Carl Sagan testifying before Congress in 1985 on climate change
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters use it as proof that the climate problem was clearly explained decades ago, and as a model of clear communication to a broad audience.
What it is
Carl Sagan's December 1985 testimony to Congress on the greenhouse effect, about 15 minutes long. He lays out CO2 warming, the risk of runaway effects and the danger of continued coal burning.
Recommended by 4 HN commenters across 4 different months, 2021 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec agentultra · 2023-01 · on “Revealed: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 70s & 80s”
The address Carl Sagan made in 1985 is well worth watching for those who remember those times and especially for those who weren't alive back then [0] People knew about this before you were born and decided their best interests were more important and they acted in wilful disregard for your life and the lives of everyone on this planet. They weren't ignorant. No facts were hidden from them that they could be forgiven for being misinformed. They knew with certainty what the science was revealing and spent money to discredit the science, cut funding to their own researchers, bought politicians, funded PR campaigns, and continued building their fossil fuel empires. Everything Carl Sagan said in
Recommends andersonmvd · 2022-01 · on “Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale”
Look at how many details this guy (Carl Sagan) conveyed in his 15' speech: [this video] in a way that potentially everyone understood. I wonder if every explanation was like his, if nuance wouldn't be well communicated, even to large groups.
Recommends YellowStuDregg · 2022-08 · on “Climate endgame: exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios”
A quick google search gives us plenty of past published projections and how they fared: [LINK] You can also watch Carl Sagan break it down in front of congress back in 1985 for just 15 minutes of your time [this video]
Recommends melling · 2023-03 · on “Trees Across the U.S. Are Sprouting Leaves Earlier Than Usual This Year”
Time to watch Carl Sagan, almost 50 years ago, explain how our coal usage would be a big problem: [this video] A slow train wreck that was avoidable.
Cites asix66 · 2021-12 · on “Life Circa 2050 Will Be Bad.”
Almost. But those that did were not listened to as in this case where Carl Sagan clearly explains the situation before policy makers almost 40 yrs ago [1] 1: [this video]
Cites jaltekruse · 2022-04 · on “Jimmy Carter's White House Solar Panels (2019)”
I think it is important to remember that anti-renewables messaging has been around for a very long time. The panels might have needed to come off for repairs but definitely could have been put back up. Casually discarding even a public relations action like this likely had negative impacts on the discussion and many people taking the issue seriously for years to come. I don't know specifically how anti-renewables Regan was personally, but he definitely was the leader of a party that most strongly fought climate change messaging and actions in recent years. Here is Carl Sagan testifying before congress in 1985 [this video] Admittedly this hasn't necessarily been as strongly polarizing as it was du
Cites melling · 2022-05 · on “California Joins Bid to Save Nuclear Power”
It’s 2022 and 40% of global electricity is from coal. We just hit 10% from solar and wind. Here’s Carl Sagan from 1985: [this video] He said China would use all that coal and they did. We lost decades of time. Now we need a few additional miracles.
Cites melling · 2022-07 · on “Europe Can Replace Russian Gas and Still Achieve Its Net-Zero Emissions Goal”
Sounds more like a long-term plan… “It will take €10 trillion of investment by 2050 for Europe to transform its energy infrastructure” In case anyone is wondering how we got here, it required almost 40 years of not doing much to solve the problem. We’ll need another 30 years of effort. I imagine because we waited so long, we shortened our window to solve the problem. Thus requiring more money and a couple additional miracles. The multi-generational effort did turn out to be a problem. And all that coal in China. Carl Sagan understood the issues so well. [this video]