Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by huppeldepup | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

huppeldepup

It avoids actually solving the very lucrative pollution problem, so this is a prime candidate.

View on HN

I'm convinced we'll do literally any and everything besides stopping the root cause.

Im skeptical about this solar shield thing but how big of a problem is CO2 on its own? (without climatic effects)

Ocean acidification & acid rain

Acid rain is not caused by co2 for sure. How big a deal is ocean ph falling? Wasnt it lower than now a few million years ago?

While it's true that acid rain is not caused by CO2 per se, it is generally caused by products of combustion. The context was specifically the other harmful effects of the root cause - burning fossil fuels - which a solar shield would not address. So it's wrong to narrowly focus on CO2.

As for ocean acidification, it's a pretty big deal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification#Predicted_...

"Importantly, the rate of change in ocean acidification is much higher than in the geological past. This faster change prevents organisms from gradually adapting, and prevents climate cycle feedbacks from kicking in to mitigate ocean acidification. Ocean acidification is now on a path to reach lower pH levels than at any other point in the last 300 million years.[81][71] The rate of ocean acidification (i.e. the rate of change in pH value) is also estimated to be unprecedented over that same time scale.[82][14] These expected changes are considered unprecedented in the geological record.[83][84][85] In combination with other ocean biogeochemical changes, this drop in pH value could undermine the functioning of marine ecosystems and disrupt the provision of many goods and services associated with the ocean, beginning as early as 2100.[86]"

Fascinating thank you

Well that's easy to imagine because the root cause is so deeply rooted and complex, and stopping it would be literally a Herculean effort across billions of people in hundred+ countries, many of which would have to work against their own primal surface-level interests (e.g. good luck convincing poorer or even affluent countries reliant on oil exports that they should decarbonise and coordinate efforts with other countries to decarbonise, even if you directly give them the money to allow them to decarbonise which nobody is going to do).

This narrative bothers me because it removes the personal responsibility from people who are… responsible. Like, we can’t tell people they can’t do anything to fix it and so they shouldn’t feel bad for continuing life as normal… and then be surprised when they don’t change their behavior.

Guess what, you should feel bad. History and your descendants will judge the hell out of you. Billions will die and your small part, while certainly not the cause, will still be pinned to you for your acquiescence to it being “too hard” to change.

Now, if everyone in the developed world got this message suddenly change isn’t so hard.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com