And he must be really upset, because that is replacing an age where everybody was completely sure about anything that powerful people (like him) wanted them to be.
Curious about an appeal to the authority of this "Dr. Salby," I went to his Wikipedia page:
>In 2005, the National Science Foundation opened an investigation into Salby's federal funding arrangements and found that he had displayed "a pattern of deception [and] a lack of integrity" in his handling of federal grant money.[2] He resigned his position in Colorado in 2008 and became professor of climate risk at Macquarie University in Macquarie Park, New South Wales. In 2013 he was dismissed by the university on grounds of refusal to teach and misuse of university resources.[3]
He is unconvincing as an authority on the subject due to his ethical issues. As far as presenting an actual argument, let's see it as traditional scientific papers rather than a collection of YouTube videos, hmm?
Nobody "appealed to authority". I only gave you his name. You, however, spent 2 minutes to dig up some dirt on the internet, in a desperate attempt to discredit without actually looking at his argument.
When a channel is almost composed of "lectures" from "scientists" in the International Conference on Climate Change[0] it says all that is is needed to know about the channel
> The International Conference on Climate Change is a conference series organized and sponsored by The Heartland Institute which aims to bring together global warming skeptics who "dispute that the science is settled on the causes, consequences, and policy implications of climate change."
While this guy does have a shady past, It would be better to shown why his data or logic is false/inaccurate; and not base argument against him on his résumé, if only to better educate people watching the video.
I quickly glanced over the post, it looks great. This kind of rebuttal is more convincing to a misinformed audience than saying, "the guy is bad".
On the other hand, the frustration from people continuously spreading scientifically wrong ideas is understandable.
My question is why are we even bothering with a guy with a shady past instead of starting with those more reputable people that are much less likely to be intentionally deceiving us? Why give this guy any consideration until we've exhausted learning about the ideas that have been vetted and passed muster? Why start with somebody that is a charlatan in part?
I completely agree with you on such matter, but I don't need any convincing. From the point of view of a guy who does not believe in climate change, saying that Dr. Murry Salby should no be trusted might actually have the opposite effect, and present this Dr. as a person fighting against all odds for the truth.
> From the mid 1980s, Salby conducted research out of University of Colorado Boulder. In 2005, the National Science Foundation opened an investigation into Salby's federal funding arrangements and found that he had displayed "a pattern of deception [and] a lack of integrity" in his handling of federal grant money... In 2013 he was dismissed by [Macquarie University] on grounds of refusal to teach and misuse of university resources.
To be fair, though, even if he had displayed a "pattern of deception [and] a lack of integrity" in his handling of federal grant money is not a valid argument against his climate science.
But it is a reason to disbelieve any of his claims and any data that he has generated. The logic can be trusted if one can go back to other data generators.
At that point, what purpose does he serve as a scientist? Are you going to go check all his citations and make sure that he's not misapplying them?
He did it twice! After getting kicked out of a top-tier university, he got a job at some obscure place, then got kicked out of that. Maybe he's a genius who sees things that 99% of climate scientists don't see, but can't follow basic institutional rules. I'll remain skeptical.
It's reason enough. The scientist has demonstrated that he is deceptive and not trustworthy. I'm not going to sift through the bullshit to find a nugget of truth when I've got better sources with which to work.
This is a technical matter, not a political one. Your mention of Al Gore makes me think that for you, it's a political battle and not a technical or scientific matter.
There are now two very good reasons not to watch the video: 1) the lecture is by a dishonest man and we are being asked to trust that his models and judgement are accurate, and 2) it's most likely that the video was posted for a political agenda and not scientific or technical edification.
An "echo chamber" when it comes to science usually means that things have been mostly figured out correctly. An "echo chamber" for political discussions is where it could be considered a bad thing.
Echo chambers are bad for science as well as for politics. It means that nobody is thinking anymore, they are just regurgitating a memorized response.
On the matter of AGW, we have the situation where the science is not separate from politics because there is a strong push by many people to use the power of the state to impose changes on people and companies in the name of AGW mitigation.
The fact that there are huge amounts of money that could flow into the coffers of heavily debt burdened western governments should make you pause a little to consider how this money may bias the science.
That's complete BS. As a scientist, I see rigorous arguments change into echo chambers all the time, because people collect more data and ideas and theories solidify. It's not dangerous, it's progress.
You don't need to say "I feel threatened". Who the hell says "I feel threatened"? The fact that there is so much anger and gnashing of teeth is evidence that a worldview that does not include AGW must be viciously and immediately attacked. I find that fascinating.
By "I find that fascinating," do you mean "I interpret that as meaning people who believe in anthropogenic global climate change are closed minded and unwilling to entertain opposing viewpoints"? Because if so, that's not at all what's happening here. What's happening is that people are unwilling to devote an hour of their time to an untrustworthy actor peddling a viewpoint that is heavily pushed by those who have the most to lose from a global switch away from fossil fuels. There are so many reasons not to bother watching this video, and the best reason you can come up with is "it's interesting".
It's tough to come up with the most useful response to what happened here. With time, I've come to see deadcast's response as one of the more useful. It's accurate, and honest, but you have to read a ton of pdx's comments and familiarize yourself with the science in order to realize it's true.
People just casually reading through might be turned off by it, but looking at any of the data will prove deadcast to be right.
People can believe in crazy conspiracy theories in one part of their life and be perfectly normal in the rest of their life, so it's not a universal condemnation of the poster. But it's a huge waste of time for anybody to watch those YouTube videos unless they make a study of conspiracy theories or the art of deception or scientific cranks themselves. So in that regard, saving 90 minutes of a persons life is a kindness.
You might be right about people who believe in crazy conspiracy theories. Usually, if anybody gets really fanatical about some cause, there's nothing you can do to change their mind.
However, by being aggressive and dismissive, we are insulting people that are on the fence, as well as the opposition. They will feel stupid and will see the other side as being more reasonable and accommodating. That is why I say that this kind of comment is not useful. It's actively pushing people in the center towards the other side.
EDIT: Accidentally posted without finishing typing the comment.
I'll consider your request after you consider reading the 99%+ of the content supporting the science based community that advocates that global warming is happening and is the result of human activity. Then we'll talk.
There is a body of evidence that correlates CO2 to Temperature. Where I think this falls down is the causality.
There is evidence that CO2 is caused by higher temperatures, rather than is the cause of them. We see lags of a thousand years in ice core samples, where temperature goes up, and 500 to 1000 years later, CO2 goes up. This is waved away as "due to solar variability", but when solar variability is used by non AGW proponents, they are ridiculed. This is obviously cherry picking of data.
This is a common misconception, so maybe it warrants explanation.
Imagine there are two large reservoirs, connected via a narrow pipe. One is CO2. Another is Temperature. The pipe represents feedback mechanism, when one becomes higher, that also causes the other to go up. (Obviously the real Earth is much more complicated, but you get the idea.)
Now imagine that the Temperature lake slowly gets more water. (Say, the sun becomes slightly brighter, or a continent drift away, reducing the amount of glaciers reflecting sunlight.) As the temperature goes up, CO2 starts to follow, lagging behind. Which also makes the temperature goes up even further, but not as much as the initial change. Eventually it stabilizes.
(Obviously, if the feedback coefficient is >1.0, we'll be Venus now. Thank god.)
Now imagine someone suddenly dumps a lot of water in the CO2 lake, causing its level to jump up instantly. What do you think will happen?
> ...when solar variability is used by non AGW proponents, they are ridiculed.
Well, yeah, duh, when we can exactly measure the solar irradiation and it's trending downhill right now, anyone using that to explain away AGW would be ridiculed. What did you expect?
Fact #1 Greenhouse gases are those that absorb and emit infrared radiation in the wavelength range emitted by Earth. Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas.
Fact #2 Fossil fuels emit carbon dioxide - roughly 40 billion tons of CO2 was released into the atmosphere in 2014.
Fact #3 The quantity of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere has been steadily increasing in the atmosphere - It was roughly 320 PPM (Parts Per Million) around 1960, and currently over 400 PPM
Fact #4 The temperature of Earth has been steadily climbing
I'll consider your request after you consider reading the 99%+ of the content supporting the science based community that advocates that global warming is happening and is the result of human activity. Then we'll talk.
Do conspiracy theories make you feel special and smarter than others or do you legitametly disbelieve in science and willfully follow a propaganda train funded and supported by predatory oil and coal companies looking out for their own interests?
The idea that when confronted that their profit seeking actions are destroying the world they rely on, humans will react by trying to cover it up squeeze out a few more decades of extreme wealth is a solid argument that, as a whole, we deserve extinction.
Thank you, but I have no interest in a channel that puts "science" next to a video titled "Donald Trump exposes the globalists." Or one that uses a scientist that has been exposed as a fraud repeatedly and stripped of their titles.
My dad was into all of this stuff for years, it's really disheartening that regular folks with no ties to the industry feel invested in their lies.
They probably just googled Murry Salby, found that they had quite the history of dodgy behavior, and moved on with their life. That's what I did at least, and I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it.
The closed mindedness of many people that are reflex downvoting the mere suggestion that they actually try to understand those on the other side of the argument is stunning.
The video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGZqWMEpyUM is taylor made for the highly technical level of the average HN reader. Why not watch it and see what all the fuss is about?
You know that you are linking to an hour and a half video, right? Would you spend an hour and a half of your day which purportedly proves that the earth is torus shaped? I'm not sure about others, but I would rate the probability that such a video was worth watching about the same as the video you linked, and I suspect I'm not alone.
It's not a matter of close-mindedness, it's just that the general quality of arguments against climate change and the overwhelming data in support of it inherently reduces our expectations that any argument against it will be compelling or sensical, to the point that spending that time seems like a poor proposition.
Yes, I know it's a long video. What can I do about that? This stuff takes a while to explain clearly.
He talks about experiments having to do with CO2 vs temperature, and how it is the CO2 that increases because of the higher temperatures.
There is also an in-depth mathematical treatment of CO2 absorption rates. As you know, CO2 does not just stay in the system forever. It is absorbed out of the atmosphere by various CO2 sinks. So knowing what the true CO2 absorption rate is, is important in knowing how big a problem you have. If you accept the premise that CO2 is bad, then having a slow absorption rate is worse than having a fast absorption rate.
What I would expect you to do is to not call people close-minded because they are not willing to expend that time investment, especially when there are unaddressed problems with his methodology and results.
People have linked you a much shorter rebuttal several times and you have not addressed it. Instead, you're spending your time writing comments about how "everyone who doesn't watch this long lecture is close minded".
You are trying to convince a crowd by forcing them to watch a massive video by somebody who is clearly untrustworthy. You yourself, by refusing to address the rebuttals, are displaying untrustworthy behaviour - you are attacking people for something you are yourself doing.
"This cafe was closed for food safety issues twice, so they are now operating illegally. Their burgers are very good -- why not try them and see what the fuss is about"
I've always found arguments backed up by YouTube videos to be awful, to the point that I just preemptively dismiss them now. Video is also a really bad way to receive information. It's very time-inefficient, not searchable, difficult to refer back to, etc.
IMO the only reason to post a video as a source for an argument is to be able to dismiss people who dispute the argument without wasting a bunch of time on the video first. Please post something we can read instead.
Video really is a terrible way to make an argument, or teach most skills (there's some educational uses it's good for but they are few and far between). I have no idea why so many people seem to prefer it.
Seriously? These are lectures. Did you attend lectures in college? Why? Why didn't you just read the book?
Lectures serve a valuable purpose to most of us. If you could just read your way to an engineering degree, that would be awesome, but somehow, it helps to have somebody talk you through things. Haven't you found that to be true?
What I have not seen is a great video used to support an argument made online. I've seen plenty of "this is awesome, check it out" that panned out. I've not once seen "you are wrong, this video explains why" that did.
You're asking us to invest an hour in your argument based on nothing but your insistence that it's worth it. That's not at all the same as asking a student to invest an hour in a lecture for a class they signed up for as part of an ongoing educational effort involving lectures, books, and practical work.
I've spent quite some time investigating these claims on the technical side, and every single one of the supposed skeptics has, on investigation, shown themselves to be merely biased towards their preferred outcome and not skeptical of their own ideas at all.
It's pretty much identical to the evolution skeptics, or those who are skeptical of smoking causing cancer, or those who are skeptical of the Holocaust. There may be a few slightly technical bits bandied about as loin clothes to cover the naked bias, but a small amount of investigation exposes the fraud. The liars don't bother to address or even understand the science of climate change, they just pick at the edges and think that if they can discredit one side argument, it brings down the whole field. Science and reason do not work that way (politics do, quite often).
If any technical HN readers actually do want to learn about climate science, Ars Technical has been covering it quite well over the years at the level that a computer programmer can jump right into.
It's also interesting reading the comment threads there. There are the usual drive-by doubters, some determined and repetitive doubters, and even a few knowledgeable commenters that provide figures, links to papers, and solid arguments that completely demolish the doubters political games. It's also taught me quite a bit about how people attempt to deceive others and control conversations, which is a useful skill for dealing with politics in life and redirecting the political back to the practical.
I think your suggestion we watch the video and make our own decision is unreasonable and made in poor faith. An hour is quite a long time to spend watching a presentation by a man who is notoriously untrustworthy, based on his prior history at the University of Colorado and Macquarie University.
Since I am not a scientist in the field of climate change, I do not feel the need to convince myself that scientific consensus is correct by examining the raw evidence myself -- in fact, I suspect that doing could only mislead and cause confusion, since I am not trained in how to analyze and interpret that sort of data. Therefore, I defer to the scientific consensus. The opinions espoused by a very small minority of climate scientists that disagree with that consensus do not trouble me, particularly when these scientists have been fired from multiple research institutions, since I cannot be sure they are operating in good faith.
I wish you would watch it, even if it is quite long. As I mention in another downvoted to hell post, it is a subject that takes time to present the material in an understandable way.
People talk a lot about how oil money may be biasing the scientists who are skeptics. But you should know that there is a lot of money on the non-skeptic side as well. Carbon credit trading and carbon taxes are set to be huge money makers for governments and private institutions alike.
As you say, many climate skeptic scientists have been fired from their positions. That tends to make the rest of them stay pretty quiet, if they don't agree with the mob. As you can see by the responses to my posts here today, it really is a dangerous opinion for a scientist to put forth, so it's reasonable that many are silent.
While I may not be a climate scientist, I am a scientist, and you are being disingenuous when you insinuate that those who disagree with the scientific consensus are punished by losing their position. Dr. Salby was not fired from two research positions because he rocked the boat, he was fired because he was a poor scientist -- refusing to fulfill the requirements of his professorship, illegally profiting from state grant-funded research, etc. You are also misinterpreting the disagreement you see on HN as malice or anger. People simply are refusing the drink your kool-aid, and many people are giving very good reasons why. Perhaps you should read and understand the comments in this thread before assuming people are out to get you or your ideas.
It's been in many many comments. It can be read in less than an hour, unlike your video. Why would anybody watch an hour video when the source makes egregious errors like this?
Also, why are you putting politics above science? Why are the politics more important than reality? Politics should be subservient to scientific truths, not the other way around. I suspect that that's why you keep on trying to deceive yourself and others on this matter.
Thanks for the link. I did read it. The comments are also interesting. Some of them even supported Salby. You will note that it's from a 2012 lecture, not the 2016 lecture I linked to at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGZqWMEpyUM
While most of the commentors were obviously pro-AGW, seeking to pick flaws in whatever he said, even to the point of criticizing his use of 2005 figures instead of 2012 figures, it was refreshing to read people debate real science, rather than what generally happens. Thanks for the link.
Your account appears to be using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That's an abuse of this site, and we eventually ban accounts that do it. We've already asked you to stop, and you haven't stopped; moreover, you've continued to post uncivilly, which is worse.
Our asking you this has nothing to do with your specific politics (nor with how wrong or provocative or abusive other commenters may be). It has to do with the intended use of HN, which is the gratification of intellectual curiosity: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. That's not compatible with ideological warfare.
I never understand why these article don't just provide you with the sources where this data was captured...let alone the actual data used. I guess we are just suppose to "believe" them?
Thanks for tracking this down. It would be one thing if journalists on the science beat were generally accurate and reliable, but they get so much stuff wrong all the time.
edit: Do you (or anyone else) know why they choose their zero point the way they do? If the graph is going back to 1880, why not just call that the zero? The closest year I could find that was at 0 was 1972 at +0.01C. Is it supposed to be based around when the satellites started taking measurements or something?
If I understand it correctly, the 0 point is the average of the period from 1951 to 1980, which was chosen relatively arbitrarily based on when research on this stuff began in earnest, but is about as early as it can reasonably be.
Zero represents the 30-year mean of the years 1951-1980, i.e. some representation of a recent baseline climatology. Choosing 1880, or any other year, might skew perception positively or negatively.
From the Earth Observatory [0]:
> The period of 1951-1980 was chosen largely because the U.S. National Weather Service uses a three-decade period to define “normal” or average temperature. The GISS temperature analysis effort began around 1980, so the most recent 30 years was 1951-1980. It is also a period when many of today’s adults grew up, so it is a common reference that many people can remember.
We just had a 60 degree F day in mid January in Northern New England. While I like being able to go outside with no coat and I like that the snow melts faster, that is dang warm for my part of the world in January.
My favorite is trying to explain to people how climate change can produce more snow not less and that doesn't mean it is not getting warmer... it means that the air is warmer and because of that can hold more moisture and thus larger more severe precipitation events.
So I've read, I'm not a climate scientist.
Actual quote I hear multiple times per winter: "Look at all that snow! Global warming my ass!"
I find it very unlikely that we'll "solve" this problem. At best we'll just deal with the effects and survive accordingly.
1. The majority of the world isn't even on par with say, France, in terms of their contribution to this problem. It's only going to get worse as they develop (finally).
2. Those living in the countries that contribute the most aren't going to pay the price, figuratively or literally. Would you take an 80% paycut to eradicate this problem? Probably not. Would you not have children (who will comparatively consume, and therefore contribute far more than 3rd world children)? Probably not. This line of thinking is obviously a part of the problem.
I guess I wasn't clear -- the point I was trying to make isn't about the paycut, or even the percentage, but rather just conveying that a huge lifestyle change would be necessary. One I'm skeptical that most would be willing, and able to make.
How am I ever going to live with electric cars with instantaneous torque that drive themselves?
Or all the electricity I can get from the sun?
I really don't know how I'm going to deal with paying almost nothing to heat my house in the winter due to geothermal heating instead of this nice gas fire that is currently burning in my furnace.
And I'm going to miss having all those plastic bags from the grocery store under my sink. It will be so inconvenient having to reuse the same durable bag every time.
And it's too bad I'm going to have to have a 1/2 cm thin high efficiency OLED 4k TV instead of having a 20 lbs monstrocity hanging from my wall.
I'm being snarky and a bit of an ass but I see a world gone green as a world of opportunity not a world of sacrifice.
And free fertilizer from compost instead of paying a small fortune for it at the store is a real drag.
We really can have our cake and eat it to. In many many cases green technology is both better for the environment and just plain better all around. Well unless you're invested in dirty energy.
Check what happened in the UK in 2016 for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. And then look how far north the UK is compared to the USA. If the UK can do it, almost every nation is guaranteed to be able to do it. (Those that aren't guaranteed, have other options).
As someone from the UK, what are you referring to? We have a pretty poor environmental record as things go, especially as what little there is is propped up by scotland
Edit: Yes I do know this didn't continue permanently, but as recently as 2013, coal was the UK's largest single source of electricity. Change is faster than most people realise. :)
> We don't have nearly enough renewable energy yet to replace coal and oil based electricity
"Yet"
Because people keep fighting it. Meanwhile I bet you that Elon Musk is going to make a fortune off of clean technology. A smart business person who is highly capitalized should be jumping on the opportunity to turn "not yet" into "now"
How do they know their kid wouldn't be the one who would have solved climate change?
The way I see it every new human expands our global hive mind super computer and it's also a lottery ticket at getting a new Einstein. All you need is one genius to advance a science to the next level.
How do they know their kid wouldn't be the one who would have solved climate change?
Probability, and the probability says their kid will turn out to be the same level of idiot as the rest of us, all the while using 400x (or whatever the number is) energy and resources of someone in a developing country.
All you need is one genius to advance a science to the next level.
History has demonstrated that the singular genius coming up with a breakthrough is largely a myth.
There is no problem that I can think of that we have that adding more people is going to fix. I really want a way to prevent people from being fertile by default. I wouldn't trust any government I know to implement that without quickly falling into eugenics, however.
In response to your first point, you don't account for the very real possibility that these developing countries, which are already disproportionately affected by climate issues, will instead invest heavily in sustainable energy sources as they continue to become cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives.
The issue with energy, especially electrical, isn't strictly about cost per KWH. There's the fixed cost of existing power plants that are expected to return a (highly regulated) profit, the problem of getting enough baseline power to run the grid, and also the fact that some sources of fossil fuels are cheaper to extract than others.
These are huge problems that can't be fixed by any one group and are going to need solved in the next 10 years before we can replace most or all of our existing power plants with renewables.
There's a third reason that I've thought about for a while. I call it "it's better to reign in hell."
Extreme poverty is worse than most natural disasters. I wouldn't be surprised if infant mortality is substantially lower in a developed nation during a category five hurricane than it is in a poor nation during calm weather. It's better to reign in hell.
The benefits of development may actually outweigh the cost of, say, losing one's coastal cities.
I wasn't saying it's a good thing, just that it's a fact. Wealth brings the luxury of caring about the environment. Poverty is absolute desperation. If you are dirt poor the only thing that matters is not being dirt poor.
This is also why what I call "abstinence based" solutions to environmental problems are doomed. This refers to the use of shame and ideology to convince people to accept a lower standard of living. Telling people to forego the benefits of energy consumption is going to work about as well as telling them not to have sex.
The only solution to climate change is large scale renewable and/or nuclear energy sufficient to economically replace fossil fuels. All else is futile.
I kind of agree, in that it's not an individual action problem but a collective action problem. You want to reduce emissions in the aggregate, you need something like a carbon tax which encourages people and companies at the margin into making the choice that emits less carbon.
Except that the vast majority of greenhouse gases are generated by the developed countries. Especially if you look over the entire history since the industrial revolution. We can't fix this problem by bringing India, Africa and China up to western levels of emissions and then converting them. We've got to ramp down the levels in the west while rolling out renewables in the developing countries from the start.
There are two things that have to happen in tandem:
1) Mitigating the effects
2) Minimizing the effects
Going all in on one or the other is a fools' errand.
The appropriate solution, IMO, is a substantial carbon tax, with some proportion of it going to funding mitigation and the rest going toward a citizens' dividend.
A pro of this arrangement: to the degree that it's easy to cut down on carbon pollution, it will drive people in that direction. And in the areas where it's really hard to cut down on carbon pollution, it'll act as an economically efficient tax that's passed on to consumers and then rebated to the people. There're almost no losers (except for the many people who disproportionately benefit right now from offloading their carbon pollution onto other people).
It seems that all the results about 2016 are from yesterday. Can you provide examples of this is the hottest year not in January, the month the data is presented?
I think that there will be a lot more carnage (and I don't use that word lightly) associated with climate change via extreme weather well before there's really substantial sea level rise.
Specifically, I think there's a chance that, worldwide, it will get more difficult to find places that basic food crops can be grown with sufficient reliability, due to extremes in heat, cold, storms, drought and flooding.
According to the data I've seen, on a worldwide average, this hasn't started happening yet, but it already happening in some regions.
The Russian and Canadian permafrost tundras will be incredibly productive farmland once they thaw. The main food problems will come near the equator, where people tend to be poorer. They'll lose farm land as well as fish stock in the oceans.
Indeed. That's been the traditional wisdom, which I was also on board with for a long time.
What I'm concerned about is 'weather weirding'. On average, everything gets warmer, but because there's a lot more overall energy, the highs get higher, and the lows get lower, along with more extreme rain/flooding, along with more extreme drought. And, of course, a lot more intense storms.
I hope I am wrong, and it seems like the analysis of this line of thought is just starting to ramp up.
Anecdotally, it's why, for example, we got something like 10 or 12 '100 year' and '500 year' weather events in the US in 2016.
Except that they'll also emit more methane as they thaw which could drive temperatures even higher in the interim. And it will also cause precipitation patterns to be more erratic, which is bad for farming in general.
At the time I write this post :"What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn" has over 220 comments and 509 points. This post has 80 points and 81 comments.
I know there is not much to say in response to this fact really - and HN is a tech news resource, but it saddens me that this topic garners less interest than making money. Like money will save us from the effects of this?
"...as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics."
According to Lovelock, this is just the start of a 100,000 year journey into the unknown for the planet. Just the start.
Based on the current data, I think the predictions James Lovelock made 11 years ago were quite modest.
Yeah, Hilldog paving the way toward WW3 and for more abuse by intelligence agencies under the banner of fear would've been a step toward sensible sustainability.
The temperature has been increasing for the last 130 years. But what does the average 130 period look like? What is the average variance for 130 year periods over the last 100k years?
Imagine looking at the daily closes of a stock price, then trying to judge if the tick data from the last 5 minutes constitutes a meaningful trend.
We just don't have the data to prove it yet. With that said:
Should we stop polluting? Yes
Should we research renewable energy sources? Yes
Should we try to save energy and get more efficient where possible? Yes
Should we aim to reduce energy usage per person over time? Absolutely not
Energy use per capita is effectively our standard of living. Sure we might be able to keep making CPUs use less energy, but there will probably never be a way to make heating/cooling a house or manufacturing physical products a magnitude more efficient. Our only solution to make the world better is to increase energy production.
You need to add looking for another livable planet to the list. More energy * More people = more energy to dissipate. Eventually, even with the cleanest energy sources and the highest efficiencies, humanity's energy production will be too great for the planet to support.
Since we don't have a planet lined-up for colonization and temperatures are already threatening stability - we need to deal with the first half of the equation before nature does it for us.
> Should we research renewable energy sources? Yes
> Should we try to save energy and get more efficient where possible? Yes
All of these questions have become weirdly politicized. It seems to come from thinking less pollution hampers business profits. If a company is required to pollute less, many think that increases cost.
Two strategies that could fight this:
1. Point out how polluting less could also result in enhanced energy efficiency, which could overall reduce cost (especially when factored over many years)
2. Make it even more abundantly clear what the consequences will be.
Many visualizations exist to help the consequences be visible, but they still seem very academic.
Unless someone can internalize how something will negatively impact their life, inertia rules and no change will be made.
I am working on something that will remind people of the concrete negative consequences more often, but I must be careful to still be accurate.
Communicating what we know now in extremely concrete, easy-to-understand, visual and visceral terms, seems essential to removing the politicization of these questions.
"Should we aim to reduce calorie intake per person over time? Absolutely not. Calorie intake per capita is effectively our standard of living."
...well yes it was, until some day it wasn't any more.
Energy per capita is only a proxy for standard of living. You can build a well-insulated modern house that needs a fraction of the energy required to heat a 1930's house with similar size, but nobody will say the person living in the modern house is poorer for that.
Compared globally, access to technologies that allow the same convenience with less energy is a better indicator for our standard of living.
> but there will probably never be a way to make heating/cooling a house or manufacturing physical products a magnitude more efficient.
You'd be surprised how much more efficient houses can be with pre-existing tech and very little change in lifestyle. Measures such as:
a) smaller houses (median American house size has doubled in the past 60 years or something like that)
b) better-designed houses (large south-facing windows, more thermal mass, better insulation)
c) more effective heating systems (eg. radiant heat)
d) moving away from central heating and cooling and instead only heating/cooling the rooms you're actually in
can get you a long way (actual numbers in links at bottom).
If you actually want to get into "personal sacrifice", putting on thermal underwear is a great way to reduce your heating bill. It's difficult to argue that wearing thermal underwear is a diminishing of one's standard of living. It's also possible for many people to buy fewer manufactured goods with very little effect on standard of living e.g. does every homeowner need a lawnmower, instead of sharing one with a neighbor? (again, we're into "personal sacrifice" territory).
> Energy use per capita is effectively our standard of living.
Only if we're running at 100% efficiency already, which I've demonstrated that we aren't. Right now the costs of running at sub-optimal energy efficiency aren't particularly high so we choose to be comfortable instead of efficient.
I believe strongly, we use too many irreplaceable resources, to make too many (largely disposable) things, which raise the standard of living of the few instead of benefiting the many.
I also think reducing per-capita energy usage over time is a laudable goal - provided we continue the trend of increasing efficiency we've had over the last 100 years.
I have no doubts that climate change is happening - I'm just not certain its the most pressing problem humanity has right now - and certainly not the most pressing problem for most developed countries.
Humanity will eventually put a fix in for climate change, but we have a habit of not fixing such things (threat of global calamity) until the last possible second - and I can make a strong argument that humanities finest hour has consistently been when hope is all but lost.
>Energy use per capita is effectively our standard of living.
That is true for developing countries. But for developed countries, the two have been disconnected for several decades, with per capita wealth going up while per capita energy use goes down.
I think it's a shame that legislation on climate change seems to be the expediting/forcing factor behind getting companies to improve their products and services.
It seems to me that Fortune 500 businesses have been especially slow taking advantage of computing developments over the last 10-15 years. I feel like there is so much potential for them to be better for the environment by more efficiently creating better products - and I can't understand how they would pass up on such opportunities. It's better for them because these improvements could lead to better product (competitive advantage) and marketing superiority (earth friendly!).
Maybe I'm naive or maybe Jevon's Paradox makes it all useless.
145 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 193 ms ] threadIn short, the temperature record of 2015 is beaten last Wednesday; the record of 2014 was beaten in 2015. So, we've had three record years in a row.
https://www.youtube.com/user/1000frolly/videos?sort=p&shelf_...
One video that HN readers may enjoy, given it's mathematical nature is a talk given by Dr. Murry Salby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGZqWMEpyUM
I hope you'll actually at least watch the one by Dr. Salby to perhaps see why some of us are not as convinced as the rest of us about this issue.
And he must be really upset, because that is replacing an age where everybody was completely sure about anything that powerful people (like him) wanted them to be.
Upset? I think he's doing just fine btw.
>In 2005, the National Science Foundation opened an investigation into Salby's federal funding arrangements and found that he had displayed "a pattern of deception [and] a lack of integrity" in his handling of federal grant money.[2] He resigned his position in Colorado in 2008 and became professor of climate risk at Macquarie University in Macquarie Park, New South Wales. In 2013 he was dismissed by the university on grounds of refusal to teach and misuse of university resources.[3]
He is unconvincing as an authority on the subject due to his ethical issues. As far as presenting an actual argument, let's see it as traditional scientific papers rather than a collection of YouTube videos, hmm?
Nobody "appealed to authority". I only gave you his name. You, however, spent 2 minutes to dig up some dirt on the internet, in a desperate attempt to discredit without actually looking at his argument.
> The International Conference on Climate Change is a conference series organized and sponsored by The Heartland Institute which aims to bring together global warming skeptics who "dispute that the science is settled on the causes, consequences, and policy implications of climate change."
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Conference_on_Cl...
> From the mid 1980s, Salby conducted research out of University of Colorado Boulder. In 2005, the National Science Foundation opened an investigation into Salby's federal funding arrangements and found that he had displayed "a pattern of deception [and] a lack of integrity" in his handling of federal grant money... In 2013 he was dismissed by [Macquarie University] on grounds of refusal to teach and misuse of university resources.
It gives one pause.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murry_Salby
At that point, what purpose does he serve as a scientist? Are you going to go check all his citations and make sure that he's not misapplying them?
There is also great reason to doubt his science:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-CO2-rise-natura...
As those are pretty basic errors to be making. Basically he's a total mess.
This is a scientific lecture, given by a professor. I found it very interesting. Why does it threaten you so much?
Why don't you watch the lecture?
Perhaps people here reads what actual climate scientists say and doesn't talk about Gore
There are now two very good reasons not to watch the video: 1) the lecture is by a dishonest man and we are being asked to trust that his models and judgement are accurate, and 2) it's most likely that the video was posted for a political agenda and not scientific or technical edification.
An "echo chamber" when it comes to science usually means that things have been mostly figured out correctly. An "echo chamber" for political discussions is where it could be considered a bad thing.
On the matter of AGW, we have the situation where the science is not separate from politics because there is a strong push by many people to use the power of the state to impose changes on people and companies in the name of AGW mitigation.
The fact that there are huge amounts of money that could flow into the coffers of heavily debt burdened western governments should make you pause a little to consider how this money may bias the science.
You wrote: "Why does it threaten you so much?"
This is a classic aggressive move, no-one has claimed being threatened, they have instead pointed out useful information about this obvious fraud.
As you have been on HN indeed a while, may I ask you that you justify this "Why does it threaten you so much?", or go away?
Thank You
|You're a danger to the world we live in.
The above person is saying he threatens the world, and as a resident of such world, is also being threatened.
Haven't we learned that dismissing or insulting people isn't going to change their opinions but rather just push more people over to their side?
People just casually reading through might be turned off by it, but looking at any of the data will prove deadcast to be right.
People can believe in crazy conspiracy theories in one part of their life and be perfectly normal in the rest of their life, so it's not a universal condemnation of the poster. But it's a huge waste of time for anybody to watch those YouTube videos unless they make a study of conspiracy theories or the art of deception or scientific cranks themselves. So in that regard, saving 90 minutes of a persons life is a kindness.
However, by being aggressive and dismissive, we are insulting people that are on the fence, as well as the opposition. They will feel stupid and will see the other side as being more reasonable and accommodating. That is why I say that this kind of comment is not useful. It's actively pushing people in the center towards the other side.
EDIT: Accidentally posted without finishing typing the comment.
Please read this and respond.
There is a body of evidence that correlates CO2 to Temperature. Where I think this falls down is the causality.
There is evidence that CO2 is caused by higher temperatures, rather than is the cause of them. We see lags of a thousand years in ice core samples, where temperature goes up, and 500 to 1000 years later, CO2 goes up. This is waved away as "due to solar variability", but when solar variability is used by non AGW proponents, they are ridiculed. This is obviously cherry picking of data.
Imagine there are two large reservoirs, connected via a narrow pipe. One is CO2. Another is Temperature. The pipe represents feedback mechanism, when one becomes higher, that also causes the other to go up. (Obviously the real Earth is much more complicated, but you get the idea.)
Now imagine that the Temperature lake slowly gets more water. (Say, the sun becomes slightly brighter, or a continent drift away, reducing the amount of glaciers reflecting sunlight.) As the temperature goes up, CO2 starts to follow, lagging behind. Which also makes the temperature goes up even further, but not as much as the initial change. Eventually it stabilizes.
(Obviously, if the feedback coefficient is >1.0, we'll be Venus now. Thank god.)
Now imagine someone suddenly dumps a lot of water in the CO2 lake, causing its level to jump up instantly. What do you think will happen?
> ...when solar variability is used by non AGW proponents, they are ridiculed.
Well, yeah, duh, when we can exactly measure the solar irradiation and it's trending downhill right now, anyone using that to explain away AGW would be ridiculed. What did you expect?
Fact #2 Fossil fuels emit carbon dioxide - roughly 40 billion tons of CO2 was released into the atmosphere in 2014.
Fact #3 The quantity of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere has been steadily increasing in the atmosphere - It was roughly 320 PPM (Parts Per Million) around 1960, and currently over 400 PPM
Fact #4 The temperature of Earth has been steadily climbing
Which one of these facts do you take issue with?
The idea that when confronted that their profit seeking actions are destroying the world they rely on, humans will react by trying to cover it up squeeze out a few more decades of extreme wealth is a solid argument that, as a whole, we deserve extinction.
I think if you're actually technically inclined, which as an HN reader, you probably are, that you'll understand and enjoy the lecture.
My dad was into all of this stuff for years, it's really disheartening that regular folks with no ties to the industry feel invested in their lies.
The video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGZqWMEpyUM is taylor made for the highly technical level of the average HN reader. Why not watch it and see what all the fuss is about?
It's not a matter of close-mindedness, it's just that the general quality of arguments against climate change and the overwhelming data in support of it inherently reduces our expectations that any argument against it will be compelling or sensical, to the point that spending that time seems like a poor proposition.
He talks about experiments having to do with CO2 vs temperature, and how it is the CO2 that increases because of the higher temperatures.
There is also an in-depth mathematical treatment of CO2 absorption rates. As you know, CO2 does not just stay in the system forever. It is absorbed out of the atmosphere by various CO2 sinks. So knowing what the true CO2 absorption rate is, is important in knowing how big a problem you have. If you accept the premise that CO2 is bad, then having a slow absorption rate is worse than having a fast absorption rate.
You are trying to convince a crowd by forcing them to watch a massive video by somebody who is clearly untrustworthy. You yourself, by refusing to address the rebuttals, are displaying untrustworthy behaviour - you are attacking people for something you are yourself doing.
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2013/11/09/thrust/
IMO the only reason to post a video as a source for an argument is to be able to dismiss people who dispute the argument without wasting a bunch of time on the video first. Please post something we can read instead.
Lectures serve a valuable purpose to most of us. If you could just read your way to an engineering degree, that would be awesome, but somehow, it helps to have somebody talk you through things. Haven't you found that to be true?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4
What I have not seen is a great video used to support an argument made online. I've seen plenty of "this is awesome, check it out" that panned out. I've not once seen "you are wrong, this video explains why" that did.
You're asking us to invest an hour in your argument based on nothing but your insistence that it's worth it. That's not at all the same as asking a student to invest an hour in a lecture for a class they signed up for as part of an ongoing educational effort involving lectures, books, and practical work.
It's pretty much identical to the evolution skeptics, or those who are skeptical of smoking causing cancer, or those who are skeptical of the Holocaust. There may be a few slightly technical bits bandied about as loin clothes to cover the naked bias, but a small amount of investigation exposes the fraud. The liars don't bother to address or even understand the science of climate change, they just pick at the edges and think that if they can discredit one side argument, it brings down the whole field. Science and reason do not work that way (politics do, quite often).
If any technical HN readers actually do want to learn about climate science, Ars Technical has been covering it quite well over the years at the level that a computer programmer can jump right into.
It's also interesting reading the comment threads there. There are the usual drive-by doubters, some determined and repetitive doubters, and even a few knowledgeable commenters that provide figures, links to papers, and solid arguments that completely demolish the doubters political games. It's also taught me quite a bit about how people attempt to deceive others and control conversations, which is a useful skill for dealing with politics in life and redirecting the political back to the practical.
Since I am not a scientist in the field of climate change, I do not feel the need to convince myself that scientific consensus is correct by examining the raw evidence myself -- in fact, I suspect that doing could only mislead and cause confusion, since I am not trained in how to analyze and interpret that sort of data. Therefore, I defer to the scientific consensus. The opinions espoused by a very small minority of climate scientists that disagree with that consensus do not trouble me, particularly when these scientists have been fired from multiple research institutions, since I cannot be sure they are operating in good faith.
People talk a lot about how oil money may be biasing the scientists who are skeptics. But you should know that there is a lot of money on the non-skeptic side as well. Carbon credit trading and carbon taxes are set to be huge money makers for governments and private institutions alike.
As you say, many climate skeptic scientists have been fired from their positions. That tends to make the rest of them stay pretty quiet, if they don't agree with the mob. As you can see by the responses to my posts here today, it really is a dangerous opinion for a scientist to put forth, so it's reasonable that many are silent.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/Murry-Salby-CO2-rise-natura...
It's been in many many comments. It can be read in less than an hour, unlike your video. Why would anybody watch an hour video when the source makes egregious errors like this?
Also, why are you putting politics above science? Why are the politics more important than reality? Politics should be subservient to scientific truths, not the other way around. I suspect that that's why you keep on trying to deceive yourself and others on this matter.
While most of the commentors were obviously pro-AGW, seeking to pick flaws in whatever he said, even to the point of criticizing his use of 2005 figures instead of 2012 figures, it was refreshing to read people debate real science, rather than what generally happens. Thanks for the link.
Our asking you this has nothing to do with your specific politics (nor with how wrong or provocative or abusive other commenters may be). It has to do with the intended use of HN, which is the gratification of intellectual curiosity: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. That's not compatible with ideological warfare.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13427924 and marked it off-topic.
I never understand why these article don't just provide you with the sources where this data was captured...let alone the actual data used. I guess we are just suppose to "believe" them?
That's generally the purpose of a journalistic organization, yes.
edit: Do you (or anyone else) know why they choose their zero point the way they do? If the graph is going back to 1880, why not just call that the zero? The closest year I could find that was at 0 was 1972 at +0.01C. Is it supposed to be based around when the satellites started taking measurements or something?
If I understand it correctly, the 0 point is the average of the period from 1951 to 1980, which was chosen relatively arbitrarily based on when research on this stuff began in earnest, but is about as early as it can reasonably be.
From the Earth Observatory [0]:
> The period of 1951-1980 was chosen largely because the U.S. National Weather Service uses a three-decade period to define “normal” or average temperature. The GISS temperature analysis effort began around 1980, so the most recent 30 years was 1951-1980. It is also a period when many of today’s adults grew up, so it is a common reference that many people can remember.
[0] http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/deca...
My favorite is trying to explain to people how climate change can produce more snow not less and that doesn't mean it is not getting warmer... it means that the air is warmer and because of that can hold more moisture and thus larger more severe precipitation events.
So I've read, I'm not a climate scientist.
Actual quote I hear multiple times per winter: "Look at all that snow! Global warming my ass!"
1. The majority of the world isn't even on par with say, France, in terms of their contribution to this problem. It's only going to get worse as they develop (finally).
2. Those living in the countries that contribute the most aren't going to pay the price, figuratively or literally. Would you take an 80% paycut to eradicate this problem? Probably not. Would you not have children (who will comparatively consume, and therefore contribute far more than 3rd world children)? Probably not. This line of thinking is obviously a part of the problem.
Where do you get this from? I haven't seen anything suggesting that such a paycut would be necessary and/or follow from the required CO2 reduction.
But in general I think* that sustainable energy and technology will actually make high quality of life cheaper and more achievable.
* No sources cited, take with grain of salt
How am I ever going to live with electric cars with instantaneous torque that drive themselves?
Or all the electricity I can get from the sun?
I really don't know how I'm going to deal with paying almost nothing to heat my house in the winter due to geothermal heating instead of this nice gas fire that is currently burning in my furnace.
And I'm going to miss having all those plastic bags from the grocery store under my sink. It will be so inconvenient having to reuse the same durable bag every time.
And it's too bad I'm going to have to have a 1/2 cm thin high efficiency OLED 4k TV instead of having a 20 lbs monstrocity hanging from my wall.
I'm being snarky and a bit of an ass but I see a world gone green as a world of opportunity not a world of sacrifice.
And free fertilizer from compost instead of paying a small fortune for it at the store is a real drag.
We really can have our cake and eat it to. In many many cases green technology is both better for the environment and just plain better all around. Well unless you're invested in dirty energy.
Edit: Yes I do know this didn't continue permanently, but as recently as 2013, coal was the UK's largest single source of electricity. Change is faster than most people realise. :)
"Yet"
Because people keep fighting it. Meanwhile I bet you that Elon Musk is going to make a fortune off of clean technology. A smart business person who is highly capitalized should be jumping on the opportunity to turn "not yet" into "now"
Anecdotally, I know many people who are doing just that. Not having kids for ethical reasons related to climate change.
Not saying I agree or disagree, just presenting an anecdote from the group of people I know.
The way I see it every new human expands our global hive mind super computer and it's also a lottery ticket at getting a new Einstein. All you need is one genius to advance a science to the next level.
Probability, and the probability says their kid will turn out to be the same level of idiot as the rest of us, all the while using 400x (or whatever the number is) energy and resources of someone in a developing country.
All you need is one genius to advance a science to the next level.
History has demonstrated that the singular genius coming up with a breakthrough is largely a myth.
These are huge problems that can't be fixed by any one group and are going to need solved in the next 10 years before we can replace most or all of our existing power plants with renewables.
Extreme poverty is worse than most natural disasters. I wouldn't be surprised if infant mortality is substantially lower in a developed nation during a category five hurricane than it is in a poor nation during calm weather. It's better to reign in hell.
The benefits of development may actually outweigh the cost of, say, losing one's coastal cities.
This is also why what I call "abstinence based" solutions to environmental problems are doomed. This refers to the use of shame and ideology to convince people to accept a lower standard of living. Telling people to forego the benefits of energy consumption is going to work about as well as telling them not to have sex.
The only solution to climate change is large scale renewable and/or nuclear energy sufficient to economically replace fossil fuels. All else is futile.
1) Mitigating the effects
2) Minimizing the effects
Going all in on one or the other is a fools' errand.
The appropriate solution, IMO, is a substantial carbon tax, with some proportion of it going to funding mitigation and the rest going toward a citizens' dividend.
A pro of this arrangement: to the degree that it's easy to cut down on carbon pollution, it will drive people in that direction. And in the areas where it's really hard to cut down on carbon pollution, it'll act as an economically efficient tax that's passed on to consumers and then rebated to the people. There're almost no losers (except for the many people who disproportionately benefit right now from offloading their carbon pollution onto other people).
Specifically, I think there's a chance that, worldwide, it will get more difficult to find places that basic food crops can be grown with sufficient reliability, due to extremes in heat, cold, storms, drought and flooding.
According to the data I've seen, on a worldwide average, this hasn't started happening yet, but it already happening in some regions.
What I'm concerned about is 'weather weirding'. On average, everything gets warmer, but because there's a lot more overall energy, the highs get higher, and the lows get lower, along with more extreme rain/flooding, along with more extreme drought. And, of course, a lot more intense storms.
I hope I am wrong, and it seems like the analysis of this line of thought is just starting to ramp up.
Anecdotally, it's why, for example, we got something like 10 or 12 '100 year' and '500 year' weather events in the US in 2016.
I know there is not much to say in response to this fact really - and HN is a tech news resource, but it saddens me that this topic garners less interest than making money. Like money will save us from the effects of this?
"...as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics."
According to Lovelock, this is just the start of a 100,000 year journey into the unknown for the planet. Just the start.
Based on the current data, I think the predictions James Lovelock made 11 years ago were quite modest.
http://www.jameslovelock.org/page10.html
Get enough money, and you can buy yourself some mighty good AC.
Imagine looking at the daily closes of a stock price, then trying to judge if the tick data from the last 5 minutes constitutes a meaningful trend.
We just don't have the data to prove it yet. With that said:
Should we stop polluting? Yes
Should we research renewable energy sources? Yes
Should we try to save energy and get more efficient where possible? Yes
Should we aim to reduce energy usage per person over time? Absolutely not
Energy use per capita is effectively our standard of living. Sure we might be able to keep making CPUs use less energy, but there will probably never be a way to make heating/cooling a house or manufacturing physical products a magnitude more efficient. Our only solution to make the world better is to increase energy production.
Since we don't have a planet lined-up for colonization and temperatures are already threatening stability - we need to deal with the first half of the equation before nature does it for us.
> Should we research renewable energy sources? Yes
> Should we try to save energy and get more efficient where possible? Yes
All of these questions have become weirdly politicized. It seems to come from thinking less pollution hampers business profits. If a company is required to pollute less, many think that increases cost.
Two strategies that could fight this:
1. Point out how polluting less could also result in enhanced energy efficiency, which could overall reduce cost (especially when factored over many years)
2. Make it even more abundantly clear what the consequences will be.
Many visualizations exist to help the consequences be visible, but they still seem very academic.
Unless someone can internalize how something will negatively impact their life, inertia rules and no change will be made.
I am working on something that will remind people of the concrete negative consequences more often, but I must be careful to still be accurate.
Communicating what we know now in extremely concrete, easy-to-understand, visual and visceral terms, seems essential to removing the politicization of these questions.
"Should we aim to reduce calorie intake per person over time? Absolutely not. Calorie intake per capita is effectively our standard of living."
...well yes it was, until some day it wasn't any more.
Energy per capita is only a proxy for standard of living. You can build a well-insulated modern house that needs a fraction of the energy required to heat a 1930's house with similar size, but nobody will say the person living in the modern house is poorer for that.
Compared globally, access to technologies that allow the same convenience with less energy is a better indicator for our standard of living.
But green energy is impotent, and nuclear power is scary!
You'd be surprised how much more efficient houses can be with pre-existing tech and very little change in lifestyle. Measures such as:
a) smaller houses (median American house size has doubled in the past 60 years or something like that) b) better-designed houses (large south-facing windows, more thermal mass, better insulation) c) more effective heating systems (eg. radiant heat) d) moving away from central heating and cooling and instead only heating/cooling the rooms you're actually in
can get you a long way (actual numbers in links at bottom).
If you actually want to get into "personal sacrifice", putting on thermal underwear is a great way to reduce your heating bill. It's difficult to argue that wearing thermal underwear is a diminishing of one's standard of living. It's also possible for many people to buy fewer manufactured goods with very little effect on standard of living e.g. does every homeowner need a lawnmower, instead of sharing one with a neighbor? (again, we're into "personal sacrifice" territory).
> Energy use per capita is effectively our standard of living.
Only if we're running at 100% efficiency already, which I've demonstrated that we aren't. Right now the costs of running at sub-optimal energy efficiency aren't particularly high so we choose to be comfortable instead of efficient.
Source (apologies they're all from the same place) http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/03/25/cut-your-power-bil... http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/02/16/the-radiant-heat-e... http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/01/what-is-thermal-ma... http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/05/01/beating-the-stock-...
I also think reducing per-capita energy usage over time is a laudable goal - provided we continue the trend of increasing efficiency we've had over the last 100 years.
I have no doubts that climate change is happening - I'm just not certain its the most pressing problem humanity has right now - and certainly not the most pressing problem for most developed countries.
Humanity will eventually put a fix in for climate change, but we have a habit of not fixing such things (threat of global calamity) until the last possible second - and I can make a strong argument that humanities finest hour has consistently been when hope is all but lost.
That is true for developing countries. But for developed countries, the two have been disconnected for several decades, with per capita wealth going up while per capita energy use goes down.
It seems to me that Fortune 500 businesses have been especially slow taking advantage of computing developments over the last 10-15 years. I feel like there is so much potential for them to be better for the environment by more efficiently creating better products - and I can't understand how they would pass up on such opportunities. It's better for them because these improvements could lead to better product (competitive advantage) and marketing superiority (earth friendly!).
Maybe I'm naive or maybe Jevon's Paradox makes it all useless.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/01/06/scien...