Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to The Conversation, we listen to disease experts but ignore climate experts, even though they are both groups of experts, because we have an instinctive fear of disease.
Coronavirus response proves the world can act on climate change
Eric Galbraith Professor of Earth System Science, McGill University
Ross Otto Assistant Professor of Psychology, McGill University…
The alarms for both COVID-19 and climate change were sounded by experts, well in advance of visible crises. It is easy to forget, but at the time of this writing, the total deaths from COVID-19 are less than 9,000 — it is the terrifying computer model predictions of much larger numbers that have alerted governments to the need for swift action, despite the disruption this is causing to everyday life.
Yet computer models of climate change also predict a steady march of increasing deaths, surpassing 250,000 people per year within two decades from now.
As scientists who have studied climate change and the psychology of decision-making, we find ourselves asking: Why do the government responses to COVID-19 and climate change — which both require making difficult decisions to avert future disasters — differ so dramatically? We suggest four important reasons.
Instinctive fear
First, COVID-19 is deadly in a way that is frightening on an instinctive, personal level. People react strongly to mortal threats, and although the virus appears to have much lower mortality for otherwise healthy people under 60, those statistics do not quell universal personal safety fears.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-response-proves-the-world-can-act-on-climate-change-133999
There are a few details the professors left out, like that disease epidemic models have a firm foundation of observational evidence. Climate predictions of imminent catastrophe not so much.
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From the article: “Currently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that in another three to four decades that most of the USA will have further warmed by 1.5-2 °C. This compounds issues that already exist today, where global food security is under pressure from the increased frequency of extreme weather events.”
I think they have this wrong. The IPCC says the 1.5-2C warming will occur around the year 2100, if we don’t reduce CO2 production starting now.
And then this article says: “that in another three to four decades that most of the USA will have further warmed by 1.5-2 °C.”
I don’t think the IPCC said that either.
First of all the 1.5-2C rise in temperatures is supposed to be measured from the starting period of 1850. The IPCC is saying that by the year 2100, without CO2 mitigation, the temperatures will rise from 1.5-2C above the global average measured from 1850 to the present.
The year 2016, the so-called “hottest year ever” was estimated to be 1.1C above the 1850 to present average, during its warmest month. That makes 2016, 0.4C short of hitting the 1.5C IPCC panic limit.
Currently temperatures have dropped a little from 2016 and we are now 0.5 C below this 1.5C IPCC limit. Yet our weather is just fine.
Hansen said 1934 was 0.5C warmer than 1998, which would make it 0.4C warmer than 2016, and 1934’s temperature was right on the 1.5C mark quoted by the IPCC
The 1930’s was a terrible decade weather-wise worldwide. We shouldn’t want to revisit that era. But there’s no evidence that CO2 is taking us there.
My sense from watching TV and talking to my friends is that most people are kinda sorta enjoying the coronavirus crisis. Right now, unless you have children you can’t send to school or daycare, or you’re running short of money, it’s like a vacation. You get to stay at home, goof off and watch TV all day. When I heard that Justin Trudeau, who is asymptomatic and has not been tested for virus, was self-isolating himself, I thought, guy’s kicking back for a couple of weeks.
The bug doesn’t scare me any. I used to smoke and drink a lot. I want to see the virus that can hurt me more than I used to hurt myself every day. Bring it on, Baal, God of Pestilence.
People are willing to make *temporary* sacrifices to, hopefully, avoid getting an infectious disease. But this is based on two things that are not true of CAGW: the sacrifices are temporary, and the effects of an infection have immediate impacts on the individual.
They have similarities: Misinformation pays off. An adult male on FB predicted our town will have 1000 deaths (which is 20% of our population.) I said it’s less than two tenths of a percent of the total population, using statistics of Wuhan and the cruise ship. He stuck to his guns, insisting it could happen. Someone else chided me that I was not taking it seriously enough, and we should keep every one of our town’s small ma and pa shops shuttered indefinitely and bankrupt if it would prevent even a single death. Never mind that the crisis to all their businesses has been a huge windfall for Walmart.
I wondered where the stupid had gone the above gave a good laugh..
Thanks guys my confidence in the inherent stupidy of mankind remains unaltered and unassailable!
We can address climate change.
We don’t want to address climate change because we don’t NEED to address climate change.
BTW, I love the way these guys “think”.
We trust models that predict disease progression. Therefore we should trust models that predict future climate.
As if one had anything to do with the other.
125,000 deaths per year is a fraction of the number of people who died from malaria when they banned DDT.
Up to 2 million children per year
(Over)Use of DDT was linked to “polio”. I don’t the strength of that. There is certainly an explosion of “polio” post WWII and the history of “polio” in the US is never discussed seriously.
“According to The Conversation, we listen to disease experts”
1) There is no “we”. Different people listen to different sources. Strong pro-Trump people don’t usually have the same sources as pro-Hillary.
2) Most people listen to medical crocks and buffoons. (They are often promoted as “experts”.)
“because we have an instinctive fear of disease.”
More like a pure terror of death. But again, there is no “we”.
As if the two “experts” are equivalent. The chief difference being the disease expert actually comes from science VS the climate magic 8 ball prognosticators. Do we have 10 years left before climate doom? My sources say no.