Cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/12956314
"I push back on doomism because I don’t think it’s justified by the science, and I think it potentially leads us down a path of inaction,” said Mann during a talk last Thursday at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
“And there are bad actors today who are fanning the flames of climate doomism because they understand that it takes those who are most likely to be on the front lines, advocating for change, and pushes them to the sidelines, which is where polluters and petrostates want them.”
it’s not that doomers are denying that it can be stopped. it’s just that, given the data an behaviour of people&politics, they don’t really see that it will be stopped
Yeah that’s my thing too - I have no doubt that scientifically it can be stopped - there’s even a real example with how crazy quickly nature started to recover during the COVID lockdowns - but it would require people to not be selfish, stupid assholes so it’s never gonna happen.
Well tbf, it will happen as the selfish stupid assholes die from climate change with everyone else
Yeah, we stopped for a few days for covid and mother earth immediately started to make a comeback while we all collectively decided to develop brain conditions rather than make slight adjustments to our lifestyles.
it’s not nice to cast ‘brain conditions’ in a negative light nor to accuse people who are acting in self interest of having any conditions other than not caring about their fellow human!
Of course, that’s a political problem not a scientific one.
Yes but the outcome is just as bad.
The greatest barrier to reducing climate change is the ultra wealth financing denialism of climate change and the tight grip they have on what the average person thinks is real through immense lobbying, owning media outlets and controlling what they publish, and unlimited disinformation campaigns. Maybe it’s frowned upon to talk about those things at such a rich university, but if you’re not talking about those things are you really helping the situation or are you maintaining the delusional status quo of “we can get to it when we get to it”
Doomerism is the result of fossil fuel propaganda. The open strategy of O&G right now is to convince the public that no progress has been made, the world is already over and it’s not worth trying to fix.
The problem about doomism is that it promotes inaction in the less educated “because things are fucked anyway”.
To be honest I think the doomers are right, not because there isn’t still time to fix most of it (there probably is) but because the political will to actually do it isn’t there. Which is an uphill battle because the more we delay the more drastic measures are needed which require even more political will to actually do. Those two things are getting ever more out of sync. The political will has been slowly increasing but not as fast as as the urgency and need for measures.
But the sentiment that results from doomism makes this political will even worse.
If only this were what people/govts disagreed on regarding climate change.
Yay, it can be stopped. Somebody else get on that right away.
