From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Cliff Mass,
Tremendous damage is being done by media, activists, and some politicians by hyping climate change (global warming).
Such climate exaggeration is damaging the mental state of millions of people and undermining our ability to deal with climate change. It leads to poor adaptation to the moderate impacts of global warming or taking realistic steps that can be highly protective.
The front page of the Seattle Times yesterday contained a story (reprinted from the NY Times) about the rapid growth in climate change anxiety and the burgeoning industry providing therapy to those in desperation and pain.
There are hundreds of articles in major media on the rapid increase of “climate grief.” And a recent article in the medical journal, The Lancet, surveyed 10 000 children and young people (aged 16–25 years) in ten countries, finding that 59% were very or extremely worried and 84% were at least moderately worried. More than 50% reported feeling sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty, and 75% said that they think the future is frightening.
An international climate grief organization is flourishing. And universities, like UW Bothel, are providing climate grief classes.
Existential Threat
One of the most frequent refrains of the media and activists is that global warming is an existential threat. Just a reminder, an existential threat is a threat to your VERY EXISTENCE. We are talking about death.
Major U.S. politicians like Congresswoman Ocasio Cortez state that global warming is not only an existential threat, but we have less than 12 years left. Young people are doomed.
There are literally thousands of media stories stating that climate change (global warming) is an existential threat. President Biden and the U.S. senator from California are saying the same sort of thing:
Check the Seattle Times for the term “existential threat” and climate and you will find hundreds of stories with that connection (see below). The Seattle Times is well known for its unfounded apocalyptic climate headlines and terrorizing cartoons by David Horsey. Totally irresponsible.
I get dozens of emails and calls a year from worried folks, including individuals wondering whether they should have kids, considering the world will end soon.
Just Plain Wrong
The existential threat business is not based on science or facts. Read the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, created by leading scientists: there is no existential threat noted. The same thing with the U.S. National Climate Assessment. Read the peer-reviewed scientific literature. There is no existential threat.
Global warming is a slowly growing, serious issue, but one we can deal with by both reducing our carbon emissions and mitigation/adaptation efforts. There will be impacts, some serious, but nothing that threatens human existence or even the advancement of our species.
We can deal with climate change, and there is great reason for optimism.
For example, the number of climate-related deaths is way down (see below). Richer, more technologically advanced societies can protect themselves from environmental threats. And I am proud that greatly improved weather prediction plays a major role in protecting life and reducing economic impacts.
Worried about forest fires in the western U.S.? By restoring (e.g., thinning, proscribed burns) our overgrown forests (damaged by nearly a century of fire suppression), we can greatly reduce large catastrophic fires. Flooding a concern? We need to move people living near rivers or on historical floodplains–or take the necessary steps for their safety (e.g., better levees, improve warning systems).
Irresponsible media, such as the Seattle Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, National Public Radio (e.g., local KNKX) are pushing a terrifying message unconnected with science or reality. So are a number of politicians. You can imagine why they are doing it–and often it is not for benevolent reasons.
Hyping climate change is simply unethical and wrong.
Folks hyping climate change are harming the mental state of the most vulnerable in society. And their end-of-the-world claims are resulting in poor decisions–like relative inaction on fixing forests, opposition to natural gas to replace dirty bunker fuel in Puget Sound shipping, and opposition to nuclear power.
There is a lot of talk that folks need to “follow the science.” Fine, let’s do so. Science does not suggest that global warming will lead to the end of humanity or even the termination of mankind’s progression towards longer, healthier, and better lives.
Apocalytic predictions calling for immediate action have gotten our nation into trouble many times in the past, resulting in major errors. The world would turn communist unless we went to Vietnam, that Sadam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction demanded we start a war with Iraq, that the communists threat required a McCarthy-led reign of terror in the U.S. That alcoholic beverages were such a threat we needed prohibition.
We are doing it again with climate change. When will we learn?
There’s a simple solution to self-induced “climate anxiety.” Just stop it. No pills or counseling needed.
It is no surprise that leftists are prone to climate anxiety. Research shows leftists, progressives, whatever are twice as likely to have a mental illness as liberals (“conservatives”).
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/does-liberalism-cause-mental-illness.php
I think radical leftists are delusional from the start and the cause is something other than the politics. The politics just fit in with the delusions.
It’s like psychopaths being attracted to radical Islam. The psychopaths were psychopaths before becoming “religious” and they did so in order to validate their internal, delusional desire to kill and destroy other people. Radical Islam fits their psychology perfectly. Their aberrations are celebrated in communities that celebrate death and mayhem and psychopaths fit right in there.
I take issue with the author’s assertion that the world would turn Communist if the US did not intervene in Viet Nam. The West at least is turning Communist, but it is being done by infiltration of the Universities, Big Tech, Mainstream Media, and the Liberal Elite.
Joe McCarthy was right!
It is called The March Through The Institutions….
“I take issue with the author’s assertion that the world would turn Communist if the US did not intervene in Viet Nam.”
The author said just the opposite of that. He called this thinking: that the world would turn communist without intervention in Vietnam, a “major error”.
Five American presidents thought it was necessary to oppose communism militarily in Southeast Asia.
Climate Change: the fount of foolishness.
From the article: “The existential threat business is not based on science or facts. Read the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, created by leading scientists: there is no existential threat noted. The same thing with the U.S. National Climate Assessment. Read the peer-reviewed scientific literature. There is no existential threat.”
This paragraph ought to be sent to every climate change scaremonger and every person who fears CO2. It’s the answer to their fears. The answer is: There is no existential threat from CO2.
I am not so sure that the IPCC report was created by ” leading scientists. “
I believe it was “leading scientists by the purse strings,” actually.
From the article: “Global warming is a slowly growing, serious issue, but one we can deal with by both reducing our carbon emissions and mitigation/adaptation efforts. There will be impacts, some serious, but nothing that threatens human existence or even the advancement of our species.”
I disagree completely.
There is no evidence that CO2 is causing any kind of serious issue to do with the Earth’s weather. It’s pure speculation that there will be impacts from CO2, even small impacts.
The written, historic temperature record leaves no room for CO2 warming. We are no warmer now than in the past, yet there is more CO2 in the atmosphere now than then, yet the temperatures are no higher now with more CO2 than they were with less CO2, so where does CO2 fit into this equation?
Assumptions, assertions and pure speculation are the bane of climate science.
Assumptions, assertions and pure speculation are the bread and butter of consensus climatology, Tom.
You are correct. It’s all the alarmists have. It’s not science, that’s for sure.
“We are doing it again with climate change. When will we learn?”
Never, it’s built into human nature- for pushy “leaders” to seek salvation from “evil doers”.
Yale has a web site dedicated to the climate disaster. Instead of a site dedicated to seeking the truth.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/
😔
From the article: “There is a lot of talk that folks need to “follow the science.” Fine, let’s do so. Science does not suggest that global warming will lead to the end of humanity or even the termination of mankind’s progression towards longer, healthier, and better lives.”
The real science says there is no evidence CO2 is affecting the Earth’s climate in any way whatsoever.
I would challenge anyone to prove that statement wrong.
From the article: “The world would turn communist unless we went to Vietnam,”
How do you know it wouldn’t?
I was alive during that time period. Communism was “On the March”, taking over one country after another. What do you think would have happened in Asia had the communists been given free reign? The communists had designs on all the nations in that area including India.
From the article: “that the communists threat required a McCarthy-led reign of terror in the U.S.”
Only if you were a communist, or Joseph McCarthy. The leftwing news media propagated a “reign of terror” on McCarthy for having the temerity to call out the communists in the U.S. government. And it turns out that McCarthy was right, there were communists in the U.S. government who were actively trying to undermine the United States.
You need to study history a little harder. It seems you have bought into a lot of leftwing propaganda.
There is a grain of truth in the protester sign. At my age I expect to die from the effects of aging, barring some accident.
The young, however, will not die from climate change. The will die from the “side effects” of fighting climate change.
Nah, side effects of covid sh0ts
While pushing an electric car up a hill.
Will electric cars roll if the battery is dead? I seem to recall reading about at least one kind of electric car that would not move if the battery was dead.
Much more likely they will die shivering in the dark some winter when the grid fails because we allowed them to be taught that electricity can be provided by wishful thinking.
Truth, reality, and ACTUAL science pose an existential threat to the Climate Caterwaulers.
naive
The best thing those therapists could do is help their clients understand that they’ve been lied to and there isn’t a threat. But we all know that will never happen.
It’s a Darwinian IQ filter. Those who believe the fear mongering will self-destruct and/or fail to reproduce out of guilt. Eventually the gene pool gets enriched with judgment and logic abilities. Seems only fitting as it was democrats, progressives and socialists who pushed the inhuman practices of eugenics.
Isn’t calling climate change an existential threat literally yelling fire in a crowded
movie theaterplanet?I was looking for your proposal on what can be done about it. Otherwise just whiniing with no conclusion and no means to fix it. One might say that the whining is not any different than the climate hype. Others like Judith Curry, Steven Koonin, others ( e.g., Steve McIntyre) are fighting / countering in the battle with a reasoned approach BASED ON SCIENCE and stripping the false veneer. Posts and their commenters like this don’t contribute much.
I think it’s time to flip the script on this claim that citizens that disagree with CAGW are seditious. Realists should form a class action suit to sue the global warming/climate change supporters with sedition. Vet everything out in a court of law in front of a jury. I think it will be the trial of the century and the truth will prevail because the whole CAGW hypothesis is founded on junk science. CO2 is not an evil pollutant but rather a giver of life to our carbon based existence.
The only way there will be net deaths from climate change is if it starts getting colder, which is what we should all be expecting, now that the sun seems to have dropped into a prolonged quiet phase.
But don’t worry kids. We’ve got a ways to go before we get to Little Ice Age temperatures, which your recent ancestors managed to survive without gas or electricity.
The Pilgrims had a hard time, but only because they hadn’t managed to build proper shelters yet, and because it took them a year or two to throw off the impoverishing socialist ideologies they started with.