Hacker News

points by jacquesm 4 hours ago | 0 comments

Four days ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50236455

This kind of thing will be as regular as clockwork in a few years time. Still there are a lot of people that will simply not believe it.

[–] adriand 3 hours ago

The deniers have transitioned to doomers. Originally they said we needn’t fight climate change because it wasn’t real. Now that’s it’s undeniable they say we can’t fight climate change because it’s too late.

[–] conception 2 hours ago

That’s because the ultra wealthy are funding new talking points.

[–] yongjik 1 hour ago

These days I believe the ultra-wealthy are just a fun scapegoat. Sure, they are guilty of many sins, but most of the time people mention them, there's never any concrete plan to make things better, other than a vague "eat the rich," which we all know will never happen. (And it's really unclear how eating the rich allows us to, say, move around without burning more gas.)

These rhetorics have a distinct feeling of "I found another out-group to which I will assign all the blame, which is very convenient, because I don't want to ever hear 'The earth is going to shit and I could have done something about it.'"

[–] SecretDreams 1 hour ago

In addition to making us feel better, eating the rich takes them off the table and might allow democracy to slowly work again, whereby decisions are made by the people for the people. Lots of damage to undo ahead of any of this, though. And it starts with eating the rich... Or at least looking at wealth taxes, banning lobbying, getting money out of politics as best we can, etc.

We cannot solve/tackle climate change when we don't even have functional governments that actually try to genuinely support their citizens needs.

[–] fwip 1 hour ago

One nice benefit of eating the rich, is that we're then free to use the wealth they've hoarded in ways that benefit the public.

[–] jacquesm 18 minutes ago

There is a pretty good chance that within a very short few years you'd have new people like that. It's a systemic problem.

[–] taneq 2 hours ago

“We’re going to follow the Four Stage Strategy.”

[–] echelon 4 hours ago

The people you think don't believe it do believe it. They use it as a statistic.

I live in the Southeast and hear the "guns in America kill fewer people than lack of AC in Europe" line all the time.

The battle is "not my problem", not "that's not happening".

[–] jimt1234 4 hours ago

The line I hear all the time is: "Why do I care if sea levels rise a couple of inches? I don't own a house on the beach!"

[–] ctkhn 4 hours ago

The craziest to me is the people who do own houses on the beach who want the government to bail them out. Even without El Nino or climate change, that's a hazardous location. Do not ask for my insurance or tax dollars to (literally) bail you out!

[–] bee_rider 1 hour ago

Lots of areas have natural hazards. Should we help out people hit by tornadoes or floods?

With climate change induced problems, at least there’s some justification. We collectively (as a country… you and I personally might not have been alive or voting when the mistake was made) failed to elect governments that would prevent it, so we we collectively get to pay for it.

[–] Joakal 2 hours ago

Good news, insurance companies are running for the exits on locations increasingly at risk. Homeowners are left screaming in fear of losing their homes after they realised insurance companies can just refuse to offer insurance after just 1 year. Even new homeowners desperate for a home are realising after they bought a new home in a floodplain, it turned out that developers/government tricked them into buying a massive liability where in a few years their million dollar asset becomes nearly worthless.

Bad news, neoliberal governments (even in Australia) are responding to this with socialising the risk via government insurance where rest of population who picked low-risk locations will still have to cover the high risk homes. Oh, and the government are still approving new homes in high-risk areas instead of increasing denisification of low-risk areas close to cities.

It's really painful to watch all this play out slowly.

[–] lazide 3 hours ago

If they might convince some fool to do it, they’d be fools not too eh?

That’s a lot of money!

[–] latexr 2 hours ago

“You think the people [who own houses by the beach] aren’t just going to sell their homes and move?”

https://youtu.be/RLqXkYrdmjY?t=4m05s

[–] bathtub365 2 hours ago

Why shouldn’t insurance cover it if it’s in their policy?

[–] analog31 2 hours ago

Many policies don't cover flooding. You're expected to get supplemental flood insurance, which is not cheap.