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Comment by melling | Hacker News Reader

I don't think most people believe in climate change so you'd probably need to convince more people that it's actually a problem.

If you read the WSJ, Facebook, etc, you'll frequently see comments like the following which had nothing to do with climate change and was about the Rosetta probe.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/rosetta-probe-directly-discov...

"Lets hope that with our last election that the US can get back to real science instead of voodoo climate change superstitions whose purpose is to enrich Democrats and ecowhaacos and to make poor people's energy costs go up."

The comment was upvoted a dozen times. I took the couple questions that I answered and started my own FAQ: http://thespanishsite.com/faq/climate

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1. Internet comments are a poor way of gauging sentiment; they tend to overrepresent cranky nay-sayers, who disproportionately benefit from venting.

2. If people would like to convince more people that it's actually a problem, consider that people have a tendency to recognize when what is touted as a Worthy Cause is actually being used as an excuse to obtain power or distribute political favors. Consider more public critiques of the efficacy of policy proposals -- this will also help you actually achieve your climate goals -- and have a lot more sympathy to the middle class who would suffer a lot more under an $8/gallon gas regime than a typical employed HNer would. Acknowledge the harm that high energy costs (including gas costs) would do to the economy, and consider ways to mitigate that harm by generally improving the business climate, regulatory regimes and tax regimes -- instead of writing it off or, worse, claiming that green energy is a magical job-creation mechanism (tip: spending more time effort and money to obtain the same amount of energy does not actually help the economy). Hold fewer events like the recent Peoples' Climate March in NYC (transparently a leftist platform using climate change as an excuse to protest capitalism writ large), and whatever you do do NOT use propaganda that features the statue of liberty mostly underwater (an accurate rendition of full 100% ice-melt from 33-degree warming but unrealistic as a near-term possibility and probably not the best image to lead with). Drop the caricatures which insult middle America as uncultured fatsoes driving around in SUVs, accurate or otherwise. Question what other ways in which political-party sentiment infiltrates climate-change talk.

The problem is that the American left has decided to make climate change "their issue", which leads the right wing to engage in denialist tactics. It's important to note that both of these positions are not really based in solid scientific understanding, but because they play to their political ideologies. See how the left can simultaneously support climate science but oppose GMOs, which have a beneficial impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

It's frustrating too, because despite owning the issue, the left doesn't seem interested in the economic factors that this article highlights are necessary to take into account. The anti-corporate contingent of the left finds it distasteful.

Imagine that the American right decides to make, say, ISIS "their issue", which leads the left wing to engage in denialist tactics.

That is, the American left denies ISIS. The refuse to accept such a group exists.

Sure, some people make the claim, but it's all theory (and some Youtube videos), and there are alternative explanations.

In such a case, would you say the problem begins with the American right making it "their" issue?

I think main driver of why people deny climate change is that the market mechanism cannot deal with that situation. So if someone is a firm believer in market solutions to everything, the climate change reality is a tough attack on that personal belief.

Just give me the convincing evidence and I will do what I can to protect the Earth that my children will inherit. By contrast, you don't need to convince me that there's a desperate world-wide problem with pollution for instance. Mercury, cadmium but the list is seemingly endless. Where is the international disquiet on this front? Meanwhile CO2, the plant food which if its level dropped below around 125ppm all life on this planet would begin to die irreversibly and has greened the planet very significantly in the last few decades, is regarded officially as a pollutant.

Exactly. Climate change is the wrong conversation to the environmental problem. It's diverts time, money and energy that could be directed at addressing real environmental problems like air and water quality.

What is convincing evidence? Many prominent environmentalists consider the climate change to be the biggest problem. Even Mr. Lomborg eventually accepted that conclusion.

With some attitudes, no amount of evidence would be convincing.

Sure the market can deal with it: someone creates a cheaper, easy to transport, clean fuel ecosystem. Problem is people keep denying they need a market solution and instead look with glee on instituting new regulations.

> Sure the market can deal with it

Sorry, no. Much the costs of burning fossil fuels are externalized and with climate change this is taken to the extreme.

This is what cap-and-trade was supposed to be about, but it seems that for the modern right "market solution" is whatever preserves the status quo.

cap-and-trade will not fix the problem with up and coming economies. cap-and-trade is not a market solution, it just taxes the market.

you either figure out a equivalent or better cost way - or we have to deal with war or climate engineering. I would prefer we get something that works before we get into "the kill my neighbor to preserve what I have" mentality.

(given the voting, nope not going to respond further on this issue - no point in "debate" if silencing is the response)

First of all, I am basing that on this article: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-te...

Now, this article implies that we need to leave some coal and oil in the groud, even if it's economic to mine and use it up. My main concern is I don't think that markets can handle this task. Markets are great at exploiting all available resources; but how do you constrain them not to do that? You cannot set any price on a resource that you do not want to use at all. In a way though, yes, it's about externalities.

The market cannot take into account to cost of externalities, unless there is some mechanism to charge for them (meaning tax them). The other option would be to eliminate the concept of externalities by making everything owned by someone, but I don't see how that could work. You would have to come to an agreement with whomever owns air quality before you polluted and come to an agreement with whomever owns temperature before you caused warming...

... and ten years later, when the new research comes up, you'd get sued by whoever owns local wildlife lifecycle which you inadvertently affected without permission.

You're assuming perfect competition and no switching costs, while ignoring network effects. I like markets but they don't inevitably produce rational outcomes.

"their issue"

Agreed, and I extend your remarks with its a sign of pessimism and mistrust of government. Its well earned.

In an ideal world if our leaders were angelic statespeople, I might trust them not to screw things up even worse or as a smokescreen for political corruption. I don't live in a country like that and I can sympathize with OPs quotation. His description is, unfortunately, the most likely outcome.

In all honesty, if we can't fix it ourselves, we're doomed, because the government always causes more problems than it solves, makes things overall worse rather than better, for my entire life. And I'm no young kid and I can't stand the political party OP's quote likely comes from. I might hate what they stand for but I'm objective enough to see common ground when they are, in very small part, correct.

So, the right are a bunch of blible-thumping, big-business-loving, climate denialists, whereas the left are a bunch of GMO haters.

Maybe this species is too dumb to survive after all.

I'm in Europe, and I don't know anyone who does not believe in climate change. In fact it's not considered a faith issue at all; the scientific case is overwhelming. Maybe the sentiment is completely different in the US, because the media is so pro-business that the facts can be safely ignored.

I would have to disagree the evidence is overwhelming. Even climate change scientists acknowledge there is a lot that can't be currently explained.[1]

[1]The real holes in climate science: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100120/full/463284a.html

"Such holes do not undermine the fundamental conclusion that humans are warming the climate, which is based on the extreme rate of the twentieth-century temperature changes and the inability of climate models to simulate such warming without including the role of greenhouse-gas pollution" [ibid].

Sorry but an article by the same author two years later says it is man made http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/three-quarters-of-...

I see your article with an even newer article claiming those holes have still not been addressed.[1]

http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-forecast-for-2...

Efforts to predict the near-term climate are taking off, but their record so far has been patchy.

It's not just business. 30-40% of Americans don't believe in evolution, if we are to believe surveys. A large chunk of the country takes the bible at face value.

And that overwhelming evidence is? And which of the 50 odd reasons put forward, do you favour to explain the hiatus.

Apparently nobody takes Feynman seriously in his unequivocal statement that if the theory does not agree with experiment, the theory is wrong.

What hiatus? This is year is on track to become globally warmest on the record, see http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/

The problem with experimenting on the global scale is that we don't have a control to compare to, and also that we all live there.

I think that's built into this, though. People don't have to "believe" if it's cheaper.

> I don't think most people believe in climate change

True in the US. Not true in countries where the political system is not to such an extent corrupted, poisoned and perverted by Big Money.

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