It's quite clear that if climate change is real and a pressing concern, the people flying around the world trying to stop it would not be major drivers of the problem.

Unfortunately for humans, all the evidence seems to indicate strongly that climate change is more than a conspiracy to get a few people marginal relative wealth increases. Especially since it seems the ones trying to convince the world to change haven't been very successful.

Also, I'm pretty sure the GP wasn't saying "I shouldn't save because politics," but rather, "A 401k sounds great, but if everyone's starving and the world is in chaos, what's the point?"

>people flying around the world trying to stop it would not be major drivers of the problem.

Thats missing the point. The fact that these people arent willing to sacrifice the slightest convenience for the planet strongly suggests they dont actually believe what they are saying. Obviously no one person can ruin the planet.

And: >"A 401k sounds great, but if everyone's starving and the world is in chaos, what's the point?" Is just a nicer way to say: >"I shouldn't save because the apocalypse is coming"

>marginal relative wealth increases

Understatement of the century. >Former vice president Al Gore had a net worth of about $1.7 million at the turn of the century and 13 years later, his wealth has grown to more than $200 million. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320452/Al-Gore-Rom...

The article says Gore made his money in business, by starting a TV network and from stock options earned while sitting on Apple's board. The options were from before the massive rise in Apple's stock.

You implied Gore made his money from climate activism, but your own source contradicts you. The options are:

1. You have such confirmation bias that you don't even read articles you post as evidence, or 2. You know you're arguing in bad faith, but you hope to persuade people who don't read the link

I'm sure Al Gore has made some money from climate activism, but the vast bulk of his fortune came from elsewhere. So the comment you were replying to was accurate in describing it as a marginal increase due to activism.

Here's the first hit from a web search for "al gore solyndra"

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_1961299

Tldr; The Washington Post attributes most of Al Gore's net worth to investments in taxpayer subsidized climate startups.

There certainly are bad faith people on hackernews, i just hope you yourself arent one of them lol.

"These people" are. You just haven't heard of them. In particular there are quite a few low-energy, off grid, permaculture advocates living what they preach. The existence of Al Gore doesn't change the science.

No, but it does put into question the motivations of people funding the science, and academics are poorly-paid professionals constantly fighting for funding, not gods with uniformly honored moral scruples.

The future has been, since the birth of language, terrifying and uncertain.

There have been times in history where focusing on your retirement has been a stupid idea (fall of Rome, WWII, areas devastated by plague or flood, etc, etc). However, there have also been times where catastrophe has stubbornly refused to occur.

It is actually pretty easy to describe a horrific future that can't be quickly or reasonably debunked - but anyone with sense should also be prepared for the outside scenario that everything carries on as planned. Doomsayers always face the risk that the problem turns out to be solvable or minor, and should be prepared for that.

Are you saying that Al Gore's above-average energy consumption (private jets, mansions, etc) invalidates his claims about climate change? Are we meant to infer from his behavior that nobody needs to make any significant changes to their lifestyle?

Yes. If you're unwilling to live by the charges you are demanding others make, your credibility is weakened.

The jet travel may be justified, but if he believes what he is saying he should be flying commercial and the extravagance in the rest of his lifestyle looks really hypocritical.

I would agree if Al Gore existed in a vacuum. There are other, less extravagant people who also claim that:

>climate change is real

>climate change is man made

>climate hazards will impact people all over the world

>climate change quickly creates additional hazards which need to be dealt with on top of whatever problems already affect us (erosion of infrastructure, salination of farmlands/aquifers due to flooding, traffic trapping people during a forest fire)

Perhaps Al Gore believes that individual actions are completely insignificant compared to the acts of corporations and governments. Maybe he is a closet climate-denier. If either of those things are true, it is inconvenient that many see him as the face of climate activism. I think the case for climate mitigation should hinge upon scientific evidence, rather than the lifestyle and personal opinions of a single man.

Since when does the whole thing hang on the reputation of Al Gore? What a ridiculous argument, unworthy of HN.

Seriously. Are we really at the point where "I don't like Al Gore, therefore climate change is a hoax" is something we're supposed to rebut?

If something is true, it's true no matter who says it.

Most people have some faith in scientists and close to zero faith in public figures.

I think you should reevalute your confidence in this assessment, because in the United States alone there are demonstrably millions of people with non-negligible faith in public figures - of all kinds and political affiliation.

It's also fairly straightforward to find people who don't exactly hold scientists in high regard.

Does that still hold if you replace “public” with “religious?”

It makes me sad that, in 2018, acknowledgement of scientific fact is seen as a "political belief".

So: Your understanding that you can't prove yourself but which you take on faith from a politicized system of academic grants and government loans to fraudulent businesses like Solyndra is "scientific fact" and my skepticism is merely a "political belief".

I'm not really taking anything on faith here. Anyone with an undergraduate-level physics education should not have a difficult time making sense of all of this. The Greenhouse Effect was first theorized by Joseph Fourier in the early 19th century, and soon thereafter became established science.

I'm a bit puzzled as to why you bring up Solyndra, seeing as they never claimed to be an authority on climate science, just producing PV cells. Are you arguing that climate change was invented in order to motivate grants to research, and ventures like Solyndra, which otherwise may not have received them? If this is the case, then yes, I would say that your skepticism is indeed a political belief.

It makes me sad that, in 2018, people still think that assertions about the future climate made by predictive computer models is seen as a "fact".

we had predictive models of CO2s greenhouse effect decades ago, the predictions are coming true before our eyes already.

If you're running around 2018 saying "global warming is not a fact" I would urge some light reading on your part, it's really quite good writing in its own right:

Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/clim...

I could also raise my standard of living by stealing my neighbor's stuff. But that would be rude. I don't see how stealing from my neighbor's kid's future is any better.

If the best counterargument you can come up with is proudly ad hominem, that should be a serious red flag.

Have you heard of the term Neo-Liberalism? Lowering living standards for the middle class is part of the plan. Burglary has nothing to do with it.