Even though this is still a weather variation event it is very strange to be living in Stockholm and feeling like it's spring since December, the cherry blossoms at Kungsträdsgården were blooming in early/mid-January. We had less than 5-6 days of snow in total so far and for two weekends in a row there were days over 8C. Even frost has been rare this winter so far...
I don't normally shill subreddits -- and advise everyone to use an ad blocker while on that website -- but for those who find this news alarming and/or shrug it off as media hysteria, I highly suggest popping over to /r/collapse.
The immediate reaction (as an ego defense mechanism) is to dismiss what you will read as unproductive fear mongering. However, it is a far worse fate to be surprised by the reality of the situation (both environmental and social) when these processes hit their limit and begin affecting the neoliberal institutions that govern our world. The best way to protect yourself and your family is to stay informed, no matter how dire the truth may be.
The time for gradual change was decades ago; the only thing that will save us now (and when I say save, I mean allow modern civilization to continue) is radical action.
It's worse than that. There is very determined political will, across much of the globe, to stoke global heating further for short-term benefit.
In my country (Australia) we had a federal election last year. The climate issues were very clearly laid out, and most citizens here accept the science, and have some understanding of the severity of the issue. Yet they voted very decisively against any further action to reduce emissions.
Most of the electorate here simply will not countenance changes from business as usual. Of the world's more significant population centres, Europe is the most realistically ambitious but is too fractious & bureaucratic to rapidly make the necessary big decisions, the US is weighed down with a sclerotic political system and a huge proportion of the population with dogmatically anti-scientific attitudes, China is backpedalling due to economic worries, and India has enough troubles of its own.
We're toast - this must be clear to everyone at this stage.
Maybe Americans could start changing their way of life rather than waiting for « political will » or a never coming technological revolution. UE has started reducing CO2 emissions will keeping a very reasonable and increasing level of life.
It's easy to blame politics, but voters really do have an effect on this and there's hardly any will there either. The fastest growing party in the Netherlands is huge on climate denial and stopping or rolling back anything done against climate change. Their voters are adamant that there's no real issue with climate change, that everything is exaggerated and that it's all a left-wing conspiracy.
Most people want to remain at the same level of comfort and luxury, and that's not possible if we want to effectively combat climate change. We'd need to fly less, drive less and consume less and that's the opposite of what's happening in the world.
I've been wondering why TSLA has been trading the way it has. A normal short squeeze doesn't adequately explain it. The volume today alone is more than 2x the last reported shares short.
We all know something very, very bad is going on with the climate.
What does the current TESLA share prices have to do with the environment situation?
It's not like TESLA has some magic pixie dust that can save the world tomorrow. Environmental impact from current ICE cars is fairly small compared to the pollution caused by mass manufacturing with no recycling, heavy industry, coal burning, shipping, etc. People buying more Teslas are a drop in the ocean when it comes to saving the environment, like putting a band aid on a slit artery.
People buy TSLA because it makes them money and buy Teslas because they're nice cars. If they really wanted to save the environment, they would ride a bike.
All of us reading this right now are going to die just barely seeing the true extent of the outcomes.
And we'll likely all die reasonably content knowing it's not our problem. We're among the last generations that can expect to ride the current peak in human success before the hard bounds kick in and things either become much more difficult or more likely just completely collapse.
We all love to rest easy on the fallacious idea that (as Carlin put it) "the earth will be fine, it's us who are fucked."
It sounds nice, but the reality is far worse. Beyond a certain temperature bound, the entire biosphere collapses... completely.
"Oh but there are extremophiles that survive insane conditions!"
And what do they feed on? Organic particulate matter that filters down to them from the rest of the biosphere that depends on relatively tight temperature bounds.
Natural selection can only keep up with a certain degree of change in the mean of temperature before it just collapses.
If we generate the conditions for the collapse of human civilization, it's more likely than not that we also take all life on Earth with us.
And statistically... that means the end of life, period. That our planet happened to have the particular temperature bounds for long enough for life to emerge is vanishingly unlikely.
I feel like it's kinda the opposite. Tesla recently graduated from EV maker to car maker. There's honestly no car currently on the market that matches the Model 3 in its price range, whether electric or not. Acceleration and comfort features are nearly unmatched at the prices (in Europe at least). Sure, there's something to be gained in road noise and build quality, but the cars are incredible. I feel like investors are finally seeing this with, for example, NFL players explaining how Tesla is their current go to car and it becoming a status symbol.
Investors have been too stuck on the environmentally friendly thing to see that they make great cars and that's not even the only thing they do.
An increase in variation is by definition an extremely statistically significant change in behavior. Most families of distributions have two dimensions: mean and variance.
They are using a 30 year range only which is meaningless.
The raw data ALWAYS speaks for itself — out of the 50 U.S. state record high temperatures, 23 were set during the 1930s, while 36 occurred prior to 1960. There’s barely been a handful of record high temperatures broken in the last 3 decades out of 50 states:
Edit: I am getting quite a few downvotes even though I linked to scientific data. Please let me know what the downvote is for, otherwise it’s disappointing a scientific community doesn’t want to engage in poking holes in the data.
It's for not knowing what the word "globally" means. That is a pretty big hole in your own data.
Look at the equivalent data where it exists for South America, Europe, Africa or Asia. The majority have records set in the last 30 years.
Of course, none of the Northern hemisphere countries set their all-time record temperature in January so all-time records in the US are pretty irrelevant to the article.
[+] [-] seizethecheese|6 years ago|reply
This is outlier journalism. The actual data is more informative (from December): https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-blended-mn...
On average the globe is warming. In a splotch of northeastern europe very much so. In other places, it's actually colder.
[+] [-] piva00|6 years ago|reply
It is pretty damn strange.
[+] [-] _yhul|6 years ago|reply
The immediate reaction (as an ego defense mechanism) is to dismiss what you will read as unproductive fear mongering. However, it is a far worse fate to be surprised by the reality of the situation (both environmental and social) when these processes hit their limit and begin affecting the neoliberal institutions that govern our world. The best way to protect yourself and your family is to stay informed, no matter how dire the truth may be.
The time for gradual change was decades ago; the only thing that will save us now (and when I say save, I mean allow modern civilization to continue) is radical action.
[+] [-] hivacruz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Najtmare|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crispinb|6 years ago|reply
In my country (Australia) we had a federal election last year. The climate issues were very clearly laid out, and most citizens here accept the science, and have some understanding of the severity of the issue. Yet they voted very decisively against any further action to reduce emissions.
Most of the electorate here simply will not countenance changes from business as usual. Of the world's more significant population centres, Europe is the most realistically ambitious but is too fractious & bureaucratic to rapidly make the necessary big decisions, the US is weighed down with a sclerotic political system and a huge proportion of the population with dogmatically anti-scientific attitudes, China is backpedalling due to economic worries, and India has enough troubles of its own.
We're toast - this must be clear to everyone at this stage.
[+] [-] lapink|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wickedsight|6 years ago|reply
Most people want to remain at the same level of comfort and luxury, and that's not possible if we want to effectively combat climate change. We'd need to fly less, drive less and consume less and that's the opposite of what's happening in the world.
[+] [-] shard972|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 1propionyl|6 years ago|reply
(Note: this is intended as a very harsh condemnation.)
[+] [-] titzer|6 years ago|reply
edit: downvotes for finishing the song lyric. Cheers, HN.
[+] [-] Proven|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lngnmn1|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ddmma|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway5752|6 years ago|reply
We all know something very, very bad is going on with the climate.
[+] [-] ChuckNorris89|6 years ago|reply
It's not like TESLA has some magic pixie dust that can save the world tomorrow. Environmental impact from current ICE cars is fairly small compared to the pollution caused by mass manufacturing with no recycling, heavy industry, coal burning, shipping, etc. People buying more Teslas are a drop in the ocean when it comes to saving the environment, like putting a band aid on a slit artery.
People buy TSLA because it makes them money and buy Teslas because they're nice cars. If they really wanted to save the environment, they would ride a bike.
[+] [-] 1propionyl|6 years ago|reply
And we'll likely all die reasonably content knowing it's not our problem. We're among the last generations that can expect to ride the current peak in human success before the hard bounds kick in and things either become much more difficult or more likely just completely collapse.
We all love to rest easy on the fallacious idea that (as Carlin put it) "the earth will be fine, it's us who are fucked."
It sounds nice, but the reality is far worse. Beyond a certain temperature bound, the entire biosphere collapses... completely.
"Oh but there are extremophiles that survive insane conditions!"
And what do they feed on? Organic particulate matter that filters down to them from the rest of the biosphere that depends on relatively tight temperature bounds.
Natural selection can only keep up with a certain degree of change in the mean of temperature before it just collapses.
If we generate the conditions for the collapse of human civilization, it's more likely than not that we also take all life on Earth with us.
And statistically... that means the end of life, period. That our planet happened to have the particular temperature bounds for long enough for life to emerge is vanishingly unlikely.
[+] [-] donkeyd|6 years ago|reply
Investors have been too stuck on the environmentally friendly thing to see that they make great cars and that's not even the only thing they do.
[+] [-] adj83|6 years ago|reply
if you have that sort of deviation its hard to make meaningful statements about the longer term changes, it seems to me
[+] [-] 1propionyl|6 years ago|reply
And not just under expectation but in general.
[+] [-] busymom0|6 years ago|reply
The raw data ALWAYS speaks for itself — out of the 50 U.S. state record high temperatures, 23 were set during the 1930s, while 36 occurred prior to 1960. There’s barely been a handful of record high temperatures broken in the last 3 decades out of 50 states:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec/records/all/tmax
Edit: I am getting quite a few downvotes even though I linked to scientific data. Please let me know what the downvote is for, otherwise it’s disappointing a scientific community doesn’t want to engage in poking holes in the data.
[+] [-] toupeetape|6 years ago|reply
It's for not knowing what the word "globally" means. That is a pretty big hole in your own data.
Look at the equivalent data where it exists for South America, Europe, Africa or Asia. The majority have records set in the last 30 years.
Of course, none of the Northern hemisphere countries set their all-time record temperature in January so all-time records in the US are pretty irrelevant to the article.
[+] [-] r_singh|6 years ago|reply
> There’s barely been a handful of record high temperatures broken in the last 3 decades out of 50 states
If they were talking about maximum recorded temperatures, your argument would've made sense.
However, they're talking about average temperatures, for which a 30 year range is certainly not meaningless.
[+] [-] yread|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Europe
30 records in the last 15 years vs 18 in the previous 100+
[+] [-] freetime2|6 years ago|reply
> Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized.
> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
Possibly some of the downvotes are simply for not following the guidelines.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ozorOzora|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ozorOzora|6 years ago|reply