I have believed for years that Americans would have a completely different attitude to global warming if the Lower 48 had more glaciers. In the Alps, you can easily walk to places where there are 100m of ladders to reach a hut that used to be at the level of the ice. In Canada, you can drive to places that used to be the toe of a glacier, then drive another half-mile to the parking lot, built at the edge of the glacier 20 years ago, then walk even farther on loose rubble. 1.5℃ of warming feels abstract and trivial. A giant piece of ice disappearing feels much more real.
caturopath 1 hours ago [-]
Whenever I try to read up on it, it seems like glaciers are receding at ~2x their without-climate-change rate. That's a huge increase, but it doesn't seem like there's something that a person can experience at a visceral level here that is based on fact and not just preconception.
It's definitely striking, I can't deny that. I crossed the last remnants of an almost-extinct glacier last year that my guide guessed would be gone in 1-3 years: at the beginning of his career it was a real glacer with non-trivial extents, crevasses, etc.
haroldp 1 hours ago [-]
I grew up in a small town in rural Alaska that would have been completely under glacier ice when Columbus landed in North America. In the time between Captain Cook exploring the area in the 18th century and the next western survey a hundred years later, the coastline had been transformed by glaciers receding and revealing inlets hadn't been there for Cook to map. The glacier that was directly in between my town and the highway to Anchorage when I was a child is all but gone now, and there is a road.
stouset 26 minutes ago [-]
I think we're further hamstrung by 2℃ sounding smaller than the 3.6℉ it is equivalent to.
chrisco255 57 minutes ago [-]
Americans are quite happy that the Wisconsin glaciation receded 11,000 years ago. We grow much of our food on former tundra. Ice is nice to look at it but it is death for life.
Sure, and I'm happy a meteor wiped out the dinosaurs so we mammals could take over… but I'd be a bit saltier about a new one hitting tomorrow.
dotancohen 21 minutes ago [-]
That ice melting absorbs the energy that would otherwise be warming the atmosphere and causing cataclysmic storms and crop failures due to heat. And that is exactly what is going to happen once the glaciers melt.
The people worried about melting glaciers are not laminating the loss of pretty ice. They are worried about where this extra energy will go once there is no more ice to change phase and absorb it.
MoltenMan 2 hours ago [-]
I mean it doesn't seem like Canadians have any different attitude (judging by carbon footprint) and they have glaciers. The truth is nobody really cares about global warming, just their own comfort at this moment :/ It's just the human condition.
DangitBobby 2 hours ago [-]
Plenty of Americans can see and feel the effects of global warming, they just don't think addressing it is worth the effort.
username223 2 hours ago [-]
Do they? Wildfires are some percent more likely and larger, but forests have always burned, and there are other factors like a century of fire suppression. Hurricanes are more violent and frequent, but there have always been hurricanes. Eggheads will tell you those things, but your day-to-day experiences of them are easy to dismiss. Watching a glacier die is visceral:
Most polls find that a substantial majority of Americans acknowledge climate change is real. However, whether it should be acted on with urgency polls differently by party affliation and by geographical region.
Many climate change deniers I know have moved from "it isn't real" to "so what?" Or, perhaps more charitably, to "addressing climate change is not in the national interest."
I don't think people who want to drill in national parks, privatize and raze old growth preserves, or exhaust fisheries without limits are going to be moved by seeing glaciers melt. They fundamentally have different values and place other interests over preservation and conservation.
2 hours ago [-]
Hikikomori 57 minutes ago [-]
Most Americans can see the effect but are unable to correlate it. The don't understand science. Most of them believe in a magical fairy in the sky.
ncr100 3 hours ago [-]
I’m having a hard time contributing anything intellectually interesting. This is emotionally terrifying to me.
What can be said?
toomuchtodo 2 hours ago [-]
China is building, domestically deploying, and exporting solar, wind, batteries, and EVs so fast that the world will have no choice but to rapidly move towards net zero simply due to economics. Existing excess atmospheric carbon emissions remain to be sequestered. China deployed 277GW of solar in 2024 and is accelerating, having deployed 212GW in the first half of 2025. 1GW of solar is being deployed globally every 15 hours. Clean energy and global electrification flywheel go brrrr.
I hope so, but to do that it isn't enough to make renewables economical.
You also have to make carbon uneconomical. China's CO2 emissions have continued to increase rapidly along with renewables.
Energy is really useful and we don't have enough to fulfil demand. Unless renewables + nuclear are cheaper than carbon and not supply constrained I'd expect both sources to increase in tandem.
toomuchtodo 1 hours ago [-]
> Energy is really useful and we don't have enough to fulfil demand.
Enough sunlight falls on Earth in ~30 min to power humanity for a year. There is currently a capture constraint, not a supply constraint, which is currently being solved for.
> Unless renewables + nuclear are cheaper than carbon and not supply constrained I'd expect both sources to increase in tandem.
Renewables are cheaper than carbon, even when accounting for storage, unsubsidized. Some will say "what about seasonal!?" Not solved for yet; fossil gas for the gaps until solar, wind, transmission, batteries, and demand response/orchestration keep closing that gap. Nuclear will never be cheap unfortunately.
> China is building, domestically deploying, and exporting solar, wind, batteries, and EVs so fast that the world will have no choice but to rapidly move towards net zero simply due to economics.
I can't help but read "we're going to produce and consume more than ever" and I really don't see how it ends in a good way...
Take transportation alone, 1.3 billion ICE vehicles to replace by EVs, there is nothing green about that. Not even talking about the absolutely massive mining operations we'll need to build solar and batteries. What about cement? Steel? Petrol derivate chemistry, medicine, fertilizers,...
And then what? We continue building and consuming more and more shit forever? Who believes this can be "net zero"?
toomuchtodo 1 hours ago [-]
Well, not forever. Global population will peak end of century (sometime between 2055-2084) and then begin to rapidly decline based on fertility rate curves. Solar PV panels can be recycled 100% today, trivially, as can lithium and sodium batteries (these materials are abundant in the Earth's crust, but only so much will be needed to establish a circular supply lifecycle loop). I suppose we can argue about the scale of mining operations. Certainly, low carbon powered mass transit whenever possible vs light vehicles and aircraft. This is Africa and India's opportunity to "do better" based on what China has accomplished (having had the chance to ride their high speed rail and ride in their autonomous vehicles) with regards to urban planning, civil engineering, and infrastructure investment, being the last parts of the world that will develop.
> Population will peak end of century and then begin to rapidly decline based on fertility rate curves.
If that's truly how it'll go we don't even need EVs and renewable to attain equilibrium. But something tells me we'll manage to fuck it up somehow
triceratops 10 minutes ago [-]
> Not even talking about the absolutely massive mining operations we'll need to build solar and batteries
Less than we need for fossil fuels though.
Hikikomori 1 hours ago [-]
It's good that ICE cars are replaced by EV over time. Even better if we have less cars overall and more mass transit.
landl0rd 2 hours ago [-]
Incorrect; energy dependence on a nuclear power with a general desire to displace existing hegemons isn't a wise or tenable policy.
If you care about America using carbon-light power you should throw your weight behind nuclear, geothermal, and some wind/solar/battery manufactured domestically, by allies, or within our sphere of influence.
toomuchtodo 2 hours ago [-]
The United States had a chance to lead, they tried to build domestically (Inflation Reduction Act), and it was sabotaged by governance choices. Someone else has demonstrated their ability to execute and deliver. Elections have consequences. Better luck next time.
landl0rd 2 hours ago [-]
Cool, I do, and I care more about her than about carbon because I and my people live here. So I will oppose any policy that cedes leadership or hegemony. See you at the ballot box, I guess.
DangitBobby 2 hours ago [-]
You should probably vote for someone who doesn't dismantle every attempt to preserve a future for your children and their children.
netsharc 2 hours ago [-]
So how's that going? Your unreliable leader is dissolving alliances left and right and tries to bully countries into submission. Faced with that, they'd rather deal with other assholes who are, although assholes, at least keep their promises. Leadership, hegemony, hah, how deluded do you want to get...
dontlaugh 2 hours ago [-]
If Americans cared about the world, they would abolish their military and voluntarily lower their emissions.
naldb 2 minutes ago [-]
Stop reading things that upset you.
onlypassingthru 2 hours ago [-]
If you have a bucket list, start working on the things that are most vulnerable. Things you want to see may disappear within your lifetime, so go see it while you can.
simmerup 3 hours ago [-]
I guess we can hope America starts taking climate change seriously again instead of chasing short term stock market returns
codyb 3 hours ago [-]
Stand up, fight back now... gotta save democracy first sadly. What a thorn in my side it has been to trade one existential crises for humanity for a government that seems actively opposed to doing a god damn thing about it
jawilson2 2 hours ago [-]
Same. It pops into my head a few times per week that I haven't thought about global climate change recently, and it is because we are dealing with the more immediate thread of hypercapitalism-authoritarian-christofascism, and my neighbors in Chicago are being disappeared nightly.
sys32768 3 hours ago [-]
And China too with its ~30-31% of world CO2.
simmerup 2 hours ago [-]
Considering America is literally promoting fossil fuels over renewables and the US administration is publicly saying climate change is a scam, I think America deserves more flack than China here
ahmeneeroe-v2 2 hours ago [-]
Oh yeah promoting fossil fuels is much worse for the climate than you know, actual CO2 production.
DangitBobby 2 hours ago [-]
Production rates are subject to change. China is showing it wants to move towards a future where it emits less CO2 and the US recently elected and appointed cronies to take us in the opposite direction.
ahmeneeroe-v2 2 hours ago [-]
CO2 emissions by country: China vs US. Number only.
triceratops 8 minutes ago [-]
> China vs US. Number only.
China: down 2.7% this year
US: up 4.2%.
That's total, not per-capita. Try some other excuses to do nothing about climate change.
CO2 since 1750! This isn't serious. Who is currently today doing the thing? china
Does the climate care about per capita? no
tonfa 29 minutes ago [-]
What matters is how much CO2 was dumped in the atmosphere (and to stop doing it, China is transitioning, the US administration tells everyone it's a scam...)
DangitBobby 2 hours ago [-]
No idea, if you read my comment you'd understand that's not what I think matters.
ahmeneeroe-v2 1 hours ago [-]
That is not a serious position, that is a political position.
simmerup 2 hours ago [-]
> In 2024, the U.S. emissions were on the rise, whereas the European Union (EU) was decreasing its emissions. The U.S. contributes about 13.5% of global annual emissions, whereas the EU's share has fallen to approximately 6%.
I don't even understand what you're tyring to say, America is taking climate change seriously in your eyes?
John23832 3 hours ago [-]
China is leading the world in renewable energy production. Nuclear buildout, wind farms, solar farms. There's even some minor thermal (even though they're not geographically suited for that).
Sure, they are starting from a high number as the worlds manufacturer, but they're are clearly making strides that the other major industrial nations (the US) are not.
mikestew 2 hours ago [-]
Can't have a discussion on climate change without the obligatory "But what about Chiiiiina!?"
It's time to own up to the fact that China is going out of their way to use renewables, and the U. S. is actively sabotaging renewable energy programs. Whining about China is starting to look pretty silly.
2 hours ago [-]
lm28469 1 hours ago [-]
Look at cumulative co2 emissions though, the US created 50% of the global cumulated co2 emissions alone
xandrius 1 hours ago [-]
Let's forget how they make almost everything we and you own.
Until not long ago, they very likely even processed your own trash.
kgwgk 2 hours ago [-]
If you are so emotionally attached to solid water you may find some comfort in the positive note that the article closes with: “The overall summer melt this year was therefore only 15 percent above the 2010-2020 average -- its lowest level in the past four years.”
boston_clone 2 hours ago [-]
> If you are so emotionally attached to solid water [...]
That's an oddly personal remark to be making when global warming is a concern for humanity.
That final sentence is not a positive note, either: "we're still experiencing above average ice melt - but this year wasn't as bad and some other years!".
kgwgk 2 hours ago [-]
I found that the message I replied to was an oddly personal remark and I couldn’t help it. Anyway, this year was better seems a positive note (to end a negative melody if you will).
Hikikomori 1 hours ago [-]
It varies a lot by each year, but the trend is clear. Article also say that swiss glaciers lost 40% of ice volume in 25 years.
timeon 2 hours ago [-]
> The overall summer melt this year was therefore only 15 percent above the 2010-2020 average -- its lowest level in the past four years.
That is not really comforting. Is your comment satire?
kieranmaine 2 hours ago [-]
You have to weigh up the negatives with the positives and look at trends. AI can gave you a more exhaustive list of positive developments, but some I've noticed:
* "FERC: Solar + wind made up 91% of new US power generating capacity in H1 2025" [1] - The rollback of the IRA will reduce the speed of the US transition.
* "Solar and wind growth exceeded global demand growth in the first half of 2025" [2]
* Perovskite solar panels could lead to even lower solar costs [3]
There's also increased investment in nuclear, exicting geothermal advances (eg. Fervo Energy), increasing EV sales, a massive expansion of battery storage, zero emissions concrete (https://sublime-systems.com/). There are lots of positive developments, so I'd recommend learning more about them to offset your current fears and introduce some hope.
How does investing in new forms of energy help when old one is not decreasing? Demand for energy is still rising so those new forms are just covering (part of) new demand...
> AI can gave you a more exhaustive list
...so maybe it should not?
kieranmaine 1 hours ago [-]
> How does investing in new forms of energy help when old one is not decreasing?
In relation to electricity this is not the case for H1 2025, as shown in the article "Solar and wind growth exceeded global demand growth in the first half of 2025" [1]
The record loss was 2022. The ice never came back. It is devastating. Instead of ice coming back, 2025 came very close to same devastating loss.
Fortunately, when climate change causes devastating food shortages I'll have the competitive advantage over climate change deniers of being orders of magnitude smarter than they are.
anonzzzies 3 hours ago [-]
Almost every scenario of hell has happened over the past 4.5b years to our planet. A bunch of those were extinction events. If we manage to speed run 10s of millions of years of nature in 200k years humanity, then we are indeed very special.
simmerup 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah, the earth has been entirely without ice before aswell but that earth was not habitable for us
Just because its happened before doesnt mean its fine
morcus 2 hours ago [-]
Perhaps what you're missing here is that it's ice loss, not ice levels. The rate of change is at near record levels.
nielsbot 3 hours ago [-]
> Swiss glaciers have shrunk by a quarter since 2015, study says
And what about this ice loss trend?
Hikikomori 3 hours ago [-]
40% loss in volume in 25 years and it's accelerating. Don't look up I guess.
regularjack 3 hours ago [-]
Are you aure that in those other times when it happenes it didn't end in catastrophe?
pfannkuchen 1 hours ago [-]
Sounds like free real estate! Humans have a pretty hard time living on glaciers AFAIK.
steve_adams_86 4 minutes ago [-]
Glaciers provide a lot of fresh water, sustained over warm months, free of charge, to the places we can live in. We need them to support life in hotter, drier, or more temperate areas. Here in BC, Canada they provide cool, oxygenated water for countless species including several pacific salmon and other fish species, which constitutes (or constituted, now; I'm no longer sure of the status) one of the largest nutrient transfers on the planet.
Glaciers are a crucial component of many ecosystems and ways of life. We can't live on them, but they make it so we can live where we do live now.
Rendered at 19:11:10 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
It's definitely striking, I can't deny that. I crossed the last remnants of an almost-extinct glacier last year that my guide guessed would be gone in 1-3 years: at the beginning of his career it was a real glacer with non-trivial extents, crevasses, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_glaciation
The people worried about melting glaciers are not laminating the loss of pretty ice. They are worried about where this extra energy will go once there is no more ice to change phase and absorb it.
https://maevethornberry.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Mer-de... https://drdirtbag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/athabasca36...
Many climate change deniers I know have moved from "it isn't real" to "so what?" Or, perhaps more charitably, to "addressing climate change is not in the national interest."
I don't think people who want to drill in national parks, privatize and raze old growth preserves, or exhaust fisheries without limits are going to be moved by seeing glaciers melt. They fundamentally have different values and place other interests over preservation and conservation.
What can be said?
https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e...
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/china-energy-transi...
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/china-is-quietly-saving-the-wo...
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/08/21/china-clean-renewable-e...
You also have to make carbon uneconomical. China's CO2 emissions have continued to increase rapidly along with renewables.
Energy is really useful and we don't have enough to fulfil demand. Unless renewables + nuclear are cheaper than carbon and not supply constrained I'd expect both sources to increase in tandem.
Enough sunlight falls on Earth in ~30 min to power humanity for a year. There is currently a capture constraint, not a supply constraint, which is currently being solved for.
> Unless renewables + nuclear are cheaper than carbon and not supply constrained I'd expect both sources to increase in tandem.
Renewables are cheaper than carbon, even when accounting for storage, unsubsidized. Some will say "what about seasonal!?" Not solved for yet; fossil gas for the gaps until solar, wind, transmission, batteries, and demand response/orchestration keep closing that gap. Nuclear will never be cheap unfortunately.
https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/24-hour-solar-now-ec...
https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/solar-energy-now-worlds-cheape...
https://www.authorea.com/users/960972/articles/1329770-solar... | https://doi.org/10.22541/au.175647950.09188768/v1
(think in systems)
China's emissions fell 2.7% this year. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108292 Not per-capita emissions, total emissions.
I can't help but read "we're going to produce and consume more than ever" and I really don't see how it ends in a good way...
Take transportation alone, 1.3 billion ICE vehicles to replace by EVs, there is nothing green about that. Not even talking about the absolutely massive mining operations we'll need to build solar and batteries. What about cement? Steel? Petrol derivate chemistry, medicine, fertilizers,...
And then what? We continue building and consuming more and more shit forever? Who believes this can be "net zero"?
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf
If that's truly how it'll go we don't even need EVs and renewable to attain equilibrium. But something tells me we'll manage to fuck it up somehow
Less than we need for fossil fuels though.
If you care about America using carbon-light power you should throw your weight behind nuclear, geothermal, and some wind/solar/battery manufactured domestically, by allies, or within our sphere of influence.
China: down 2.7% this year
US: up 4.2%.
That's total, not per-capita. Try some other excuses to do nothing about climate change.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108292
Does the climate care about per capita? no
I don't even understand what you're tyring to say, America is taking climate change seriously in your eyes?
Sure, they are starting from a high number as the worlds manufacturer, but they're are clearly making strides that the other major industrial nations (the US) are not.
It's time to own up to the fact that China is going out of their way to use renewables, and the U. S. is actively sabotaging renewable energy programs. Whining about China is starting to look pretty silly.
Until not long ago, they very likely even processed your own trash.
That's an oddly personal remark to be making when global warming is a concern for humanity.
That final sentence is not a positive note, either: "we're still experiencing above average ice melt - but this year wasn't as bad and some other years!".
That is not really comforting. Is your comment satire?
* "FERC: Solar + wind made up 91% of new US power generating capacity in H1 2025" [1] - The rollback of the IRA will reduce the speed of the US transition.
* "Solar and wind growth exceeded global demand growth in the first half of 2025" [2]
* Perovskite solar panels could lead to even lower solar costs [3]
There's also increased investment in nuclear, exicting geothermal advances (eg. Fervo Energy), increasing EV sales, a massive expansion of battery storage, zero emissions concrete (https://sublime-systems.com/). There are lots of positive developments, so I'd recommend learning more about them to offset your current fears and introduce some hope.
1. https://electrek.co/2025/09/03/ferc-solar-wind-91-percent-ne...
2. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...
3. https://www.ft.com/content/a5095373-1762-41cd-a078-af533e264...
> AI can gave you a more exhaustive list
...so maybe it should not?
In relation to electricity this is not the case for H1 2025, as shown in the article "Solar and wind growth exceeded global demand growth in the first half of 2025" [1]
> ...so maybe it should not?
Fair point.
1. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...
Fortunately, when climate change causes devastating food shortages I'll have the competitive advantage over climate change deniers of being orders of magnitude smarter than they are.
Just because its happened before doesnt mean its fine
And what about this ice loss trend?
Glaciers are a crucial component of many ecosystems and ways of life. We can't live on them, but they make it so we can live where we do live now.