11 ms·

To make progress on climate change, we must move past doomsday scenarios

66 points by mpweiher 5y ago

h2odragon 5y ago
Relevant: https://nypost.com/2021/11/12/50-years-of-predictions-that-the-climate-apocalypse-is-nigh/ https://nypost.com/2021/11/12/50-years-of-predictions-that-t...
peter_retief 5y ago
The people who are predicting human extinction are not reasonable or rational. How did this group of deranged individuals manage to capture the public attention and make so many people miserable? I am very much in favour of preserving our wildlife and wilderness and have been for years, this modern lunacy has damaged the cause of environmental preservation.
adrianN 5y ago
It's unlikely that they'll die from climate change. But it is much more likely that they'll die from wars caused by climate change. It is pretty much certain that their lives will be much worse because of climate change.
- treeman79 5y ago
  Russia is massing troops on Ukraine’s. Most likely another war will happen there shortly. China is becoming hyper aggressive towards Taiwan. Serious war is around the corner. Not hypothetical wars.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - newyankee 5y ago
    China is also amassing troops along Indian borders with routine skirmishes
  - Quarrelsome 5y ago
    serious war is always "around the corner". Remember that the fall of Rome was predicted by doom mongers for hundreds of years before it transpired to be true. Should today transpire to be similar (e.g. window of hundreds of years) than you're more likely to be wrong about this than right. For example your narrative is failing to account for the horror of mutually assured destruction which is a strong psychological factor in wars between major powers.
    - treeman79 5y ago
      MAD means nations are free to wage war up to a certain point. Maybe a couple of islands and a bit of India. Then a break for a few years. Repeat now and then.
      - Quarrelsome 5y ago
        sure that's standard fare, and a far cry from the doom drums of a world war III blitzkrieg that appears to be a general doomer theme on this subject. I mean Russia annexed Crimea six years ago and we're all still alive and Putin has a lifespan so its not even an unstoppable trend.
  - Hnrobert42 5y ago
    Sure, but are you saying these are mostly because of climate change?
    - treeman79 5y ago
      These have nothing to do with Climate change. They are however immediate.
  - kunagi7 5y ago
    We are under a new cold War and people don't seem to realize this. Russia has had troops around Ukraine for the last 7 years. The Donetsk and Lugansk "republics" exist since 2014. Russia is waiting for Ukraine's move since then. As long as USA has bases in Japan and has military presence in Taiwan... China won't make a move. It's easier to wait for USA to leave though. We'll see continuous provocation between the blocks (most recently, Afghanistan Taliban Regime, Belorussian usage of immigrants against the EU, etc). But a serious war around the corner sounds a bit too far from reality.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      I hope so. Putin was the first to push the limits. He got away with Ukraine without any serious response from the West. Now he is encouraged, and the only question remains is whether or not NATO is really ready to got to war over the Baltics. NATOs de-facto defeat in Afghanistan definitely didn't help in projecting strength, nor is the constant in-fighting within the EU. China is doing the same now with Taiwan. Try calling Taiwan a country as a movie star -> forced apology. Bodies like the IOC already falted. No guarantee that sometime someone tries, or feels forced to try for whatever reason, to push it. If the West doesn't react to that, well, then all the others will push the limits as well.
      - kunagi7 5y ago
        After the pro-EU Ukrainians ignited the Euromaidan movement (to remove a Kremlin aligned president) a civil war started in Ukraine. At that point Putin supported one side of the war and got Crimea for almost nothing. There's also the closely related Donbas war which never stopped. So he got the first place at it. USA has lost its image of "being the police of the world" and the countries that depend on that image are suffering. Their future looks quite grim. Besides that, Taiwan isn't recognized by the UN since 1971 and by the IOC since 1981. The west didn't react back then either.
        hef19898 5y ago
        Regarding Taiwan, I honestly never understood why everyone caved to China already back then. Ok, today it is all about money. Back then, I don't know. Maybe there was hope to unite China under a pro-West government? Because even the DDR and North Korea are / were recognized.
  - jkepler 5y ago
    > Serious war is around the corner. Not hypothetical wars. Serious war may look different from the past of nation-state wars. We're living through the emergence of network states. Given how the Internet enables non-tangible property (I.e., domain names that one can use to build businesses, associations, non-profits; bitcoin, Ethereum, and other crypto-projects) through communications protocols and cryptographic mathematics, its no longer necessary to wage physical war to gain an advantage. Thus we see a massive rise in persistent threat actors, which could be world war three already happening, but we don't recognize it yet because we're used to observing nation-state wars, not network state wars. Perhaps the modern age of nation state dominance ran from the Peace of Westphalia to 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the design of the World-Wide-Web by Berners-Lee.
    - DonHopkins 5y ago
      You mean WW3 was WWW and we just haven't noticed it yet?
    - count 5y ago
      There will be actual kinetic warfare between Westphalian nation states ALSO. Just because there's 'new' war, doesn't mean the old dirty war will go away. Especially because crypto can't replace aquifers or reduce flooding and other things lost in global change. So, you're not wrong, but also omitting a significant actual current threat.
- refurb 5y ago
  You can get killed walkin’ your doggy. Not worth dwelling on.
- tonoto 5y ago
  wars caused by climate change, or wars caused by actions taken (in good faith) against climate change? I believe there is a risk that the current activistic climate movement will do similar harm to the society in general as the last decades aggressive movement to liberalism in the "west part" of the world. The liberalistic movement is like running with a rubber band - it will force the societies to become repressive. I hope I'm wrong, but the climate change movement will similar cause (negative) unplanned effects..
- olalonde 5y ago
  I just don't see that happening, especially given the extremely slow rate at which climate is changing. Personally, I haven't really perceived the change in my lifetime (30+ years). Of course, I'm not saying it's not happening, just my perception of it. Care to share some articles that support this scenario?
  - polotics 5y ago
    Where are you based if I may ask? Been watching which news?
    - olalonde 5y ago
      20 years in Canada (Montreal), 10 years in Southern China (Shenzhen). Not watching news much (other than HN). I'm a skeptical by nature.
  - piva00 5y ago
    > I just don't see that happening, especially given the extremely slow rate at which climate is changing. Personally, I haven't really perceived the change in my lifetime (30+ years). Where do you live? I'm originally from Brazil, I live now in Sweden. In Brazil during my lifetime I lived through a massive deforestation of the Amazon. I saw landscapes change from lush jungles into arid and depleted soils. I went to places in the Pantanal area as a kid that were completely transformed 20 years later, rivers drying up and a different kind of flora was taking over parts of what used to be wetlands. In Sweden I have less than a decade around so my own experience is pretty limited. Here I can only get a glimpse of the changes through the eyes of my local friends, my girlfriend parents and other older people I talk to have noticed how much shorter and warmer winters have got. How hot summers are happening more frequently. The winter season used to last almost a month longer and snow wasn't a possibility but a given. Now they live through winters where less than 5 days of snowy days are a reality. Planning your skiing season varies a lot between years where when I talk to older people they just used to consider it a given that there would be a skiing season in most parts of the country (maybe except for the south in Skåne). The warming is much more prominent closer to the poles. The climate is not changing slowly in my experience, given the size of the system it's changing pretty fucking fast.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > But it is much more likely that they'll die from wars caused by climate change. For kids in rich countries, it is much more likely that they'll kill in wars caused by climate change (or vote / pay for soldiers to do the killing for them). Sadly, climate refugees will be an easy target for modern armies, and when voters see millions of starving people trying to cross their borders, they will listen to the politicians who call this an invasion that needs a forceful response. Some places are already seeing these harsh political forces playing out, for example the UK, where the government is trying to make it illegal to rescue asylum seekers in boats[0] at a time when dozens can die on a single failed crossing.[1] [0] https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/priti-patel-making-it-illegal-uk-rescue-asylum-seekers https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/priti-patel-ma... [1] https://news.sky.com/story/migrant-crossings-several-people-drown-while-trying-to-cross-channel-in-dinghy-to-uk-reports-12477536 https://news.sky.com/story/migrant-crossings-several-people-...
  - techdragon 5y ago
    Australia’s been brutal with respect to anyone trying to arrive without a visa via boats. The charters, cruises and mega-yachts have no issue but the refugees and asylum seekers have a lot of effort out into preventing them getting close enough to Australian shores that we have any legal obligations to help them get the rest of the way. I wonder how similar the UK are being in terms or Pr argument and international law…
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  If wide spread war happens climate change will be one cause of many. Some blame the fall of Rome on climate change, but if it hasn't been rotten at its core it would have withstood the challenge easily.
- teekert 5y ago
  Like mine would be worse than my parents’ because of acidic rain and disappearance of the ozon layer? I’m sorry, I don’t want your negativity near my children. Adults solved this for me as a kid, there was no need to tell me that I'd have trouble going outside if there were no clouds, in my future. They could have saved me the hardship.
  - rand49an 5y ago
    Apart from those were well understood problems with relatively simple solutions unlike climate change which at current pace will change the face of the planet in the next 50 years.
    - teekert 5y ago
      Well understood… in retrospect. At the time it didn't really feel like something we were going to solve, at least to me, as a kid.
Fckd 5y ago
yes, we should not because thats a wrong statment. The correct one is that kids from undeveloped world die from climate change.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  And that the developed world will became undeveloped in terms of natural disasters. Apart of this, all will be perfectly fine.
  - overallduka 5y ago
    This claim is in the same category of Al-Gore's response that Artic Ice would vanish by 2020.
    - pvaldes 5y ago
      We are in 2021. Unless tabloids claim, scientific models have error intervals, so you should be aware that what Al-Gore claimed still can happen. And failing in a single prediction does not invalidate magically all the other models. Ecological problems are complex and chaotic problems by nature. Much more complex that building an app. Being wrong is totally normal, and even necessary to understand and improve the model. So this would be like discarding an entire program of millions of lines because, gasp, one bug was found. Bugs are expected and even welcomed. They are tests that allow us to improve much faster If the problem is what was said by <"politician"> from <"random color"> that you dislike, you are attacking the problem in all the wrong ways.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  With this type of fear mongering, more people will die from the fight against climate change than climate change itself. For example, fertilizer is made from fossil fuels, so attempts to raise the price of fossil fuels or prevent companies from obtaining these fuels results in starvation. Similarly raising the price of things like home heating oil or gasoline will devastate poor nations. Madagascar had a famine because it wasn't able to afford fertilizer due to the twin effects of loss of revenue from covid lockdowns and an increase in fertilizer prices. Trying to move away from fossil fuels is an extremely delicate operation that requires nuance and patience. It also requires having something to replace fossil fuels that is as cheap otherwise poor nations wont be able to afford it. This means purely relying on market solutions to increase prices and let replacements bubble from the market is a recipe for disaster in the developing world.
winnerdev 5y ago
Jordan B Petterson has a podcast on this topic. This spreading fear has to stop
- hef19898 5y ago
  Jordan Petterson is too much in love with himself to be taken seriously anymore.
  - friendly_chap 5y ago
    As a casual follower of him, I would like to hear more of your opinion about the guy, please. To me he doesn't seem too self centered?
    - DocTomoe 5y ago
      He has become pretty radicalised lately - less so in his videos/podcasts, but his Twitter feed has become ... unpleasant and often more reminiscent of a right-wing pundit than the more stoic/therapeutical approach he had before his hospitalisation. It's either that, or he allowed someone to take over his social media channels and does not check on content.
    - simondotau 5y ago
      https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/jordan-peterson-the-alchemical-nature-of-a-lemon-explains-the-crystalline-structure-of-logos https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/jordan-peter... (Topic starts at 9:30)
- goodpoint 5y ago
  Jordan Peterson talks about many topics he's not trained in without citing reliable sources.
  - gdsdfe 5y ago
    Like 100% of people ... I think people need to stop thinking that others with a bit of fame are somewhat special or always right etc.
grouphugs 5y ago
[dead]
newsclues 5y ago
Wouldn’t that cut into adolescent anti-depression drug sales? Can’t have that occur
rvz 5y ago
> We need a new message for climate change. One that drives action through optimism that things can be better. Or, based on the signs that things are getting better, we might rebrand this optimism as realism. This would be much more effective at driving real change, and would save a lot of mental strife in the process. Exactly. The main question is: What are you going to do about it? Doing nothing and screaming about doomsday to others is not a solution.
- jfengel 5y ago
  Many people are doing what they can at an individual level, but that's vastly less important than the required collective action. Gasoline cars don't have "range anxiety" because there are gas stations everywhere. Nothing you do changes that. Gas is also comparatively cheap because the climate costs are externalized; again, you cannot do anything about that on your own. There are many other such externalized costs, from meat to cheap consumer products. You can reduce these on your own, but it's vastly less effective than systematic reductions. There have been tons of proposals to counteract these effects, but they are fought by powerful forces to convince you that climate change doesn't even exist. The doomsday screaming is the natural result of people trying to make the point that it's a real and important thing. It doesn't really matter what people propose when the default action is to do nothing at all. If you're interested in some of the proposals, I can list them, or you can read up on what has been suggested at the COP conferences. But my top priority is for people to stop lying so that at least one of those proposals has a chance of being accepted.
noisy_boy 5y ago
Instead of fear, spread care and kindness. I ask my kids if we should love our planet earth and save energy and do such positive steps - they say yes and take the correct steps. I think this is more positive and sustainable - make them love the planet and they will do what they can/need to do to preserve it.
yosito 5y ago
Teach kids to love nature and care about protecting it. If everyone did that, humanity's future would be much brighter.
newyankee 5y ago
The way I see it is that Climate Change will prevent the Global South from reaching the Quality of life of first world. We may mostly solve problems with basic issues and poverty but may not reach the potential as envisioned in StarTrek universe. But Climate change may not be the only reason to blame.
Jenk 5y ago
Yeah we've done that and look where it got us. Those kids from the 80s and 90s who were taught about greenhouse gasses, global warming, animal and plant extinction due to our actions (I'm one of said children). We were taught/asked to love our planet and the inhabitants (human and others) like family. It did diddly to change anything. Now that generation are the ones in power at MegaPollutingCorp, but nothing is changing. This is just yet another inactivism propaganda piece.
- Quarrelsome 5y ago
  > It did diddly to change anything. This generation helped push renewables to the spot they're in today.
- naydien 5y ago
  > Now that generation are the ones in power at MegaPollutingCorp, but nothing is changing. Please look at the CEO, President, and Board of Directors of MegaPollutingCorp. Are they kids of the 80s and 90s?
  - ehnto 5y ago
    Prefacing this with the fact that I'm still thinking about all of this, so I'm trying not to be absolutist. But I was thinking that as well. There is a few ways in which the older generations have not left room for the upcoming generations to flourish in general, including when it comes to governance of companies and governments. That said, it's probably a fallacy to think that there is any precedent for the world we live in now. People live longer, stay active longer, and we're all so steeped in "What's mine is mine" individualism that the idea of making way for the younger generation may as well be egocide.
    - jimbokun 5y ago
      I find it strange to anthropomorphize a "generation". Old people want to be engaged and do something meaningful and influential as long as they can. I imagine the majority of them would agree in principle that younger people should have more of a role. Just that someone other than them should be the person to step aside and make way. Do you honestly think that when you are the same age, you will be willing to end your role as a productive member of society for the sake of the "younger generation"? Even if you don't have enough to retire and maintain your current lifestyle? What will you do with your remaining time after that?
pasabagi 5y ago
To be fair to the kids, Germany is still a capitalist country, and if food prices go up, people (including kids) at the bottom of the social pyramid will go hungry. Obviously, that's a political choice. States can have free school meals as a easy target for budget cuts, or as a cornerstone of their responsibility towards child welfare. That'll still be true even if we hit 2 degrees of global warming. The point is, given the way politics works at the moment, it would absolutely not be surprising if children were dying of starvation in Europe in a future of catastrophic global warming. In the UK, the number of children admitted to hospital with malnutrition in 2020 was almost 2,500. Obviously, the UK is an extreme case, but you can imagine in a state of extreme crisis, food supply shocks, and displacement (wildfires, etc) this could become endemic in europe in general.
- adrianN 5y ago
  If children go hungry in Germany, that's a failure in the system. It happens, but rarely. Everybody in Germany has enough food and shelter if the system is working as it is intended.
  - soco 5y ago
    I just returned from Frankfurt. Plenty of people rough sleeping on the streets, so the system is definitely not working properly.
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    The system costs money, and when state resources are tight because they're trying to handle catastrophic global warming, it's easy to imagine that money going elsewhere. Just look at all the 'belt-tightening' that occurred after the financial crisis.Then imagine what's going to happen to the international economy when the fundamentals are continuously being smashed by extreme weather, mass displacement, crop failure, political instability, and war.
vaylian 5y ago
> But famine across temperate Europe? We already see rising temperatures in Europe that have consequences for the yield of crops and the availability of drinking water. We see a decline of insect populations which will no longer be available for pollination. We know that forests are suffering because of the summer heat that we have in Europe. It isn't too bad for us humans right now. But we see clear warning signs that things will probably get worse. Most of us in the western world have underestimated COVID-19 when it first hit China. COVID-19 has changed our world in ways hardly any of us had imagined. The same will probably happen with climate change.
- AlgorithmicTime 5y ago
  The crops that make up the vast majority of human calories consumed are not insect pollinated. They're wind pollinated. Wheat, rice, rye, barley, corn (maize), these are not going away.
- mpweiher 5y ago
  > yield of crops Citation needed? > forests are suffering [..] in Europe Forests have been booming in Europe: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-environment/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-environ... > decline of insect populations Worrying, but unsure at this point what the trend is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations For example, I read for years how the monarch butterfly was on the verge of extinction. Now: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/11/17/california-sees-monarch-butterfly-population-bounce-back/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/11/17/california-sees...
  - mpweiher 5y ago
    On yield of crops: Area dedicated to crops has steadily declined in Europe and the US since the 1950s, while feeding larger populations. This is only possible if crop yields have increased, substantially. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
jnmandal 5y ago
Climate change is only one of myriad problems mine and my children's generation need to address. Cleaning up microplastics could make decarbonization look like child's play. Phosphate and nitrate cycles also need to be addressed if we are to stabilize this planet. We are essentially awash in our own waste and global population is only beginning to flatten off. Not to mention a shrinking or flattening population brings along its own issues to solve. Probably some of the problems we will be working on in 30 years will be directly caused by near sighted solutions to climate change my generation is implementing today. Growing up, I was fed lies about a future of a unified world, universally prosperous under American hegemony. It was a dogmatic fiction, and I am still bitter about it. It's better to be real with our kids. That does not mean telling them they will die but they need to be aware of the risks and the scale of the work ahead. Infinite growth on a finite Earth is not possible. We can basically either change patterns/behavior drastically or settle other planets fast. Either option entails hardship that the postwar generation simply never had to face. So the future will be quite different than what my generation experienced thus far. In some ways it will be worse and in some better. Being honest about that is crucial.
- bliteben 5y ago
  * Infinite growth on a finite Earth is not possible * Yet our whole economic systems are predicated on infinite growth. If a country's population were to decline it would and does cause structural problems in their society. I wonder on climate change just how many people this clip alienated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkDK2mZlOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkDK2mZlOo You have a political figure making it a political issue, and at the same time not doing it well, basically lying to get his correct point across. Manipulating the scale and using theatrics because he assumes his base is too dumb to understand it any other way.
  - rp1 5y ago
    How are our economic systems predicated on infinite growth? I see this “fact” parroted a lot, but always with very little detail. Japan didn’t grow economically for decades, and, as far as I can tell, continues to exist without collapsing.
Sytten 5y ago
I must say I do feel that way and it is a common "joke" within my circle (mid-twenties) that we will be lucky if we survive until our retirement. So I would not say 10 years timeframe, but more 40-50 years up to 100 years (so our potential children lifetime). It will take a lot to change my mind on that, I believe we are truly f*ked and I don't believe humanity will get out of this one. It requires such drastic change in lifestyle that most are simply not ready to do unless facing imminent (in your face type) catastrophe. Most likely scenario in my mind is global disruption of food supply chain, wars for water access, lots of migrations and lots of death/suffering. Planet is going to be fine, we don't need to "save it". Us? Not so much.
- Gravityloss 5y ago
  It's not a binary thing - the more that is done, the less the consequences.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  You’re delusional. Please read the IPCC reports.
  - seibelj 5y ago
    I’ve read comments from people arguing why having children now is immoral because the world is ending. Beyond absurd. At least those people are removing themselves from the gene pool.
  - FieryTransition 5y ago
    If I remember correctly, and forgive me for missing some details, the last one states that we are most likely to experience warming until 2045/2050, no matter what we do. They then proceed to give some different scenarios based on their models of what we do in those years from now to 2050. The models explain what changes we will likely experience, if the temperature rises post 2050 from a range of 2 to 6/7 degrees. The ideal scenario is a 1-2 degrees, which is still bad and can lead to a lot of global destabilization. But not as bad as all the other scenarios. The worse and worst case scenario is cause for concern, and if we don't do our best, we are in for a hell of a ride. So no matter what we do, we will experience more and more harsh effects, that is most likely the reality now. It is not delusional, and it says so in the ippc reports you are referring too. I am referring to the latest one from 2021, made for policy makers. I don't think we will all just have no future, we can still do a lot to mitigate the risks post 2050. It is neither productive to say it is hopeless, but neither that the risks aren't very very real. But if we don't take it seriously now, things are gonna be capital B bad. It's like one of the execs of an oil company said when asked about the implications of using oil, and I'm paraphrasing; "It's not my concern, the future generations will just invent tech and solve it". How arrogant and careless can you be....
teekert 5y ago
I had a friend that cried about the hole in the ozon layer many nights in the 80s. I will never do this to my kids.
- WithinReason 5y ago
  You mean when your friend was a child?
  - teekert 5y ago
    Yes indeed, I’m from the early 80’s.
- refurb 5y ago
  Yup. Pretty amazing how that went away pretty quickly despite China violating the Montreal protocol.
intended 5y ago
Climate and environmental concern were dismissed and attacked for decades. Reading the article it seems that the author is opining on Climate Communication, but that is not his main subject. They pick a headline from climate activists “famines in Europe in 20 years” as an example of hyperbole, but “Half of the Great Barrier Reef Is Dead” is a headline. Sure, extreme claims will hurt credibility when they don’t pan out. But does this really matter when solid climate science has already been “debunked” and dismissed by a range of Murdochian talking heads and cranks? A necessary amount of emotional energy is needed for momentum to shift in stories. Even more energy is needed when someone is manipulating climate change coordination. Large scale communication for a movement is simple and designed for ease of repetition and emotional resonance. This is what it looks like when you have enough pressure in the pot to counteract suppression.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > Climate and environmental concern were dismissed and attacked for decades. Part of the reason is that the "green" movement has a long history of promoting de-industrialization and generally opposing human flourishing, using "nature" as a type of proxy for this anti-human, anti-development sentiment. Some examples: * rigid opposition to nuclear power, which continues until the present. We could have moved completely off fossil fuels for electricity production if it were not for the green movement. * the "environmental" regulations pushed through by the green movement were written with the aim of making development more expensive, resulting in the high price of housing as developers are sued into oblivion in disputations over environmental impact reports. * the green movement is responsible for our disastrous forest management practices, resulting in thousands of deaths and massive ecological destruction by making it prohibitively expensive to harvest timber from federal lands. See, e.g. https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article254957722.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article25495772... * prominent leaders in the green movement have gone on record wishing for mass culling of humanity in order to "save the planet". The most notorious example would be Prince Phillip, fantasizing that he would be reincarnated as a virus to wipe out millions of people in order to help the environment. See, e.g. https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3087918/when-prince-philip-wanted-be-reincarnated-pandemic-and https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/308... * Absurd crusades such as trying to ban plastic straws, plastic grocery bags, or promoting wasteful recycling programs that are not backed by any rational basis and cause more harm than good. * Opposition to modern agricultural practices such as use of fertilizer, GMO crops, etc, that allow billions of people to eat in the name of a kind of unscientific primitive romanticism. * The methods of various "pro environment" groups involving tactics such as domestic terrorism (including murder) to blocking highways as privileged activists lie down in public spaces and sob to "save the planet" turn off a lot of people and cause them to discount what environmentalists have to say. > Sure, extreme claims will hurt credibility when they don’t pan out. This has already happened. There really doesn't seem to be much in the way of quality control when it comes to wild claims being made, which leads people to discount all the claims.
sleepysysadmin 5y ago
It's unfortunate that 'doomsday' will remain. In society there will always be the Y2K and Mayan Calendar people. Climate change is a much more reliable source compared to some ancient Mayans. There are also ideologues pushing a political position. Saying that the world ends in X years unless you do what I say is not going to go away. There are people justifying their rent. Give me grant money and I'll say the world ends in X years.
cheese_goddess 5y ago
> We need a new message for climate change. Hey, I got it! "Don't worry, be happy"! That should do it! Unfortunately there are scant few reasons to be happy after reading the article. We're moving too slow and we're not hitting any targets. Meanwhile much of the world is heading for climate catastrophe. What are the doomsday scenarios we should leave aside then?
nickpp 5y ago
I am a huge fan of a zero-footprint future through eliminating pollution, reusing already mined non-renewables, switching to renewable resources and energy and protecting and preserving bio diversity and wild habitats. But when I hear about the incoming climate catastrophe, I wanna just crawl in a corner and die. The way a message is transmitted matters.
errcorrectcode 5y ago
"Head in the sand" happy-clappy, willful ignorance won't help either. This underestimates and patronizes subsequent generations. Greta Thunberg is just one example of transcending hopelessness and not falling into learned helplessness. It is a climate change emergency and existential threat that must be deal with honestly without sensationalizing or minimizing because world leaders and the billionaires are killing the species long-term with apathy, greed, and delay. What's needed is action now. Specifically, not "Mission Accomplished" ostensible, piece-meal virtue-signaling planting a tree, divestment, or changing fuels. Large-scale, oceanic bio-CSS is one of the primary technologies that must be deployed at a minimum rate of several trillion USD per year. Only drastic carbon negative civilization will work for the foreseeable future, and CCS is the only way to get there because carbon, lifestyle, and economic austerity sure won't work.

66 points by mpweiher 5y ago

Relevant: https://nypost.com/2021/11/12/50-years-of-predictions-that-the-climate-apocalypse-is-nigh/ https://nypost.com/2021/11/12/50-years-of-predictions-that-t...

peter_retief 5y ago

The people who are predicting human extinction are not reasonable or rational. How did this group of deranged individuals manage to capture the public attention and make so many people miserable? I am very much in favour of preserving our wildlife and wilderness and have been for years, this modern lunacy has damaged the cause of environmental preservation.

adrianN 5y ago

It's unlikely that they'll die from climate change. But it is much more likely that they'll die from wars caused by climate change. It is pretty much certain that their lives will be much worse because of climate change.

treeman79 5y ago
Russia is massing troops on Ukraine’s. Most likely another war will happen there shortly. China is becoming hyper aggressive towards Taiwan. Serious war is around the corner. Not hypothetical wars.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- newyankee 5y ago
  China is also amassing troops along Indian borders with routine skirmishes
- Quarrelsome 5y ago
  serious war is always "around the corner". Remember that the fall of Rome was predicted by doom mongers for hundreds of years before it transpired to be true. Should today transpire to be similar (e.g. window of hundreds of years) than you're more likely to be wrong about this than right. For example your narrative is failing to account for the horror of mutually assured destruction which is a strong psychological factor in wars between major powers.
  - treeman79 5y ago
    MAD means nations are free to wage war up to a certain point. Maybe a couple of islands and a bit of India. Then a break for a few years. Repeat now and then.
    - Quarrelsome 5y ago
      sure that's standard fare, and a far cry from the doom drums of a world war III blitzkrieg that appears to be a general doomer theme on this subject. I mean Russia annexed Crimea six years ago and we're all still alive and Putin has a lifespan so its not even an unstoppable trend.
- Hnrobert42 5y ago
  Sure, but are you saying these are mostly because of climate change?
  - treeman79 5y ago
    These have nothing to do with Climate change. They are however immediate.
- kunagi7 5y ago
  We are under a new cold War and people don't seem to realize this. Russia has had troops around Ukraine for the last 7 years. The Donetsk and Lugansk "republics" exist since 2014. Russia is waiting for Ukraine's move since then. As long as USA has bases in Japan and has military presence in Taiwan... China won't make a move. It's easier to wait for USA to leave though. We'll see continuous provocation between the blocks (most recently, Afghanistan Taliban Regime, Belorussian usage of immigrants against the EU, etc). But a serious war around the corner sounds a bit too far from reality.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    I hope so. Putin was the first to push the limits. He got away with Ukraine without any serious response from the West. Now he is encouraged, and the only question remains is whether or not NATO is really ready to got to war over the Baltics. NATOs de-facto defeat in Afghanistan definitely didn't help in projecting strength, nor is the constant in-fighting within the EU. China is doing the same now with Taiwan. Try calling Taiwan a country as a movie star -> forced apology. Bodies like the IOC already falted. No guarantee that sometime someone tries, or feels forced to try for whatever reason, to push it. If the West doesn't react to that, well, then all the others will push the limits as well.
    - kunagi7 5y ago
      After the pro-EU Ukrainians ignited the Euromaidan movement (to remove a Kremlin aligned president) a civil war started in Ukraine. At that point Putin supported one side of the war and got Crimea for almost nothing. There's also the closely related Donbas war which never stopped. So he got the first place at it. USA has lost its image of "being the police of the world" and the countries that depend on that image are suffering. Their future looks quite grim. Besides that, Taiwan isn't recognized by the UN since 1971 and by the IOC since 1981. The west didn't react back then either.
      - hef19898 5y ago
        Regarding Taiwan, I honestly never understood why everyone caved to China already back then. Ok, today it is all about money. Back then, I don't know. Maybe there was hope to unite China under a pro-West government? Because even the DDR and North Korea are / were recognized.
- jkepler 5y ago
  > Serious war is around the corner. Not hypothetical wars. Serious war may look different from the past of nation-state wars. We're living through the emergence of network states. Given how the Internet enables non-tangible property (I.e., domain names that one can use to build businesses, associations, non-profits; bitcoin, Ethereum, and other crypto-projects) through communications protocols and cryptographic mathematics, its no longer necessary to wage physical war to gain an advantage. Thus we see a massive rise in persistent threat actors, which could be world war three already happening, but we don't recognize it yet because we're used to observing nation-state wars, not network state wars. Perhaps the modern age of nation state dominance ran from the Peace of Westphalia to 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the design of the World-Wide-Web by Berners-Lee.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    You mean WW3 was WWW and we just haven't noticed it yet?
  - count 5y ago
    There will be actual kinetic warfare between Westphalian nation states ALSO. Just because there's 'new' war, doesn't mean the old dirty war will go away. Especially because crypto can't replace aquifers or reduce flooding and other things lost in global change. So, you're not wrong, but also omitting a significant actual current threat.
refurb 5y ago
You can get killed walkin’ your doggy. Not worth dwelling on.
tonoto 5y ago
wars caused by climate change, or wars caused by actions taken (in good faith) against climate change? I believe there is a risk that the current activistic climate movement will do similar harm to the society in general as the last decades aggressive movement to liberalism in the "west part" of the world. The liberalistic movement is like running with a rubber band - it will force the societies to become repressive. I hope I'm wrong, but the climate change movement will similar cause (negative) unplanned effects..
olalonde 5y ago
I just don't see that happening, especially given the extremely slow rate at which climate is changing. Personally, I haven't really perceived the change in my lifetime (30+ years). Of course, I'm not saying it's not happening, just my perception of it. Care to share some articles that support this scenario?
- polotics 5y ago
  Where are you based if I may ask? Been watching which news?
  - olalonde 5y ago
    20 years in Canada (Montreal), 10 years in Southern China (Shenzhen). Not watching news much (other than HN). I'm a skeptical by nature.
- piva00 5y ago
  > I just don't see that happening, especially given the extremely slow rate at which climate is changing. Personally, I haven't really perceived the change in my lifetime (30+ years). Where do you live? I'm originally from Brazil, I live now in Sweden. In Brazil during my lifetime I lived through a massive deforestation of the Amazon. I saw landscapes change from lush jungles into arid and depleted soils. I went to places in the Pantanal area as a kid that were completely transformed 20 years later, rivers drying up and a different kind of flora was taking over parts of what used to be wetlands. In Sweden I have less than a decade around so my own experience is pretty limited. Here I can only get a glimpse of the changes through the eyes of my local friends, my girlfriend parents and other older people I talk to have noticed how much shorter and warmer winters have got. How hot summers are happening more frequently. The winter season used to last almost a month longer and snow wasn't a possibility but a given. Now they live through winters where less than 5 days of snowy days are a reality. Planning your skiing season varies a lot between years where when I talk to older people they just used to consider it a given that there would be a skiing season in most parts of the country (maybe except for the south in Skåne). The warming is much more prominent closer to the poles. The climate is not changing slowly in my experience, given the size of the system it's changing pretty fucking fast.
dane-pgp 5y ago
> But it is much more likely that they'll die from wars caused by climate change. For kids in rich countries, it is much more likely that they'll kill in wars caused by climate change (or vote / pay for soldiers to do the killing for them). Sadly, climate refugees will be an easy target for modern armies, and when voters see millions of starving people trying to cross their borders, they will listen to the politicians who call this an invasion that needs a forceful response. Some places are already seeing these harsh political forces playing out, for example the UK, where the government is trying to make it illegal to rescue asylum seekers in boats[0] at a time when dozens can die on a single failed crossing.[1] [0] https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/priti-patel-making-it-illegal-uk-rescue-asylum-seekers https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/priti-patel-ma... [1] https://news.sky.com/story/migrant-crossings-several-people-drown-while-trying-to-cross-channel-in-dinghy-to-uk-reports-12477536 https://news.sky.com/story/migrant-crossings-several-people-...
- techdragon 5y ago
  Australia’s been brutal with respect to anyone trying to arrive without a visa via boats. The charters, cruises and mega-yachts have no issue but the refugees and asylum seekers have a lot of effort out into preventing them getting close enough to Australian shores that we have any legal obligations to help them get the rest of the way. I wonder how similar the UK are being in terms or Pr argument and international law…
bryanlarsen 5y ago
If wide spread war happens climate change will be one cause of many. Some blame the fall of Rome on climate change, but if it hasn't been rotten at its core it would have withstood the challenge easily.
teekert 5y ago
Like mine would be worse than my parents’ because of acidic rain and disappearance of the ozon layer? I’m sorry, I don’t want your negativity near my children. Adults solved this for me as a kid, there was no need to tell me that I'd have trouble going outside if there were no clouds, in my future. They could have saved me the hardship.
- rand49an 5y ago
  Apart from those were well understood problems with relatively simple solutions unlike climate change which at current pace will change the face of the planet in the next 50 years.
  - teekert 5y ago
    Well understood… in retrospect. At the time it didn't really feel like something we were going to solve, at least to me, as a kid.

Fckd 5y ago

yes, we should not because thats a wrong statment. The correct one is that kids from undeveloped world die from climate change.

pvaldes 5y ago
And that the developed world will became undeveloped in terms of natural disasters. Apart of this, all will be perfectly fine.
- overallduka 5y ago
  This claim is in the same category of Al-Gore's response that Artic Ice would vanish by 2020.
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    We are in 2021. Unless tabloids claim, scientific models have error intervals, so you should be aware that what Al-Gore claimed still can happen. And failing in a single prediction does not invalidate magically all the other models. Ecological problems are complex and chaotic problems by nature. Much more complex that building an app. Being wrong is totally normal, and even necessary to understand and improve the model. So this would be like discarding an entire program of millions of lines because, gasp, one bug was found. Bugs are expected and even welcomed. They are tests that allow us to improve much faster If the problem is what was said by <"politician"> from <"random color"> that you dislike, you are attacking the problem in all the wrong ways.
rsj_hn 5y ago
With this type of fear mongering, more people will die from the fight against climate change than climate change itself. For example, fertilizer is made from fossil fuels, so attempts to raise the price of fossil fuels or prevent companies from obtaining these fuels results in starvation. Similarly raising the price of things like home heating oil or gasoline will devastate poor nations. Madagascar had a famine because it wasn't able to afford fertilizer due to the twin effects of loss of revenue from covid lockdowns and an increase in fertilizer prices. Trying to move away from fossil fuels is an extremely delicate operation that requires nuance and patience. It also requires having something to replace fossil fuels that is as cheap otherwise poor nations wont be able to afford it. This means purely relying on market solutions to increase prices and let replacements bubble from the market is a recipe for disaster in the developing world.

winnerdev 5y ago

Jordan B Petterson has a podcast on this topic. This spreading fear has to stop

hef19898 5y ago
Jordan Petterson is too much in love with himself to be taken seriously anymore.
- friendly_chap 5y ago
  As a casual follower of him, I would like to hear more of your opinion about the guy, please. To me he doesn't seem too self centered?
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
    He has become pretty radicalised lately - less so in his videos/podcasts, but his Twitter feed has become ... unpleasant and often more reminiscent of a right-wing pundit than the more stoic/therapeutical approach he had before his hospitalisation. It's either that, or he allowed someone to take over his social media channels and does not check on content.
  - simondotau 5y ago
    https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/jordan-peterson-the-alchemical-nature-of-a-lemon-explains-the-crystalline-structure-of-logos https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/jordan-peter... (Topic starts at 9:30)
goodpoint 5y ago
Jordan Peterson talks about many topics he's not trained in without citing reliable sources.
- gdsdfe 5y ago
  Like 100% of people ... I think people need to stop thinking that others with a bit of fame are somewhat special or always right etc.

grouphugs 5y ago

[dead]

newsclues 5y ago

Wouldn’t that cut into adolescent anti-depression drug sales? Can’t have that occur

rvz 5y ago

> We need a new message for climate change. One that drives action through optimism that things can be better. Or, based on the signs that things are getting better, we might rebrand this optimism as realism. This would be much more effective at driving real change, and would save a lot of mental strife in the process. Exactly. The main question is: What are you going to do about it? Doing nothing and screaming about doomsday to others is not a solution.

jfengel 5y ago
Many people are doing what they can at an individual level, but that's vastly less important than the required collective action. Gasoline cars don't have "range anxiety" because there are gas stations everywhere. Nothing you do changes that. Gas is also comparatively cheap because the climate costs are externalized; again, you cannot do anything about that on your own. There are many other such externalized costs, from meat to cheap consumer products. You can reduce these on your own, but it's vastly less effective than systematic reductions. There have been tons of proposals to counteract these effects, but they are fought by powerful forces to convince you that climate change doesn't even exist. The doomsday screaming is the natural result of people trying to make the point that it's a real and important thing. It doesn't really matter what people propose when the default action is to do nothing at all. If you're interested in some of the proposals, I can list them, or you can read up on what has been suggested at the COP conferences. But my top priority is for people to stop lying so that at least one of those proposals has a chance of being accepted.

noisy_boy 5y ago

Instead of fear, spread care and kindness. I ask my kids if we should love our planet earth and save energy and do such positive steps - they say yes and take the correct steps. I think this is more positive and sustainable - make them love the planet and they will do what they can/need to do to preserve it.

yosito 5y ago

Teach kids to love nature and care about protecting it. If everyone did that, humanity's future would be much brighter.

newyankee 5y ago

The way I see it is that Climate Change will prevent the Global South from reaching the Quality of life of first world. We may mostly solve problems with basic issues and poverty but may not reach the potential as envisioned in StarTrek universe. But Climate change may not be the only reason to blame.

Jenk 5y ago

Yeah we've done that and look where it got us. Those kids from the 80s and 90s who were taught about greenhouse gasses, global warming, animal and plant extinction due to our actions (I'm one of said children). We were taught/asked to love our planet and the inhabitants (human and others) like family. It did diddly to change anything. Now that generation are the ones in power at MegaPollutingCorp, but nothing is changing. This is just yet another inactivism propaganda piece.

Quarrelsome 5y ago
> It did diddly to change anything. This generation helped push renewables to the spot they're in today.
naydien 5y ago
> Now that generation are the ones in power at MegaPollutingCorp, but nothing is changing. Please look at the CEO, President, and Board of Directors of MegaPollutingCorp. Are they kids of the 80s and 90s?
- ehnto 5y ago
  Prefacing this with the fact that I'm still thinking about all of this, so I'm trying not to be absolutist. But I was thinking that as well. There is a few ways in which the older generations have not left room for the upcoming generations to flourish in general, including when it comes to governance of companies and governments. That said, it's probably a fallacy to think that there is any precedent for the world we live in now. People live longer, stay active longer, and we're all so steeped in "What's mine is mine" individualism that the idea of making way for the younger generation may as well be egocide.
  - jimbokun 5y ago
    I find it strange to anthropomorphize a "generation". Old people want to be engaged and do something meaningful and influential as long as they can. I imagine the majority of them would agree in principle that younger people should have more of a role. Just that someone other than them should be the person to step aside and make way. Do you honestly think that when you are the same age, you will be willing to end your role as a productive member of society for the sake of the "younger generation"? Even if you don't have enough to retire and maintain your current lifestyle? What will you do with your remaining time after that?

pasabagi 5y ago

To be fair to the kids, Germany is still a capitalist country, and if food prices go up, people (including kids) at the bottom of the social pyramid will go hungry. Obviously, that's a political choice. States can have free school meals as a easy target for budget cuts, or as a cornerstone of their responsibility towards child welfare. That'll still be true even if we hit 2 degrees of global warming. The point is, given the way politics works at the moment, it would absolutely not be surprising if children were dying of starvation in Europe in a future of catastrophic global warming. In the UK, the number of children admitted to hospital with malnutrition in 2020 was almost 2,500. Obviously, the UK is an extreme case, but you can imagine in a state of extreme crisis, food supply shocks, and displacement (wildfires, etc) this could become endemic in europe in general.

adrianN 5y ago
If children go hungry in Germany, that's a failure in the system. It happens, but rarely. Everybody in Germany has enough food and shelter if the system is working as it is intended.
- soco 5y ago
  I just returned from Frankfurt. Plenty of people rough sleeping on the streets, so the system is definitely not working properly.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  The system costs money, and when state resources are tight because they're trying to handle catastrophic global warming, it's easy to imagine that money going elsewhere. Just look at all the 'belt-tightening' that occurred after the financial crisis.Then imagine what's going to happen to the international economy when the fundamentals are continuously being smashed by extreme weather, mass displacement, crop failure, political instability, and war.

vaylian 5y ago

> But famine across temperate Europe? We already see rising temperatures in Europe that have consequences for the yield of crops and the availability of drinking water. We see a decline of insect populations which will no longer be available for pollination. We know that forests are suffering because of the summer heat that we have in Europe. It isn't too bad for us humans right now. But we see clear warning signs that things will probably get worse. Most of us in the western world have underestimated COVID-19 when it first hit China. COVID-19 has changed our world in ways hardly any of us had imagined. The same will probably happen with climate change.

AlgorithmicTime 5y ago
The crops that make up the vast majority of human calories consumed are not insect pollinated. They're wind pollinated. Wheat, rice, rye, barley, corn (maize), these are not going away.
mpweiher 5y ago
> yield of crops Citation needed? > forests are suffering [..] in Europe Forests have been booming in Europe: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-environment/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-environ... > decline of insect populations Worrying, but unsure at this point what the trend is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations For example, I read for years how the monarch butterfly was on the verge of extinction. Now: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/11/17/california-sees-monarch-butterfly-population-bounce-back/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/11/17/california-sees...
- mpweiher 5y ago
  On yield of crops: Area dedicated to crops has steadily declined in Europe and the US since the 1950s, while feeding larger populations. This is only possible if crop yields have increased, substantially. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use

jnmandal 5y ago

Climate change is only one of myriad problems mine and my children's generation need to address. Cleaning up microplastics could make decarbonization look like child's play. Phosphate and nitrate cycles also need to be addressed if we are to stabilize this planet. We are essentially awash in our own waste and global population is only beginning to flatten off. Not to mention a shrinking or flattening population brings along its own issues to solve. Probably some of the problems we will be working on in 30 years will be directly caused by near sighted solutions to climate change my generation is implementing today. Growing up, I was fed lies about a future of a unified world, universally prosperous under American hegemony. It was a dogmatic fiction, and I am still bitter about it. It's better to be real with our kids. That does not mean telling them they will die but they need to be aware of the risks and the scale of the work ahead. Infinite growth on a finite Earth is not possible. We can basically either change patterns/behavior drastically or settle other planets fast. Either option entails hardship that the postwar generation simply never had to face. So the future will be quite different than what my generation experienced thus far. In some ways it will be worse and in some better. Being honest about that is crucial.

bliteben 5y ago
* Infinite growth on a finite Earth is not possible * Yet our whole economic systems are predicated on infinite growth. If a country's population were to decline it would and does cause structural problems in their society. I wonder on climate change just how many people this clip alienated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkDK2mZlOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkDK2mZlOo You have a political figure making it a political issue, and at the same time not doing it well, basically lying to get his correct point across. Manipulating the scale and using theatrics because he assumes his base is too dumb to understand it any other way.
- rp1 5y ago
  How are our economic systems predicated on infinite growth? I see this “fact” parroted a lot, but always with very little detail. Japan didn’t grow economically for decades, and, as far as I can tell, continues to exist without collapsing.

Sytten 5y ago

I must say I do feel that way and it is a common "joke" within my circle (mid-twenties) that we will be lucky if we survive until our retirement. So I would not say 10 years timeframe, but more 40-50 years up to 100 years (so our potential children lifetime). It will take a lot to change my mind on that, I believe we are truly f*ked and I don't believe humanity will get out of this one. It requires such drastic change in lifestyle that most are simply not ready to do unless facing imminent (in your face type) catastrophe. Most likely scenario in my mind is global disruption of food supply chain, wars for water access, lots of migrations and lots of death/suffering. Planet is going to be fine, we don't need to "save it". Us? Not so much.

Gravityloss 5y ago
It's not a binary thing - the more that is done, the less the consequences.
elzbardico 5y ago
You’re delusional. Please read the IPCC reports.
- seibelj 5y ago
  I’ve read comments from people arguing why having children now is immoral because the world is ending. Beyond absurd. At least those people are removing themselves from the gene pool.
- FieryTransition 5y ago
  If I remember correctly, and forgive me for missing some details, the last one states that we are most likely to experience warming until 2045/2050, no matter what we do. They then proceed to give some different scenarios based on their models of what we do in those years from now to 2050. The models explain what changes we will likely experience, if the temperature rises post 2050 from a range of 2 to 6/7 degrees. The ideal scenario is a 1-2 degrees, which is still bad and can lead to a lot of global destabilization. But not as bad as all the other scenarios. The worse and worst case scenario is cause for concern, and if we don't do our best, we are in for a hell of a ride. So no matter what we do, we will experience more and more harsh effects, that is most likely the reality now. It is not delusional, and it says so in the ippc reports you are referring too. I am referring to the latest one from 2021, made for policy makers. I don't think we will all just have no future, we can still do a lot to mitigate the risks post 2050. It is neither productive to say it is hopeless, but neither that the risks aren't very very real. But if we don't take it seriously now, things are gonna be capital B bad. It's like one of the execs of an oil company said when asked about the implications of using oil, and I'm paraphrasing; "It's not my concern, the future generations will just invent tech and solve it". How arrogant and careless can you be....

teekert 5y ago

I had a friend that cried about the hole in the ozon layer many nights in the 80s. I will never do this to my kids.

WithinReason 5y ago
You mean when your friend was a child?
- teekert 5y ago
  Yes indeed, I’m from the early 80’s.
refurb 5y ago
Yup. Pretty amazing how that went away pretty quickly despite China violating the Montreal protocol.

intended 5y ago

Climate and environmental concern were dismissed and attacked for decades. Reading the article it seems that the author is opining on Climate Communication, but that is not his main subject. They pick a headline from climate activists “famines in Europe in 20 years” as an example of hyperbole, but “Half of the Great Barrier Reef Is Dead” is a headline. Sure, extreme claims will hurt credibility when they don’t pan out. But does this really matter when solid climate science has already been “debunked” and dismissed by a range of Murdochian talking heads and cranks? A necessary amount of emotional energy is needed for momentum to shift in stories. Even more energy is needed when someone is manipulating climate change coordination. Large scale communication for a movement is simple and designed for ease of repetition and emotional resonance. This is what it looks like when you have enough pressure in the pot to counteract suppression.

rsj_hn 5y ago
> Climate and environmental concern were dismissed and attacked for decades. Part of the reason is that the "green" movement has a long history of promoting de-industrialization and generally opposing human flourishing, using "nature" as a type of proxy for this anti-human, anti-development sentiment. Some examples: * rigid opposition to nuclear power, which continues until the present. We could have moved completely off fossil fuels for electricity production if it were not for the green movement. * the "environmental" regulations pushed through by the green movement were written with the aim of making development more expensive, resulting in the high price of housing as developers are sued into oblivion in disputations over environmental impact reports. * the green movement is responsible for our disastrous forest management practices, resulting in thousands of deaths and massive ecological destruction by making it prohibitively expensive to harvest timber from federal lands. See, e.g. https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article254957722.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article25495772... * prominent leaders in the green movement have gone on record wishing for mass culling of humanity in order to "save the planet". The most notorious example would be Prince Phillip, fantasizing that he would be reincarnated as a virus to wipe out millions of people in order to help the environment. See, e.g. https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3087918/when-prince-philip-wanted-be-reincarnated-pandemic-and https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/308... * Absurd crusades such as trying to ban plastic straws, plastic grocery bags, or promoting wasteful recycling programs that are not backed by any rational basis and cause more harm than good. * Opposition to modern agricultural practices such as use of fertilizer, GMO crops, etc, that allow billions of people to eat in the name of a kind of unscientific primitive romanticism. * The methods of various "pro environment" groups involving tactics such as domestic terrorism (including murder) to blocking highways as privileged activists lie down in public spaces and sob to "save the planet" turn off a lot of people and cause them to discount what environmentalists have to say. > Sure, extreme claims will hurt credibility when they don’t pan out. This has already happened. There really doesn't seem to be much in the way of quality control when it comes to wild claims being made, which leads people to discount all the claims.

sleepysysadmin 5y ago

It's unfortunate that 'doomsday' will remain. In society there will always be the Y2K and Mayan Calendar people. Climate change is a much more reliable source compared to some ancient Mayans. There are also ideologues pushing a political position. Saying that the world ends in X years unless you do what I say is not going to go away. There are people justifying their rent. Give me grant money and I'll say the world ends in X years.

cheese_goddess 5y ago

> We need a new message for climate change. Hey, I got it! "Don't worry, be happy"! That should do it! Unfortunately there are scant few reasons to be happy after reading the article. We're moving too slow and we're not hitting any targets. Meanwhile much of the world is heading for climate catastrophe. What are the doomsday scenarios we should leave aside then?

nickpp 5y ago

I am a huge fan of a zero-footprint future through eliminating pollution, reusing already mined non-renewables, switching to renewable resources and energy and protecting and preserving bio diversity and wild habitats. But when I hear about the incoming climate catastrophe, I wanna just crawl in a corner and die. The way a message is transmitted matters.

errcorrectcode 5y ago

"Head in the sand" happy-clappy, willful ignorance won't help either. This underestimates and patronizes subsequent generations. Greta Thunberg is just one example of transcending hopelessness and not falling into learned helplessness. It is a climate change emergency and existential threat that must be deal with honestly without sensationalizing or minimizing because world leaders and the billionaires are killing the species long-term with apathy, greed, and delay. What's needed is action now. Specifically, not "Mission Accomplished" ostensible, piece-meal virtue-signaling planting a tree, divestment, or changing fuels. Large-scale, oceanic bio-CSS is one of the primary technologies that must be deployed at a minimum rate of several trillion USD per year. Only drastic carbon negative civilization will work for the foreseeable future, and CCS is the only way to get there because carbon, lifestyle, and economic austerity sure won't work.