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Our Aversion to Doom and Gloom Is Dooming Us

"We routinely understate the threat that climate change poses, and reject attempts to characterize the full extent of the potential for catastrophe it poses," writes Atcheson. "And it's killing us." (Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)

I worked for over 35 years in the environmental field, and one of the central debates I encountered was whether to "tell it like it is," and risk spreading doom and gloom, or to focus on a more optimistic message, even when optimism wasn't necessarily warranted.

The optimists nearly always won this debate. For the record, I was—and am—a doom and gloomer.  Actually, I like to think I'm a realist. I believe that understating the problems we face leads to understated—and inadequate responses.  I also believe that people, when dealt with honestly, have responded magnificently, and will do so again, if and when called. Witness World War II, for example, when Churchill told the Brits, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." In those words, he helped ignite one of the most noble and dedicated periods of unity and resistance in all the annals of human endeavor.


And you can't restore a livable climate once it's been compromised.  Not in anything other than geologic timeframes.

Yet we routinely understate the threat that climate change poses, and reject attempts to characterize the full extent of the potential for catastrophe it poses. And it's killing us.

David Wallace-Wells' recent article in the New York magazine, The Uninhabitable Earth, is a case in point.  It was an attempt to describe the worst-case scenario for climate change.  Here's the opening sentences to give you an idea of what Mr. Wallace-Wells had to say:


Predictably, a large part of the scientific community reacted with hostility, and environmentalists were essentially silent. For example, Climate Feedback published a critique of Wallace-Well's article by sixteen climate scientists, leading with Michael Mann, originator of the famous hockey stick, which graphically showed how rapidly the Earth was warming. Here’s part of what Dr. Mann had to say:


The last part of Dr. Mann's statement may explain the real reason the environmental and scientific communities reacted so hostilely to Wallace-Well's article, and why they generally avoid gloom and doom, even when the news is gloomy—the notion that presenting information that details just how bad climate change could be, leads to "paralysis."


And it should be noted that Mr. Wallace-Well's did overstate some of the science. For example, given out current understanding of methane and carbon releases from permafrost, it appears as though it would take much longer to play out than Wallace-Wells suggested, although it likely would add as much as 2°C to projected warming by 2100. But for the most part, he simply took worst-case forecasts and used them. As Dr. Benjamin Horton—one of the scientists commenting on the Wallace-Wells article put it, "Most statements in the article are based on peer-reviewed literature."



For example, in this years' Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, climate change was identified as a "threat multiplier" and Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence, said in testimony presented to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in May of this year:




So what's the gap between future worst-case and the more typically used mid-range projections the media and scientists favor?  It's huge, and consequential.  I've pointed out some of the risky—if not absurd—assumptions  underlying the Paris Agreement in the past, but let's briefly outline some numbers that highlight the difference between what's typically discussed in the media, with projections based on worst-case—but entirely plausible—forecasts.



Here’s why.



Finally, there's evidence that the Earth's natural sinks are being compromised by the warming that's happened so far, and this means that more of what we emit will remain in the atmosphere, causing it to warm much more than the IPCC models have forecasted. This could (not would) make Wallace-Well's thesis not only plausible, but likely.

But rather than discussing these entirely plausible forecasts, the media, environmentalists and too many scientists, would rather focus on a more optimistic message, and avoid "doom and gloom."

What they're actually doing is tantamount to playing Russian Roulette with our children's future with two bullets in the chamber. Yes, the odds are that it won't go off, but is this the kind of risk we should be taking with our progeny's future?




Watching Sanders stump against the Republican's immoral tax cut for the rich disguised as a health care bill, shows the power of a little honest doom and gloom.




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John Atcheson

John Atcheson


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