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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

They had the same kind of messages reguariding famines and over-population back in the 1970s, we’ve been mostly fine, with the last (non-war induced) famine happening in 1990s Ethiopia (if I’m not mistaken).

But of course that these type of institutions have learned that focusing on the good things in life doesn’t attract any funds, so here we are.

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That messaging was not incorrect, there were major food concerns across the globe that were mitigated thanks to the green revolution.

I don't think it's wise to assume the same situation will automatically happen with climate concerns.

Also importantly, solutions don't magically appear. Someone needs to do the work and before even that happens, the problems need to be identified and studying.

I get your general point about money providing perverse incentives, but I've got to say this is a strange take.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is "is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change." [0]

Would you prefer that this type of institution "focus on the good things?" Instead of doing their job?

Perhaps a stretch, but it sounds to me like you're saying hospitals should tell you about how good your cholesterol levels are instead of mending your broken arm.

[0]: https://www.ipcc.ch/about/

I might believe the world leaders about this if they gave up their flights on private jets to make announcements.

When the leaders start leading, instead of making life more difficult or expensive for average people, I will start listening again.

And I’m a bike riding hippie!

I don’t know what country you are in but at least in the UK politicians are acknowledging the existence of a problem and this mirrors the scientific evidence.

This has changed over the last decade or so, previously the same party was banning onshore wind farms and removing legislation on lower energy house building.

This mirrors the public sentiment, climate change denial is a minority opinion here now.

What the politicians won’t admit though is that we can’t solve this problem without changes to our lifestyle. Even the Green Party won’t publicly acknowledge this.

Canada. Justin Trudeau flys all over the world to promote the fight to carbon change.

Also former world leaders building multi-million dollar mansions right on the coast (that are supposedly flooding at any moment if we don't tHiNk Of tHe ChIlDrEn!)

That's a very childish attitude. "daddy doesn't brush his teeth so why should I?"

What is there to "believe"? No belief is necessary here. It's a cold scientific fact that if we don't drastically reduce the amount of Co2 we emit, the coming decades will be pretty horrible for billions of people.

It’s childish not to expect leaders to be hypocritical?

The army didn’t teach me that.

It’s childish to condition your own good behaviour on others’

You can increase food productuon in a variety of ways, and food production responds to market incentives.

But the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans is a math problem and doesn’t respond to market incentives: it is pure externality.

You could be right but it’s worth thinking about the shape of problems. Crucially, we’re already seeing the effects of global warming, including positive feedback loops.

Quite obviously, the logical conclusion is that institutions are always wrong, no matter what.

It is obvious that digging stuff out of the ground and then burning it for 2 centuries cannot possibly have any side-effects.

It's all good, we will fallaciously reject anything inconvenient until catastrophe hits. It's worked so far, right?

We don't have credible alternatives. The energy density per unit volume of gasoline is only outmatched by nuclear. Nothing else comes close.

Edit: Check out this chart. Scrub the metals, and compare the remaining sources. We've got a long way to go before batteries achieve parity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#/media/File:Ene...

Now compare the efficiency of electric motors with gasoline motors.

The energy density you get with gasoline is a complete waste because the majority of the energy never makes it to the wheels of a car.

>with the last (non-war induced) famine happening in 1990s Ethiopia (if I’m not mistaken)

You are mistaken. Why write that when you are unsure, without looking it up?

Not the OP but I’m curious what the counter example is.

Genuine curiosity. What are you concerns about “solving” climate change? Like if the IPCC reports are all wrong, and all we end up with is renewable energy where do you anticipate the cost to shift?

Isn't it the case that the global temperatures are stubbornly refusing to match the (increasingly bonkers) rhetoric? Perhaps that's the reason for warmists digging their heels in even further, censoring dissent etc.

No, it's not the case.

> Isn't it the case that the global temperatures are stubbornly refusing to match the (increasingly bonkers) rhetoric

Correct, they are in fact worse than most calculations, in terms of absolute values and acceleration. It turns out that we are not being pessimistic and scared enough.

And yet the Obama's just built a mutli-million dollar mansion in Martha's Vineyard - at sea level.

Obama is a climate denier?

this one? https://vineyardgazette.com/sites/default/files/article-asse...

if sea levels rise by two feet he'll lose a bit of land around the edges, but it's hardly "at sea level"

That was the case 10 years ago, but since then they have discovered that all the temperature records since 1950 were wrong, and they have been correcting them. Turns out the computer simulations were correct all along and it was the data that was wrong.

This guy has been digging up old NASA publications showing what they claimed, in 2000, that the temperature was between 1950-2000 and what they claim today that the temperature was between 1950-2000.

https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/spectacularly-poor-clima...

Changing the data to match religious dogma rather than actual science.

What a surprise. Waiting for the inevitable ad hominem attack on the source vs. a discussions of the facts he presents.

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