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>Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if the past year of climate catastrophes has shown us anything, it’s high time we act. This same rhetoric has

>Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if the past year of climate catastrophes has shown us anything, it’s high time we act. This same rhetoric has been repeated for decades, and has continually received the same, hostile response from the public and politicians. I'm not arguing that it's wrong or untruthful, but alarmist statements like this are a demonstrably poor tool for rousing the public into action and creating real change. Why do climate activists continually insist on using persuasive techniques that are proven to not work?

bjt2n3904 5y ago
You know, if someone predicted the apocalypse was right around the corner, and the only way to avert it was to dramatically change my lifestyle in a way that was orthogonal to the catastrophe... I'd say you're peddling religion. Especially if I don't change, and the doomsday prophecies fail. (Again, and again, and again...)
- user-the-name 5y ago
  What you want to say is, you don't believe in science.
  - cpursley 5y ago
    I really wish this phase could be banned. It's tiresome and in bad faith.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      Is that really the problem here? Is that really what you should be focusing on?
  - neither_color 5y ago
    Science doesn't tell you what to do, only what (probably) is as can be observed and deducted. I can believe in science without believing in your call to action. These past two years have been all about another natural disaster where two sides see the same statistic and come to different conclusions about what to do about it while accusing each other of being anti science
  - jimbobimbo 5y ago
    What you are describing is religion, not science.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      Oh yes, I am the problem here. Clearly. That is the logical conclusion to come to under these circumstances. Seriously?
  - vladoski 5y ago
    Science is a method, it's not religion. You can't really "believe" in science. You can trust its methods though.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      Which this person clearly is not doing. But thanks for making a pointless and pedantic distraction I guess?
- andrew_ 5y ago
  There's been 50 years of climate catastrophe predictions and the one constant is that [everyone] passionate about it has a wicked case of confirmation bias.
  - Joeri 5y ago
    The climate scientists generally haven't been doing the catastrophe predictions. If you go back and read the early IPCC reports, it's not like they were predicting the end of the world was nigh. In fact, they still don't predict that. What they do predict is severe consequences that will have high adaptation costs if we don't limit the amount of warming. They don't predict the end of humanity, but just a big cost to humanity. The activism comes from people who misrepresent the science. The skepticism also comes from people who misrepresent the science. The public debate is almost orthogonal to what the actual science in the IPCC reports says. To give an example, the IPCC AR5 (2013) report says this: "More recent assessments indicate that it is unlikely that annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have increased over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin. Evidence, however, is for a virtually certain increase in the frequency and intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones since the 1970s in that region." An activist picks out the second part and ignores the first. A skeptic picks out the first part and ignores the second. They battle it out, each citing "the science", and both are lying by omission. And that's the best case scenario. Often what gets cited isn't even in the IPCC reports, and of a lineage which is more dubious. Which is why, if you want to have an informed opinion on the climate, you should ignore the media, ignore the talking heads, and read the IPCC reports.
  - wwweston 5y ago
    Also constant is the fact that the catastrophe continues to unfold at a rate that falls neatly into the uncanny valley between "slow and marginal enough that most human beings can't seem to comprehend it as a catastrophe" (possibly reflected in your comment) and "fast enough at geological and ecological time scales that human beings have fewer tools for predicting what the hell is actually going to happen" (but some of the possibilities look ugly enough to be alarming).
  - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
bryanlarsen 5y ago
In the Canadian federal election a couple of weeks ago, 95% of votes went to parties that had a carbon tax of some sort in their platform. Canadians aren't very different from Americans. It can be done.
- chiefalchemist 5y ago
  The people are similar, yes. The underlying socioeconomic and sociopolitical systems are likely different tho'. We (i.e., the USA) too often talk a good game, but the actions are disconnected. Just one example, the Paris Climate Agreement isn't what most believe it is. The targets aren't tight enough, and there's nothing binding. Compliance is voluntary. Yet it has been and continues to be heralded as essential. An essential paper tiger? Per Naomi Klein https://www.wnyc.org/story/coveringclimatenow-naomi-klein-green-new-deal/ https://www.wnyc.org/story/coveringclimatenow-naomi-klein-gr... Of course there are other examples.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    I agree the US is a bit more oligarchic than other similar nations, but not sure what the Paris climate accord examples proves? America was the main holdout, and it wasnt because they thought it wasn't effective enough, quite the opposite. So yes its pretty vital that we do at least that much.
    - chiefalchemist 5y ago
      It proves this...it was sold as a major accomplishment. It was sold as one of that POTUS' defining moments. And it wasn't any of that. The USA held it up. The USA made sure it had no teeth. So the talk was "We're so great" the reality is that's BS.
- roenxi 5y ago
  How many Canadians are there in the CCP leadership? China is around 30% of the globes emissions, Canada is 1.5%. Alarmist statements are not going to do anything to Chinese policy. The only thing that is going to work is having a technically better source of energy to move to.
user-the-name 5y ago
What an utterly useless statement. What are you suggesting we do instead, downplay the danger and hope someone will eventually do something?
nerbert 5y ago
Well, thing is the alternative is absolutely possible, and we’re seeing it: people getting more expensive energy prices, mosquitoes appear in regions where they traditionally weren’t, causing health issues, insurance premiums increasing, coverage decreased for some types of events (here in Chicago insurance don’t cover for flooding of your basement). Small steps are certainly being taken by nature to make everything significantly more expansive and less comfortable than they should be. But hey, people who could influence this have the money to cover for that so let’s remain on the status quo a little longer.
- rustybelt 5y ago
  Are you suggesting that basement flooding in Chicago is due to climate change?
amrangaye 5y ago
But is it really “alarmism” to yell at people inside a house on fire that they need to “get the hell out now!” even if some people in a separate part of the building (not touched by the fire yet) insist that the growing heat is due to something else, God has it in control and would never set the fire, in fact the people yelling out the warnings are just being “alarmist”, it’s against their constitutional rights etc? We really don’t have time at the moment to resort to gentle persuasion techniques (on a group I might add who are ready to never become convinced because they dismiss every rational argument and all the data). It may not work in a country as politically divided as the US, but trying to convince (the right especially) will achieve nothing but waste time that could be better spent elsewhere. Those who are not persuaded at this point are not going to be just because we approach them with more gentleness or empathy or whatever.
- true_religion 5y ago
  It would be considered alarmist to yell fire to people who had no concept of fire, and if the actual flames were years or decades away. They won’t thank you until after they see someone being burned.
  - amrangaye 5y ago
    But in this case wouldn’t it be more like they keep seeing people around them being burnt to death all the time, and you have a pretty solid theory of why this happens / how to predict the next burn victims, but they keep insisting it’s actually spontaneous combustion and you’re just being “alarmist” with your predictions of further (and even worse) burnings?
    - true_religion 5y ago
      Well the catastrophic ends of climate change are just that… ends. Right now we have had effects but it’s all akin to feeling heat, or coughing from smoke but not actually being burned. Also the heat and smoke randomly shifts to other people so it isn’t consistently hurting anyone. What’s worse is that we either all escape the building together or we all die together. No one can just choose to believe the theory of the unseen flame and get out alive on their own.
rapind 5y ago
Alarmist statements DO seem to work though looking at the previous term’s statements on immigration. There has to be tons of reasons it’s not working in this case, but I don’t think it’s the alarmist portrayal. I suspect it should be far more alarming.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
TheRealSteel 5y ago
You're victim blaming.
garrickvanburen 5y ago
I agree. Alarmist rhetoric since at least the mid-1980s. We've made massive progress on environmental issues since then, but still the same alarmist rhetoric.
- perfunctory 5y ago
  > We've made massive progress on environmental issues Care to elaborate? Afaic, global CO2 emissions keep going up year after year.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    Not GP, but in other areas (chemical pollution, CFCs, recycling, sustainable forestry) we've definitely made improvements since then. Global warming seems to be a particularly tough nut to crack.
    - garrickvanburen 5y ago
      Additionally, we’re dramatically more energy efficient across the board; food, transport, goods.
ryandrake 5y ago
Climate change news reminds me of that "truck almost hitting a pole" meme [1]. I know it's a growing problem that will likely mean big, uncomfortable changes, but the constant crisis rhetoric is just exhausting. I'm GenX so I've been hearing this every day of my life for decades. Right in that awkward age between the generation that doesn't care even in the slightest about Climate Change and the generation that thinks it's the worst problem the world has ever faced. Politicians my age are slowly seeping into power now. If Climate Change activists want to convince them, constant Dialed-up-to-10 alarmism is just not the way they're going to do it. 1: https://imgur.com/r/gifs/kuplW0m https://imgur.com/r/gifs/kuplW0m

bjt2n3904 5y ago

You know, if someone predicted the apocalypse was right around the corner, and the only way to avert it was to dramatically change my lifestyle in a way that was orthogonal to the catastrophe... I'd say you're peddling religion. Especially if I don't change, and the doomsday prophecies fail. (Again, and again, and again...)

user-the-name 5y ago
What you want to say is, you don't believe in science.
- cpursley 5y ago
  I really wish this phase could be banned. It's tiresome and in bad faith.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    Is that really the problem here? Is that really what you should be focusing on?
- neither_color 5y ago
  Science doesn't tell you what to do, only what (probably) is as can be observed and deducted. I can believe in science without believing in your call to action. These past two years have been all about another natural disaster where two sides see the same statistic and come to different conclusions about what to do about it while accusing each other of being anti science
- jimbobimbo 5y ago
  What you are describing is religion, not science.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    Oh yes, I am the problem here. Clearly. That is the logical conclusion to come to under these circumstances. Seriously?
- vladoski 5y ago
  Science is a method, it's not religion. You can't really "believe" in science. You can trust its methods though.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    Which this person clearly is not doing. But thanks for making a pointless and pedantic distraction I guess?
andrew_ 5y ago
There's been 50 years of climate catastrophe predictions and the one constant is that [everyone] passionate about it has a wicked case of confirmation bias.
- Joeri 5y ago
  The climate scientists generally haven't been doing the catastrophe predictions. If you go back and read the early IPCC reports, it's not like they were predicting the end of the world was nigh. In fact, they still don't predict that. What they do predict is severe consequences that will have high adaptation costs if we don't limit the amount of warming. They don't predict the end of humanity, but just a big cost to humanity. The activism comes from people who misrepresent the science. The skepticism also comes from people who misrepresent the science. The public debate is almost orthogonal to what the actual science in the IPCC reports says. To give an example, the IPCC AR5 (2013) report says this: "More recent assessments indicate that it is unlikely that annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have increased over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin. Evidence, however, is for a virtually certain increase in the frequency and intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones since the 1970s in that region." An activist picks out the second part and ignores the first. A skeptic picks out the first part and ignores the second. They battle it out, each citing "the science", and both are lying by omission. And that's the best case scenario. Often what gets cited isn't even in the IPCC reports, and of a lineage which is more dubious. Which is why, if you want to have an informed opinion on the climate, you should ignore the media, ignore the talking heads, and read the IPCC reports.
- wwweston 5y ago
  Also constant is the fact that the catastrophe continues to unfold at a rate that falls neatly into the uncanny valley between "slow and marginal enough that most human beings can't seem to comprehend it as a catastrophe" (possibly reflected in your comment) and "fast enough at geological and ecological time scales that human beings have fewer tools for predicting what the hell is actually going to happen" (but some of the possibilities look ugly enough to be alarming).
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago

bryanlarsen 5y ago

In the Canadian federal election a couple of weeks ago, 95% of votes went to parties that had a carbon tax of some sort in their platform. Canadians aren't very different from Americans. It can be done.

chiefalchemist 5y ago
The people are similar, yes. The underlying socioeconomic and sociopolitical systems are likely different tho'. We (i.e., the USA) too often talk a good game, but the actions are disconnected. Just one example, the Paris Climate Agreement isn't what most believe it is. The targets aren't tight enough, and there's nothing binding. Compliance is voluntary. Yet it has been and continues to be heralded as essential. An essential paper tiger? Per Naomi Klein https://www.wnyc.org/story/coveringclimatenow-naomi-klein-green-new-deal/ https://www.wnyc.org/story/coveringclimatenow-naomi-klein-gr... Of course there are other examples.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  I agree the US is a bit more oligarchic than other similar nations, but not sure what the Paris climate accord examples proves? America was the main holdout, and it wasnt because they thought it wasn't effective enough, quite the opposite. So yes its pretty vital that we do at least that much.
  - chiefalchemist 5y ago
    It proves this...it was sold as a major accomplishment. It was sold as one of that POTUS' defining moments. And it wasn't any of that. The USA held it up. The USA made sure it had no teeth. So the talk was "We're so great" the reality is that's BS.
roenxi 5y ago
How many Canadians are there in the CCP leadership? China is around 30% of the globes emissions, Canada is 1.5%. Alarmist statements are not going to do anything to Chinese policy. The only thing that is going to work is having a technically better source of energy to move to.

user-the-name 5y ago

What an utterly useless statement. What are you suggesting we do instead, downplay the danger and hope someone will eventually do something?

nerbert 5y ago

Well, thing is the alternative is absolutely possible, and we’re seeing it: people getting more expensive energy prices, mosquitoes appear in regions where they traditionally weren’t, causing health issues, insurance premiums increasing, coverage decreased for some types of events (here in Chicago insurance don’t cover for flooding of your basement). Small steps are certainly being taken by nature to make everything significantly more expansive and less comfortable than they should be. But hey, people who could influence this have the money to cover for that so let’s remain on the status quo a little longer.

rustybelt 5y ago
Are you suggesting that basement flooding in Chicago is due to climate change?

amrangaye 5y ago

But is it really “alarmism” to yell at people inside a house on fire that they need to “get the hell out now!” even if some people in a separate part of the building (not touched by the fire yet) insist that the growing heat is due to something else, God has it in control and would never set the fire, in fact the people yelling out the warnings are just being “alarmist”, it’s against their constitutional rights etc? We really don’t have time at the moment to resort to gentle persuasion techniques (on a group I might add who are ready to never become convinced because they dismiss every rational argument and all the data). It may not work in a country as politically divided as the US, but trying to convince (the right especially) will achieve nothing but waste time that could be better spent elsewhere. Those who are not persuaded at this point are not going to be just because we approach them with more gentleness or empathy or whatever.

true_religion 5y ago
It would be considered alarmist to yell fire to people who had no concept of fire, and if the actual flames were years or decades away. They won’t thank you until after they see someone being burned.
- amrangaye 5y ago
  But in this case wouldn’t it be more like they keep seeing people around them being burnt to death all the time, and you have a pretty solid theory of why this happens / how to predict the next burn victims, but they keep insisting it’s actually spontaneous combustion and you’re just being “alarmist” with your predictions of further (and even worse) burnings?
  - true_religion 5y ago
    Well the catastrophic ends of climate change are just that… ends. Right now we have had effects but it’s all akin to feeling heat, or coughing from smoke but not actually being burned. Also the heat and smoke randomly shifts to other people so it isn’t consistently hurting anyone. What’s worse is that we either all escape the building together or we all die together. No one can just choose to believe the theory of the unseen flame and get out alive on their own.

rapind 5y ago

Alarmist statements DO seem to work though looking at the previous term’s statements on immigration. There has to be tons of reasons it’s not working in this case, but I don’t think it’s the alarmist portrayal. I suspect it should be far more alarming.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

TheRealSteel 5y ago

You're victim blaming.

garrickvanburen 5y ago

I agree. Alarmist rhetoric since at least the mid-1980s. We've made massive progress on environmental issues since then, but still the same alarmist rhetoric.

perfunctory 5y ago
> We've made massive progress on environmental issues Care to elaborate? Afaic, global CO2 emissions keep going up year after year.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  Not GP, but in other areas (chemical pollution, CFCs, recycling, sustainable forestry) we've definitely made improvements since then. Global warming seems to be a particularly tough nut to crack.
  - garrickvanburen 5y ago
    Additionally, we’re dramatically more energy efficient across the board; food, transport, goods.

ryandrake 5y ago

Climate change news reminds me of that "truck almost hitting a pole" meme [1]. I know it's a growing problem that will likely mean big, uncomfortable changes, but the constant crisis rhetoric is just exhausting. I'm GenX so I've been hearing this every day of my life for decades. Right in that awkward age between the generation that doesn't care even in the slightest about Climate Change and the generation that thinks it's the worst problem the world has ever faced. Politicians my age are slowly seeping into power now. If Climate Change activists want to convince them, constant Dialed-up-to-10 alarmism is just not the way they're going to do it. 1: https://imgur.com/r/gifs/kuplW0m https://imgur.com/r/gifs/kuplW0m