World has 10 years to get climate change under control, U.N. scientists say | Hacker News Reader

World has 10 years to get climate change under control, U.N. scientists say

washingtonpost.com

91 pointsharrylove23 comments

Yea there's just no way. Any response at a global (and, in the US, national and state) level will be 100% reactive, and 0% proactive. Since there are still people arguing over the cause, I'm starting to think it might be more productive to move the conversation from trying to be proactive (which requires everyone to agree on the cause) to reactive (which does not).

In other words, start preparing for the outcome of this. We, as a species, cannot seem to be able to stop what we are doing.

There has already been some response.

The largest global action has been the Paris thing, which is trying to be proactive, i.e. "we can still win this, and here's how".

But the largest (or 2nd largest[?], but it doens't matter) offender has removed themselves from the agreement. I'm only aware of small municipalities taking action to handle the inevitable (e.g. on the east coast of the US), but it's not going to help at a national or global level.

You kind of have to force compliance. With proactive action, it always seems overly aggressive to force compliance. With reactive action, it feels okay as you can honestly point at things that improved due to your force.

I have a feeling a war would do more damage to the climate than someone pulling out of the paris agreement would ever do, if that's how you're suggesting how to enforce compliance

Global CO2 emissions are still growing, so the response so far has been negligible.

Unfortunately a lot of people (including the US president) are still on the fence about the existence of climate change, so to them there is nothing to react too. Also their denialism is more of a mouse wheel than a ladder they climb, the ones that say "of course climate change exists but it's natural" tend to end up back in the non-existence camp.

Aside from that, if it was a natural thing then should we interfere with it? If it was natural I'd be much less inclined to act.

Even if it was 100% natural we should probably interfere and try to stop it. Similarly, if an asteroid were on course to meet the Earth we should try to deflect it.

Why would you be less inclined to act? A lion trying to eat you is natural. It's still in your best interest to run.

With all the world's resources there is no reason to choose between proactive and reactive, we have to do both.

Waiting to be reactive seems a particularly flawed "plan" if we want to try to survive as a species. That seems as likely an outcome of this to prepare for if we just give up on proactive attempts.

People make localized decisions which in aggregate have globalized impact. Buying and burning $3 of gasoline is a very affordable decision for a person but it causes problems when everyone does it. We need to make everything that can lead to global warming super expensive, even at the cost of comforts of life. Gasoline, meat, air conditioning, refrigeration all need to be dialed down. Do we have the will power and self control to make these sacrifices? Your first sentence is the answer.

I love this quote [1]:

> To limit global warming to 1.5 degree C is "possible within the laws of chemistry and physics," said Jim Skea, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/07/world/climate-change-new-ipcc...

Wasn't Al Gore saying pretty much the same thing 12 years ago? And here we are...and his predictions have not come to pass.

I don't think you're recalling what Al Gore said. Care to provide a cited quote he got wrong regarding this thread?

“One must free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. [What we're doing] has almost nothing to do with the climate. We must state clearly that we use climate policy to redistribute de facto the world's wealth.”

“ Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with protecting the environment. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which distribution of the world's resources will be negotiated.”

— Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the IPCC in 2010

Can someone explain to me why planning a ton of trees to suck up excess C02 won't work? It seems so obvious and simplistic that it must have been thought of already so I can only assume that there are problems with it.

It would. It was even mentioned in the article. The problem is we'd have to convert back the land that's currently used to make food for everyone, which I'm sure will get tons of pushback. From the article:

"The radical transformation also would mean that, in a world projected to have more than 2 billion additional people by 2050, large swaths of land currently used to produce food would instead have to be converted to growing trees that store carbon and crops designated for energy use. The latter would be used as part of a currently nonexistent program to get power from trees or plants and then bury the resulting carbon dioxide emissions in the ground, leading to a net subtraction of the gas from the air — bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS."

Tangentially, I am not sure this is that easy to find a tree that will resist to a rapid climate change. In a few decades, a place can become too dry, or an invasive species can move from a hotter place and decimate the trees. Probably both will happen at the same time.

Oaks can live up to 500 years, and Sequoia for a few thousands, but finding the place where to plant them is probably trickier than expected.

Ah yes, the ol' give us money an power or we're all doomed trick.

Yes, I suspected you were a libertarian, and your comments prove that out. One sign is when you think your (misguided) beliefs trump an expert's knowledge.

This isn't a scientific report. The IPCC (who wrote the report) is a political panel, not a scientific one. They make policies. Its the opinion of politicians that dramatic action must be taken within 10 years, not the opinion of independent scientists. Do you think Al Gore is a scientist as well?

We will fail.

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