Im not dang but I would like to share a hypothesis why this maybe isn’t so terrible.

The thing that always stood between the world and climate action was the fact that fossil fuels were the best energy source.

Since a few years, the tables have turned and solar seems to be marching towards absolute dominance.

So there isn’t much to do in terms of political climate action, since the incentives are now mostly economical.

I agree though, the extend to how people are happy to just roll over and accept that the world will go down with them is surprising.

1) there are still trillions of "subsidies" (that includes some negative externalities)to fossil fuel each year according to IMF (IMF, not Greenpeace!).

2) Agents in the current system have incentives to prioritize short term benefits over longer term benefits. And a lot of climate related things are short term cost/investment for "profitable" long term benefits ; the current system sucks big time in this configuration.

3) The people having the least negative impact from climate change are the countries emitting the most greenhouse gas. The countries the more negatively impacted by climate change are countries contributing the least to climate change. There is a big misalignment of interest there making a purely "free market" "economical" solution difficult.

4) There are a lot of case in the real world were there is a strong economical incentive to switch to something different and were the different agents just don't... Because people don't want to change, because there can be some particular interest in the system, because of political motive... Human is not a rational animal, and his rationality is not only dictated by money

5) We need to do more than just switching from fossil to "green electricity"

> The thing that always stood between the world and climate action was the fact that fossil fuels were the best energy source.

this has not been true since 1951

What’s not true? Fossil fuels are and will be the best energy source for a long while.

fission

The world will go down when the sun expands to gobble up the earth, with much more global warming due to that. This should take a few million years but the Earth has an expiration date already after we die. I think it's hard to have people care about that the same way it's hard to have people care about issues that will come up 25 years after they die. When you're dead 25 feels the same as a few million years from what I was told.

> When you're dead 25 feels the same as a few million years from what I was told.

Not if you have children.

And the happiness of your children is affected if they know that their children will die from climate change. And so on, transitively.

It’s a beautiful thing that kids give you: a sense of purpose that extends below your own lifetime.

I'm starting the question chaotic climate happening in my lifetime - 37. "Not being around" is something geriatrics get to enjoy, so basically all of our politicians.

That's 4 billion years from now, in the meanwhile we could keep the planet livable and not on a course to venusian climate.

This is closer to paranoia than really concerns about the guy you answer. Million of years or billions don't matter much in the context of what he is saying, nor does it really serve his point. I see the mistake but not the malice. And I don't understand why you want to flag/ban.

Millions or billions of years after you're dead makes as much difference as 25, that is my point.

As for the rest of your calling for banning, people can look at my history of more than 10 years of comments on HN and decide if it's fair to call for banning someone like this, lol.

Because these are the same talking points billionaires use to scare people with maybe twenty five dollars in cash accounts and no savings and people who have a couple million dollars into believing misinformation about taxes. Our taxes (in the US) are pretty low by any standard. Saying a billion dollars is "a few million" is disingenous. Nobody is arguing for higher taxes on everyone. Normally, I would believe someone is just a useful idiot (like I am most of the time) but you seemed too knowledgeable to be ignorant.

> Im not dang but I would like to share a hypothesis why this maybe isn’t so terrible.

> The thing that always stood between the world and climate action was the fact that fossil fuels were the best energy source.

> Since a few years, the tables have turned and solar seems to be marching towards absolute dominance.

> So there isn’t much to do in terms of political climate action, since the incentives are now mostly economical.

If we could put climate change on hold for 50 years we would probably be in pretty good shape, because in 50 years we will probably have enough renewable energy that we can just decide to stop burning (most) oil.

But in the real world, in 2024 we haven't actually reduced emissions at all yet, and the possibility of cutting down emissions in 50 years isn't enough.

It's true that in that sense we aren't that far from a scenario that "isn't so terrible" but that seems more like an ironic fact than something that should be comforting.

Because of the way climate change works, the future possibility of reducing emissions simply isn't enough if we aren't actually currently reducing emissions when we would really need to be at approximately zero right now to fix the problem.

The whole Western world has shifted rightwards in recent years as can be witnessed in election results.

it's because the left has been attempting to make progress too fast, without regard to the people who lean towards the right as tho their point of view is universally regarded as being wrong. Reactionary politics is real, and the left ought to be more aware.

Leaning towards left (aka progressive) is good, but if you're not paying a cost for it, someobody else is - and it's likely someone leaning right that's being forced to do so. They're not gonna like it regardless if whether it's generally a good thing.

I think single factor explanations are likely to be overly simplistic. Usually, there is not one single reason that motivates people to vote one way or the other.

> it's because the left has been attempting to make progress too fast

I think social progress is linked to technological progress (increased communication, education, etc.) and it is absolutely true that technological progress is on a rocket headed to the moon.

Politics works in cycles and maybe we are seeing the backlash of a lot of people starting believing in climate issues. Now that actions start being taken, people not caring about climate start pushing back because they need to change their lifestyle, and some parties (right wing/populists) promise them nothing has to change.

I think though that is getting harder and harder to ignore actual climate issues (storms, floods, heat), wonder what will be these parties next claim to convince voters "is the left wing/immigrants that generated the floods?"...

This is an unsupported shower thought but I suspect societies become more right when times are not as good.

You support immigration if you have a stable job and own a house but you don’t if you are getting laid off and aren’t sure what you next job will be.

And it seems most of Earth has lately been in a rougher place.

Societies become more right when they see how left destructive policies and actions. People are not stupid, they can be fooled temporarily by high moral stances, but once they see all bs, they move away.

“Times are not good” not because of some unknown force but because of policies/actions creating those “not good times”

The whole Western world? It seems mostly men, not women: https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1ac0...

The fact that those charts show Germany leaning considerably more conservative than the US makes me skeptical of their methodology.

"US data is respondent's state ideology. Other countries show support for liberal and conservative parties" It shows increasing disagreement between women and men on the matter. Me2 and BLM showed how much is going wrong in society and it reached many people around the world. edit: additional link on the matter: https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-gender-gap-young-men-w...

[delayed]

Hmm. I think a lot of people who were silent about their positions on this topic are much more inclined to say them out loud now, even on websites like HN. Not that they are right though.

As for the reasons why I have (like anyone else) two or three ideas.

And whatever it is, it ain't making me feel optimist about what's to come.

Those are my feelings as well.

>Hmm. I think a lot of people who were silent about their positions on this topic are much more inclined to say them out loud now, even on websites like HN.

I'm not sure, HN has always been welcoming to contrarian views unless it is something particularly nasty like racism.

If I could point to anything it would be the fact that we are getting close to an election in the US.

Is that wrong? Is only one narrative allowed in a discussion (it's not a discussion then is it?).

You being downvoted only furthur proves your point.

Left wing politics wants freedom and equality for all while right wing only want it for some. Makes no sense to discuss, lefties are correct and right wing people are either benefiting directly from the abuse ($$$) or are just stupid and believe all bullshit without using their brain.

I notice a surprising unwillingness to consider that the situation may be, in fact, terrible, and the arguments are usually "well changing lifestyles is impractical" at though the current status quo is sustainable.

How did the lyrics to that song go? And when you ask them, "How much should we give?" Hoo, they only answer, "More, more more more!"

I gave up any hope of having meaningful relationships with other people in the name of building a good career in my life because that's what my parents wanted from me. I got into pistol shooting because it was primarily a solo activity.

Then the government passed laws decreeing that handguns have no place in civilized society. So I wanted to get into motorcycles. But that's just wrong because CO2 emissions. Now I'm being told that having space for myself, for a work from home office is wrong too because we need to increase density for the sake of efficiency.

Meanwhile price my groceries has went from $60 what I paid for in 2019 to $110 for that same bag of food. A small bag of flour went from $2.50 to $5 this year. Rice has gone from $14 to $22 for a large bag. And rent has became mad in many ways; last year average rent in this city was $1450 a month. This year, it's $1700 a month.

Then you've got one side that's yelling that we need to transition cars to electric but the nearest one to what you have is $20,000 more. And you're being told that we need to be looking at a way to get rid of the terrible CO2 emitting gas furnace for something more efficient like a heat pump. But the heat pump that can handle our climate is $15,000 to install.

Then they ban single use plastics like bags because of the issue of microplastics. And it annoys you but at this point it doesn't overly matter because you can't afford to eat out as much anymore anyways. But you're lucky enough to be able to afford rent and food, because you know people that are asking food banks for anything and being told the wait times are now at least 1 to 2 weeks because of the number of people in front of them waiting for food too.

All that verbal diarrhea to say... I'm tired. I'm tired of being told that it's my fault the world is screwed up. I'm tired of seeing seeing the roads I took to whatever little stability I have now being closed behind me. Tired of it seeming like that at some point in my future, the only thing I'll have left to enjoy will be the jab of a syringe full of heroin.

Overly dramatic yeah. It doesn't make any sense but it's how I feel. Dunno if it's anyone else that feels like this way, be a little surprised if it's really just me.

> I'm tired of being told that it's my fault the world is screwed up.

It's not your fault specifically though, it's our fault.

I'm fortunate that I'm in Australia, so my parents now have a hybrid car, a heat pump hot water and solar panels.

I have an EV, electric hot water, solar and home battery but... it was only 2 years ago I was renting, I had no solar panels, gas hot water, petrol car, and no home battery.

I did my best to reduce my electricity usage + paying extra to use the 'green power' option, my car was the smallest/most efficient I could get, I got a motorcycle to reduce the amount of oil use for daily trips to work.

My point of view is that you can only do what is in your capacity to do, and so long as you can say that to yourself you're good, we need more people like you.

I had a multi split system air source heat pump installed for 7k. And indeed, government has a lot of blame for the high cost of living. I'd love to live in a nice, cheap bungalow court in San Diego close enough to things to not need a car, but it's de facto illegal to build them most places since too much parking is required. The food prices suck though. If only corn subsidies could be applied more sensibly.

May be, in fact terrible, ot may be, in fact, absolutely normal.

Those are emotional definitions having absolutely nothing in common with the situation

It's not surprising. The average demographic of this site is a laptop-class worker whose work and passion is only made possible by a nearly incomprehensible foundation of thousands of years of infrastructure to build off of, who lives very comfortably, fancying themselves humanity's pioneers and dreaming of a singularity within their lifetimes. They've been told it's inexorable, so they think they're entitled to it. Snatching not only that dream away but their entire set of assumptions about how this civilization can't possibly collapse (even though many have in the past) because we're more enlightened or something? Literally can't compute, won't compute.

I think it's the time. I've noticed the comments change tone at the weekend.

I'm not interested in "fighting" climate change while the entire western world is busy burning gasoline and trading with China.

Aging userbase? People get to a certain age, realise they'll probably outlive problems then just start campaigning for whatever will give them the best rest of their life. Seems to kick in quite early now too, like 35.

It feels far more rapid, e.g. try to find all highly upvoted posts about EVs over the last couple of months. It feels (anecdotally) that they have been increasingly more negative recently.

EVs are interesting because it's a classic example of people simplifying a multidimensional problem into one. It's not just pro-EV and anti-EV. There's also the orthogonal pro- or anti- car dimension.

For example, I'm anti-car. In principle I'm pro-EV, but I also see EVs making things even worse with respect to all the other damage cars do besides exhaust emissions. They are heavier, more powerful and at best neutral with respect to safety and social issues.

But if you look through the one dimensional lens I'm just "anti-EV" because I don't want them.

> @dang Is it just my impression that HN is drifting rigtwards on this topic?

Of course it does, telling people that they have to reduce fossil fuel use directly means that they are part of the problem, people really don't like that.

And what if??

Why are you @-ing dang as if his job is to maintain some kind of particular consensus in order to ... idk, support some kind of political narrative? Hah!

Not support, but prevent. All the conservatives have is hate and anger because they don't want to talk about their fears because they are men. They believe all shit no matter what, because in the end they are a fearful child on the inside.

Huh, OP doesn't strike me as a conservative- quite the opposite, given their fearful lamenting of an alleged "rightwards shift".

> Not support, but prevent.

Well, supporting one obv. meaning preventing the other..

Where does one buy the world’s largest brush? Amazon?

Because he moderates this place and therefore is orders of magnitudes more knowledgeable about trends on HN. Next in line are people scraping and researching HN.

Perhaps it's time for a tweak on an old classic: "It is difficult to get a person to understand the severity of climate change, when their comfort depends upon them not believing it."

I similarly am quite surprised to scroll past ten top voted comments all just saying slight variations of "I used to care, but now I don't" followed by some "whataboutism".

Almost like this whole post has been astroturfed. I'm not even sure though it is.

I think the US in particular is experiencing mental whiplash to how bad it really is and how much comfort the whole planet has to give up to prevent it.

Can we bring the planet back into equilibrium, absolutely. But I think many people over 20 have absolutely no interest in it. They want a solution that won't change their standard of living, which won't happen.

I expect the governments of the world to be toppled or redirected by the next two generations as they can clearly see how drastically everything is changing.

Anecdotally I think the zoomers are more this way. It's not HN. HN is just reflecting the change happening on the outside.

I really don't know. It's possible. If there is such a trend, I wouldn't necessarily call it 'rightwards' because there is always a range of different factors and left vs. right is only one.

All I can tell you for sure is that perceptions of trends on HN are usually unreliable. You definitely can't judge it by one thread. The Launch HN posts of startups working in climate tech generally get favorable receptions, for example.

Thank you for the answer.

I do realize HN trends are unreliable. As a few others who replied, it felt peculiarly acute in this thread, but my impression was not based merely on this thread, but on several such 'huh' moments in the past two years. While HN always felt somewhat heterogeneous and still does, compared to 7-10 years ago, to me it feels that there is relatively more science contrarianism or even denialism with regards to climate, vaccination, etc., more subthreads derailing into religion because someone justified some strongly held position upthread using religion and more socially/culturally conservative attitudes. These are things which for lack of a better term I labeled a rightward trend in the USA sense of the word. In my unreliable memory, I remember HN being mainly economically right leaning and culturally left leaning which mirrors the corporate environment which found it much easier and cheaper to gain good will points that way. In retrospect, the pandemic feels kinda like an inflexion point (both HN wide and society wide).

I also have a limited POV into HN, for example I never really looked at the Launch HN threads (for the simple reason that most focus on the USA, at least in early stages, while I am in eastern EU) so I never really got those data points. With no real data and just remembered personal anecdotes is is hard for me to tell if this was merely an illusion or things haven't changed but I have become more aware of these aspects or whether the trend is real. Others in this subthread have proposed explanations for the trend and I think several theories can be found both society wide and HN wide. But while we do have some evidence the trend is real society wide, I thought it worth checking if the it is true HN wide before hypothesising explanations. Also, (compared to FB for example which we know captured a certain cohort and is aging along with it) with HN allowing easy account creation and throwaway accounts I think it is hard to accurately measure how well the HN sample reflects the population of society at large (we do at least know there is a heavy US-centric bias for obvious reasons).

I wish there was a reliable political alignment text classifier I could use to science this.

I am disappointed to see some have interpreted this inquiry on my part as me trying to police the thread.