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Comment by mentos | Hacker News Reader

Unpopular question, what if we are keeping the next ice age at bay with increased green house gasses? Are there any viewpoints where this is considered beneficial?

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This is somewhat nonsensical, though. We don't have evidence that we are preventing a decline in temperatures. We have evidence that we are seeing a rise in temperatures. Those are two very different things.

So, it is not that the question is unpopular. It just doesn't make sense. You are begging the question that things could be worse under alternatives. The plight is to improve the one we are in.

>We have evidence that we are seeing a rise in temperatures

For the majority of the earths history, the poles have had no ice on them. Their current existence is a holdover from our last ice-age.

Wouldn't it be rational to conclude that earth's temperatures are meandering back to its natural state?

> Wouldn't it be rational to conclude that earth's temperatures are meandering back to its natural state?

Perhaps, but it is a strange coïncidence then that they've been going up since the Industrial Revolution, which also happens to be when humans started releasing a whole bunch of carbon (a greenhouse gas) into the atmosphere.

It took a while for us to develop the science of climatology and then start noticing natural climatic cycles as well as then noticing anthropomorphic climate change (ACC):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change#Terminology

Natural cyclic oscillations are known and have been taken into account:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_decadal_oscillation * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillat...

The possibility of being wrong is there, but here's the thing: if we're wrong about ACC being real, then the worse that will happen is that we move towards more efficient and renewal infrastructure (which isn't a bad thing in itself). If we're right about ACC being real, and do something about it, then we (may) save human civilization.

There's not much long-term downside to assuming ACC is real and doing something about it.

>then the worse that will happen

But that's not the "worse that will happen". Go tell a starving 3rd world family that their $300 per month salary will now only buy $200 because you decided its a "risk worth taking".

The carbon use of a family making $300/month is minimal and I would hazard to guess any carbon pricing/capping scheme would effect them minimally.

* https://www.mcc-berlin.net/en/news/information/information-d...

* http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2018/07/how-a-carbon-tax...

Canada just passed a carbon tax where they take the proceeds and then distribute them to everyone. The lowest income earners are actually getting MORE back from the rebates than what they spend on the tax. So yes, it's possible to not only tax carbon, but do it in such a way that it will help lower-income people.

For the majority of the universe's existence, the Earth didn't. Not exactly a helpful data analysis.

So, no. It isn't rational. It is, at best, distractions. And, honestly, folks that peddle these sorts of arguments don't exactly have a history of good faith debates.

There are some positive aspects to climate change. But for what matters most to us, the global consequences are expected to be negative.

One of the key reasons is that it is change. We are well adapted to that climate, we built settlements at the best places, etc... Climate is changing rather quickly, and adapting to the new conditions will be painful.

Then the 'fix' appears to be far, far worse than the problem as temperatures are steadily, and rapidly rising.

It's not an unpopular question so much as an irrelevant one: An ice age a few hundred years out is not much of a concern if within decades the seas are going to devour big chunks of our habitable land via melting sea ice, and the rising temperatures make agriculture much harder on the remaining land while also making large sections of the remaining land uninhabitable due to high temps. After a while of that, people will be begging for an ice age. If we want to fight off an ice age we should just keep the temperature roughly where it is (or perhaps where it was a couple decades ago, because the current increased temps are already causing big problems)

"What if atmospheric carbon is good" and similar questions stopped being reasonable once we started observing direct negative impact of global warming right in front of our faces. Like, sure, there are probably advantages to it, but there are advantages to all sorts of negative things - sickle cell anemia grants partial resistance to some nasty diseases, but It's Also Sickle Cell Anemia.

From what I’ve read, the next (normal) ice age has definitely already been prevented. The benefits include making it easier to ship across and drill for oil etc. in and around the north pole.

This doesn’t appear to make up for the downsides, as we’re looking at changes on the scale of the difference between ice ages and warm periods, but starting from a warm period and going up, and the effects will last for long enough to mess with the next 1500 years.

So, just to share my thoughts, part of the reason why a question like this seems unpopular is that it kinda is raising completely unjustified doubt on very well established science.

A good place to start might be: https://xkcd.com/1732/ And then I recommend you at least read 3-4 wikipedia pages on warming, climate, ice-ages before pushing these questions... They will more than answer them for you.

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