In short, we aren’t on track to an apocalyptic extinction, and the new head is concerned that rhetoric that we are is making people apathetic and paralyzes them from making beneficial actions.
He makes it clear too that this doesn’t mean things are perfectly fine. The world is becoming and will be more dangerous with respect to climate. We’re going to still have serious problems to deal with. The problems just aren’t insurmountable and extinction level.
Wow, what a ridiculous straw man.
I haven’t heard anyone referring to 1.5 C as apocalyptic. I HAVE heard it described in terms of being a threshold at which climate scientists predicted a certain set of consequences.
What’s apocalyptic about the situation is our acceleration towards even greater climate change, and world governments’ unwillingness to take the situation seriously.
In the US, for example, Biden passed the greatest climate mitigation law of all time … and it’s grossly inadequate. They’re treating it much the same way that the Obama administration treated health care. They patted themselves on the back for passing the ACA, which still left the country in a health care CRISIS, because it was a half measure.
In many ways the absolute worst way you can respond to a crisis is with these types of half measures. Why? Because it acts as a pressure valve, removing all the momentum for real, meaningful change.
Much like the ACA, Democrats will pretend that this is a stepping stone for the next set of reforms… But we only need to look at the ACA to see how flawed that reasoning is. We have not built on the ACA. We have spent a decade watching Republicans chip away at it.
Now we’re playing the same game with climate change mitigation. And the price will be hundreds of millions of climate change refugees, war, and famine.
To be 100 percent clear: while the Democrats are incompetent here, the real villains are the Republicans, who are WILLFULLY ignorant of the science, and are the ones forcing either impotent compromise or no mitigation at all.
Yeah, I don’t see what he’s getting at. There has absolutely been alarmist rhetoric surrounding climate change, and I see it all the time. Hell, I’ve seen people who think we’re already too late, even if we were to stop releasing CO2 today itself.
Part of me wonders how much the other side has benefitted from the sense of apathy this could create. After all, there’s real value in making stupid people give up entirely, in some ‘we’re doomed’ scenario.
I think I do. So much in terms of doom and gloom is being shouted in terms of climate change that many are becoming numb to it, which is dangerous.
He is wrong about 1.5C not being an issue, however. 1.5C != “every place will raise only by 1.5C”. It means localized temperatures in many areas will be much, MUCH higher, as parts of the US are beginning to find out.
Responsible messaging is important, but the looming catastrophe cannot be understated. You or someone you know will likely die from global warming, if it hasn’t happened already.
4° C is apocalyptic. 1.5° C is still catastrophic and will result in massive floods and global famines.
But that line of thinking will let some people believe we’re good until we hit that 4° mark. I have no idea how likely some of the tipping points are (AMOC collapse, West Antarctic glacier loss, permafrost melt and methane release) but they sound apocalyptic and much more likely as we increase climate change
