I myself support treating climate change as a serious threat. I think you (actually_a_dog) would agree. I also think the person you responded to (austincheney)

I myself support treating climate change as a serious threat. I think you (actually_a_dog) would agree. I also think the person you responded to (austincheney) would agree, because that's what they wrote. I think what you read as denial in this response was in reality a practical theory about why humanity is struggling to rally around and solve a problem that is so clearly important. This person strikes me as an ally to our cause (yours and mine), one that is thinking out loud about the psychology of those in our society who choose to downgrade the priority of addressing climate change. Analyzing and understanding the psychology of an opponent is not the same as agreeing with it. It is a necessary prerequisite to convincing your opponent of the truth. It is a winning strategy. IMHO, the study you link to supports the assertion that climate change is a hard problem for humanity to solve, one prone to confusing collections of people trying to solve world problems. Consider this bit. "Many factors due to human activity are considered as possible responsible of the observed changes: among these water and air contamination (mostly greenhouse effect) and deforestation are the mostly cited. While the extent of human contribution to the greenhouse effect and temperature changes is still a matter of discussion, the deforestation is an undeniable fact." If one were to post your link with that quote extracted, they'd no doubt get a lot of hate on HN. The idea that the above is "still a matter of discussion" would not be universally appreciated as the cautious words of a scientist. To some, it would read like a rebuttal of "the debate is over" and would fetch rage-filled reactions (as well as some thoughtful answers; this is still HN after all). And what am I to conclude from this study? What did you conclude? One possible conclusion is that we should focus all of our energy on stopping deforestation. Should we? Or should we split our resources between stopping deforestation and ceasing the use of fossil fuels? Since we have limited time and resources, how should we split? 80/20% in favor of deforestation? Should we leave any time and money to other world problems like pandemics? Poverty? How much? People are bad enough making these kinds of decisions with their own money, let alone the wealth of nations. To recognize this challenge is wise. Let's all rally behind the idea that "concerns of environment destruction and climate devastation" are "critically important" (the words of austincheney). And let's do so with our eyes open to the complexities we will face along the way. If nuance continues to ignite emotions and cause us to talk past one another, I predict societal collapse at 99.9% likely.