Looking at the number of points and comments on each (including this one), I remember something my mom (an elementary school teacher) always said: "You have to repeat something three times before people hear it."
For those uninitiated, this is a quote from Dragonball Z: Abridged. It's a fan dub of DBZ until the Cell saga, with incredible amounts of work put into each aspect of the production.
It's a true gem of the internet of the 2010s, and a must-watch for any fan. A bunch of voice actors even started their careers through it!
absolute amounts of emissions by country is an arbitrary division, more people = more (demand for) industrial activity; for the numbers to be useful and actionable, they need to be understood in the context of the people those emissions are for, no?
Doesn’t that assume that the production isn’t for export. For instance, if the EU and US export their industries to low wage, high population countries you would see their per capita numbers drop and overall leveling out. However, the damage to the climate would be equal. Essentially, you need to look at a lot of factors and think holistically about the problem.
At the end of the day, it's one ecosystem we all live it. It doesn't matter if the top polluter has 1 billion, 0.1 billion, or 10 billion people. The total amount of greenhouses gasses added to the atmosphere is too much. We all need to stop adding and then start removing.
As for which metric to use, that depends on the argument you want to make. One can look at cumulative emissions and see how western nations have polluted much more historically, and should therefore do much more to clean up a mess their have contributed much more to.
Their governments will retort: "Oh but we produce so little of current global emissions now, those other countries polluting more should change first".
But why are countries the best division? Why not continents, or unions of countries (e.g. EU or USA), or sub-country divisions like states, or even smaller regions? Countries don't have the highest possible impact on all people, that would probably be unions. It's also not the most direct impact, that would depend on each country, but for e.g. Germany that would be the individual states.
The per-capita measurement allows you to directly and meaningfully compare any subdivision, while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
> The per-capita measurement allows you to directly and meaningfully compare any subdivision, while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
Compare to what end? The environment cares about total output, not per capita output.
> while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
> Compare to what end? The environment cares about total output, not per capita output.
Yes, and the environment does not care in any way about countries or other silly subdivisions. So we approach the problem as each of us humans having some carbon budget based on the limits of our environment. You can argue how exactly these budgets are distributed, but it's the only measure that matters. Because again: you're arbitrarily choosing to look at countries, when even other subdivisions along the same axis would make more sense. So why focus on countries specifically?
> Why does it need to be?
Because obviously a measurement that's comparable is more useful than one that isn't. It allows us to make determinations about what changes bring us closer to the goal of environmental sustainability, and which changes bring us further away. Do I really need to go on further?
Because it is at the country level that people corporate on international problems. And in many countries it is the federal (or equivalent level) which has the money required to build out the kind of projects needed change those numbers (or the legal authority to mandate it).
Ahh. I misunderstood what you meant.
> while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
I interpreted as “other per-country measurements” as (other measurements) not (same metric, different country).
I still think it’s not relevant. The changes and the target are still the same, i.e. stop burning shit.
> Because it is at the country level that people corporate on international problems.
It's also at the union level that people corporate on international problems, arguably more so than on the country level. Yet the largest differences occur at the regional level. Both would be more comparable, and would capture arguably more useful information. I just don't see how an arbitrary and incomparable measurement is better than one without those flaws.
> I still think it’s not relevant. The changes and the target are still the same, i.e. stop burning shit.
Yes, but it's easier to implement the necessary changes if everyone tries. It will be much harder to get the necessary investment from all voting populations if large discrepancies exist between groups of people.
I think we’re talking about different things now. I’m saying that emissions should be measured one absolute levels per country since a) absolute pollution is what matters and) countries are the political blocks that dictate international laws and cooperations.
You seem to be talking about the groupings by unions and regions. I am unconvinced that people have a stronger affiliation for those than their country. Further, measuring emissions levels for the country as a whole. On a practical level, getting emission levels for a specific region or a specific union, must less particular individuals, is going to be much harder.
> I am unconvinced that people have a stronger affiliation for those than their country.
Why is the affiliation the relevant axis? Why not indirect political power (unions strongest) or direct political power (regions strongest)? You're arbitrarily choosing an arbitrary measurement.
> Further, measuring emissions levels for the country as a whole. On a practical level, getting emission levels for a specific region or a specific union, must less particular individuals, is going to be much harder.
I don't see how it could be more complex for unions since they are made up of countries. If we have measurements for countries, we have measurements for unions.
Similarly, you can't create country-wide measurements without measuring individual regions. At least in Germany we have pretty good coverage for the individual regions, which gives you much higher resolution data. So why not use that?
I don't see how you can arrive at "countries" as the best/most logical axis of measurement. The only use I see is if you want to tell people that other countries have much further to go (but I'm not accusing you of doing so).
> It doesn't matter if the top polluter has 1 billion, 0.1 billion, or 10 billion people
Each polluter is an individual person making individual decisions.
The thing people are dancing around is any concept of "rationing", because that's political suicide, but at the same time asking people who've only just got clean water and walk to work to reduce emissions while other people are taking multiple transatlantic flights per week looks a bit questionable.
While your statement is fundamentally correct, the issue here is that people typically use these charts as an excuse to point the finger.
The tension globally is between the west who has high per capita emissions, a long period of high emissions, and high living standards as compared to the global south who have a larger population and lower living standards and yet still high absolute levels of emissions.
Telling China/india/et al that they’re the real problem is taken as “yeah we polluted for centuries to get rich but that’s all in the past, you need to stay poor in order to save the planet”.
An alternative solution might be to have the west pay to help these countries develop more sustainably, but that’s met with anger by the rising nationalist elements. I mean even importing green tech from the global leader (China) is being resisted.
China is rapidly decarbonizing, India is right behind, it is the US you have to convince to move faster (coal plants are rapidly on their way out, but US consumers prefer ICE pickups over EVs, and LNG exports must be prevented and substitutes found [carbon footprint determined to be substantially higher than coal]). Europeans have, for the most part, done very well considering the carbon profile of everything west of Poland. But they also need to speed up the EV uptake, with domestic EU automakers pleading "it's too hard" while China eats their lunch. Norway shows they way here imho, as they have reached their 2025 deadline of only new EVs being sold. Battery manufacturing is needed, as much as possible, batteries are the future of anything not seasonal storage.
We did not leave the stone age because we ran out of stone, but because we found something better. This applies to renewables, EVs, batteries, etc as well, the problem is mostly solved, it is a matter of making the machine go faster is all. We need enough low carbon energy to replace everything fossil today (account for the orders of magnitude efficiency gains versus thermal generation, so not a 1:1 replacement needed), future energy growth, and energy needed to sequester 100+ years of emitted carbon.
> China is rapidly decarbonizing, India is right behind, it is the US you have to convince to move faster (coal plants are rapidly on their way out, but US consumers prefer ICE pickups over EVs, and LNG exports must be prevented and substitutes found [carbon footprint determined to be substantially higher than coal]).
I argue this ignores rate of change of manufacturing capacity and deployment trajectories, but concede all we can do is speculate based on data available today.
I am aware. Relying on gas imports of any sort is unsustainable long term (both from a geopolitical and environmental perspective), although they are a necessary bridge until EU energy security is reached.
Not sure if true, bit if so... You think it's less environment invasive to import gas from far away USA on tankers than bring it by pipes from country near by?
Trump believes in it despite some past assertions around the narrative around climate change being silly, which to be fair, can be at times. He does dismiss it too much though and clearly promotes corporate greed and profit for others over environmental issues
I somehow doubt global warming is the problem. Average apartment size, average income, ie. "the economy" is going to provide an answer much more than global warming will.
Climate change will wipe trillions from the economy between now and 2050, so you'd have to assume some of what you describe is related and the negative economy impacts are already real.
What do you think the hit to the tech sector will be from the fires in California?
I don't think the tech sector will be hit that badly, the push to increase energy consumption by making everyone use AI won't slow down. Most of tech is physically closer to SF than LA.
It has an impact, even if its just a distraction. I have friends who had family seriously affected by the fire that work in major tech companies who are taking time off to help out etc.
I wasn't trying to suggest it's a major financial hit to the tech industry in California, but every event climate change linked extreme weather event like this does have a negative impact on output and profits.
Whatever to justice selfishness and taking responsibility. At the end, it's culture of death that will be replaced by those, who are open for life, care and love. Look at fertility rate per woman in wealthy west countries. We are dying.
It seems like it's taking responsibility to not have kids if you're unclear whether they'll even survive? I think that's hyperbole but it is their belief.
Earth will be fine with 1/10th the level of humans. I'm not saying I want anyone to die, I'm just saying massive drops in birth rates is fine outside the economics of it.
"Scaremongering" means what exactly? Repeating warning warnings from hundreds of scientists? Is being worried about reality considered bad behavior for any logical reason?
What amazes me is that FL is hit the hardest from Hurricanes yet the overwhelming view is that climate change is a haux. The words "climate change" are banned from all official govt docs and communication.
Big gas guzzling cars and utility companies building in more gas generators and hiking prices. Yes there is some solar, but it's <5%.
I doubt much will change in next 4 years. Trump and Republicans are very pro carbon fuels.
Right first sentence: "The planet has moved a major step closer to warming more than 1.5C, new data shows, despite world leaders vowing a decade ago they would try to avoid this."
"We must exit this road to ruin - and we have no time to lose," he said in his New Year message, calling for countries to slash emissions of planet-warming gases in 2025."
"Last year's heat is predominantly due to humanity's emissions of planet-warming gases,..."
"The 1.5C figure has become a powerful symbol in international climate negotiations ever since it was agreed in Paris in 2015, with many of the most vulnerable countries considering it a matter of survival."
Maybe I'm missing or misunderstanding something, but isn't this a criticism you can levy against most news articles that describe events? These seem to be factual descriptions as well as descriptions of ought-statements and -positions taken by related people and groups of people, which is the same case for articles about inflation, or social statistics, or pretty much anything else.
While I can understand that in many cases, the examples in this article are good ones in my eyes. A good news article should cover more than the bare minimum, and all the examples you brought up aren't manipulative in my eyes, since they are simply true.
What truth has to do with leaders ability to change a weather?
I find suggestions for critical action that leads to eliminate individual freedoms, justified by collective guilt, quite obvious in articles about climate and weather like this.
Why are you talking about weather, when the topic is climate? You're either fundamentally misunderstanding the topic, or you're deliberately misrepresenting the article to prove some point, presumably climate change denial.
In the spirit of your attitude it's intuitively obvious to the meanest intellect and well covered in courses by the likes of Graham Priest, Dominic Hyde, et al (logical Philosopher types with a grasp of physics and applied math).
The water,land,air interface was *predicted* to warm via thermodynamics arguments.
Leaders made commitments to reduce the insulation causing the warming.
The insulation was not reduced, despite the vows to do so.
The water,land,air interface has warmed, as expected in the absence of reduction in insulation.
There's no moral or ethical expectation here about how mass and fluids should heat or cool - just thermodynamic equations.
69 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 168 ms ] threadState of the climate: 2024 will be first year above 1.5C of global warming (5 points, 9 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42085978
This year set to be first to breach 1.5C global warming limit (10 points, no comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42077420
It's a true gem of the internet of the 2010s, and a must-watch for any fan. A bunch of voice actors even started their careers through it!
As for which metric to use, that depends on the argument you want to make. One can look at cumulative emissions and see how western nations have polluted much more historically, and should therefore do much more to clean up a mess their have contributed much more to.
Their governments will retort: "Oh but we produce so little of current global emissions now, those other countries polluting more should change first".
The per-capita measurement allows you to directly and meaningfully compare any subdivision, while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
Compare to what end? The environment cares about total output, not per capita output.
> while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
Why does it need to be?
Yes, and the environment does not care in any way about countries or other silly subdivisions. So we approach the problem as each of us humans having some carbon budget based on the limits of our environment. You can argue how exactly these budgets are distributed, but it's the only measure that matters. Because again: you're arbitrarily choosing to look at countries, when even other subdivisions along the same axis would make more sense. So why focus on countries specifically?
> Why does it need to be?
Because obviously a measurement that's comparable is more useful than one that isn't. It allows us to make determinations about what changes bring us closer to the goal of environmental sustainability, and which changes bring us further away. Do I really need to go on further?
Because it is at the country level that people corporate on international problems. And in many countries it is the federal (or equivalent level) which has the money required to build out the kind of projects needed change those numbers (or the legal authority to mandate it).
Ahh. I misunderstood what you meant. > while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
I interpreted as “other per-country measurements” as (other measurements) not (same metric, different country).
I still think it’s not relevant. The changes and the target are still the same, i.e. stop burning shit.
It's also at the union level that people corporate on international problems, arguably more so than on the country level. Yet the largest differences occur at the regional level. Both would be more comparable, and would capture arguably more useful information. I just don't see how an arbitrary and incomparable measurement is better than one without those flaws.
> I still think it’s not relevant. The changes and the target are still the same, i.e. stop burning shit.
Yes, but it's easier to implement the necessary changes if everyone tries. It will be much harder to get the necessary investment from all voting populations if large discrepancies exist between groups of people.
You seem to be talking about the groupings by unions and regions. I am unconvinced that people have a stronger affiliation for those than their country. Further, measuring emissions levels for the country as a whole. On a practical level, getting emission levels for a specific region or a specific union, must less particular individuals, is going to be much harder.
Why is the affiliation the relevant axis? Why not indirect political power (unions strongest) or direct political power (regions strongest)? You're arbitrarily choosing an arbitrary measurement.
> Further, measuring emissions levels for the country as a whole. On a practical level, getting emission levels for a specific region or a specific union, must less particular individuals, is going to be much harder.
I don't see how it could be more complex for unions since they are made up of countries. If we have measurements for countries, we have measurements for unions.
Similarly, you can't create country-wide measurements without measuring individual regions. At least in Germany we have pretty good coverage for the individual regions, which gives you much higher resolution data. So why not use that?
I don't see how you can arrive at "countries" as the best/most logical axis of measurement. The only use I see is if you want to tell people that other countries have much further to go (but I'm not accusing you of doing so).
Each polluter is an individual person making individual decisions.
The thing people are dancing around is any concept of "rationing", because that's political suicide, but at the same time asking people who've only just got clean water and walk to work to reduce emissions while other people are taking multiple transatlantic flights per week looks a bit questionable.
I don’t know who those people are. Also, another way to say rationing is “sharing”.
The tension globally is between the west who has high per capita emissions, a long period of high emissions, and high living standards as compared to the global south who have a larger population and lower living standards and yet still high absolute levels of emissions.
Telling China/india/et al that they’re the real problem is taken as “yeah we polluted for centuries to get rich but that’s all in the past, you need to stay poor in order to save the planet”.
An alternative solution might be to have the west pay to help these countries develop more sustainably, but that’s met with anger by the rising nationalist elements. I mean even importing green tech from the global leader (China) is being resisted.
We did not leave the stone age because we ran out of stone, but because we found something better. This applies to renewables, EVs, batteries, etc as well, the problem is mostly solved, it is a matter of making the machine go faster is all. We need enough low carbon energy to replace everything fossil today (account for the orders of magnitude efficiency gains versus thermal generation, so not a 1:1 replacement needed), future energy growth, and energy needed to sequester 100+ years of emitted carbon.
The exponential growth of solar power will change the world - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746617 - June 2024
(the Earth collects enough solar radiation in less than an hour to power humanity for a year)
IDK, does not look that way:
https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu/
At best China will stay the same, India will increase emissions, meanwhile both US and EU emissions will significantly drop.
>Europeans have, for the most part, done very well
These exports are happening because Europe has replaced its Russian gas with American gas.
What do you think the hit to the tech sector will be from the fires in California?
Hollywood is being significantly affected though.
I wasn't trying to suggest it's a major financial hit to the tech industry in California, but every event climate change linked extreme weather event like this does have a negative impact on output and profits.
Earth will be fine with 1/10th the level of humans. I'm not saying I want anyone to die, I'm just saying massive drops in birth rates is fine outside the economics of it.
Earth is for life, not life for Earth.
Do you have kids?
North Carolina.
Big gas guzzling cars and utility companies building in more gas generators and hiking prices. Yes there is some solar, but it's <5%.
I doubt much will change in next 4 years. Trump and Republicans are very pro carbon fuels.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
Should be easy if it's "full of them".
"We must exit this road to ruin - and we have no time to lose," he said in his New Year message, calling for countries to slash emissions of planet-warming gases in 2025."
"Last year's heat is predominantly due to humanity's emissions of planet-warming gases,..."
"The 1.5C figure has become a powerful symbol in international climate negotiations ever since it was agreed in Paris in 2015, with many of the most vulnerable countries considering it a matter of survival."
Many more across article...
I find suggestions for critical action that leads to eliminate individual freedoms, justified by collective guilt, quite obvious in articles about climate and weather like this.
It's a pity you can't quite grasp thermodynamics or Hume though :/
Have you tried reading that 1967 paper on CO2 equilibrium in the atmosphere?
In the spirit of your attitude it's intuitively obvious to the meanest intellect and well covered in courses by the likes of Graham Priest, Dominic Hyde, et al (logical Philosopher types with a grasp of physics and applied math).
There's no moral or ethical expectation here about how mass and fluids should heat or cool - just thermodynamic equations.