A while ago IPCC issued a very dramatic announcement effectively saying that climate change of a huge scale is now unavoidable (1).
A bit of internet research reveals that there are many out there that believe that this is in fact a big understatement. They say that what has been set to motion is a perplexed mixture of feedback loops that might very well lead to an uninhabitable Earth in only some decades (2). The only glimpse of hope maybe lying in a desperate last minute attempt to geo-engineer a solution that will keep Earthly conditions at a bearable zone. Of course amongst them you’ll find the usual doom/gloom sellers, conspiracy theorists (even though these frauds tend to be sceptical (sic) about climate change), new-age spiritualists, neohippies and a whole lot of others that are just adding noise to the conversation, but still the issue is huge and is hitting the news ever more often (floods in Balkans being the last piece of disturbing weather events).
…
Being somewhat professionally affiliated with the world of hackers I thought of sharing such shattering news on one of the most eminent hacker news clearing house, i.e. hacker news (HN). After all, if the problem is that big, it’s gonna take lots of brains and out of the box thinking to find a solution and both these qualities seem abundant in HN residents.
I tried submitting the story three times (3). You cannot submit the same story more than once in HN so I picked yet another version every time. Readers see the submitted stories and they can either upvote them or ignore them. The more votes a story gets the most prominent it becomes on the site, thus being read by even more people. Yet, to my disappointment it seems that almost nobody gave a flying fuck about the IPCC story. First 2 submissions hardly got any vote and the last one got 7 (you need at least 50 upvotes if your story is to have any chance).
The best I did. 7 upvotes.
I really don’t get it. Is it that nobody cares? Or maybe that we all got so much used to the issue that we don’t pay any attention any more? Or -a form of denial maybe- we filter it out altogether? Or are they – hackers that is – so entrenched in their own world that this piece of news doesn’t hit the base?
I have no idea but it surely does not compute.
PS: Of course I’m gonna submit this story too and call it a day afterwards.
Notes:
2. http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-the-war-on-climate-scientists/ statements near the end of the interview.
3. The links/stories I posted are:
IPCC Concludes Climate Change is Irreversible, Effective Responses Needed
Arctic Death Spiral and the Methane Time Bomb
Current state in climate change. Are things THAT bad?
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