A Revelation About Trees Is Messing with Climate Calculations | Hacker News Reader

A Revelation About Trees Is Messing with Climate Calculations

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I've always found the current "strategy" of justifying every green measure with climate change, and orienting all the conversation around that argument quite dangerous.

There are many reasons why you don't want oil engines running in cities, many reasons for not over consuming meat, and tons of reasons why you want to stop using so much plastic, etc.

If, by any chance, climate models science suddenly discovers the current rate of temperature change isn't really related to human activities, the whole cause will be discredited and there is a high chance people will massively reject every green cause.

I also dislike it for different but related reasons. For one, while I believe in anthropogenic climate change, I don't think itst as scary as purported, and if I'm wrong about that, at the very least I don't think humanity can solve the problem without killing everyone. I think that the focus on climate change takes away from resources that can be directed at more tangible, solveable problems that people can wrap their head around, like chemical introduction into biomes, plastic, deforestation, overfishing, extinction of important species due to human action and probably much more. Think of what was accomplished before climate change became the main focus. We ended leaded gasoline and lead poisoning, we fixed the ozone layer, we instituted rotating logging land to maintain forests, we mandated commercial fishing use techniques that don't kill dolphins as bycatch, we refused NOx emissions considerably, we basically ended littering in and around cities in western countries, and again, more I'm not thinking. It seems though nowadays that none of the problems left to be resolved are being seriously pursued because everyone's focused on greenhouse gasses. There's so much damage being done that isn't carbon dioxide that simply doesn't get enough attention because climate change sucked all the air out the room.

and many of the other reasons are so much more marketable to actually change behaviour. it isn’t just a dangerous strategy, it is ineffective. the motivations of campaigners are laid bare by their preferred causes

Agree. Air Pollution is a serious and IMMEDIATE concern.

On climate change I would say human caused carbon emissions ACCELERATE climate change. Climate change is natural but not at this pace. The earth and living things can adjust to natural climate change as it takes place over thousands of years. Current climate change appears to be happening much much more rapidly.

https://archive.ph/mBmnS

"The team shows that sesquiterpenes are more effective than expected for seeding clouds. A mere 1-to-50 ratio of sesquiterpene to other volatiles doubled cloud formation. The role of trees in seeding clouds is important, because it suggests what the sky above some regions might be like if governments manage to tamp down sulfur emissions. In a world with less pollution, plants and trees will become more dominant drivers of cloud formation, an echo of the premodern world."

If this is true, doing this artificially should be equally easy.

I propose an industrial scale sesquiterpene moon shot program! A jobs program for biologists to level the equity playing field vs particle physicists.

Or we could leave the sulfur in marine diesel and make shipping cheap again!

Kidding, kidding. We're all doomed.

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