He's technically right, though; climate change isn't going to drive us to extinction. Yes, it's going to cause the total collapse of modern society in our lifetimes and more death and sufferring than any other event in recorded history, but there will almost certainly be tens or hundreds of millions of survivors. Maybe even billions.

Did you even read the article, Mr/Ms climate scientist?

He’s asking people not to talk like the world is going to catastrophically end once we hit that 1.5 degrees milestone, because it’s making people feel hopeless and apathetic, which is actually slowing our efforts to change.

And he’s totally right. If the government told people a meteor the size of Texas was going to impact earth in 12 hours, there would be effectively zero effort to stop it. If you tune in to a lot of the conversation around climate change from people who are not climate scientists, but who want to leave a better world for their kids and believe climate scientists, they feel hopeless. It feels like a foregone conclusion that we are going to go over the 1.5 degree goal (probably because it is), and if we think the biosphere is going to collapse when it does, it is really, really hard to take action.

It’s not saying to undersell the risks, he’s saying to be truthful about the risks. We can definitely still salvage complex life on earth with optimistic, consistent effort, but recent media coverage has been giving the impression that it’s too late. This is bad and counterproductive.

Keep on fighting the good fight brother/sister.

I think he is just saying people shouldn't doom post. I think there is a fine line because a lot of zoomers i interact with are hopeless and have given up. This is a generation who never experienced a functional (American) government who worked for the people. So they just don't care and you can see it reflected in their memes.

I don't know the rhetorical path we should take. We need to get people motivated and fired up but not apathetic and despairing. I mostly want to see politicians crumble and the rich eaten and i think that's messaging many will get behind.

I understand his sentiment. I have an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness because most CO2 emissions aren't even made by normal every day people but the entities that do create a majority of it don't care. This means anything we attempt to do is as a whole is only a drop in the bucket compared to what these entities are producing. I purchased a hybrid vehicle to curve my driving emissions and I recycle. I planted grass and a tree in my yard to prevent run off and produce oxygen. I am looking into getting solar power for my home but I am not a rich man so the price is a little beyond me right now. Things I can do I try to do but in the end regardless of what I do entities are polluting our water and air, producing plastics, and are trying to place the blame on normal people. It can be a little heavy on the soul.

I have not seen a single piece of evidence that we're going to do anything about climate change unless we come up with some magical solution that somehow: doesn't upset the status quo and also makes existing rich people even more rich.

4° C is apocalyptic. 1.5° C is still catastrophic and will result in massive floods and global famines.

I see this all the time on social media, and it's frustrating. I don't want to dampen anyone's passion for combating climate change (because I agree!), but it's like a feedback loop for rhetoric that gets more and more extreme.

Something that starts out as:

"There was a wildfire in _____. This could be part of a larger trend related to climate change."

Turns into:

"This fire was caused directly by climate change."

Turns into:

"The world is on fire! Take shelter!"

Turns into:

"Don't plan for the future. Don't have children. Move somewhere cold and start prepping for the apocalypse."

You can literally watch this same process happen with every issue that gets traction on social media or cable news. Then one side looks at the most extreme comments from the other side and easily dismisses the whole thing.

I think the peak 4 degrees this century is extremely possible. A lot of the community studying this now thinks we have underestimated feedback loops, much of what is currently happening was not supposed to happen as quickly as it has.

I don't recall seeing anyone saying that 1.5 degrees warming was an existential threat to humanity. That said, its already killing some humans at less than 1.5 and that will only get worse

The headline is actual ragebait considering the more reasonable context of his message

pretty sure we're fucked.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/30/world/antarctic-sea-ice-winter-record-low-climate-intl/index.html

when the AMOC goes, we're gonna see ecosystems collapse. When the ice shelf breaks off into the sea, we're gonna see sea levels climb rapidly.

can human civilization survive? perhaps if we can get everyone to work together. ww2 levels of mobilization and federalization of resources.

I think this would require the UN to have a no-bullshit-session with the worlds top climate and systems folks, then each and every country declaring a national emergency to address the climate crisis. Which means we're going to finally have to get the assholes rolling coal in their giant pickup trucks festooned with trump flags to give up their bullshit. And everyone will have to cut their energy consumption and face changes to their lives and diets that will help us prepare for the really hard times ahead and feed the starving that are already resulting from mass drought & the war in Ukraine.

I doubt we'll ever get the rolling coal big truck assholes to give up their bullshit, so... No, we're fucked, we're going to die badly in most cases, and it's almost entirely our own fault. I let the last few generations off because they didn't enjoy the excess, they're simply going to get stuck with the bill.

Cheers, hope I'm very very wrong.

IMO whether we're fucked or not is not a constructive argument.

In either case, the interpretation of climate change can lead to the same conclusion: a) we're fucked up to the point of no return. So we can keep our wasteful society as is until we extinct, because changing our society will not achieve anything. b) we're not in that bad situation so we can keep our wasteful society as is until the situation gets really bad and requires change.

Anything could be used to justify not making changes and majority of society/indistry ppl in power are super resistant to it (which likely reduces their profit).

In reality, it's not black and white. Even if the 'no return' scenario is real, we can still lessen the climate change effect or delay catastrophic end if we make changes now.