4 ms·
Yeah, but had there been a loud minority of climate scientists professing less moderate views, then the opponents would have simply retorted "see, they themselv
by Sharlin 5y ago
Yeah, but had there been a loud minority of climate scientists professing less moderate views, then the opponents would have simply retorted "see, they themselves can't even agree on what they think will happen!" And the scientific community was painfully aware that any internal disagreement would be used by the opponents to spread doubt, as seen in the leaked Climategate correspondence. Of course, this call for a united front was then used by the denialists as evidence for their climate conspiracy theory, so it's not like the humanity had any actual chance of winning against itself here. We really done fucked up this time.
- webmaven 5y agoPresumably, that scenario still includes figures advocating complacency, so you're really comparing a situation where opinion is presented as split between complacency and moderation vs complacency, moderation, and alarmism. Both-sideism works in your favor in the latter case, and if someone digs into the numbers a bit more, they would find that the alarmists outnumber the complacents. The only real risk is that the alarmists provoke an "it's already too late to fix anything" response, which I don't think is terribly likely, as there isn't an upper bound on how bad things get until you hit a tipping point of civilizational collapse.