price-of-... [2] https://citizensclimatelobby.org/

Robotbeatقبل 5 سنوات

Nope. I spent significantly less than that (It was used, with 112k miles on it), but also it’s being shared by a household of 5. My per-household-member spending is approximately twice of yours (my household income is less than my state’s median …and likely the cost of living in my state is higher), so now we have to know the details of energy sources to know whether your emissions were less than mine.

In 1880s london, a laborer may spend 23 pence a week on coal, with coal prices at 10 pence per hundredweight, that’s about 230 pounds of coal per week (the English used fantastically inefficient open fires: https://digpodcast.org/2017/12/03/heating-homes-victorian-br...). That’s higher per capita emissions than in the UK today in spite of incomes a factor of 10 less. So if you live in a small, drafty house with a coal fired gravity furnace, you may burn enough coal to have higher emissions than my entire household in spite of low income.

So efficiency also matters, and matters a lot. While it might be an okay rule of thumb, there is no 1 to 1 correlation of spending and emissions. In fact, there’s no particular reason why there need be any emissions at all.

I’m reminded of ozone depletion. At one point, refrigeration relied on ozone depleting refrigerants. Because people tend to have refrigerators or air conditioning proportional to spending, you could’ve made the case that there’s a 1 to 1 relationship between spending and ozone depletion. HOWEVER! We passed bans on ozone depleting chemicals, and since then, emissions of such chemicals have dropped so much that the ozone layer has started to heal in spite of National and global wealth increasing dramatically. We simply developed alternatives.

In fact, as of 2013, UK emissions per capita are less than what they were in 1860. https://voxeu.org/article/driving-uks-capita-carbon-dioxide-...

And now, since there have been further drops, it’s lower than 1860-1880 even including imports (which are about 20% of emissions, give or take).

The solution to climate change is not castration, whether literal or metaphorical (Degrowth). In fact, we’ll be poorly prepared for fixing the damage of climate change if we lack the wealth and industrial capacity to do anything meaningful. And there’s no way to convince the developing world they should stay poor in order to solve climate change. The only solution is to use alternatives to fossil fuels.

And while I admire those who are willing to engage in a vow of poverty to fight climate change (assuming they’re not putting their few resources into inefficient coal heating, etc), it is actively harmful to addressing climate change to insist, falsely, that every dollar spent has an identical effect and therefore the only way to mitigate climate change is poverty. (In fact, a laborer in 19th century london would be poorer than you by today’s standards but higher emissions, so even poverty is not sufficient!)

Robotbeatقبل 5 سنوات

Degrowthers and fossil fuel interests have one common belief: the only way to live in abundance is by burning fossil fuels.

Mencken quote: “For every complex problem there is an answer [$1 = 1 unit of CO2 emissions] that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

Luckily for humanity, there is no ultimate necessity to burn fossil fuels to have abundance. Decoupling of GDP growth & CO2 emissions is not just possible but demonstrated: https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1423354006127091715?s=...

tejohnsoقبل 5 سنوات

You're not alone. Eco-anxiety is real and a growing problem. If you search that term, you might find something helpful.

I've seen suggestions that people will go through the typical five stages of grief, ending with acceptance.

mellavoraقبل 5 سنوات

I've been stuck in the first state for over a decade. With loss of a loved one, they are gone and you can move on (either to a new partner, or 'move on' to join your lost partner).

With loss of a planet, not so much. The grieving doesn't end, because the destruction doesn't end.

nynxقبل 5 سنوات

Thank you. You’re the first person who actually tried to help.

_Microftقبل 5 سنوات

Your anxiety might come from a feeling of uncertainty of what is to come and helplessness in face of that. In my opinion self-efficacy works wonders for mental health, so maybe pick a job or other activity actually trying to work against the world going down the drain (or at least giving you the feeling that you do) instead of accepting that it is "invariably" happening.

nynxقبل 5 سنوات

It certainly does come from a place of uncertainty. I'm trying to work in the space industry in an effort to feel like I'm positively affecting humanity, but I'm not currently having a lot of luck.

eplanitقبل 5 سنوات

No, the other advice is actually more helpful. Rather, this is the first who validated your anxiety.

nynxقبل 5 سنوات

Both are important.

d_g_rقبل 5 سنوات

I have found Gaianism (http://gaianism.org/) to help a lot, by providing structure and rituals to cope with the situation.

vegetablepotpieقبل 5 سنوات

What I’m doing is getting involved. But it doesn’t seem like climate groups are doing much about GHGs.

I signed up with 350.org, and I got put on a mailing list. I signed up with Sunrise, and the events available to me in my area are to pass out blankets to the homeless and campaign for DC statehood.

This is frustrating to me, I try to find a coalition to work with and I either get ignored or I get a baited and switched to work on leftist causes.

I’m calling my senators and representatives today, and I expect to be ignored.

Unless there is someone organizing to cause large social change around GHGs and we can be involved with that, I think we should just accept that our lives will be filled with uncertainty, starvation, and an early death.

debo_قبل 5 سنوات

I joined the Citizen's Climate Lobby, and I've found them to be very well-organized and super effective. Please give it a shot!

konschubertقبل 5 سنوات

Maybe impact-makers-group.slack.com and climate-tech.slack.com may be what you are looking for?

vegetablepotpieقبل 5 سنوات

Thank you for the comment. How would one get added to those slack channels?

konschubertقبل 5 سنوات

Hmm, not sure. I just checked and they seem pretty dead…

52-6F-62قبل 5 سنوات

Personally? A deep wading into physics and philosophy. What are we even doing here and what, how, and why does it all work and be at all?

I guess just trying to see the things for what they are, versus what you/I/we were told they were or were supposed to be. It at least helps with the acceptance of present circumstances, and allows for establishing enough ownership over your/mine/our own part in it all, however small or great.

Unfortunately the myth of our adversarial relationship with our world is still a firmly held belief by many. That's not something anyone has a great deal of control over—especially in adults.

Likewise, the idea that we're somehow above everything around us tricks us into thinking we might not just be like a spider who wandered too far into the house and is about to get squished by an ambivalent power [read: Earth's nature] greater than ourselves.

---

I see you're from not too far away. Similarly in SW Ontario I've wondered what it will look like when climate change really starts taking its toll around the world. On a recent visit to Vancouver Island, the heat and the dryness already is staggering. The image of BC I had not twenty years ago is kind of gone. It's not the same. Its long-time residents have watched it change year-over-year. SW Ontario remains more or less unscathed. It's as lush as it's ever been and fresh water is plentiful. Somehow, it's almost always insulated from the worst weather effects of every major surrounding ecosystem save for the odd ice storm or low-grade tornado. If it wasn't somewhat land-locked it would probably already have a wall around it filled with compounds of the ultra-wealthy.

steve_adams_86قبل 5 سنوات

The worst things I notice here on Vancouver Island are that our lakes and rivers are losing their ability to support life very rapidly.

The wet and dry cycles we have mean our river levels are very high then very low, with water temperatures rising higher in summer as a result. The more this happens, and it does every year, the less life they will support. Salmonids which make up the vast majority of river fish can’t handle warm, shallow water. They get sick, tired, develop fungal infections, or get trapped in low areas and run out of food or oxygen.

Our lakes are doing better, but declining just the same. When fishing it’s very rare to catch wild native species, instead you’ll find plenty of stocked or invasive fish. Water temperatures are increasing very quickly, meaning very small lakes will fail to support species like trout which need cool, oxygen rich water.

Logging has done incalculable damage to our watersheds, and it won’t recover quickly. Warming conditions are compounding the damage from that and perhaps reducing the ability of forests to recover and protect our watersheds.

I’m taking my son fishing this weekend for a couple days, and I’ve spent so much time researching to find out which lakes and rivers are doing well or aren’t experiencing too much fishing pressure. There is virtually nothing on the South Island. It’s very sad. We will probably spend a significant amount of time snorkeling and pulling out garbage, especially monofilament from near the shores.

I think we’ll see ecological collapse in major rivers like the Cowichan in the next decade. Some years the levels are so low, comparing it to records is shocking. Crayfish (which serve as a sort of canary species and food web foundation) have begun to have die outs and decreasing populations with some regularity.

52-6F-62قبل 5 سنوات

It's really sad!

Every time I visit I am more and more convinced I'd like to move out there. I think I'd be happier with more outdoors activities available, but man— it's unnerving.

One of the more peculiar things I witnessed when there last week was—as you mentioned—the very high water levels in Cumberland Lake which apparently forced BC hydro to let open the Comox dam and increase flow down the Puntledge. And for some reason they don't syphon any of that "excess" fresh water off, they just flow it into the ocean. I can understand not wanting to do anything overly disruptive, but it's already dammed. There were water shortage notices posted the entire time we were there.

And it is always amazing in the worst ways to drive past clearcut segments of rainforest. Conversely, I saw some of the most amazing (in the best ways) sights I've ever seen on my most recent trip... I hope we can temper our damage before it changes things too much. There's so much to lose.

steve_adams_86قبل 5 سنوات

Ah, yeah - the melt water was crazy during the heat wave. I watched Squamish river pull a couple trees down at the peak of it while eating dinner at the watershed restaurant. The erosion must have been so bad.

You’re right though, there are still plenty of stunning sights to see here. All of strathcona park is loaded with breathtaking opportunities and it’s just one small part of the island. I personally can’t get enough of the west coast around Tofino. Snorkelling and diving is such a treat, I’m so excited to get back there.

52-6F-62قبل 5 سنوات

There's a lot of really special places there! Tofino is high on my list of must-visits. Each time we get out to the Island we don't really make it to the western coast.

The only time I've been was down near Port Renfrew.

Next time I'm out there Tofino is a must. I want to catch the surfers but I've been told storm season is pretty amazing as well.

chunkyslinkقبل 5 سنوات

It's old news but

Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding...

If we all did it today we would make a huge difference to a collpasing system.

https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Acc...

jwrقبل 5 سنوات

Yeah, but… We won't all do it today.

And this is really just blame-shifting and conscience-cleaning: we'll kind-of try to reduce our impact on Earth, feel better about ourselves, but the total impact will be minimal.

Also, if you look closely at meat production, by far the biggest problem is methane, and that's a problem that's been pretty much solved (seaweeds added to diet), except there is no incentive to implement the solution on an industrial scale. Instead of avoiding meat, we should make sure that the solution is actually used.

I believe the first step towards actually dealing with the problem is putting a significant price on carbon emissions (CO2 and CH4) and sticking to it worldwide. The current attempts, unfortunately, are half-assed. It should be really expensive to emit CO2, so expensive that everybody would immediately start looking for mitigations. Unfortunately, I also believe that humanity is too stupid and disorganized to do it, what with the local politicians pulling this and that way.

Personally, apart from trying not to do stupid things myself (e.g. avoid buying an SUV, ride an E-bike around the city, etc), there isn't much I can do. If I were young, I would look to join one of the companies trying to implement carbon capture, because that's the only thing that can save us.

tchvilقبل 5 سنوات

An animal hate about 5 times, if I remember well, the quantity of food you will get by eating its meat.

Add then the energy to grow it and its food, shelter, kill, transport, and cool the meat to preserve it. Add then quantities of single use plastic for some of these steps.

I eat less meat than before more because of this than CH4 emissions.

Isinlorقبل 5 سنوات

You should read about "cap and trade system" implemented by European Union. The idea is to cap emissions according to the Paris Climate agreement and auction resulting remaining emissions.

https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets_en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Tradi...

gdubsقبل 5 سنوات

This cultural meme of the past several years that people shouldn’t make what changes they can because no one else will change is pretty awful. There’s a good argument to be made that by building a critical mass among some percentage of the population, we can actually lead to a change.

And methane is the one solvable problem with meat production. Far worse is the land use change. We’ve destroyed natural forests to grow soy beans that go primarily to feeding animals. Crops grown with a fertilizer heavy, petrochemical driven process. This food is shipped all over the planet. Even if we switched entirely to regenerative pastures, we would come up short — unless we magically solve carbon capture engineering, natural forests remain our only serious method for re-sequestering carbon and slowly undoing the damage we’ve done, for future generations.

jwrقبل 5 سنوات

Again, a few of us changing our habits will not move the needle. It will make us feel better, but the situation will be much the same.

But introducing a high price on carbon emissions and sticking to it will force meaningful change.

gdubsقبل 5 سنوات

You know who’s more likely to vote for a carbon tax? People who are already committed to making a change. People who are already making changes in their own lives. To fix climate change, everyone will need to make changes to their lives. Doing it now might not be enough to move the needle, but it also doesn’t hurt, and it also primes people for meaningful action.

bingidingiقبل 5 سنوات

brandmeyerقبل 5 سنوات

I hear this meme all the time, and its absolute garbage.

The entire agriculture sector of the US economy produced 8.6% of US carbon emissions in 2016. About half of that is from fertilizer (soil management). Even if you impute the entire carbon footprint of us ag to beef production, combustion for transport beats it by 3.5x. Combustion for electricity also exceeds it by 3.5x.

Meat is a tiny slice of your CO2 footprint.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2018-01/documents/20...

hypertele-Xiiقبل 5 سنوات

Reminder that the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed, in Brazil, as we speak, to grow more beef. Let that sink in.

brandmeyerقبل 5 سنوات

Beef is not to blame for this, though. Beef just happens to be the most economical right now. If it wasn't beef, it would be something else. Possibly soybeans since they are the world's largest exporter of them.

Vivtekقبل 5 سنوات

It's almost like Brazil is switching from a crop (oxygen) which pays nothing to another (beef - or literally any other use of that land) which will.

If the richer nations cared about the Amazon rainforest, we'd pay rent on it.

fartcannonقبل 5 سنوات

It's not to grow beef, it's to make money. If we all went vegan tomorrow, they'd grow soybeans there.

Now lets start to argue over what plants to replace the rainforest with and we've lost to point.

The rain forest is being destroyed for greed. Fix greed and you can fix the planet.

hypertele-Xiiقبل 5 سنوات

Human consumption of soybeans requires less farmland than human consumption of beef, because humans can eat the plants the cows would've needed to eat.

So less rainforest needs to be felled for the same amount of nutrition.

Arguing what the land should be used for is the point. Some uses are more destructive than others.

"If we didn't put gasoline in our vehicles, we'd just put something else in them, so arguing over what to put in our vehicles for fuel is besides the point."

asdffقبل 5 سنوات

Whether they grow soybeans or beef or doing whatever they are cutting the same amount of trees. The crop choice doesn't change the fact that forests aren't protected, and the market will expand to fill available space like a gas.

hypertele-Xiiقبل 5 سنوات

Have you ever cut a tree? It's hard work. No one clears forest unless it makes for profit. If beef doesn't sell, there's no need for excess farmland.

asdffقبل 5 سنوات

If beef doesn't sell the landowner will grow something else that does sell. They own the land, they don't want it to sit idle.

Vivtekقبل 5 سنوات

Brazil is well within their rights to say, "Fuck you. Pay me."

bookofsandقبل 5 سنوات

The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed to grow more money. Money is fungible, if beef were banned they's cut the forest to do something else with the land.

david422قبل 5 سنوات

If it's being cut down for beef it _might_ be cut for something else. You can only control what you can control. Maybe ecotourism would be more lucrative if beef were off the market.

uxcolumboقبل 5 سنوات

Meme?

That research was done by Oxford University over a 5 year period.

It's not a meme - it's scientific research.

But I get it, it's easier to label it a meme, so we can continue our destructive lifestyle.

And it's not just about GHG, it's also about biodiversity and habitat loss caused by the large scale animal agriculture industry.

But hey, burgers first, right?

And screw future humans having to live on a more hostile planet.

cmurfقبل 5 سنوات

Well, ironically, the behavior will eventually make the planet less hospitable to humans. Fewer humans, fewer problems. We either adapt to continue. Or we end. Just like millions of other already extinct species.

I think humans needed to be this remarkably selfish to get to this point. But now selfishness risks a quick demise. Quick as in faster than evolution can be an aid.

If there isn't a technical solution that's economically and politically equitable, we will end.

brandmeyerقبل 5 سنوات

Other way around. Misinformation about climate impacts leads to poor choices. Replacing your electricity with personally-owned solar, upgrading your vehicle to a high-efficiency hybrid or electric, and lowering your HVAC costs on your home are all far more impactful to your CO2 footprint than changing your diet.

uxcolumboقبل 5 سنوات

So Oxford Uni and other academic institutes are now spreading misinformation. Ok got it.

And buying solar panels and upgrading to a hybrid or electric car which costs thousands is easier than replacing your meat burger with a plant-based meat burger. Makes total sense and lets ignore biodiversity and habitat loss while we're at it.

Why not do both?

Why not eliminate / reduce consumption of large scale dairy and meat products AND use renewable energy sources?

Surely you would agree doing both is actually even more impactful, no?

[deleted]قبل 5 سنوات

gdubsقبل 5 سنوات

The EPA graphs on Agriculture emissions are misleading. They don’t include things like the petrochemical production that goes primarily to creating fertilizer, the transportation costs that are baked into the global food production system, and they don’t adequately account for land use change related to agriculture. On land use alone, if we ignore the fact that natural forests have been destroyed for mono crop animal feed production, we’re missing a huge carbon sink. That land wasn’t always farm land.

brandmeyerقبل 5 سنوات

I urge you to read the report. It is quite accessible by the lay reader without resorting on the media to filter it for you.

For example, there are detailed models and measurements for both soil management (significant) and fertilizer (negligible).

gdubsقبل 5 سنوات

I have read the entire report — several years ago. I also own a farm that’s converting from conventional to regenerative practices, and around 20 acres of conservation projects to restore natural savanna and oak woodland.

What you’re seeing under Agriculture fertilization is the application of fertilizer, not the production of it. They’re talking about the c02 released by using it, or the c02 expended generating the fertilizer in the first place.

Land use change is an entirely different category in the report. So even though the reason we’re changing land use is to farm feed crops for animals primarily, it’s listed as it’s own thing.

It goes on and on.

For an actually accurate picture of how land and agriculture actually affect the climate, see the incredibly well-researched, encyclopedic book “The Carbon Farming Solution”.

brandmeyerقبل 5 سنوات

There are separate line-items for the industrial process to create urea and the release after application to soil. Both of them are very tiny fractions of the total CO2 budget.

gdubsقبل 5 سنوات

It sounds like you feel strongly that agriculture is accurately represented by this very outdated EPA assessment. I really don’t have time to have a drawn out debate on it and we’ll have to agree to disagree.

But for you or anyone else who wants to see an alternative take, a quick search pulled up this McKinsey analysis which, while I’ve only skimmed it, seems much more in line with my understanding which is that agriculture — when fairly measured — represents more like a quarter of our emissions. And there’s no getting around the fact that the vast majority of that is currently tailored towards meat production, directly or indirectly.

https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/agricul...

fallingfrogقبل 5 سنوات

I echo this- went vegan last year. It’s not as scary as you think. There are lots of sources of good vegetable protein (tofu, peas, beans) and you can have one of those impossible burgers if you’re craving meat on a particular day.

bwindelsقبل 5 سنوات

or if you're not up for going cold turkey, just drastically reduce your intake. If you eat meat only once a week rather than every day, this already reduces your footprint massively.

feanaroقبل 5 سنوات

This isn't realistic advice for most people eating meat every day. It's better to suggest trying to not eat meat for a single day per week as a start.

uxcolumboقبل 5 سنوات

Thanks for making the effort.

Why folks are down voting your post, especially here on HN - a group apparently made up of rational and logical thinking folks - beats me.

Feeding the world with animal meat is not sustainable, it requires more energy and resources.

I guess it's called meat addiction for a reason.

fallingfrogقبل 5 سنوات

I think that for some people they feel like they are being attacked if someone suggests a change in behavior. It’s not my intention to attack anyone though, just to give words of encouragement. I’m just like everyone else, making it up as I go along.

joelbluminatorقبل 5 سنوات

Jeez people downvoting this comment maybe we deserve to all collapse

CalRobertقبل 5 سنوات

Find a location that should still be able to sustain life in a few decades, learn self sufficiency and crop growing in harsh climates, emigrate (if necessary) as soon as possible before further refugee crises make this impossible, transition your career to one working to stop this or ameliorate its effects (climate.careers, etc.), decide whether or not to have a kid.

Edit: Also, consider running for office, if your government hasn't suffered complete regulatory capture, and if you have money to invest maybe look at things like Engine No. 1's ETF (VOTE)

sodality2قبل 5 سنوات

I've found the Strategic Intelligence Network (there's a copy at https://the-eye.eu/public/Strategic%20Intelligence%20Network...) very helpful as it contains lots of survival resources. It's also just really interesting to read- some of it would raise eyebrows (there's a subdirectory just for weapons and explosives) but I've found a lot of it is genuinely educational, like military literature on how to defuse or recognize explosives, etc. Plus the survival subdirectory is perfect for this situation. Anyone else have similar survival resources?

Edit: In the parent directory (the-eye.eu/public) the "murdercube" directory is amazing as well. Similar type of survival resources, but even wider scope- you truly have to just scroll through to see how much stuff it has. It's got so much military, survival, health, literature, fiction, education, etc. it's actually incredible what resources people put on the web for free.

jmuguyقبل 5 سنوات

This is a really great resource, thank you for posting

HuShifangقبل 5 سنوات

Thanks for bringing VOTE to my attention -- I'd followed Engine No. 1's work regarding Exxon, and didn't realize they had rolled out an ETF. While it was probably more their ability to persuade BlackRock et al that carried the day with Exxon, I'm glad to give them just a few dollars' more clout...

diego898قبل 5 سنوات

How can one find “our best” estimates” about how locations will respond to climate change ? How can I know where I should be thinking of moving too besides things like stay away from the coasts, etc? I’d like to try and think about where I should buy a house and look for a job for the next 50 years.

fogihujyقبل 5 سنوات

> emigrate

If considering that option, remember that climate change will affect the destination as well -- don't emigrate to a place that will be underwater or a desert in 10 years.

larntzقبل 5 سنوات

Out of curiosity, is there any consensus on what parts of the world might be underwater or a desert once this plays out?

I'm not a climate scientist, but I'm curious after these comments if there is some way to know what changes will happen where. I know there are some obvious assumptions like coastal areas are likely to be underwater, but how can we know if e.g., South Dakota will be a frozen tundra or desert?

Apologies if that is a dumb questions. I am not knowledgeable on this subject.

vegetablepotpieقبل 5 سنوات

Although climate modeling has shown overall warming of the planet through increased greenhouse gasses, calculating future local climate conditions is still an area of active research.

Before moving to another area, it should be considered that the support system of employment, friends and family that we take for granted and that we depend on are things we would be leaving. So weigh options carefully.

joelbluminatorقبل 5 سنوات

10 years is a pretty crazy timeline, I don't think many places will be submerged in 10 years.

mikepurvisقبل 5 سنوات

Indeed. The "10 years" has always been "we have ten years to stave off a collapse that will then play out over the next hundred or so years."

Shellenberger's new book Apocalypse Never has been a comforting read in this regard. Despite the provocative title, he's a serious environmentalist and does not argue for "no action" but rather that many of the actions being pursued by NGOs and groups like XR are very short term oriented and not thinking about the big picture of second order effects. In particular, he argues that the key to saving the environment lies in doing things like deploying natural gas and nuclear power into Africa and South America to develop those economies as quickly as possible— that this is the route to stemming coal usage and hitting the world population cap sooner rather than later, and those are the two most important factors when it comes to ultimately controlling emissions.

keithwhorقبل 5 سنوات

This is a pretty interesting take. Sort of an, "accelerate every country through their inevitable industrialization and all that comes with it so we can help them get past it faster."

I wonder how much of the US defense budget could be deployed to providing nuclear power to newly industrializing countries and what the long-term ROI would be re; staving off future climate refugee issues.

fogihujyقبل 5 سنوات

They might be frozen solid though...

joelbluminatorقبل 5 سنوات

Where do you anticipate that happening? And in 10 years no less. Is the study suggesting such crazy timelines?

Throwaway197401قبل 5 سنوات

CalRobertقبل 5 سنوات

My concern is especially for those people already in places that will be destroyed. Barring that, gaining citizenship to a large country with a diversity of biomes and latitudes might be prudent.

gabereiserقبل 5 سنوات

I'd echo this. Sadly. I've been doing research into hydroponic farms and how to build them. Grow my own food in basements. How to build a disaster shelter. All the things the doomsday preppers do. My internet ads are now on par with QAnon conspiracies and how to survive the apocalypse. It's depressing. It's demoralizing. It's real.

CalRobertقبل 5 سنوات

It's kind of bizarre that "prepping" (I prefer "preparedness" and fortunately like gardening anyway) is associated with the right when we have sober-minded scientists literally saying civilization stands a very good chance of collapsing. I think a lot of people "believe" in climate change, but relatively few people _believe_ in it, if that makes sense. It's coming.

kibwenقبل 5 سنوات

"Prepping" became a "lifestyle", which means that it has become dominated by companies looking to peddle things to people whose judgment has been clouded by fear. There are ways to prepare for a climate-induced collapse of civilization, but stockpiling guns and MREs in a bomb-proof bunker will only suffice as a survival aid as long as there are people out who are actually prepared with agricultural know-how and tools (with the idea being, presumably, that you use your guns to threaten them to give you food (foolishly assuming that the farmers don't also have guns)).

database_lostقبل 5 سنوات

Is this "winter is coming", "the end is near" tone helpful? I'm not necessarily saying it's outright false, but look, there've been past times where the end truly felt near, but we managed to overcome it... Again, we might not this time, but why should we bet against us? Does anyone want to be the lone survivor in the post-apocalypse? Sorry if overreacting.

CalRobertقبل 5 سنوات

No need to be sorry. It's really depressing, obviously I hope I'm actually wrong.

I find it useful because we might, in fact, overcome this, but for now we seem to be on track for 3+C of warming within my kids' lifetimes, wet bulb temperatures making a decent chunk of the Earth uninhabitable (even naked healthy people will die sitting in the shade), the loss of the majority of insects we need for pollination, sea level rise giving us millions of homeless people, wars breaking out over access to resources, increasing ocean acidity and anoxia threatening sea life, accelerating self-reinforcing carbon emissions (hotter weather melting permafrost releasing methane making weather hotter, ice sheets melting reducing albedo making Earth warmer and melting more ice) etc. and all of those put together don't make me optimistic.

Unfortunately the problem with "we managed to overcome it" is that everyone who didn't manage to overcome is not around to comment. I certainly aim to be someone who "manages to overcome it" but that won't happen by being ignorant of the dangers we face and failing to adjust my life in ways that maximize the probability of this.

I don't think you'd be the lone survivor in the post-apocalypse, short of going full Venus the planet will sustain _some_ life, including humans, hopefully. Where there are groups of people, or most other mammals I'd venture. there is at least the possibility of joy.

IPCC working group 1 is putting out a draft report Monday, let's see what they say.

bostonsreقبل 5 سنوات

I think a lot of people view it as true, but they also think society won't just give up when it happens.

inetknghtقبل 5 سنوات

> society won't just give up when it happens

It's happening right now.

bostonsreقبل 5 سنوات

Which countries have given up?

gabereiserقبل 5 سنوات

Yeah, I hear you, but in this case I'm not attacking the left or the right here. I'm simply saying "prepping" as in "preparedness" for impending doomsday (not armageddon) where climate change has forced us all to rethink the modern life. Non-political. Survival.

ipaddrقبل 5 سنوات

Because society wants to keep you building the machine. Without you the rich have to prep themselves

jaimeyapقبل 5 سنوات

I think the difference is right wing "preppers" are more individualistic. For them it's about saving themselves and their immediate family. The left acknowledges that we live in a society. And the real power to prevent happens at a societal level. So their energy is focused more on fixing government and through high leverage policy changes instead.

lotsofpulpقبل 5 سنوات

I am not aware of any association between prepping and being politically “right”.

bishoprook2قبل 5 سنوات

You should spend a moment looking at survivalist magazines from the early 1980s. Lots and lots of doom (mostly Soviet) for tolerably good reason. Basically exotic gun porn (not such a bad thing, but realize that's what it is) and fun hobby projects.

Truth is, everything turned out somewhat fine.

I can definitely see planning for a sketchy future, plan for the worst and all that, but I'd say that the average person's biggest risk is simply staying employed for an entire career. The sub-average is in constant trouble with LEOs, ex-wives, has poor health lifestyle choices, but you have relatively good control over that.

fennecfoxenقبل 5 سنوات

Why would you grow your food in the basement? There’s no sunlight in your basement. Build a hydroponic greenhouse, maybe, but if society fails to the point where you need to be growing your own food, why do you expect to have the electricity necessary to grow food in a basement?

(I’m skeptical on the hydroponics as a long term thing as well - traditional farming remains in the dirt for a reason, it’s much more practical - but the basement stands out more.)

gabereiserقبل 5 سنوات

Basement because I have more room, can channel solar/wind energy into low-power LED grow lights when the skies may be dark. Or utilize generators to power 100w lamps. It's also out of sight so no fear of neighbors trying to ransack my garden. I don't have a large yard for a greenhouse, but I do have 1,000sqft of unfinished basement.

fennecfoxenقبل 5 سنوات

Are those wind and solar on your own property, that you can rely on them if the day arrives when an every-man-for-himself subsistence-farming operation is necessary to survive?

If you're using generators burning fossil fuels to power lamps to grow food, that's an incredibly expensive way to do it. And if you're using "100W light bulbs" I'm not even sure what you're doing — is this traditional white light bulb or what? I sure hope not, but most grow lights aren't bulb-shaped and tend to come in larger wattages as a 600W LED grow-light panel is usually rated for about a 2'x2' area, which is not really a lot of food; you'd be looking at 9KW for your whole basement.

gabereiserقبل 5 سنوات

Yes, on my property. I already have a 100w led grow light panel. You should look into them. They are super efficient on power. IGTFARM, Groplanner, there’s quite a few on the market.

dsyrkقبل 5 سنوات

[deleted]قبل 5 سنوات

marderfarker2قبل 5 سنوات

Unpopular opinion but I think we (as engineers) can start by reducing bloat in our software, optimise running processes, to reduce device churn so that we can use our devices for a much longer time. Avoid bloaty software and reward developers that respects available computing power.

Computer functionality has been stagnant for a long long time yet system requirements are growing exponentially.

rescriptingقبل 5 سنوات

This does nothing to alter our trajectory, only slow it by some infinitesimal amount.

Most developers could slave their whole career making optimizations only to have them overshadowed by the carbon they emit driving to the office.

To put it another way: Bitcoin uses more energy than Argentina. Shave 1% off of that and watch it gobbled up by growth in the BTC network within a month.

Trasmattaقبل 5 سنوات

Device churn isn't the fault of software developers.

quenixقبل 5 سنوات

This is my question too. I feel a sense of despair, uncertainty, and powerlessness reading these. Yes, awareness is important, but... what the actual hell am I supposed to do with this information?

ratsforhorsesقبل 5 سنوات

Feels like "our" ancestors must have felt in the 30's? The storm is gathering... I'd suggest finding a community of like minded people, (most of the western world remains oblivious) looking into growing insects, mushrooms and stuff with led lights.. also according to "Before the flood" (great film btw) the Gulf stream risks moving too and Europe entering a new ice age..so moving south seems like a good idea, which is great as they are more affordable countries with people generally being more...helpful?

Pfaf.org ic.org

joelbluminatorقبل 5 سنوات

What I do when I want to help some cause is donate money to some legit organization. For me it's the most effective way to help out.

sixQuarksقبل 5 سنوات

Life is absurd, and we may all be in a simulation anyways. Also, we're all going to die and be forgotten, no matter how famous or rich, along with everything in our solar system. Just keep that perspective and try to be grateful that we have this moment of consciousness or whatever the hell reality is.

malloryerikقبل 5 سنوات

Maybe join or build a company or some kind of activity to help us survive.

the_only_lawقبل 5 سنوات

I’m remember the Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country in which what effectively was a cult purchased a large plot of land that had been killed by something along the lines of overuse/neglect/etc. and all sorts of people scientists/lawyers/engineers came together and basically resorted it, made it arable and wild life returned. Shame it probably couldn’t happen without the cult aspect.

quenixقبل 5 سنوات

I'm an undergraduate student and in no financial position to start or join a company.

This just further illustrates that a large segment of society is powerless against things like this. The headlines don't help, they just actively worsen my mental health.

CalRobertقبل 5 سنوات

If I might ask - how are you not in a position to join a company? Is getting a job not a normal thing to do when you're in a rough spot financially?

Climate.careers might be worth a look (I'm not affiliated, just keeping an eye on it myself)

quenixقبل 5 سنوات

Thanks for the link.

FabHKقبل 5 سنوات

I'd look at the positive trends. Dire warnings have, in the past, often lead to improvements that prevented the worst outcomes.

Fatalism and resignation are not good nor helpful for you as an individual, nor for society as a whole (they also forestall meaningful corrective action).

The fact is that large trends have mostly pointed in the right direction over the last century or so, on a worldwide scale. (Examples: [1]-[17])

Some literature I'd look at as counterpoints:

- Steve Pinker, Enlightenment Now [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_Now]

- Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rational_Optimist]

- Hans Rosling, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factfulness:_Ten_Reasons_We%27...]

- Julian Simon, The State of Humanity

Note: Some of these writers and arguments are co-opted by rabid libertarians or ideologues that argue that all is well, there is nothing to worry about, and nothing needs to be done (and certainly no government regulation of business) [N1]. That is nonsense, and not a position I advocate.

There are many worrisome trends, and we have to do something about them. But, there have been predictions of doom since the dawn of mankind (see: Malthus [D1], Ehrlich [D2]), and they have not panned out, either.

Conclusion/TL;DR: Things have largely gotten better for humanity over long timeframes. There are still many problems now (inequality, climate, etc.), but if we apply ourselves, there is a good chance we can tackle them.

Footnotes

[1] Life Expectancy [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=chart...]

[2] HDI [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-development-index-e...]

[3] Child Mortality [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality?tab=chart]

[4] Suicide rates (not improving, but not worsening) [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/suicide-rates-by-country]

[5] Air pollution [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-air-poll...]

[6] Polio [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-estimated-paral...]

[7] Cholera [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cholera-deaths-in-great-b...]

[8] Tuberculosis, Malaria, HIV/Aids [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-infections-of...]

[9] Anemia in children [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-anemia-in-c...]

[10] Access to electricity [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-w...]

[11] Death from indoor air pollution [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-by-source-from...]

[12] Death from unsafe sanitation [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-deaths-unsafe-sanit...]

[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-sanitation?ta...]

[13] Share of people who say they're happy [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-people-who-say-t...]

[14] Use of agricultural land per capita [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agricultural-area-per-cap...]

[15] Forests [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/forest-area-as-share-of-l...]

[16] Famine [https://ourworldindata.org/famine-mortality-over-the-long-ru...]

[17] Child labour [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/various-measures-of-child...] [https://ourworldindata.org/child-labor#long-run-history-of-c...]

[N1] Julian Simon himself was one of those over-optimistic libertarians. But the data he collected is still eye-opening.

[D1] Malthus: "This constant effort as constantly tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_P...]

[D2] Ehrlich, in 1968: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb] But a UN report in 2010: 'the percentage of the world's population who qualify as "undernourished" has fallen by more than half, from 33 percent to about 16 percent, since Ehrlich published The Population Bomb.'

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager

wayoutthereقبل 5 سنوات

This is basically what “communism” is. And I do think communism is the only answer for a world facing a lifetime of declining resources and productivity. Capitalism is great for a world based in perpetual growth but under long-term deflationary pressure it will deliver a worse quality of life and be more oppressive than a more collective form of government (and it must be violently oppressive to keep the mass of starving people from threatening the meager profits that will remain).

You’re already seeing this in the younger millennials and Gen Z. We’re smart enough to see what’s coming and more of us are radicalizing every day.

inpdxقبل 5 سنوات

Unfortunately communism is horrible for individual privacy, liberty, and often life everywhere it's been tried, because humans suck.

l-_l-_l-_lo_olقبل 5 سنوات

Yeah. It just doesn't cohere with human nature. Capitalism at least manages. Communism seems like something that would happen maybe post-singularity and after scarcity is solved. And we'd be like homogenous spacefarers like the aliens depicted in our stories.

_lqafقبل 5 سنوات

I seriously doubt governments emerging from ecological collapse will be as pleasant as one of the 20th century eastern-euro communist governments you're probably thinking of.

Surveillance today is already more all-encompassing in democracies than it was in Eastern Germany. Just wait for an emergency that scares people enough, and that becomes weaponized.

Individual rights don't last in emergencies.

wayoutthereقبل 5 سنوات

If you think communism is bad, wait until you see long-term deflation under capitalism.

dead-snakeقبل 5 سنوات

truthwhispererقبل 5 سنوات

vstmقبل 5 سنوات

Apparently buying shitloads of toilet paper is the best coping mechanism for anything.

ipaddrقبل 5 سنوات

Ignore it. Ignore all news trying to get an emotion out of you so they can sell you something.

There are plenty of doomsday or sad stories.. you don't need to hear another.

As a young person who will get older you will have the chance to buy a home everyone did before. Whoever told you different is trying to upsell your emotions.

notduncansmithقبل 5 سنوات

“Bury your head in the sand like we did! Don’t worry, your privilege will save you!”

Delete your post, mate.

The only thing most people talking about climate are selling is the idea that we should keep the planet nicer than we’ve been keeping it. With the climate situation being what it is, only Big Money is telling anyone to “ignore it” and saying that just tells us what side you’re on.

> As a young person who will get older you will have the chance to buy a home

I bet Social Security will be there for us too, huh?

This is a dangerous lie. i can’t tell if it’s just utterly useless, or if it’s actually a psyop designed to sow complacency in the populace.

Olds and the rich have been using this language to manipulate the rest of us for years. It’s finally coming to light that no, it’s not true, and it was never going to be true for us.

We have the data. Home ownership is only getting further out of reach for most of us.

> everyone did before

And this is where we see that your idea of “everyone” is limited to land owners (now where have I heard land ownership and personhood equivocated before…?).

That kind of thinking will only make more of the mess that we have to clean up.

nradovقبل 5 سنوات

The US home ownership rate has bounced around about 65% for decades. There was a temporary spike during the real estate boom that ended in 2006. Now we're back close to the usual rate.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

Homes are only expensive if you want to live in a popular urban area. In less fashionable areas they're still affordable for most families.

dragonwriterقبل 5 سنوات

> Homes are only expensive if you want to live in a popular urban area.

Compared to the past, homeownership is expensive nationally, and the general trend has long been up although there wasa a sharp, temporary reduction from the late 2000s financial crisis [0]. Sure, there is regional variation, but that doesn't mean that national prices are relatively static.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=kYEb

nradovقبل 5 سنوات

Prices are meaningless on their own. What actually matters to most buyers is availability of financing and total monthly housing expense as a percentage of income.

lovecgقبل 5 سنوات

The median home price in the US is something like 300-400k. You’re on HN so I assume you’re in a tech-related field. If you can’t afford that in 10 years you’re doing something wrong.

the_lonely_roadقبل 5 سنوات

Why would you think social security won’t be available? The literal worst case scenario for workers today only has its effective benefit being reduced to 70/80%. And let’s all remember we’re talking about funny money here not gold bars locked in the governments treasury. If they want social security to stay solvent they will just print it to solvency and remind us all again that printing new money into the economy doesn’t cause inflation.

baron_harkonnenقبل 5 سنوات

The problem with the collapse of our ecology (and the collapse of our future) is it forces us to deal with existential questions that were always there, we just used to have good ways of keeping ourselves distracted.

Every society has developed systems of meaning and value to help us individually deal with the fact that we will die and nothing we will have lived for matters. For many societies the future and present where not all that interesting. These societies typically focused on worship of ancestors, and focused on how their daily actions connected them with their past. This develops into more complex systems of religion and spirituality that help give us meaning.

Industrial society has increasingly abandoned these with a new system of meaning: progress. Much of our personal meaning is derived from things like career, contributions to society, our own projects, personal fame etc. We belief we are playing our small part in the future of humanity and that gives us meaning. But now, as that future starts to come into question, so do these essential sources of personal meaning.

The trouble is that we can't trivially go back to older systems. This is the crisis of nihilism we see across America, and people will beat on the empty symbols of blind nationalism, religious extremism etc trying to resurrect lost meaning. This is what Nietzsche was trying to warn us of in his frequently misunderstood "God is dead" aphorism. We have destroyed our old systems of meaning but the new ones we have he correctly saw were fragile, and when they break he knew there would be a crisis.

The comments to view this as grieving are in many ways correct. You can see the stages of grief everywhere:

- denial: "climate change isn't real" or "climate change won't be so bad"

- bargaining: "If we just recycle more, development more green energy, etc we'll be fine!"

- anger: "It's those damn republicans! they did this!"

- depression: "what's the point of doing anything if we're going to lose everything"

The trouble is that getting out this grief isn't as simple because there's no return to normal. The loss is part of our world. One approach is study what the existentialists have talked about, their immediate post-WWII felt similarly lost. My HNers like the stoics which is another path to explore. But either way the long term project is to work on establishing systems of meaning that work for you... else you risk falling into a feverish insanity which I think we'll see more and more common place.

Robotbeatقبل 5 سنوات

The stages of grief you describe are something you go through after a change completely out of your control. But stoicism and acceptance in the face of climate change is NOT what we need! We have to act. The status quo is murder, and it’ll keep getting worse without action. We, collectively, do not have time to grieve while our house is on fire and we can still put it out. We must act!

baron_harkonnenقبل 5 سنوات

> The status quo is murder, and it’ll keep getting worse without action

I'm in full agreement with you here, but the time to act was at least 20 years ago. The changes necessary at this point to make a dent in climate change are things that I have gotten downvoted for so much that I realize if the HN community can't be convinced then the rest of the world surely will not.

We made tremendous progress in reducing carbon emission in April 2020. If we were serious about a serious last ditch effort to correct the issue we would have decided to remain at the April 2020 level of economic activity, and cool down from there. Instead we collectively could not wait to get the economy humming again.

The only "solutions" people take seriously are things that require more industrialization and more energy. Certainly green energy can be part of the solution, but only after we massively reduce carbon emissions... which have only gone up.

People can't even collectively agree to wear masks or get vaccinated. Pandemic is wildly easier to solve than climate change, and wildly easier to reason about see and understand, but we absolutely failed. We also collectively learned nothing from pandemic.

A few decades ago people where just as enthusiastic about "Green" movements, and we have seen things only escalate. I understand that bargaining is part of grieving so continue doing what you're doing, but for other out there I think it's important to be honest about the situation.

notabeeقبل 5 سنوات

This is an important point. It's not fruitless to continue to pursue mitigation, but complete mitigation in the sense that we can expect our future lives to look anything like present day is a pipe dream. At this point mitigation is simply damage control. Short of completely miraculous technology, there will be no rewinding this situation. So what that leaves is adaptation and preservation. Learn new ways to live and things to live for, like you were saying before. Preserve what we can of the natural world, even if all that boils down to are fancy zoos and aquariums. Save the genetic code of as many creatures as possible, and freeze it in a vault next to the South Pole. We already have a seed vault but we need more, and that one has been subject to melting and flooding already so we need to do better. It's only when we can clearly admit the scope of the problem that we can pursue the most effective actions at this juncture.

triblerقبل 5 سنوات

Here is a 2003 paper I found that discusses implications of ocean current collapse: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2003.123... "Abrupt climate change: can society cope?" Mike Hulme Published:22 July 2003

Full Text PDF https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Hulme/publication/...

notabeeقبل 5 سنوات

This is a really good comment that encapsulates a lot of things I've been trying to express before. Thank you.

GoodJokesقبل 5 سنوات

david422قبل 5 سنوات

> What do I even do with this information? Something I haven’t seen articles or research about is how to psychologically cope with the slow collapse of our ecology.

Personally, I do what I can and then just accept that I can't control the rest. I try to reduce, I try to re-use, I switched to vegetarian. I own a new house and I'm going to try to get solar, I have an electric lawn mower and I'm planning on my next car to be electric. I try to vote for people that I think will do the best job.

I'm sure there is a lot more that I _could_ be doing, or attempting to be doing. But I am only a drop in the bucket. I just do the best I can.

javajoshقبل 5 سنوات

Process your emotions first. Get to a place where you feel positive about facing the problem. At the end of the day, global climate change is a good problem to face, like WW2 was a good challenge, and it decomposes into smaller problems, recursively, and there are real things you can do. Government's are the only actors that really matter; so it's time to get political. Understand the legislative and executive options; if there's something in-play, help out. Politics is, in general, labor intensive so volunteer. The more local the law, the more leverage you have - so don't ignore state and local law. If you work for a carbon intensive industry, quit. Triage your environmental concerns: landfills << carbon emission. Heck, nuclear waste << carbon emission. So don't get distracted by plastic straw bans or Fukushima/Chernobyl, etc. Politically, care about stopping: fracking, offshore drilling, pipeline investment, and (this one is important): carbon money in politics. Culturally, embrace a voluntary contraction: make more things locally, at home, using local material. Replace your PS5 (dream) with a treehouse; replace Spotify with your dad's guitar.

Get out into nature, and enjoy her company.

danthemanقبل 5 سنوات

The only actors that matter are technologists developing better sources of energy generation, energy storage, and carbon capture are really the only thing that matters.

Isn't fracking a great source of natural gas? Isn't that much better than oil?

javajoshقبل 5 سنوات

>a great source of natural gas

It is, but fracking allows a large volume of methane to escape into the atmosphere as waste[1], which is itself a potent greenhouse gas[2].

[1] https://www.epa.gov/uog#air

[2] https://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/methane.htm...

tremonقبل 5 سنوات

Fracking also increases the supply and therefore reduces the price of natural gas, which leads to more gas consumption and less investment in greener alternatives. Coupled with the ecological hazards that fracking itself imposes, I don't see how we can consider it a net positive.

ben_wقبل 5 سنوات

> replace Spotify with your dad's guitar.

Now I’m wondering what the inherent CO2 is in those two, and how much variation there is between guitars.

ta988قبل 5 سنوات

The difference is likely negligible compared to changing one habit like caffeine consumption or numbers of hours using computers or tvs.

sva_قبل 5 سنوات

For a moment I suspected you'd end this with "turn on, tune in, drop out".

alistairSHقبل 5 سنوات

1. Process your emotions and thoughts. Do you care enough to do anything?

2. Assuming you answered yes above, take small steps... eat less meat, drink less milk. Vote for politicians who care about the environment. Push for changes locally - bike lanes, mass transit, less car-based society. None of these take massive amounts of effort. Yes, none have a dramatic or immediate impact. But, you have to eat the elephant one bite at a time.

Robotbeatقبل 5 سنوات

And electrify what cars we have.

meristohmقبل 5 سنوات

And reduce our use of multi-ton vehicles, because electric or not, the conversion cost of that energy is not cheap. Cars are tools first, far before toys, and they tend to need long, flat surfaces to roll on, which disrupt animal movement and harbor plants that sometimes take over. Driving slower, less often, and on dirt roads seems better for some concerns. Depends on what you care about.

Robotbeatقبل 5 سنوات

Driving on dirt roads? That is not better for the environment! Requires bigger vehicles, potentially bad for drainage, dirty and dangerous.

meristohmقبل 5 سنوات

You might be right. What are the costs of bitumen/asphalt and oil on the ground over so much area?

barbsقبل 5 سنوات

Are you suggesting we somehow make our existing gasoline-powered cars electric? I'm not very up-to-date so I didn't think that was possible. Unless you just mean replacing them with electric ones?

Robotbeatقبل 5 سنوات

It is possible to convert them, but that’s not what I meant. Refuse to buy any new fossil fuel vehicle.

I personally think it’d be fairly easy to just require all new vehicles to have plugs. Already, EPA fuel consumption rules have helped cause over 70% of GM’s vehicles to be “micro hybrid” (integrated start/stop). Requiring all new vehicles to be plug in hybrid within, say, 5 years or so is well within the realm of possibility and would have little pushback since plug in hybrids work for literally everyone’s situation (if you can’t plug in, just don’t). And besides the near term benefits, that sets the stage for eliminating gasoline or at least making it very expensive, which today is political suicide. Everyone will desire access to charging, whether just ability to use a 120V outlet, or use destination chargers. Electricity is effectively as cheap as $1/gallon gasoline right now in my area, which means consumers (who might drive across town for a 10 cent per gallon gas price difference) will happily try to plug in whenever they can, making charging no longer a niche thing for 1% of drivers but something everyone wants and therefore easy to standardize for apartments, on-street parking, etc. 5-10 years after that, we can either start mandating new vehicles be completely emissionsfree.

p_j_wقبل 5 سنوات

Unpopular truth time: don't have kids. That's any given individual's biggest impact to the environment... creating more mouths to feed. If you insist that you need to raise a family, there are plenty of kids out there that need adopting.

silon42قبل 5 سنوات

have 1 kid (maybe 2nd one later -- developed countries are already doing this pretty much)... also stop immigration (especially from countries having > 1 kid)

Vivtekقبل 5 سنوات

Stop immigration?

How do people moving around on the planet make a difference? Especially since immigration moves people from more impoverished places, where they are more likely to have more kids, to less impoverished places, where they are less likely?

bookofsandقبل 5 سنوات

To a first, second and third approximation:

poor = small energy footprint

rich = large energy footprint

Assuming the problem is that the global energy consumption is too large, the last thing we want is to increase the energy footprint of the people we already have. Moving people from poor countries to rich countries means greatly increasing those people energy footprint. It is in direct contradiction to the stated goal of reducing the energy footprint of humanity, and serves as a strongly visible signal that the ruling class is not serious about reducing global emissions.

apiقبل 5 سنوات

If the solution to climate change must involve keeping large numbers of people poor or making existing people poorer, it will fail due to populist backlash and nothing will be done.

There is only one possible solution: replace CO2-intensive power sources like fossil fuels with low or zero CO2 power sources like nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, and solar energy. If that can't be done fast enough, well enough, or affordably, then we should plan and prepare for climate change as a certainty.

We have the technology (solar, wind, nuclear, grid scale batteries, HVDC long range transmission lines, EVs), but do not have the political will. This is largely because the fossil fuel industry is powerful enough to block serious efforts, and because national economic and military competition incentivizes nations to defect from any CO2-reducing strategy and exploit cheap fossil fuels to get ahead quickly.

bookofsandقبل 5 سنوات

The solution to climate change requires indeed keeping large numbers of people poor and making existing people poorer. And it will fail indeed because of populist backlash. We should plan indeed for climate change, though not sure what to personally do beyond buying a praying book (100% dead serious).

Sobering: As of 2021, there is no 'western lifestyle' country on the face of the Earth that has emissions in line with the requirements of the Paris accord emissions, which is about 2.5 CO2 t/year/capita for a global population of 10 billion (2050 estimate). Even countries like Sweden, Switzerland of France, which are >90% nuclear & renewable in their electricity production, still have 4.5, 4.7 and 5.1 t CO2 t/year/capita. I have yet to hear concrete proposals of where the 50% cuts should come from, other than large scale technologies that have not been developed yet.

apiقبل 5 سنوات

That doesn’t work. Poor people have more children, negating any savings, and as we agree it’s politically a non-starter.

It’s also hypocritical. “Could you do us a favor and stay poor to help solve this problem we mostly created?” That will get a big “fuck you.”

I am curious about the statistics you’re quoting. If 90% of power is electricity they are probably counting petrol cars and possibly the embodied energy in products manufactured abroad. It shows why the entire energy system must be converted and it must be global. If it’s not global rich countries will just outsource polluting industry and poorer countries will be happy to burn cheap fossil fuels to make money selling products back.

… but I am also pessimistic. We may eventually get there but not before serious weather changes that cause a lot of disruption.

bryanlarsenقبل 5 سنوات

The collapse just means that European winters will be like Canadian winters. Europeans in Canada survive and thrive. So all you need to do is embrace winter sports and buy a winter jacket capable of keeping you warm at -40. They exist, it's no big deal.

Food prices will likely go up, but that won't really affect Europeans, just the global poor. They're always the ones that get screwed.

Edit: and of course the ecology is screwed too. Humans can use technology like coats and furnaces to adapt immediately, animals and plants need thousands of years to adapt.

lmilcinقبل 5 سنوات

> Europeans in Canada survive and thrive.

But will European ecology, crops and infrastructure?

Europe is dependent on high yield agriculture that would basically be impossible in Canadian climate.

Canada has 38M population mostly huddled at the south of Canada -- roughly where Italy and Spain is in Europe.

Europe has 12 times more population on much smaller territory, most of it being north of Italy or Spain.

alichapmanقبل 5 سنوات

It will be far worse than europeans having to buy a winter jacket. From [0]:

> Such an event would have catastrophic consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and West Africa; increasing storms and lowering temperatures in Europe; and pushing up the sea level off eastern North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets.

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-...

bryanlarsenقبل 5 سنوات

My basic point still stands. Wealthy humans will be mostly fine. We have lots more technology to protect ourselves. A major catastrophe is hundreds of lives lost.

Compared to the devastation experienced by the poor or non-humans, that's trivial.

The other posters are talking about prepping. That's almost completely unnecessary. As long as you're human and not poor, the worst you will be is uncomfortable.

bookofsandقبل 5 سنوات

https://matadornetwork.com/read/mapped-united-states-canada-...

The name sounds nordic. Oslo, Stockholm & Helsinki would end up with a climate similar to Northern Manitoba. I tried to drop a Google StreetView to get a sense of the landscape. It was not possible, there are simply no roads and no cities at those latitudes.

Even the richest of the rich need a supply and support network. Money won't suffice.

meheleventyoneقبل 5 سنوات

Cold snaps in Europe and the USA right now end up killing quite a few people. Hundreds of lives directly lost because of this destabilization in developed countries is not unlikely. See the Texas cold snap for a really recent example. And further from that there will be a lot of economic damage and long term costs associated with such an extreme swing in average winter temperatures. Everything from housing to infrastructure isn't setup to cope with it.

bryanlarsenقبل 5 سنوات

It'll cost tens of trillions to adapt. But we can and will do so. Anybody or anything poor or non human is screwed.

It would have been far cheaper to spend trillions to mitigate and prevent, but that would have required foresight from politicians and voters.

The Texas cold snap and German floods are examples of what the rich world will be facing.

The Indian Ocean tsunami killing hundreds of thousands is an example of what the poor will be facing.

Extinction is what many non human species are facing.

But billions of deaths or civilization collapse is what some are predicting, which is nonsense.

meheleventyoneقبل 5 سنوات

I mean billions of deaths and civilization collapse is probably at the extreme end but still imaginable.

If poor people and poor countries are screwed then that will lead to major disruption in rich countries as we are reliant on them and potentially a large and dangerous climate refugee situation. Economic collapse in rich countries isn't off the table either.

Then there are questions like how much of the current status quo has to change for "our civilization" to have collapsed?

Workaccount2قبل 5 سنوات

If European winters turned into Canadian winters, the ecosystem would likely be devastated. Sorry if your post was just sarcasm.

[deleted]قبل 5 سنوات

pvaldesقبل 5 سنوات

European nature has survived glaciations before and recovered (more or less).

lovecgقبل 5 سنوات

Timescale matters. This is often missing from the discussion. Warming up over a period of 10 thousand years is very different from same warming over a 100 years. Evolution in existing species assumes a certain pace of change in the environment, and this assumption is being broken. Sure, other species might survive and thrive. Mammals exploded after the dinosaurs were killed off.

shugerقبل 5 سنوات

Is that what research says? Winters in Poland have been getting warmer not colder.

When I was a kid every winter snow started falling in december and started letting up late february or in march. For the past few years there was almost no snow in the winter. Temperatures are higher too. I barely needed my winter coat past few years.

ben_wقبل 5 سنوات

The research is about warning signs[0] of a collapse of the current that keeps European winters warmer than Canadian ones, it’s not saying “it has already collapsed”.

[0] and the warnings are without a specific timeline: "Observations and recently suggested fingerprints of AMOC variability indicate a gradual weakening during the last decades, but estimates of the critical transition point remain uncertain."

magneticnorthقبل 5 سنوات

The gulf stream does a huge amount to warm Europe relative to those latitudes in north America or Asia. If those currents shift or weaken it will result in much colder climate in Europe, though the rest of the globe will continue warming and is warming now (what you're observing).

hef19898قبل 5 سنوات

Ah, so that means we gonna have snow again in the alps? Jokes aside, I have a hard time imagining such a world. And I have zero interest living in one, not that there is much choice so in that case.

animal_spiritsقبل 5 سنوات

Its time for us to roll up our sleeves and get to work! What a challenge we've been given to solve! I'm not backing down

jayspellقبل 5 سنوات

One thing you can do is realize that experts are often wrong. The prevailing knowledge of twenty / thirty years ago has been proven wrong. Experts never admit they were wrong, they just modify their certainty to whatever the new study says. The fact that their previous certainty was disproven never comes up (think the crisis of bee colony collapse or insect die off). Another thing you can do is accept that changes to the climate have occurred since the beginning, and they will continue to happen regardless of what we do. The last thing you can do is turn off the endless reporting on climate change. The media has a vested interest in working you up (this includes social media). They make money off your attention, don't give it to them.

cogman10قبل 5 سنوات

I downvoted and here's why.

For starters, experts do admit when they are wrong. That comes in the form of later studies and more refined models. Experts in the field of science and research let the data speak.

A lot of distrust in "experts" has come from the fact that as new data comes in experts have changed the models they used (for example, abandoning global cooling back in the 70s).

What we are seeing in climate change is the evidential weight equivalent to what we have for evolution. It's massive, it's conclusive, and it's undeniable. It's not something that's just one study or a few scientists pet theories, it's accepted by all serious climate scientists.

To overturn that amount of evidence, you'd need an equal amount of evidence and, frankly, nothing has been found that comes close to disproving it.

If there's been any evidence of the experts being "wrong" it is in fact pointing towards them having underestimated the impacts.

> The media has a vested interest in working you up (this includes social media). They make money off your attention, don't give it to them.

Or you could do like I've done and look up the research for yourself. It's bleak.

Rather than burying your head in the sand and rejecting news that makes you feel upset, it's important to make sure you aren't letting your own biases drive your opinions.

I say all this as someone that was formerly a climate change denier. Funnily, it was an "askscience" reddit question that ultimately moved me and changed my opinion here. The responders gave me a plethora of scientific evidence and data which all points to exactly the same conclusion. Man made greenhouse gases are heating up the earth which, in turn, is causing a higher rate of natural disasters.

Experts can be wrong, they usually aren't, and when they are they update and change their models to explain both why they are wrong and how the new data fits in. That's how science works. It's a constant process of "being wrong" or learning more and refining the models and predictions.

jayspellقبل 5 سنوات

I have to disagree with you "experts" are wrong ALL THE TIME. Experts in every field at every level are wrong constantly. Watch ESPN and get the predictions for the outcome of games. On CNBC, you have experts giving their predictions, and getting them wrong all the time. Experts change their opinions as new information becomes available. That sounds fantastic, until those expert opinions are used to set policy. I gave an example of bee colony collapse that has recently been disproven, how about something that actually drastically changed the US, the Food Pyramid. Expert opinions changed the way Americans ate and kicked off an epidemic of obesity, or at least helped it along. Expert opinions are only as good as the current study, they shift with the wind. You cannot base your life on expert opinions.

cogman10قبل 5 سنوات

Did I say they aren't wrong?

The problem is you are picking different instances where experts are wrong in different fields and saying "See, all experts everywhere are wrong about everything! So let's do nothing!".

The message and understanding on climate change and global warming is roughly 30 years old. Do you think there hasn't been ample opportunity for a different theory or evidence to produced to explain it? Do you think nobody is testing it? Do you think there's some grand conspiracy to prop it up?

Climate change isn't a nutritional or sociological situation where a lot of different impossible to control variables are coming into play. It's dead simple. We measure the amount of greenhouse gases, we measure global temperatures, we compare.

It's even trivially provable, even by an elementary student. Take 2 glass jars, fill one with CO2 and another with O2. Place in the sun. Observe as the jar filled with CO2 becomes hotter while to O2 jar matches outside temperatures.

> You cannot base your life on expert opinions.

My life, your life, our lives are based on expert opinions. How on earth do you think electronics and computers work? By amateurs banging clay together? Computers and electronics were built on exactly the same scientific principles of "experts" that climate change was founded on. Experts are why we have GPS, cell phones, automobiles, doctors, cancer treatments, antibiotics, vaccinations, pain killers, fertilizers, etc... The list goes on. Our entire modern society is built on experts.

Expert research, (and this is what climate change is, research, not just opinion) is what brought about the modern world.

You might as well point to Doctor Oz and say "See, he's full of garbage so all modern medicine is bunk!".

jayspellقبل 5 سنوات

I wouldn't pick this particular point in time to make a defense of "experts". This pandemic was likely caused by "experts" and if climate change is man-made then they caused that too. Wisdom and intelligence are two different things. Intelligence will ask if you can do something, wisdom will evaluate whether you should do something. I trust experts to build a better phone, I don't trust them to tell me when my kids should have access to one. I want them telling us how to build large carbon filters, I don't want them setting policy that everyone needs to lockdown to save the climate.

CalRobertقبل 5 سنوات

"As a young person, I probably will never be able to own a house."

I hear you there. I was you, some years ago. I graduated in 2008 _just_ as the economy completely fell off a cliff and it SUCKED. I only managed to buy a house 10 years later by looking at very nontraditional properties. I wound up with a cottage on a few acres of land for €68,000. There's bargains to be had if you're OK with something outside the norm.

I had a look at your page at https://charted.space/ - if I may say so, you seem to have a lot of skills that could fetch a good salary - you might wind up able to buy a home (if that's your goal) after all.

meristohmقبل 5 سنوات

Lobby for change in regulations to make it easier for all of us to change our behavior.

cogman10قبل 5 سنوات

Vote for politicians that will either take action or won't stand in the way of action.

fogihujyقبل 5 سنوات

I assume you're in one of the northern parts of Europe that'll take the blunt of this.

Look to your ability to handle long winters, short but intensely hot summers, unstable weather systems, and financial difficulties. Making sure your house is properly insulated is a good start.

dagwقبل 5 سنوات

Also think a lot about the effects of flooding and torrential rains. Try to move to higher ground, out of valleys and away from slopes, and to houses built on solid rock foundations.

lmilcinقبل 5 سنوات

The basic thing to do is to inform your choices on who you vote for for public functions.

barkingcatقبل 5 سنوات

Another idea is to keep personal computers that you power on 24/7 to either sleep when not using them or on a power on/power off schedule.

For computers with discrete GPU's this could save a lot of power!

When you aren't using lights, turn them off.

stuntkiteقبل 5 سنوات

The only thing that will make any difference is systemic change. It's fine to take shorter showers or turn off your PC, but a handful of companies are causing most of this. Coca-Cola should quit using plastics for instance. That would make a dent. It's not likely to happen.

The rich folks in power want us to feel like we are responsible for their mess. This has been going on for years. Turn off lights, recycle (lol), or do whatever... but feeling guilty or seeing it as actually making a difference doesn't effect a damn thing... unfortunately.

lovecgقبل 5 سنوات

Serious question, does that make a difference if you heat your house using a thermostat anyway? The furnace should just run for less time to compensate.

I have the same question about incandescent lightbulbs that seem to have been banned in many places.

taneqقبل 5 سنوات

Turtle and tech. Focus on getting as rich as possible as quick as possible, not for the untold debauchery but to increase your agility for the sudden yet inevitable going to hell.

ngcazzقبل 5 سنوات

It would also sound those people have packed it in and stopped caring about the very true possibility of misery for millions.

GnarfGnarfقبل 5 سنوات

What do you do with the info?

If you live in Europe, start planning on a furnace for your home. Wear gloves when installing fiberglass insulation, it itches. The vapour barrier goes on the outside.

London is at the same latitude as Calgary, AB, Canada. Have you been to Calgary? Winter temp. hits -40°C (but it's a dry cold). Every outdoor parking stall has an electric plug for your block heater. Spray ether in the carburetor to get the car started.

Welcome to the 51st parallel.

aaronaxقبل 5 سنوات

Hopefully you mean that the vapor barrier faces the "outside" (side out towards you) of the wall cavity as you work on it from inside the house, meaning actually that the vapor barrier is on the side of the insulation nearest the building occupants. The vapor barrier is supposed to go on the warm/moist side of the wall to keep the insulation dry, which in a cold climate is on the inside.

Almost no one should be spraying ether in their cars; carburetors are quite rare nowadays. I have found that a fuel injected car will reliably start in extreme cold (North Dakota) as long as you can get the engine to crank well. And I never use a block heater.

GnarfGnarfقبل 5 سنوات

You are correct: the vapour barrier goes on the inside, closest to the warm room. This prevents the moist air in the room from condensing within the insulation, accumulating water and causing rot and mold.

My late father-in-law, who worked in construction, says they found out the hard way in the 1940's when fiberglass insulation was first installed, without vapour barrier. Within a few years, entire walls would just collapse, the studs and framing having rotted like cheese.

And I never use a block heater

North Dakota is South of Calgary.

kochikameقبل 5 سنوات

I guess it’s not too dissimilar to the nuclear fear felt by kids who grew up in the 70s

Only difference is, that was solvable

brntقبل 5 سنوات

> What do I even do with this information?

Use your vote offensively.

GoodJokesقبل 5 سنوات

FpUserقبل 5 سنوات

>"As a young person, I probably will never be able to own a house"

So much for the American Dream.

nynxقبل 5 سنوات

The american dream died a long time ago.

bingidingiقبل 5 سنوات

it was always a subsidized by the suffering of other people

kfjmanقبل 5 سنوات

Is this a joke? Do nothing, keep living and producing. Is it too hard to live sustainably? Oh that's okay, nobody is perfect, surely everything will go fine :)

You feeling bad while reading these articles is smallest of our problems.

Throwaway197401قبل 5 سنوات

99.9999% of all living species have been wiped out by mother nature herself.

You should find solitude in the fact that we might be the only species who actually have a chance of not becoming part of that statistic which we do by making the planet much more hospitable for us than life used to be. We do this by creating new knowledge which we then use to turn useless materials into valuable resources which allow us to solve problems that have always been challenging us.

So go on live your life, eat, travel, create, consume. Don't worry about the catastrophist rhetoric, don't worry about going vegan (unless you want to), don't worry about your CO2 footprint or any other things other people want you to care about for their own political ideologies.

Be optimistic and worry about living a good life, with good people, doing good and meaningful things and if you have the skills maybe get into something valuable like coming up with how to create more powerful energy forms such as fusion.

necrotic_compقبل 5 سنوات

I don't find this helpful. There's the idea of "well, we can't continue doing what we're doing if we want the Earth to continue to be hospitable" even if these predictions are false.

While individually we can't do much, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't push for those who can to do as much as they can. In the United States, this means pushing back on things like drilling in the wilderness, voting in politicians who want to keep antiquated, polluting forms of energy generation in place, etc.

If there is enough political will in the populace, the transformative effects can be powerful. We've seen it with the bicycle infrastructure in the Netherlands, and we've seen it with social issues in the United States.

So yes, we're polluting the earth and making it gross and we should stop that. Let's worry about living a good life, but let's define the good life at least partly about being a good steward of our only planet.

Throwaway197401قبل 5 سنوات

You might not find it helpful right now, your current mode of thinking taken into account. I would however urge you to dig a little deeper into your beliefs and you might find that you've been thinking about this the wrong way.

Why do you think we've done the things we've done? Why do you think we build houses, have conventional farming, create sewer systems, create water purification systems, drive cars, have electricity, heat our houses, fly, have heavy industry, run global supply chains, combustion engines, aqua farming, nuclear power plants, create hospitals, going into space, send up satellites, develop new medicin, use fossil fuels not just for energy but also for 99% of all out materials and material creation? Your phone, the internet, your computer, glasses, windows, airconditioning.

If nature provided us with alle these facets naturally we wouldn't have to create them ourselves but as we both know it doesn't. We have to create these solutions our selves. We have to create our own resources by creating knowledge.

And yes this process have negative externalities. Each problem we solve, create new problems we also need to solve. But the difference is that the problems we are facing today are better problems to have than those we used to have.

Trying to come up with a way to make energy cleaner is a better problem than not having energy to begin with.

Trying to deal with plastics in our oceans is a better problem to have than not having access to plastic materials.

We have better problems to solve today than we used to and when we solve them they will create new problems that are again better problems to have. That should make you hopeful not pessimistic.

vesinisaقبل 5 سنوات

"Think about positive things and suppress negative feelings and thoughts."

It might help with coping as an individual but does not solve our problems as a society.

Throwaway197401قبل 5 سنوات

Neither does thinking the world is going to go under. In fact having a positive outlook of the future makes you an active participant in wealth creation which is exactly what we need to create new knowledge.

te_chrisقبل 5 سنوات

This is horrific advice: Just be an uber-individual and hope someone else sorts it. Awful and delusion utopianism.

Throwaway197401قبل 5 سنوات

Unless you are going to become a physicist or an engineer or related you aren't going to be solving anything with regards to "the climate".

No amount of veganism, recycling or spartan living is going to change that.

On the other hand, having a positive look at the future and participate in the economy is going to help pay for much of the research we need to help come up with more powerful forms of energy.

We need wealth to create knowledge which helps create solutions to some of the issues that the climate has always been challenging us with just like we've done before.

Having a positive look at the future is exactly what we need and have nothing to do with utopia, it's just a better framework to think about the world and lead to better results than thinking the world is going to go under.

fogihujyقبل 5 سنوات

Summer heatwaves, freezing cold winters, decreased crop yields, permafrost further south... The list goes on. If this actually happens, then the situation in the Nordic countries are going to be quite interesting in 10-20 years. I suspect the climate goals will be thrown out the window unless the rest of Europe manages to find homes for 25 million Nordic climate refugees.

It's a good thing I like buckwheat and beetroots.

balsamقبل 5 سنوات

Thats a lot oxalate :( if you also like your milk but fruits not so much welcome to kidney stones

nodejs_rulez_1قبل 5 سنوات

Also sleeping super-volcanos, gigantic asteroids, viruses in permafrost, strangelet particles and traveling bursts of annihilating energy in space.

fogihujyقبل 5 سنوات

Those go beyond 'intetesting' tbh.

joelbluminatorقبل 5 سنوات

Is that so different than current weather in Canada?

fogihujyقبل 5 سنوات

Not at all. It's quite different from what the Nordics are like today, though.

When I lived in Denmark the Copenhagen subway was shut down because of a bit of snowfall. 10 cm of snow brought Aalborg to a halt for days. Things we laugh at in Finland, but which they are simply not prepared for.

I'm afraid good old-fashioned -30C Siberian cold front would cause serious disruptions in Denmark and the southern half of Sweden (and possibly southern Norway -- not sure how used they are to cold weather, being blessed with ice-free coasts and all that). And without the North-Atlantic current to keep things nice and warm, it's just a matter of time before proper winters become a regular thing.

dalbasalقبل 5 سنوات

I'm in Ireland, which is (was?) gently moderated by warm ocean current to a perpetual 11C drizzle, with 10c swing between summer and winter.

Besides short winter days, it's easy to forget how far north we are. Inland Russia, Canada, even europe at much lower latitudes have far more extreme weather.

joelbluminatorقبل 5 سنوات

OK, there will be a disruption if this scenario plays out. Trains shutting down, new infrastructure that needs to be built. But all of the people migrating away? Come on now.

fogihujyقبل 5 سنوات

Between failing agricultural industry, increased food and electricity costs, and heavy taxation due to increased government spending, it will be hard on the economy. It's not the place will be rendered uninhabitable - it's simply not going to be an attractive place to live.

joelbluminatorقبل 5 سنوات

Thats some wild speculation spoken with conviction...where WILL it be attractive to live btw?

fogihujyقبل 5 سنوات

Good question! :D

jodrellblankقبل 5 سنوات

YouTube presented a video on one of the coldest cities - Yakutsk in Eastern Russia. Cars stay running all the time to stop them freezing, bare skin gets frostbitten in ~15 minutes, market traders keep meat in the open air because it's frozen solid. One native in this video says -40C doesn't register as cold, she doesn't feel cold until -52C, and she wouldn't want to leave. 300,000 people live there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz4ZMLsPzqM

[deleted]قبل 5 سنوات

leoedinقبل 5 سنوات

Sure, disruption for a while. But people would cope. There's plenty of houses in Canada built to 1800's standards which are surviving fine through -30C winters. The cars, electronics and transport infrastructure isn't radically different there either.

At least here in the UK the plumbing isn't really designed for extended cold periods - meaning pipes often freeze when they come. If that happened every winter it wouldn't take very long for people to retrofit insulation and interior pipes.

Otherwise it's just a question of insulating buildings and having more infrastructure for snow. Snow often causes chaos because it comes so infrequently - there's very few snow ploughs, the trains don't have ploughs, pipes were routed without planning for freezing weather, people don't know how to drive in it, people don't have snow tires. All these things can be fixed in a few years of cold weather.

clajinessقبل 5 سنوات

Probably not. As a Minnesotan, I'd consider a country like Norway, but I fear that a good chunk of the coastal cities will eventually be underwater anyway.

yreadقبل 5 سنوات

Is there like a consensus behind this or is it just one guy saying it? I can't really evaluate the claims in the paper.

It got published in highly-impacted peer-reviewed journal, ok, but so does a lot of stuff that turns out not true later so that's not much a signal

outside1234قبل 5 سنوات

On the positive side does this possibly mean that glaciers would start growing again in Europe and the longer winters would in general mean more snow and reflected sunlight?

fslothقبل 5 سنوات

No glaciers. This won't cause an iceage. Just more calamitous weather patterns.

wazooxقبل 5 سنوات

Like future, collapse is unevenly distributed, but it's already here. Unfortunately, people who aren't experiencing it directly prefer believing it's just not happening.

Biodiversity is collapsing right now at unprecedented rates; we're in the 6th Extinction. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/natur...

Arthropods are collapsing wordlwide: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/natur...

Ocean life is in grave danger: https://hyperaxion.com/biology/ocean-biodiversity-collapse-n...

A study concluded that Syria's civil war was in large part driven by climate change and ecological problems (i.e. society collapse is already among us). https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/150302-sy...

Our way of life WILL change dramatically in the coming years. The alternative is as follows: either we choose to reduce drastically our individual and collective impact, or nature and the law of physics will achieve it anyway in much harsher ways. The option to go "business as usual" simply isn't available.

[deleted]قبل 5 سنوات

alkonautقبل 5 سنوات

So I was happy my house isn’t in the path of hurricanes, at risk of flooding or forest fires. An extreme summer heatwave doesn’t kill many it just means maybe 30C so I swim a bit more. But if the Gulf Stream stops it’s still almost uninhabitable.

[deleted]قبل 5 سنوات

idownvotedقبل 5 سنوات

astrophysicsقبل 5 سنوات

What if people stop having so many children?

_Microftقبل 5 سنوات

They already do. Peak population growth rate (i.e. new humans relative to existing ones per year) was over 50 years ago and it was decreasing most of the time since then. We now only suffer from the fact that the base number is now much larger (leading to higher absolute growth numbers).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth#/media/File:...

adwnقبل 5 سنوات

In those countries that are most responsible for climate change, they already did.

adrianNقبل 5 سنوات

That won't make us become carbon neutral before we've hit tipping points that take the problem out of our control.

refurbقبل 5 سنوات

Pretty sure they predicted the collapse of another ocean current like 5 years ago, yet here we are.

Strilancقبل 5 سنوات

This sort of comment should include a source showing the 5 year old prediction.

(For example, there'd be a big difference between a five year old article saying "we're worried this thing is going to collapse over the next two decades" and one saying "this will collapse by 2017". Also it matters if it's a peer reviewed publication, a pop sci article, some rando youtube video talking about another youtube video, or etc. But there's no way to tell from your comment unless you give a source.)

refurbقبل 5 سنوات

https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20170104/global-ocean...

Unspecified timeline.

I mean, someone could say “asteroid could hit earth and end civilization” but that’s not actionable and this useless information.

Strilancقبل 5 سنوات

Thank you.

As far as I can tell, based on the mentioned author name and year and topic, that article is talking about the paper "Overlooked possibility of a collapsed Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation in warming climate" by Liu et al [1]. I'm not a climate scientist but I read the intro and discussion section of the paper. They're talking about existing models assuming AMOC will stay stable when maybe it won't, and they present a model where it collapses after 300 years if you set CO2 at double 1990 levels.

So the paper does specify a timeline, but it's a centuries long timeline in a model mainly intended to clearly demonstrate an effect they want future research to model correctly. (In particular, they don't seem to be making a prediction about the actual timeline in the real world.)

Seeing real world warning signs that AMOC might collapse would be very much in line with this paper's thesis of "we should be modeling the possibility that AMOC might collapse". And I disagree that the paper is failing to make actionable suggestions: they're suggesting to improve models to account for a specific effect.

1: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/3/1/e160166...

mrow84قبل 5 سنوات

It would have been the AMOC, which is the most significant component of the overturning circulation system in the global ocean, and the one whose weakening would have a clearest and most immediate impact.

Unfortunately, predicting its behaviour is difficult, for a variety of reasons. However, that doesn't mean such predictions should not be made, nor that alarm bells shouldn't be rung when it appears that things might be going awry, especially given the AMOC's global significance. Surely we can agree that insisting on only considering dangers of which we are entirely certain is a foolish approach to risk management?

mschaefقبل 5 سنوات

It's a large system and operates on timescales that are at least generational in human terms. So it feels slow to us, even if it's very, very fast in geologic times.

refurbقبل 5 سنوات

Imminent collapse means?

ben_wقبل 5 سنوات

In this context, “imminent” can be 20-100 years.

Here’s a graph of historic CO2 levels over recent geological history, note that 2008 and (forecasts for) 2100 are the same column of pixels: https://blueskiesmeteorology.com/carbon-dioxide-at-400-ppm-w...

mschaefقبل 5 سنوات

> Imminent collapse means?

Nothing without more context.

[deleted]قبل 5 سنوات

sadness3قبل 5 سنوات

Has never happened != will never happen.

refurbقبل 5 سنوات

Yes, but when predictions fail to materialize one needs to weigh future predictions appropriately.

CapmCrackaWakaقبل 5 سنوات

You are being downvoted for what I see as a fairly logical comment. The problem that climate change researchers keep running into is that these things are extremely hard to predict, and predictions are sometimes embarrassingly incorrect[1].

So, here is another doomsday prediction. As someone who whole-heartedly believes climate change is happening and is a very real threat, I am forced to take this article with a big grain of salt, unfortunately, unless there is an immense amount of evidence to the contrary. Also, I don't want people to assume that I am arguing 'these scientists have been wrong in the past, so they will be wrong in the future'. That is definitely not what I am saying. But at this point it is a frustrating boy-cried-wolf situation with these predictions.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park-202...

shugerقبل 5 سنوات

When I was a kid I kept hearing in the media that in 20 years oceans levels will rise by 7meters which would mean the big cities near me would be under water.

20 years have passed and water level is the same.

The problem is there is two issues: 1. Is climate change real - this can be easily verified with observation, and there is solid science proving this. 2. What will happen in the future - here we have tons of research that would not fly in other domains as it is not verifiable experimentally until it actually happens. This are just hypothesis about extremely complex system we do not fully understand. And it should be viewed us such.

ben_wقبل 5 سنوات

Who was predicting a mere 20 years for 7m? Around 2001 I was only hearing about 1-2m by the end of the century.

I do see a lot of wildly misleading claims in newspapers, including where the research institutes the newspapers claim to be citing release statements specifically denying what the newspapers claim they’ve said, and I’ve been confounded by comments sections under those stories where other readers read only the false interpretations and not the actual words of the researchers.

pvaldesقبل 5 سنوات

> 20 years have passed and water level is the same

Are you sure?

https://sealevelrise.org/states/

dubcanadaقبل 5 سنوات

lol would you prefer it to have happened? I am not fully sure you understand the implications...

Also these things are HUGE and require A LOT to mess with them. It can take decades, just the same as it probably took centuries for it to start.

midrusقبل 5 سنوات

surfsvammelقبل 5 سنوات

Comments like this add absolutely nothing to the discussion. You are ‘pretty sure’ someone predicted something similar some time?

What value does that bring to the table?

Popegafقبل 5 سنوات

Which ocean current, when was it predicted to collapse, and what do they mean by collapse?