Draft script:
The headline from the 3 October 2023 article at WBUR reads, “Many scientists don’t want to tell the truth about climate change. Here’s why.” WBUR claims to be a non-profit organization.
Here’s the lede: “In March, the United Nations released a massive climate change report. The biggest takeaway: Global warming will soon pass the oft-mentioned target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Honestly, as a climate journalist, that totally freaked me out.”
The story goes on with additional information about the importance of 1.5 C above the 1750 baseline. Not surprisingly, the story fails to mention that we are well beyond 1.5 C. In fact, as I’ve pointed out a few hundred times in this space, we passed 2 C a few years ago. Again, in this space, I will read from the Chapter 5 abstract of Andrew Y. Glikson’s 9 October 2020 book, The Event Horizon. The abstract can be found very easily with an online search: “During the Anthropocene greenhouse gas forcing has risen by more than 2.0 W/m2, equivalent to more than >2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures, which constitutes an abrupt event over a period not much longer than a lifetime.”
The story at WBUR continues: “That ‘1.5 C’ number comes up a lot in climate change conversations. That’s because, around 1.5 C, the climate starts hitting points of no return. Like, almost all the coral reefs die. Ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland get scary wobbly. Permafrost starts to thaw faster than a popsicle on a hot sidewalk. Rising seas drown island nations.
But the UN scientists were pretty clear: 1.5 C is coming.”
That’s right. The UN scientists were pretty clear about 1.5 C coming soon to this planet. Because we blew through 2 C years ago, it’s fairly easy to predict that we will soon have to put up with 1.5 C. In fact, one of the lead authors on the UN report, Dr. Peter Thorne, is quoted in the paper at WBUR: “Almost irrespective of our emissions choices in the near term, we will probably reach 1.5 degrees in the first half of the next decade.”
The real question, according to Thorne, is whether we overshoot 1.5 C by a little bit and come back down, “Or whether we go blasting through one and a half degrees, go through even two degrees and keep on going.” Because we’re already beyond 2 C, I’d say we will, “go through even two degrees and keep on going.”
I’ll quote again from the article at WBUR: “After this report came out, something weird happened. Unlike the blunt Dr. Thorne, most climate scientists (and journalists) didn’t change how they publicly spoke about 1.5 C. Admitting defeat could risk ‘demotivation’ said Pascal Lamy, the commissioner of the Climate Overshoot Commission. Scientists kept saying things like: “We need to act now to stay below 1.5” or “it’s getting harder, but still technically possible.”
My favorite line from WBUR came next: “Technically possible? Like, if aliens appear with magic tools that fix climate change?”
Apparently, the author of this piece at WBUR is informed enough to know that we will not stop at 1.5 C. There is no mention of bypassing 1.5 C, much less already eclipsing 2 C, but at least somebody at WBUR realizes we’re in trouble. Next up, the author of the article at WBUR called Christina Dahl, the principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dahl indicated that staying under 1.5 C is now “largely unrealistic.” Then of course, she added, “like other climate scientists, I'm not ready to say that we have to give up on this goal.”
Goal? What goal? We’re well beyond 1.5 C. We’re beyond 2 C. Referring to either of those numbers as goals is ludicrous. Will somebody please tell the truth?
When Christina Dahl, the principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists was asked why she’s not ready to give up on the goal of 1.5 C, she told a story. The author of the article at WBUR provided a slightly edited version of the story:
“I've got two kids, and mornings are busy. And there are mornings when you are running behind and you leave the house knowing that your kid is probably going to be late for school.
Now, there is some potential that your car has been replaced by a faster, better car. There's some potential that you will hit no traffic on the way to school. But, these are things you've never seen happen before, so they’re very unlikely, right?
But I still have to behave as if I can get my kid to school — within the limits of safety, of course. I can take the fastest route. I can try to be in the fastest lane on the highway. It's better for him to be 1 minute late, than to be 10 minutes late or an hour late.
And so the goal stays the same because you recognize that there is value in meeting that goal. And you still have to do your best to get there.”
According to the story at WBUR, Dahl is making two good points. First, with climate change, every tenth of a degree matters. Second, if you want to achieve something big, you start with an ambitious goal. Fair enough. However, the story at WBUR to goes to indicate that 1.5 C has moved from “ambitious goal” to “magical thinking. And the scientists are telling themselves a story to stave off despair.”
Really? Lying to stave off despair. I’m not a parent, but I can’t imagine lying to children to ensure their continued happiness, rooted in ignorance. The author of the article at WBUR agrees with me, at some level. She writes that “Scientists are shielding the public.” The scientists are, in effect, saying: “We don’t want people to give up,” or “We don’t want the island nations to feel abandoned,” or “We don’t want people to lose hope.”
You probably know how I feel about hope. In a peer-reviewed article I had published in May 2019, I indicated hope is a lie and a mistake. Asking people to hang on to hope is asking people to keep a firm grip on a lie. Again, at some level, the author of the article at WBUR understands this. She writes: “This is paternalism. (Or maybe maternalism?) Scientists are telling us a story to protect us from despair.” Again, this is good. The WBUR article suggests we act like adults, and treat other adults in similar fashion. But then, she backslides a bit: “I do it, too. The other day I was telling my 13-year-old son about the near-certain death of most of the world's coral reefs when his eyes welled with tears. So, I stopped. I told him that the coral reefs will be OK — even though I know that’s not true. And I know lying is the wrong thing to do.”
The writer’s baffling incongruity continues. She writes, “The facts of the climate crisis are truly terrifying. The reality of what we’re facing keeps me up at night. But I don’t think staving off the very warranted despair is helping anybody. So, I’m here to tell climate scientists — and my fellow climate journalists — to knock it off.
I think climate scientists (and journalists) are underestimating people. If you treat people like children who can’t handle the truth, they will behave like children. Like teenagers, actually, wasting time like it’s in endless supply. Yes, there are plenty of people who prefer denial. But I bet just as many want the truth, painful as it is. We deserve a shot at rising to the occasion.”
It's not at all clear what that occasion is. Are we expected to rise to the occasion of stopping planetary overheating at 1.5 C, even though we’ve surpassed 2 C?
The article at WBUR concludes with this information: “If my son and his friends think the coral reefs will be OK, the reefs are doomed. If he knows the truth, maybe he’ll become a biologist who tries to save them. When people know what they’re up against, many will be sad — I’m sad! — but then they can prepare.
That’s the only way we’ll make it.”
As inspiring as it is to believe we’ll somehow magically stop abrupt, irreversible climate change, we all know better. Even the political body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, reported that Earth is experiencing abrupt and irreversible climate change. The abrupt part came in a report published by the IPCC on 8 October 2018. The irreversible part came less than a year later with the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.
In other words, even the world’s politicians had concluded we were in the midst of abrupt, irreversible climate change more than four years ago. Contrary to the report in WBUR, we’re decidedly not going to make it, whatever that means. As with all species, Homo sapiens will go extinct.
Are we willing to face the truth? Are you willing?
https://kevinhester.live/2022/04/06/the-rogues-gallery-of-the-climate-enemy-within/?fbclid=IwAR3KNFmJC2X7X5upO5dYfjOV-N79cuX3YXuzEEiUT8IWrUoiOOJpjrxhxu0
Guy and I have been speaking about "Scientific Reticence" together for a decade now. My how time flies when you are being crucified!
In 2007 Dr James E Hansen published a paper on the topic and then ever since he's been doing it himself!
Michael E Mann and his colleagues came up with the "Hockey Stick Theory" and now that it's manifest in all of our graphs, with people joking about needing a higher Y axis, and Mann et al can no longer see it anymore!
Lying to the youth to cover up the failure of science is unconscionable for me. We shouldn't be surprised that a violent patriarchy underestimated climate sensitivity!
The difference between Guy and the corporate funded scientists is Guy wants more than anything to be proven wrong and the tenured scientists won't admit they were wrong so are bullshitting us and themselves. Not a particularly scientific premise! Chris Hedges wrote about the corruption of science by corporate interests!
I've added this video to my blog post " The Rogues Gallery of the Climate Enemy Within" & to my post exposing Mann's lies titled "Scientific Mal-Practice from the Mann Himself."https://kevinhester.live/2018/08/08/scientific-mal-practice-from-the-mann-himself/?fbclid=IwAR1gxjBnnLTAqA_nBx5yAlytKbppvPP2q-zbwxXfLQlIG4lCqdp0fKg5Otc