<story><title>Sea Change – The Pacific&apos;s Perilous Turn</title><url>http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/pacific-ocean-perilous-turn-overview/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>revscat</author><text>Like many who visit HN, I am an atheist. I am coming to believe, however, that the production of CO2 is the greatest sin, in the religious sense, that exists today. It dwarfs all other problems -- Syria, terrorism, the NSA, class and economic disparity, all of them.&lt;p&gt;Being technologists we tend to assume (hope?) that some solution will present itself before it is too late. I am growing increasingly pessimistic that such a solution will arise. The powers that be in our world are dedicated to economics, not science, and certainly not to the environment. Their altars are derivatives and overnight lending rates, of war and spying, of realpolitik and power.&lt;p&gt;Humanity, I do not think, is likely to survive this coming apocalypse without widespread civil uprisings against the current power establishment, and with it a sea change in what is viewed as unethical or sinful: unnecessary CO2 production being viewed as the great evil that is is, an existential threat to every extant political, religious, and economic group.&lt;p&gt;Instead we have the Koch brothers, Apple vs. Google flame wars, and the expenditure of almost unbelievable energies on wars and political positioning.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s insane. I don&amp;#x27;t think humanity will survive into the 22nd century, and it will be our own damn fault for not rising up and removing those power structures that lead us to this point.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hooande</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s very easy to underestimate the power of human ingenuity. The things we do routinely today would seem to be beyond magic to someone who lived 100 years ago. How do you even convey the concept of &amp;quot;automated car&amp;quot; to someone who doesn&amp;#x27;t know what a car is? How would you explain the job of a &amp;quot;director of social media strategy&amp;quot; to someone who lives in 1913?&lt;p&gt;My point is that the people of the 22nd century will probably be more alien to us than we are to people of the early 20th century. One innovation is all it takes to change paradigms, and those innovations are very difficult to see coming. Then something builds on top of that and something else on top of that, and next thing we know someone is getting filthy rich by removing carbon from the atmosphere using science fiction technology.&lt;p&gt;I believe that your pessimism is unfounded. Human beings have a long history of rising to a challenge. Even more so when there are fantastic sums of money to be made from a global economy. The safe bet is on technology and innovation, on unexpected ideas and discoveries that change the way we understand our problems. I&amp;#x27;ll admit that the environmental situation looks grim, but take heart in the fact that help is on the way.&lt;p&gt;And: 
HN has gotten so conspiracy crazy. For whatever Snowden did, he certainly changed the way that we view things in our corner of the internet. Privacy and liberty are genuinely important values and they should be fought for. But really, every thread? &amp;quot;the powers that be&amp;quot;? This too shall pass, I suppose.</text></comment>
<story><title>Sea Change – The Pacific&apos;s Perilous Turn</title><url>http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/pacific-ocean-perilous-turn-overview/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>revscat</author><text>Like many who visit HN, I am an atheist. I am coming to believe, however, that the production of CO2 is the greatest sin, in the religious sense, that exists today. It dwarfs all other problems -- Syria, terrorism, the NSA, class and economic disparity, all of them.&lt;p&gt;Being technologists we tend to assume (hope?) that some solution will present itself before it is too late. I am growing increasingly pessimistic that such a solution will arise. The powers that be in our world are dedicated to economics, not science, and certainly not to the environment. Their altars are derivatives and overnight lending rates, of war and spying, of realpolitik and power.&lt;p&gt;Humanity, I do not think, is likely to survive this coming apocalypse without widespread civil uprisings against the current power establishment, and with it a sea change in what is viewed as unethical or sinful: unnecessary CO2 production being viewed as the great evil that is is, an existential threat to every extant political, religious, and economic group.&lt;p&gt;Instead we have the Koch brothers, Apple vs. Google flame wars, and the expenditure of almost unbelievable energies on wars and political positioning.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s insane. I don&amp;#x27;t think humanity will survive into the 22nd century, and it will be our own damn fault for not rising up and removing those power structures that lead us to this point.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lutusp</author><text>&amp;gt; Being technologists we tend to assume (hope?) that some solution will present itself before it is too late.&lt;p&gt;I have some bad news:&lt;p&gt;* The problem isn&amp;#x27;t pollution and CO2 release, at last not directly. The problem is the number of people doing the polluting and CO2 releasing.&lt;p&gt;* A solution would be to have a smaller worldwide birthrate. Easy to say.&lt;p&gt;* But any solution to the above point is very likely to collide with equality and fair play, as well as crashing into the &amp;quot;Population Paradox&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;* The Population Paradox goes like this -- someone delivers a reasoned appeal to have fewer children, in the name of human survival and that of the earth. It&amp;#x27;s perfectly worded, and delivered to a huge audience.&lt;p&gt;* Sensitive, intelligent, compassionate listeners resolve to have fewer children.&lt;p&gt;* Insensitive, unintelligent, uncompassionate listeners don&amp;#x27;t -- they will have the usual number of children.&lt;p&gt;* That&amp;#x27;s the Population Paradox in a nutshell: because of evolution, &lt;i&gt;over time people become less sensitive to the damage they cause&lt;/i&gt;. And history proves that political &amp;quot;solutions&amp;quot; aren&amp;#x27;t solutions at all, but disasters.&lt;p&gt;I hate to break this to you, but the biggest obstacle to a human solution to this problem is ... humans. Or nature, if you prefer, in the guise of natural selection.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: People, do try to avoid downvoting posts that are truthful but upsetting, solely on the ground that they&amp;#x27;re upsetting.</text></comment>