Hacker News Reader

Comment by thirsty-gecko | Hacker News Reader

Fear propaganda from fearmongers. Once you know the subject, and that it's from the Atlantic, there's no need to even click on the article; you can just mentally write it yourself. They said all the things you know they're going to say. Fear, fear, fear.

That's what comes to us via the internet. What's coming to you via your eyes and ears out in the real world? Maybe you think you're seeing some unusual weather, but everyone always thinks their weather is weird. Have you actually checked for historical precedent?

You might find it eye-opening that the storm you thought was particularly terrible hardly even ranks compared to storms of the past, the worst of which happened over a hundred years ago. Maybe you think it's unusually hot, but historical records might disappoint you. Checking for precedent is discouraged these days because it's often very inconvenient for the CO2 hypothesis.

Food for thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0tqpTH3m40

View on HN

It is unclear what your argument is. Are you making the argument that because something induces fear it is therefore incorrect?

No. I'm saying, if you look at the web pages of fearmongering web sites, they'll tell you something unusual and scary is happening. If you compare what they're talking about to historical records, you often see that what's happening now is not particularly unusual or scary, because worse things have happened before. We forgot about those incidents, but they are recorded in books. The fearmongering web sites don't check those books for precedent, because if they did, they wouldn't have anything scary to say.

Help me understand "not particularly unusual or scary, because worse things have happened before." Is it more that people have survived worse, so we can survive this? Or more of that people's response to fear should be constant throughout history?

I checked the historical precedent. Current situation looks pretty dire.

Also checked what was coming to me via my eyes and ears from the real world. That also looked pretty bad too.

Please be specific. Are temperatures especially high? Is CO2 especially high? If I'm honest, these are trick questions, because the answer to both is obviously no. So, what are you referring to? Heatwaves, storms, droughts?

As a rash doesn't tell about one's overall health, a storm doesn't tell about overall climate conditions.

If you're not out to profit from fossil fuel business, or to make profit from climate changing victims (it's a thing), then you must give credit to scientific consensus pinpointing the problem for decades now.

Then, your fears are your own, you own them, if you grow them, you can manage them too. Get some help.

Agree. Rising temperature is science. Caused by CO2 is theory. Agenda of fear that trying make everyone guilty is just like any other propaganda from history. Those catasrophic articles makes whole global warming alarm just worse. We need dialogue, not sensation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com