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Arguably, the term itself was only part of the problem; the ensuing propaganda deluge that followed in its wake also seriously conflicts with the claims. tl;dr:
by Fellshard 6y ago
Arguably, the term itself was only part of the problem; the ensuing propaganda deluge that followed in its wake also seriously conflicts with the claims. tl;dr: hyped-up panic usually finds itself at odds with findings mere years later. Slow down and step carefully, and you'll find you don't get this kind of whiplash.
- tsimionescu 6y agoBut in this particular case, all signs point to the panic being significantly hyped-down: the world is in a much worse shape than most mainstream predictions, and global warming is accelerating faster than many "worse-case scenarios" even a decade ago. It's also important to remember that this isn't a gradual phenomenon - there are certain break points that, when we'll reach, we won't ever be able to go back. And by all accounts, unless we significantly change the global economy literally today, there is no chance that we won't reach those breaking points in 50-100 years. And even if we did today, there's a good chance it's too late. The mess we're leaving for our children to fix should make all of us feel deeply ashamed.
- Fellshard 6y agoRight, but in the early years of messaging, a lot of media was generated that spoke in volumes without proper scientific understanding; or the actual conclusions were stated publicly before sufficient certainty was had, leading to the average person seeing wildly different narratives begin to conflict, one after another. That's a colossal messaging failure, and what's worse is that politicians tend to get stuck in one of the intermediate messages regardless of how outdated it becomes, using it to drive action in all sorts of wrong directions. See the problem?