Focusing on worst case climate futures doesn't work. It shouldn't work.

By Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website.

Summary: After 30 years of failure to gain support of the US public for massive public policy measures to fight climate change, climate activists now double down on the tactics that have failed them for so long. This post explains why it will not work. Nor should it. Instead they should trust the IPCC and science, showing both the good and bad news.

“Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.”

— The basic text of Narcotics Anonymous. Details here.

For over two decades the IPCC’s work was describes as the “gold standard” reports showing the consensus of climate scientists. After the publication in 2013 of the IPCC’s AR5 report, many US climate activists and some climate scientists abandoned the IPCC as “too conservative” (e.g., see Inside Climate News, The Daily Climate, and Yale’s Environment 360). That might have been the decisive moment in the US climate policy wars. Since then activists have gone full doomster, all the time (with enthusiastic support of journalists) — and it’s been downhill for them.

We have seen false predictions of “the end of winter.” False predictions that the California drought (now over) would be permanent (or very long). False predictions of more and stronger hurricanes since Katrina in 2005. Despite about the almost daily hype, most forms of extreme weather have not increased. We have been told about an almost endless series of false “tipping points” (details here, here, here). Etc, etc.

We’re now in the 30th year of the longest and most intense publicity campaigns in America’s history. Despite that Republicans dominate all levels of government, with their hard opposition to policy action. As for the public, activists have misrepresented the science to induce blind panic in a small fraction of the public (examples here). The majority of the public ranks climate change low on the list of public policy concerns.

• The environment was #12 in a 2014 survey.
• Climate was #14 in a 2014 survey.
• Climate was rated in a 2016 survey as “below average in importance” by people in both parties.

Now activists double-down on doomsterism. This is insanity, repeating failed tactics. It will not work, nor should it.

A new round of articles about our certain doom

“I think looking at grief is quite appropriate, as I believe we are facing human extinction”

— One of thousands of similar comments on the internet, by a reader on the FM website.

“Alarmism Is the Argument We Need to Fight Climate Change” by Susan Matthews in Slate — “New York magazine’s global-warming horror story isn’t too scary. It’s not scary enough.”

“It’s okay to talk about how scary climate change is. Really.” by David Roberts at Vox — “In defense of worst-case scenarios in climate journalism.”

“The Uninhabitable Earth” By David Wallace-Wells in New York magazine — “Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think.” Even Michael Mann gently condemns its exaggerations. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The article fails to produce it. The article paints an overly bleak picture by overstating some of the science.” But in an interview Mann supports the argument and the doomster outlook: “Scientist Michael Mann on ‘Low-Probability But Catastrophic’ Climate Scenarios” by David Wallace-Wells in New York magazine.

A Leftist likes Wallace-Wells’ doomsterism, but condemns his article for insufficient leftism: “New York Mag’s Climate Disaster Porn Gets It Painfully Wrong” by Daniel Aldana Cohen at Jacobin — “The real climate danger is that a vicious right-wing minority will impose an order that privileges the affluent few over everyone else.”

Vox energy and climate change writer David Roberts gave a Twitter rant, starting with “This generation of humanity is engaged in a moral crime, the scale & consequences of which dwarf anything in our species’ history.”

What’s wrong with these stories?

These article muster all the bad news. They also imply that scientists are “Playing Dumb on Climate Change“, which is false (details here). They say we should focus on the worst-case scenario used in the IPCC’s AR5 (RCP8.5), despite the low odds of it happening. What is wrong with these warnings?

(1) They ignore the good news.

The RCP 8.5 scenario assumes that we burn fossil fuels throughout the 21st century, with coal becoming the dominant fuel in the late 21st century. We are already on a different path. Natural gas is displacing coal, and the cost of solar is already at or below grid parity in many parts of the word. See these for more about the transition from coal to natural gas and renewables…

• “Good news for the New Year! Salon explains that the global climate emergency is over.“
• Good news! Coal bankruptcies point to a better future for our climate.
• Good news from America about climate change, leading the way to success.
• Stratfor gives us good news, showing when renewables will replace fossil fuels.

Looking ahead, a host of new energy sources are under development. Improvements are coming in power generation from solar and wind — plus potentially larger innovations in nuclear and fusion. For example, Tri Alpha Energy has raised over $150 million in private capital — from people looking for a profit in the near future (not in 2100) — to fund its 150 employees and the many patents they have filed. Here’s a presentation from 2012 describing their device, and an August 2014 article from Science about the project. They achieved a major milestone this month.

(2) They ignore the science when it ruins the doomster narrative.

People reading their stories do not hear the full story. They seldom hear what the IPCC says, and these articles usually paint a misleading picture of current research. For example, rising sea levels have become the focus of doomsters as most other predictions of imminent climate doom have failed to materialize. Much of the alarmism misrepresents this science.

Sea levels have been rising for a long time. Warming will accelerate that rise, but there is little evidence of that happening yet. Journalists love the excitement about large Antarctic icebergs floating out to sea. But even the leftists at The Guardian believes this has been exaggerated: “Melting and cracking – is Antarctica falling apart?” by Helen Amanda Fricker — “Although fracturing and surface melting on the Larsen C ice shelf might sound like indicators of climate change, these processes are natural.” Also see this explanation of last year’s melting: “Unprecedented springtime retreat of Antarctic sea ice in 2016” by John Turner in Geophysical Research Letters, in press. They show it had largely natural causes.

One of the best US-based datasets of sea levels is the Sea Level Research Group at the U of CO. Their graph shows no acceleration. See their analysis in “Is the detection of accelerated sea level rise imminent?” by J. T. Fasullo in Scientific Reports. “{c}urrent altimeter products show the rate of sea level rise to have decreased from the first to second decades of the altimeter era.”

(3) They focus exclusively on climate change, ignoring other threats to humanity.

Doomsters say we should spend whatever it takes to eliminate the possibility of horrific climate change, no matter how small the odds (see this by Nassim Nicholas Taleb). That would be disastrous. The world has limited funds and many needs — such as providing clean water, preserving insect populations, and fighting to save the dying oceans (here and here).

We must allocate our funds rationally as best we can to get through the difficult times ahead in the 21st century. That means understanding the full range of threats, assessing the risks and costs, and making wise decisions. We should not allocate funds by which danger has the best public relations program or the most photogenic profile. Here are suggestions how we can do this better…

• Preparing for the future: should we be precautionary or proactionary?
• The first step to protecting the world from its many dangers.

A few scientists speak out against the doomsters

“Qui tacet consentire videtur.” (Silence means assent.)

— Ancient wisdom. See details here.

Many climate scientists disagree with the doomsters and journalists ignoring the IPCC and the way they exaggerate and misrepresent the science. Yet few have protested or even spoken up. That might be changing as the doomsters’ rhetoric becomes more extreme. Such as this: “Climate scientists push back against catastrophic scenarios” by John Timmer in Ars Technica — “In both the popular and academic press, scientists argue against worst cases.”

But the New York magazine article appears to have gone too far. Or perhaps the tide of public opinion has at last turned against the doomsters. Either way, an unusually large number of scientists have spoken out on the record.

• “New York Magazine climate doom piece is a case study in how not to communicate risk” by Jason Samenow (Weather editor) in the WaPo.
• “Scientists challenge magazine story about ‘uninhabitable Earth’” by Chris Mooney in the WaPo.
• “No, New York Mag: Climate change won’t make the Earth uninhabitable by 2100” by Andrew Freedman.
• “Scientists explain what New York Magazine article on “The Uninhabitable Earth” gets wrong” at Climate Feedback — Brief reviews by scientists.

Privately more than one journalist told me they were afraid to push back against the NY Mag climate horrors piece.

— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) July 13, 2017

Conclusions

“We don’t even plan for the past.”

— Steven Mosher (member of Berkeley Earth; bio here), a comment posted at Climate Etc.

The most pitiful aspect of the climate crusade is that these methods — gross exaggeration of the threat plus exaggeration and misrepresentation of the science — have become counterproductive through overuse, after two generations of similar publicity campaigns (see some examples). People do learn, eventually. The climate campaign has produced a deadlock in US public policy so that we no longer even prepare for the inevitable repetition of past climate. The price of our folly might be high, no matter what the course of future climate.

For More Information

For more information about this vital issue see the posts about the RCPs, about the keys to understanding climate change and these posts about the politics of climate change…

1. Important: climate scientists can restart the climate change debate – & win.
2. We can end the climate policy wars: demand a test of the models.
3. About RCP8.5: Is our certain fate a coal-burning climate apocalypse? No!
4. Manufacturing climate nightmares: misusing science to create horrific predictions.
5. Ignoring science to convince the public that we’re doomed by climate change.