Discussion

Sea level much higher than assumed in most coastal hazard assessments

bikenaga: [delayed]

sebmellen: The saddest part of global turmoil around AI, Iran war, etc. is how dramatically climate change has disappeared from the 'global conversation'. This is not something we can afford to ignore for much longer.

jatari: Climate hasn't been a real topic of discussion since the Obama administration.

maest: The US has been taking steps in the wrong direction wrt climate change and they will undoubtedly be judged to jave been on the wrong side of history on this one.In the near term, however, Americans will blame everything except man-made pollution for the fallout from climate change.

buildsjets: The only thing you ever post is AI summaries of articles. Why?

Schiendelman: I assume that's a bot that helps us not have to click on articles for basic information. Personally, I find it quite useful. I'd love to have that built into HN.

MisterTea: We are more than capable of reading thanks.

giraffe_lady: I don't think climate change is being ignored: AI, war profiteering, ICE, detention centers, destruction of the international system, global fascism are their answer to climate change.It's not to prevent it, or to mitigate its damages, it's for the people who disproportionately caused it, and have already benefitted from it, to finalize their control over the resources they want. Some of those resources are some of us.

georgemcbay: And they aren't even really bothering to hide it anymore.A lot of Trump's seemingly odd obsessions like taking over Greenland and Canada are less odd (but still very unsettling) when you accept that the global power elite have already accepted that run-away climate change is inevitable and the only open questions are who is going to profit from it and how.

slackfan: Politics and speed of change aside, is there a period in history in which climate was not changing?

giraffe_lady: “But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

surgical_fire: You don't have to worry about the future if you ensure there is no future.

sebmellen: Regardless of the politics of the day, where is the long-term, popular will (or capacity) for a "green/electric" revolution in the US? We are massively dependent on fossil fuels, and our quality of life is too.At the same time, we don't have China's industrial capacity or their stomach for massive state-driven subsidies. I don't see how you escape peak oil otherwise.

quotemstr: People have been saying this for 50 years now. Nothing's happened. You really need to knock it off with the alarmism. We cannot reorient all of society around predictions of doom that just aren't coming true, aren't coming anywhere close to coming true, and that will not plausibly come true on any relevant timescales.

sebmellen: "People have been saying computers will start to speak since the Dartmouth Workshop in 1956. Here we are 50 years later in 2006 and there's no sign of progress yet! Nothing's happened. You really need to knock if off with the predictions."

maest: Oh, I don't think this is a partisan issue (although Democrats do vaguely gesture more towards climate efforts than Republicans).I think the median American voter doesn't care and is happy to live a life of consumption with big cars, big houses and cheap energy. There is also the issue of fossil industry lobbying and propaganda, of course, but I think that's mostly working _because_ the American people don't really care.

axus: Disagree, the motives are the same with or without climate change. We're still at the slow part of the curve. Knowing what's coming doesn't change their behavior.

beedeebeedee: There are also some people in power who believe climate change is related to the end of times and eagerly welcome it to hasten their idea of ‘Armageddon’

Herring: You're giving them too much credit. They're just blind and seeking profit. Humans are just not good at planning longer than 6 months to 5 years out.

danaris: I mean, to some extent, you're not wrong, but if a Democrat were in office right now, we wouldn't be actively fighting the rising tide of solar power.At present, the bare economics of it, without any subsidies, put solar as the most cost-effective new power capacity to add.Last year—2025, the first year of Trump's second term—something like 90% of all new generating capacity in the US was solar. Even with his active antipathy toward it.There no longer needs to be a massive movement willing to pay more for energy just to get it decarbonized. All we need is for the fossil fuel industry and the people in its pay to get out of the way.

mullingitover: > At present, the bare economics of it, without any subsidies, put solar as the most cost-effective new power capacity to add.Not just more cost-effective for new power.The operating expenses for a given coal plant are greater than the buildout cost for the equivalent solar+battery plant.It no longer makes financial sense for coal plants to continue existing in almost all cases. This isn't some environmentalism thing, it's strictly hard math. Fossil energy is no longer viable without taxpayers keeping it on life support.

michaelteter: Fox News and Trump still routinely say it's a hoax. And their devotees repeat that line in one breath, and in the next breath say, "wow, we just set a new high temp record in January!"

metalman: Watch your warming oceans expand in real time herehttps://nsidc.org/sea-ice-todayabove shows what may be the earliest ever peak sea iceandhttps://www.ospo.noaa.gov/products/ocean/sst/contour/and the one above is absolutly terrifying , or should be to wanabe hegemnons thinking that the naritive, is thiers.

lazyasciiart: Can you explain what background knowledge I need to be terrified looking at the second one?

metalman: it is a tool that shows daily snap shots of the SST to use it you need to have a good grasp on geography/oceanography, and then spen a bit of time each day looking at it, and cross corelating with things like hurricanes, to see the trace spiral of cooler water that a giant storm will imprint into the oceans surface, or this year, the very significant chanhes in the worlds major hot and cold currents, and size of the spill over from the south wester pacific into the atlantic.

sebmellen: The other thing is, we can't stop. Someone always will outcompete you if you try to pause.

sebmellen: Yes, exactly my point. It's too hard to grapple with, so it's easier to ignore.

solid_fuel: I think every browser has an AI summary feature now, if you find reading and engaging with information just too difficult and challenging.

0xffff2: I say this as an American... I can't help but feel that the US will be judged to have been on the wrong side of history in virtually every topic for which there are sides in the last decade if not longer. For reasons I don't understand, we seem to be actively and aggressively working to destroy our country and as many global institutions as we can.

datsci_est_2015: > For reasons I don't understandHistory is full of examples, but maybe not explanations, of the type of behavior coming out of the current administration in the US. They’re not particularly special, or extraordinary, by any measure. They’ve simply made the decision to hit the “defect” button over and over again like a teenage boy discovering porn for the first time.And since the adults that preceded them were reasonable and responsible, they built up plenty of rules and norms, creating many opportunities to now hit “defect”.