Hacker News Reader

Comment by briandear | Hacker News Reader

Is anyone actually debating if climate change is happening? The debate is on the degree of human influence.

During the last ice age there is evidence that suggests the Earth's temperature rose 10-15 degrees in less than 10 years. In fact, during the last 110k years represented in the Greenland Ice Sheet Project the climate shifted dramatically multiple times over periods of a few years to maybe a couple of dozen years. During the last 110k years the most stable has been the last 11k years, which is kind of just dumb good luck for us living today.

Current anthropomorphic climate change models suggest we might see 2-3 degree changes in 100 years. I believe the science is likely accurate here. I support moving towards renewables and just about anything else generally supported by the climate change crowd. However, I think the panic button has been pushed a little too hard on this issue. I think things like overfishing the ocean and even plastics in the ocean are going to be bigger problems in the short run than human caused climate change.

Generally speaking this kind of nuance isn't allowed. The kind of response that says "If water rises a few feet, move a few feet inland, you've got a century of notice. If you have to farm over there instead of over here, then farm over there instead." is sacrilegious. To many, I would be considered a "climate denier."

I think this is even more alarming:

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

The economic impact on the United States alone will be in the trillions. Relocating all of Manhattan, Toronto, London, Singapore, and other coastal economic centers is non-trivial, but would hopefully be gradual enough to be viable. It would be fantastic if we can avoid this loss of wealth by making a meaningful reduction in the rate of global warming.

Other nations are already experiencing famine due to permanent desertification. This has already exacerbated political and military conditions; drought is a major factor in the Syrian and other war zones.

To compare this to the range of human history is not meaningful. "They had it worse" isn't helpful for now. What matters is our response to the conditions that we are expected to experience.

Around the 120,000 BCE time, there was a "great filter" event that caused the mass death of most of humanity, causing a massive reduction in human genetic diversity. Yes, we may have it "easier," but today's problems are still real and must be dealt with.

I think it's useful to frame the climate change process solely in terms of human impact, and specifically economic, political, and security terms to governments.

I wouldn't consider you a denier, and it's important to share your perspective. I hope you consider mine.

The cost of the Iraq war is in the trillions. A cynic could argue that that war happened to secure burnable fossil fuels.

It isn't obvious that the cost being in the trillions is cause to blanch - at the scale we are talking, the cost of mitigating with more expensive energy is also likely to be in the trillions.

You might benefit from being more specific about how many trillions.

Of course they are, including nearly half of US politicians. There are people in this thread that are unsure if humans are even increasing CO2 levels.

This is a political debate, not a scientific debate. And the political debates mean stating the most extreme position that's within the realm of plausibility. Or having others say even more extreme things to move the window of plausibility.

It's hard making some people understand that such debates go beyond the scope of science (or that there's anything beyond the score of science for that matter) :/

Even better: there are politicians(0) and 'leaders'(1) in the US who still outright deny that it (climate change) is a thing. One of them is even head of the EPA. lol.

0. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...

1. https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/trump-on-climate-change/

Maybe I'm missing something, but can you point to a line in [1] where Trump outright denies climate change is a thing? I see a lot of qualified statements like "climate change is a 'very complex subject'" and "Trump said there is 'some connectivity.'"

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/26589529219124838...

Sure, but not from fact-check. I'm sure I could also dig up more if I spent more than a minute searching:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/26589529219124838...

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/40897761692683059...

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/42722642498738585...

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/42841411346395545...

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/42841832366016512...

Others have beat me to it, but gosh, you really don't have to try very hard at all to find examples of him denying that it's a thing.

Now. 5 years ago it was if it is even happening

One can reasonably question if climate changes can be reasonably measured over a 150 year time frame. At a geological scale climate change has been ongoing for about 4 and a half billion years. Saying that the latest .3333x10^(-6)% of that data stream is sufficient to deduce a new trend is pretty amazing if true.

On the other hand processes like glaciation and desertification can happen with alarming rapidity. Supposedly the former can occur in less than a year http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1227990/Ice-A.... Those are two kinds of climate change that I consider cause for concern. The dust bowl was a big deal. And then there are things like super volcano eruptions.

Having more historical data to draw on makes us more confident that the null hypothesis is invalid, not less. If the question is reasonable, then the answer is an immediate, equally reasonable: yes; we've done the measurements; the data is there; the trends are clear.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com