Remember the little bit about whether being optimistic on the climate makes you pro-Trump? Well, let’s go to the UK Guardian
In tackling the global climate crisis, doom and optimism are both dangerous traps
Protesters march in the streets in an “extinction rebellion†against the climate crisis, with some (but not all) of their leaders claiming that climate tipping points could kill billions in the coming decades. Others dismiss the importance or reality of the crisis, while new books loudly proclaim “apocalypse never†and “false alarmâ€.
The popular discourse around the climate emergency all too often highlights fringe voices that predict the end of the world or suggest that there is little to worry about. But as the climatologist Steven Schneider presciently remarked a decade ago, when it comes to the climate “the end of the world†and “good for us†are probably the two least likely outcomes.
So, we need to take a middle road?
The environmental crisis is one of the most serious and pressing issues facing the world today. We are already living with impacts of human-caused global heating, and the world is not doing nearly enough yet to put us on a pathway to avoiding potentially dire impacts later in the century to both humans and the natural world. But a discourse sharply divided between doom and dismissal risks obstructing climate action, rather than motivating it.
There’s your middle of the road. Is it any wonder climate cultists keep saying we’re doomed? As far as taking ‘climate change’ action, well, when it is mostly mule fritters, why would we? When few climate cultists are willing to make major changes in their own lives, why should we?
Uncertainty is not our friend. Because expected damages increase faster the hotter it gets, we stand a real risk of catastrophic impacts if we end up with an unlucky combination of a highly sensitive climate and faster accumulation of CO2. We will also have fewer options to stop or reverse this by the time it happens. These uncertainties are why it’s all the more important to control the one thing we can: our future emissions.
Middle of the road?
Perhaps some major league Warmists could show us the way?
Read: Doomism And Optimism Are Traps In Solving The Climate Crisis (scam) Or Something »