from Hacker News

Europe has had five 500-year summers in 15 years

by tegeek on 6/29/19, 5:39 PM with 124 comments

• by pier25 on 6/29/19, 8:45 PM

  This is a great video that explains how climate change is slowing the jet stream and how that is affecting the climate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQliow4ghtU

• by sytelus on 6/30/19, 4:16 AM

  I am really starting to worry about climate change but not because of sea level rising or other popular reasons. The big issue that no one is talking about is that the world’s densely populated areas closer to equator are having agriculture yields starting diminish due to high temperatures and land becoming more and more dessert like. In places like North America, Europe and even Siberia, the weather is becoming much more pleasant longer parts of the year and farms are appearing on scene where it was unimaginable few centuries ago. The most productive agriculture band is moving more north up leaving massive population it previously helped grow behind. This is certain to create crises we have never seen before.

• by FreeFull on 6/29/19, 10:40 PM

  It feels like we're at a point where simply dropping emissions down to 0 wouldn't be enough, we need to outright start pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and have negative emissions. Given the way politics is right now, catastrophe feels inevitable.

• by NeedMoreTea on 6/29/19, 9:18 PM

  The whole idea of normal and the basis on which 1:500 and 1:1,000 events are built is starting to feel well past expiry date. We've had no end of them in the 21st century, whether cat 5 hurricanes, flood, fire or as in this case summers. It's not normal now, it's before we broke it, and normal is starting to sound and feel archaic.

  After 5 in 15 years, and on course for a sixth, the benchmark looks way off. At what point should it simply become a 1:3 year summer, or just "summer"?

  How deniers can experience it and keep acting like nothing's happening beats me.

• by spookybones on 6/29/19, 8:32 PM

  And the award for best headline goes to ...

• by djohnston on 6/29/19, 8:38 PM

  Pessimistically, global warming is going to kill us. You might as well install that window unit in Munich and be comfortable for the next few decades.

• by KyleOS on 6/30/19, 11:22 AM

  It's scary seeing the evolution of the effects of climate change over time. How anybody can continue to deny it is unbelievable. This [1] plots out global average temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, month by month.

  [1] https://kyso.io/KyleOS/temperature

• by point78 on 6/29/19, 9:40 PM

  Overpopulation is not helping either. Would it be this bad if there were only 500million people?

• by jammygit on 6/29/19, 10:24 PM

  I wonder what one could do to help with this as a startup. Most of the green tech is expensive and/or can’t compete with oil and gas subsidies. Education will take too long at this point.

  Who would pitch in to help me build a giant Mr Burns sun blocker in space?