Comment box Scope: summary of video, opinion expanding on topic Tone: trying to be encouraging, but not putting up with nonsense Opinion: yes, a lot Sarcasm/humor: not really Simon Clark is an...
Exemplary
Comment box
Scope: summary of video, opinion expanding on topic
Tone: trying to be encouraging, but not putting up with nonsense
Opinion: yes, a lot
Sarcasm/humor: not really
Simon Clark is an English academic with a PhD in atmospheric physics. He makes content on YouTube about climate science, including climate change, for a general audience.
This video tackles a trend in the last half-decade that I've been particularly irritated by: climate doomerism and ensuing political apathy. Clark observes that the nature of climate denial has shifted from "climate change isn't real" to "climate change is real, but it's pointless to try and solve it." Specifically, he points to research indicating that the same people who once denied the existence of climate change have now intentionally chosen a different but more manipulative message which is more socially acceptable. They are attempting to shift the narrative in a way that stops any improvement from happening.
This subtle shift in argument is significantly harder to rebut. It is also much more likely to ensnare people who would otherwise participate in the political process, discouraging them from supporting climate initiatives or even from voting for representatives who care. This ultimately reinforces the status quo.
Clark makes the statement that climate doomers are objectively incorrect. He is right. Indeed, it is true that both political policy and individual social behavior can have a measurable impact on climate factors like emissions and pollution. For this reason, it is important to push back against apathy and thinly veiled denialism about this very important issue. But this is not always obvious to everyone, especially impressionable young people who are being told that their future is doomed and they should give up.
Most of the people from whom these doomerism claims originate, including anyone with a relatively sizable online platform, are intentionally and knowingly acting in bad faith. They have some ideological pretense or something to personally gain from spreading misinformation. In contrast, most people who parrot those bad actors' apathetic, nihilistic, and doomerist beliefs about climate change are not acting in bad faith. They genuinely think that there is nothing we can do to stop the world from ending. They are wrong because they have been misled, and it is important to make that known to them.
I am acquaintances with several people living in democratic countries with freedom of expression who do not engage in any part of the political process, nor do they advocate for any change whatsoever within non-government institutions they interact with, for the pure and exclusive reason that they do not believe that doing so has any impact. This belief is wrong, and this quality in an educated adult immediately makes me lose a significant amount of respect for them. (Sorry. They can get it back when they are interested in being useful to society.)
It is worth noting that political apathy is disproportionately present in very marginalized groups, mainly for reasons of upbringing and a culture of apathy (i.e. being taught to be apathetic). But once one is aware of the existence of such statistical trends, it is no longer justifiable to consciously participate in them. Entirely separate is the issue of political opinions which literally cannot be expressed for economic or other reasons ("I want to vote but can't because I work a 16-hour shift on Tuesdays"); that is not part of this discussion.
In the context of climate change, I would make this observation: humans are intensely social creatures. Lifestyle changes related to the climate, such as purchasing solar panels for one's home, using a hybrid or fully electric vehicle, and eating less meat, have been scientifically shown to reverberate throughout one's social circles. The same goes for conversations about change, whether or not they are things we can personally do, like the idea of a carbon tax. This effect can be multiplicative. In other words, merely doing your best to do what you can for the climate, whether that's personal behaviors or political votes, has an outsized impact. Conversely, merely expressing apathy about climate in an authoritative-sounding way has a very negative effect.
I now make the following conclusions which Clark would probably more or less agree with:
Individual actions, practices, statements, and beliefs related to the climate are important not just because of their first-order effects (on, say reducing emissions), but because of their second-order effects (on influencing the opinions and behavior of those around us). And any actions made by a group of individuals can have a very significant impact on the world. As individuals, it is useful to make such changes in our lives (to the extent feasible) and to discuss changes we are making or would ideally like to make (or see made in politics) with our social circles. If nothing else, it is important to at least strongly contest expressions of climate doomerism in our social circles.
It is important to engage in the political process as a result of the first conclusion listed. Voting is the bare minimum here. It is technically wrong (if not wholly convincing) to believe that individual votes do not "count" in elections and ballot measures. But it is very wrong to believe that group voting patterns informed by various individual behaviors do not "count" in elections and ballot measures. Many elections, especially local and regional elections, have quite small margins. That includes elections for representatives in the legislature and executive, but also judges, whose legal interpretations can have very outsized impact in establishing precedent for other cases, including in faraway places.
Particular individuals can have dramatic effects when they participate as activists in the political process directly. At the local level, participation in civic meetings, such as making public comments in support of climate-friendly local policies, has a relatively significant effect on the implementation of those policies. Examples include tree canopy cover or sewage heat recovery funding in an urban area; or lower speed limits along high-speed car roadways or funding for habitat restoration in rural areas; or public transportation initiatives or town-operated composting services in a suburb. Participating in targeted political action groups, such as local organizations dedicated to improving public transportation or cycling infrastructure in your city (for example), can enhance this effect further. Even donations to local advocacy organizations are meaningful. Additionally, many regional-level political decisions are informed by local stakeholders. For example, it is not unusual for regional politicians (such as US state senators) to participate in local decisions at some level, whether that is for funding or something else; getting their attention in a local context is useful as it can expand the scope significantly.
At an institutional level, it is not appropriate to condone apathy in climate change. No entity should "give up" on this important and solvable set of problems. This includes governments, corporations, universities, non-profit organizations, and online communities such as this one.
What I have said applies to more than just climate change, but because climate change is the most existential and serious threat to human civilization in about 930,000 years, it is particularly important to discuss.
A little bit afraid to say this, but while I am by no means a doomer (by his definition), I certainly am very afraid that this is not going to be solved in anything even closely resembling good...
Exemplary
A little bit afraid to say this, but while I am by no means a doomer (by his definition), I certainly am very afraid that this is not going to be solved in anything even closely resembling good time. I don't believe real solutions will happen anytime soon. COP goals are going to be postponed if not fail completely. We are going to see many, many more catastrophes and massive humanitarian crises before people realise how bad it is.
He says "we have solutions we know work", "we still have agency", "it's too important to do anything else", etc.
Yes to all of this. Nothing about this is wrong.
However this is pure naivety in my opinion. We, the people, have lost a lot of power. In my country, the climate was one of the top things people prioritised when they went to vote. We have had 2 so-called green elections in a row. And what happens? Government doesn't even do the bare minimum. They conceded our 2025 goals already. Dropped them.
A majority of people just won't vote for green parties. Some do. But most vote according to ideology and identity, ending up putting into power parties that care only about the bottom line, for example giving climate tax exemptions to giant companies because they are deemed important for the economy even though they are the worst sinners.
I feel I do what I can, personally.
But me sorting cardboard and plastic and taking my bottles and cans to recycling is doing as close to zero difference as you're gonna get. The scale of things is not in the people's favour. Some rich person goes for 100 trips in their private jet a year, eliminating the small things I can personally do times a thousand or a million. What the hell am I gonna do? No party is ever going to get enough votes to stop that rich person from using their jet or whatever.
Another thing is that the development of carbon capture & storage and similar technologies is not good enough and won't mature enough to help enough in time. All it is is a neat little trick that politicians can (and do) point to to say that they're doing something, and oh we don't actually have to revolutionize the farming industry and their emissions, technology is totally gonna save us!
The only solution to climate change is dedicated people in power. And we are not gonna have that anytime soon. Not to be all "it's the system, man!", it's just.. I wish this video had been more realistic. It's fine to try to be uplifting and positive, but "we have the solutions" means nothing if corporations are going to keep drilling for oil, if companies are going to keep producing plastic, if coal is going to keep getting burnt.. the will to properly change on a large enough scale simply isn't there. And my (humble, powerless) opinion is that the will won't come until it's too late.
If you accept this as fact, then in a fun twist of irony this makes your individual action even more important. Climate change is not a binary "safe/doomed" set of outcomes. It's a range, with the...
A little bit afraid to say this, but while I am by no means a doomer (by his definition), I certainly am very afraid that this is not going to be solved in anything even closely resembling good time.
If you accept this as fact, then in a fun twist of irony this makes your individual action even more important.
Climate change is not a binary "safe/doomed" set of outcomes. It's a range, with the cost of mitigation / damages from non-mitigation increasing with the amount of global warming. One study for Canada modeled an $80bn(CDN) cost to Canada by 2100 if global warming were 3° rather than 2°, with an additional $100bn(CDN) for 4° over 3°.
This breaks our intuition. Most things in our life work the opposite way: the first scratch on the car door is "worse" than the 100th, for example. For climate economics over a global scale, however, as warming increases more and more human systems (small things, like city placement) change from "able to cope with climate change with some investment or loss of productivity" to "largely untenable, needing wholesale replacement." Diminishing returns don't set in until civilization-ending levels of climate damage, at which point there wouldn't be many people left to pay the bill.
This fundamentally makes doomism a self-defeating argument. The first bit of emissions reduction accomplishes the most long-term good, no matter how it's achieved. If a set of policies only brings the world from 4° to 3.5°, that's still more damages saved than bringing the world from 2.5° to 2°. That first lone voice in the wilderness reducing carbon emissions does the most direct good.
No? It's less expensive to fix one scratch than a hundred, that's common sense. You're applying subjective perception of of cosmetic issues, to an objectively damaging one.
One study for Canada modeled an $80bn(CDN) cost to Canada by 2100 if global warming were 3° rather than 2°, with an additional $100bn(CDN) for 4° over 3°.
This breaks our intuition. Most things in our life work the opposite way: the first scratch on the car door is "worse" than the 100th, for example.
No? It's less expensive to fix one scratch than a hundred, that's common sense. You're applying subjective perception of of cosmetic issues, to an objectively damaging one.
Comment box Scope: comment response, clarification Tone: neutral Opinion: a bit Sarcasm/humor: none I think you are in agreement with each other. Human nature is to perceive the world...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, clarification
Tone: neutral
Opinion: a bit
Sarcasm/humor: none
I think you are in agreement with each other. Human nature is to perceive the world subjectively. Because we live in a society of people, understanding psychology is important to enacting climate goals.
The person you're responding to is not trying to make a pedantic argument. In the case they provide, yes, the first scratch on the car is much more psychologically damaging than the hundredth on what is now a beater. Once you have 100 scratches, what's one more? Contrast is everything.
People have a tendency to give up caring about a novel problem once they pass an imaginary threshold where it becomes mundane or appears to become unsolvable. In the context of climate change, that is the made-up 1.5 degree "limit." This user is suggesting that our having passed this threshold creates a sense of defeatism among many people. However, this observation does not change the objective reality (which you clearly recognize) that addressing climate change as early as possible, whatever the current state of the world, is valuable.
It's less expensive to fix one scratch than 100 scratches, yes. However, the marginal cost of fixing the 100th scratch given that 99 have already happened is nearly nil: you're already repainting...
No? It's less expensive to fix one scratch than a hundred, that's common sense.
It's less expensive to fix one scratch than 100 scratches, yes. However, the marginal cost of fixing the 100th scratch given that 99 have already happened is nearly nil: you're already repainting the whole car door.
In the climate context, going from 0° to 4° is of course more costly than going from 0° to 2°, but the 2-4° part is worse than the 0-2° part. The "climate is doomed" perception falsely applies car-door logic to the planet, thinking that since so much damage is already done there's not much more left to do on the margin.
I fully expect the climate death tolls to reach 100s of millions before drastic action is taken. And I understand I state that from a place of privilege and without a lot of empathy. It's a number...
I fully expect the climate death tolls to reach 100s of millions before drastic action is taken. And I understand I state that from a place of privilege and without a lot of empathy. It's a number too large to feel empathy for - it's a problem that needs to be handled logically and our current system fails with those types of issues.
People always use that meme mocking neoliberals, "billions must die" or whatever. But that genuinely is what is going to happen. We will see how many deaths people deem acceptable because it might...
People always use that meme mocking neoliberals, "billions must die" or whatever. But that genuinely is what is going to happen. We will see how many deaths people deem acceptable because it might actually be in the billions.
At this point, I have become convinced that large numbers of people would still attribute the deaths of those hundreds of millions to something that was completely unavoidable. Within this decade,...
At this point, I have become convinced that large numbers of people would still attribute the deaths of those hundreds of millions to something that was completely unavoidable. Within this decade, we had a global pandemic and still had tons of people refusing to wear masks because they can't see germs.
Until climate change transforms into a human being, puts on a uniform, and starts killing people dramatically and obviously in cold blood, there are tons of people who can comfortably bury their heads in the sand and ignore it.
Comment box Scope: comment response, list of various green industrial technologies Tone: neutral, optimistic Opinion: a little, implicitly Sarcasm/humor: none Part of the strength of the doomer...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, list of various green industrial technologies
Tone: neutral, optimistic
Opinion: a little, implicitly
Sarcasm/humor: none
Part of the strength of the doomer movement is that it emphasizes the futility of political action, which is pretty easy for laypeople to understand; after all, government ineffectiveness is hyper-visible and effectiveness typically goes unseen. Doomer messaging typically ignores industry technology and processes because those things are relatively hard for laypeople to understand.
Contributing to public awareness and governmental/professional uptake of new processes and technologies is both important and effective. This is why I often share seemingly boring videos about zero-emissions heat technologies for industry and similar things on this website. They rarely get as much attention as posts like this. But there is a tremendous amount of opportunity here.
Policy is ultimately the most effective way to enforce consistent behavior around climate. However, it is not the only pathway for change. We must remember that industry is bound by economic forces just as much as political ones. Because most fossil fuel technologies are relatively mature, there are not a whole lot of fundamental or easy ways to reduce operational expenses (i.e. improve efficiency). For instance, there is basically no economical way to make coal mining cheaper: we have been doing it for over 300 years (technically thousands), at scale for 200, and it's at a bit of a practical limit. For some fossil fuels, there are plenty of opportunities for efficiency improvements/cost savings (petrochemical engineers make a lot of money for a reason), but the level of R&D required to access them is typically high relative to their value.
In contrast, most renewable technologies are already at cost parity with fossil fuels... and also are fundamentally at a less mature point in their development life-cycles. For any particular renewable technology, there are about 20 different engineering pathways to significantly reduce cost: and I'm not talking by 5%, I'm talking 50% or more. Industry fundamentally reacts to cost more than it does ideology; that is part of the "beauty," some would say, of neoliberal market economics. People know about electric car batteries, but that is basically all they are aware of. There are many more important mechanisms out there. For example:
In addition to efficiency improvements to the solar photovoltaic cells that are commonly used in panels, there are scores of alternative cell chemistries which can offer significantly higher efficiencies. People commonly remark that solar panel efficiency has a maximum theoretical limit of 33%, but this is actually just for a very specific kind of solar cell. With a different chemistry and structure, band gaps and other such things can be adjusted to allow for much higher efficiency. Wikipedia refers to some formulations with maximum efficiencies of nearly 50%. It also refers to various "emerging" technologies which are not yet super efficient but show promise, such as perovskite cells.
Wind turbine efficiency has been growing quickly as engineers find ways to create stronger and larger blades. The way that energy production scales in wind power is quadratic-ish, not linear, meaning that even small improvements to blade length have immense impacts on maximum output. In addition to high wind-speeds, one reason why offshore wind is becoming more appealing is because it's easier to physically build gigantic turbine blades at ports than inland, where they have to be transported along roads. In addition, there are various developments in urban- and suburban-scale wind power, such as small "vertical-axis wind turbines" which are suitable in places wind is not currently used. The specific aerodynamic engineering of these tools is ongoing and still improving.
Enhanced geothermal energy techniques have some capacity to make otherwise inaccessible geothermal energy possible to use in a widespread way. It's not going to replace solar/wind, but it's more consistent: the US government believes it could feasibly power 65 million homes in the country.
Space-efficient, energy-dense batteries are useful for vehicles; but those are not the only factors to optimize for. Applications like grid energy storage benefit from ultra-low-cost, low-density batteries because such stations are conventionally placed in the middle of nowhere. Also, there are lots of battery compositions in general, including batteries made out of literal sand.
Vehicle electrification in general is known to laypeople. But the technical problems associated with auto electrification or airplanes are different than those for trains, container vessels, and cruise ships.
Cars and planes benefit from materials engineering advances that allow for lighter (yet stronger) vehicle chassis and other elements, to allow for more batteries.
But electric trains rarely even use batteries, they use overhead catenary wires or third rails; improvements here might come in the form of reductions to electricity consumption of electric train engines, more advanced engineering of rail/wheel contact points at high speeds, and bettery power delivery systems to begin with. See my remarks on the fascinating engineering behind electric trains for background.
Likewise, large seabound vessels have comparatively few weight restrictions but extremely high energy use. One domain-specific problem in that industry is the ability to connect to a port's grid to use (theoretically renewable) energy during otherwise wasteful port visits during a cruise; rather than burning oil. Obviously, the long-term goal is some sort of full electrification or equivalent. That technology is at least a couple decades away, but this stuff is iterative and any improvements do go a long way when you're talking about ships this big. Other areas of research include some fuel efficiency improvements including more mixtures of biofuels, improvements to insulation as it pertains to the specific way ship windows are designed, and novel ways to convert fuel waste into something usable (a potentially useful, economical, and comparatively green development for the plastics industry in general).
Industrial heat contributes massively to emissions in materials production. Steel (for example) is used somewhere in basically every modern building in the entire world, in every vehicle, in electronics, food canisters, and countless other daily objects. Producing it requires a ton of consistent heat at extraordinarily high temperatures, something that has traditionally only been achievable through fossil fuels. Different sectors have different heat requirements, but in some cases integrating simple technologies like heavy-duty heat pumps (whose refrigerants and designs have advanced a lot in recent years) can actually contribute significantly to fossil fuel reduction! Advances in geothermal extraction (not just in Iceland) are another very efficient source of heat. Solar thermal (as opposed to solar photovoltaic) energy can also be very useful for high-temperature industrial heat, and new alloys can allow simple resistance heaters to work at higher temperatures. The list continues: watch Barnes' video linked.
Cement is essential for the production of concrete, which is likewise used in basically every building in the entire world. The process of physically creating cement/concrete involves heat-intensive processes to produce chemical reactions (calcinization/clinkering) that traditionally release large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. In addition to some low-level changes to policy like updating building standards and better concrete recycling practices, there are various substitutes for cement (like "geopolymers"), and there are ways to just use less cement in concrete in many applications, or less of its subordinate materials (like carbon-laden limestone). Carbon injection/sequestration technologies also have meaningful promise, as do cements that naturally form as carbon sinks.
In the oil & gas industry, various advances to polymerization technology and related chemical processes can make it cost-effective to reuse them in other plastic-related production mechanisms, instead of sending them off to be burned as fuel for something else, thereby reducing a large amount of industrial waste. Plastics in general are a different beast from emissions technology, so I won't get into that here.
Sewage waste heat recovery is a vastly under-utilized technology to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of cities. Government is actually incentivized to use such processes in sewage treatment plants because they could reduce the operational expenses of other government facilities, improving municipal budgets. And if a large industry actor operates its own waste treatment facilities separate from government (perhaps aboard shipping vessels or on an oil rig), they are also incentivized to make it efficient. Obviously this sort of thing goes hand-in-hand with regulation on toxic biohazards in general.
And more. I'm not an expert in most industrial subjects and I am certain that there are many other things happening, including software programs to, say, heat buildings more efficiently.
It is in industry's best interest to invest in research to solve all of these problems, which is why they are currently investing in such research (a lot). If you are not in one of these industries, or particularly interested in the technologies, you probably wouldn't know this. Same for the general population. I think this lack of awareness contributes significantly to doomer and doomer-sympathetic attitudes. If people knew how much was happening, they would be a lot less cynical.
Fundamentally, people want status and creature comforts, so people will consume more, so they will produce more. Even the poorest 10% of Americans have a carbon footprint comparable to 90% of...
Fundamentally, people want status and creature comforts, so people will consume more, so they will produce more.
Even the poorest 10% of Americans have a carbon footprint comparable to 90% of India (excluding India's wealthiest 10%), according to the NYT. Our lifestyles are not sustainable at any socioeconomic level, whether it's Taylor Swift's or some poor American living in Mississippi.
Ultimately, it's up to people to redefine status outside the paradigm of consumption.
The way I see it is, after shit hits the fan we will need to rebuild along sustainable lines. Everything we do is getting a head start on that. Even if something won't scale up in time to prevent...
The way I see it is, after shit hits the fan we will need to rebuild along sustainable lines. Everything we do is getting a head start on that. Even if something won't scale up in time to prevent disaster, it will be in place to lead the way when the old way has collapsed. So either way, it's doing some good.
I think the 'deadline' set by our current predicament unfortunately creates a fail condition in people's minds that doesn't need to be there. Supporting sustainability even in small ways is a long term good, whether or not it addresses our current climate crisis in time. We absolutely should fight to address it in time, but if that becomes impossible it doesn't render the sustainable practices pointless.
Ii’ve told this story before, and I’ll tell it again because it bears repeating. I went once to a Bill McKibbon lecture. mcKibbon is a climate change activist. He was talking about climate change....
Ii’ve told this story before, and I’ll tell it again because it bears repeating.
I went once to a Bill McKibbon lecture. mcKibbon is a climate change activist. He was talking about climate change. In Asheville, NC, ostensibly very progressive, climate aware town. It was a standing room only event, 1000+ in attendance. My estimate, half lived within two miles of the venue. Guess how many people rode their bike? 4. Four! To a Bill McKibbon lecture!
At that point I switched to a doomer. If the the people who profess most loudly to want change can’t make such a simple lifestyle change themselves, what hope is there from those unaware of the problem? Let alone those with vested interests in “not looking up.”
I still do my part, my conscience didn’t die. But I am not optimistic that disaster can be averted.
The Buddhist in me would also like a word: the Earth is going to die. Whether it dies from climate change in 100 years or the solar nova in 100 million, it’s definitely toast. So I pay attention here and now.
People en masse don't make lifestyle changes for the benefit of others or for benefits far in the future. It's just not how human beings are wired. If you told Americans that all they had to do is...
People en masse don't make lifestyle changes for the benefit of others or for benefits far in the future. It's just not how human beings are wired. If you told Americans that all they had to do is push a button as soon as they woke up and 100 africans would be spared death, within a month the entire continent would be wiped out.
Most people don't even exercise despite that having obvious and clear health benefits such that not doing so is virtually a guaranteed early death sentence. Expecting them to change their individual behavior to spare people in the developing world who will take the brunt of climate change in a decade is completely unrealistic.
Areas with high bike ridership didn't get that way because people care more about the climate there, they got that way because they made riding a bike easier, cheaper, and more convenient than driving a car.
I am pretty dialed into climate change and city planning discourse, but I use a car for 90% of my trips. In the area I live, if I didn't, my entire life would have to revolve around transportation. I'd have to ride in dangerous conditions for four hours for my commute, I'd have to spend an hour just going to and from the grocery store, it's just not realistic.
This isn't unique. Virtually everywhere in the US, driving a car is the most comfortable, convenient, fastest, easiest way to get around. It doesn't have to be that way. Policy made it that way, just like policy makes it so that appliances are cheaper and easier to throw away than repair, coal is still a very widely used, cheap power generation fuel, plastic is the cheapest and most convenient packaging material, flying is the cheapest and quickest form of mid to long range transportation.
You can't just tell large groups of people that they should adopt better habits. It doesn't matter how intelligent and thoughtful that group is, human beings just don't work that way. That's what legislation is for.
I agree with everything you said as it applies to general populations, and those living in suburban morasses as I do now. I’m just…well I’ve just given up. when not even 1% of the “choir” will...
I agree with everything you said as it applies to general populations, and those living in suburban morasses as I do now.
I’m just…well I’ve just given up. when not even 1% of the “choir” will practice basic tenets of conservationism there’s little call for optimism as far as I can see.
Practicality is a huge element in determining what people do/don’t do. To continue with your example of cars, it’s often repeated that replacing a vehicle with a hybrid or EV isn’t really fixing...
Practicality is a huge element in determining what people do/don’t do. To continue with your example of cars, it’s often repeated that replacing a vehicle with a hybrid or EV isn’t really fixing things and there’s an element of truth to that, but people do it because it’s practical and reasonable given their situations.
This extends to lots of other things. For instance, I’d rather live in a dense city center to reduce my footprint, but doing so, the amount of paycheck I’d get to keep compared to living in a suburb would be more than cut in half, making it much more difficult to remain financially secure, to prepare for any kind of big life change, or to act as support when family hits a bumpy stretch.
That said, we should be advocating for things like improvement in local transit and downzoning and voting accordingly, but these things move absolutely glacially at the best of times. As such I think it’s counterproductive to discourage people from what little they can practically accomplish in the meantime.
I have noticed this a ton in my area. I'm on the east coast and a ton near me has been debating putting up offshore wind turbines. There has been a huge push to "wind turbines do more harm to...
I have noticed this a ton in my area. I'm on the east coast and a ton near me has been debating putting up offshore wind turbines. There has been a huge push to "wind turbines do more harm to wildlife" rather than "climate change doesn't exist". It's incredibly frustrating because, no matter what evidence is presented, it still ends with "but what if they hurt the whales?". It's crazy considering how many animals are harmed due to the burning of fossil fuels and even just the simple act of boating, whether recreationally or commercially, but people want to focus on fucking windmills 20 miles off shore.
Comment box
Simon Clark is an English academic with a PhD in atmospheric physics. He makes content on YouTube about climate science, including climate change, for a general audience.
This video tackles a trend in the last half-decade that I've been particularly irritated by: climate doomerism and ensuing political apathy. Clark observes that the nature of climate denial has shifted from "climate change isn't real" to "climate change is real, but it's pointless to try and solve it." Specifically, he points to research indicating that the same people who once denied the existence of climate change have now intentionally chosen a different but more manipulative message which is more socially acceptable. They are attempting to shift the narrative in a way that stops any improvement from happening.
This subtle shift in argument is significantly harder to rebut. It is also much more likely to ensnare people who would otherwise participate in the political process, discouraging them from supporting climate initiatives or even from voting for representatives who care. This ultimately reinforces the status quo.
Clark makes the statement that climate doomers are objectively incorrect. He is right. Indeed, it is true that both political policy and individual social behavior can have a measurable impact on climate factors like emissions and pollution. For this reason, it is important to push back against apathy and thinly veiled denialism about this very important issue. But this is not always obvious to everyone, especially impressionable young people who are being told that their future is doomed and they should give up.
Most of the people from whom these doomerism claims originate, including anyone with a relatively sizable online platform, are intentionally and knowingly acting in bad faith. They have some ideological pretense or something to personally gain from spreading misinformation. In contrast, most people who parrot those bad actors' apathetic, nihilistic, and doomerist beliefs about climate change are not acting in bad faith. They genuinely think that there is nothing we can do to stop the world from ending. They are wrong because they have been misled, and it is important to make that known to them.
I am acquaintances with several people living in democratic countries with freedom of expression who do not engage in any part of the political process, nor do they advocate for any change whatsoever within non-government institutions they interact with, for the pure and exclusive reason that they do not believe that doing so has any impact. This belief is wrong, and this quality in an educated adult immediately makes me lose a significant amount of respect for them. (Sorry. They can get it back when they are interested in being useful to society.)
It is worth noting that political apathy is disproportionately present in very marginalized groups, mainly for reasons of upbringing and a culture of apathy (i.e. being taught to be apathetic). But once one is aware of the existence of such statistical trends, it is no longer justifiable to consciously participate in them. Entirely separate is the issue of political opinions which literally cannot be expressed for economic or other reasons ("I want to vote but can't because I work a 16-hour shift on Tuesdays"); that is not part of this discussion.
In the context of climate change, I would make this observation: humans are intensely social creatures. Lifestyle changes related to the climate, such as purchasing solar panels for one's home, using a hybrid or fully electric vehicle, and eating less meat, have been scientifically shown to reverberate throughout one's social circles. The same goes for conversations about change, whether or not they are things we can personally do, like the idea of a carbon tax. This effect can be multiplicative. In other words, merely doing your best to do what you can for the climate, whether that's personal behaviors or political votes, has an outsized impact. Conversely, merely expressing apathy about climate in an authoritative-sounding way has a very negative effect.
I now make the following conclusions which Clark would probably more or less agree with:
What I have said applies to more than just climate change, but because climate change is the most existential and serious threat to human civilization in about 930,000 years, it is particularly important to discuss.
A little bit afraid to say this, but while I am by no means a doomer (by his definition), I certainly am very afraid that this is not going to be solved in anything even closely resembling good time. I don't believe real solutions will happen anytime soon. COP goals are going to be postponed if not fail completely. We are going to see many, many more catastrophes and massive humanitarian crises before people realise how bad it is.
He says "we have solutions we know work", "we still have agency", "it's too important to do anything else", etc.
Yes to all of this. Nothing about this is wrong.
However this is pure naivety in my opinion. We, the people, have lost a lot of power. In my country, the climate was one of the top things people prioritised when they went to vote. We have had 2 so-called green elections in a row. And what happens? Government doesn't even do the bare minimum. They conceded our 2025 goals already. Dropped them.
A majority of people just won't vote for green parties. Some do. But most vote according to ideology and identity, ending up putting into power parties that care only about the bottom line, for example giving climate tax exemptions to giant companies because they are deemed important for the economy even though they are the worst sinners.
I feel I do what I can, personally.
But me sorting cardboard and plastic and taking my bottles and cans to recycling is doing as close to zero difference as you're gonna get. The scale of things is not in the people's favour. Some rich person goes for 100 trips in their private jet a year, eliminating the small things I can personally do times a thousand or a million. What the hell am I gonna do? No party is ever going to get enough votes to stop that rich person from using their jet or whatever.
Another thing is that the development of carbon capture & storage and similar technologies is not good enough and won't mature enough to help enough in time. All it is is a neat little trick that politicians can (and do) point to to say that they're doing something, and oh we don't actually have to revolutionize the farming industry and their emissions, technology is totally gonna save us!
The only solution to climate change is dedicated people in power. And we are not gonna have that anytime soon. Not to be all "it's the system, man!", it's just.. I wish this video had been more realistic. It's fine to try to be uplifting and positive, but "we have the solutions" means nothing if corporations are going to keep drilling for oil, if companies are going to keep producing plastic, if coal is going to keep getting burnt.. the will to properly change on a large enough scale simply isn't there. And my (humble, powerless) opinion is that the will won't come until it's too late.
If you accept this as fact, then in a fun twist of irony this makes your individual action even more important.
Climate change is not a binary "safe/doomed" set of outcomes. It's a range, with the cost of mitigation / damages from non-mitigation increasing with the amount of global warming. One study for Canada modeled an $80bn(CDN) cost to Canada by 2100 if global warming were 3° rather than 2°, with an additional $100bn(CDN) for 4° over 3°.
This breaks our intuition. Most things in our life work the opposite way: the first scratch on the car door is "worse" than the 100th, for example. For climate economics over a global scale, however, as warming increases more and more human systems (small things, like city placement) change from "able to cope with climate change with some investment or loss of productivity" to "largely untenable, needing wholesale replacement." Diminishing returns don't set in until civilization-ending levels of climate damage, at which point there wouldn't be many people left to pay the bill.
This fundamentally makes doomism a self-defeating argument. The first bit of emissions reduction accomplishes the most long-term good, no matter how it's achieved. If a set of policies only brings the world from 4° to 3.5°, that's still more damages saved than bringing the world from 2.5° to 2°. That first lone voice in the wilderness reducing carbon emissions does the most direct good.
No? It's less expensive to fix one scratch than a hundred, that's common sense. You're applying subjective perception of of cosmetic issues, to an objectively damaging one.
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I think you are in agreement with each other. Human nature is to perceive the world subjectively. Because we live in a society of people, understanding psychology is important to enacting climate goals.
The person you're responding to is not trying to make a pedantic argument. In the case they provide, yes, the first scratch on the car is much more psychologically damaging than the hundredth on what is now a beater. Once you have 100 scratches, what's one more? Contrast is everything.
People have a tendency to give up caring about a novel problem once they pass an imaginary threshold where it becomes mundane or appears to become unsolvable. In the context of climate change, that is the made-up 1.5 degree "limit." This user is suggesting that our having passed this threshold creates a sense of defeatism among many people. However, this observation does not change the objective reality (which you clearly recognize) that addressing climate change as early as possible, whatever the current state of the world, is valuable.
It's less expensive to fix one scratch than 100 scratches, yes. However, the marginal cost of fixing the 100th scratch given that 99 have already happened is nearly nil: you're already repainting the whole car door.
In the climate context, going from 0° to 4° is of course more costly than going from 0° to 2°, but the 2-4° part is worse than the 0-2° part. The "climate is doomed" perception falsely applies car-door logic to the planet, thinking that since so much damage is already done there's not much more left to do on the margin.
I fully expect the climate death tolls to reach 100s of millions before drastic action is taken. And I understand I state that from a place of privilege and without a lot of empathy. It's a number too large to feel empathy for - it's a problem that needs to be handled logically and our current system fails with those types of issues.
People always use that meme mocking neoliberals, "billions must die" or whatever. But that genuinely is what is going to happen. We will see how many deaths people deem acceptable because it might actually be in the billions.
At this point, I have become convinced that large numbers of people would still attribute the deaths of those hundreds of millions to something that was completely unavoidable. Within this decade, we had a global pandemic and still had tons of people refusing to wear masks because they can't see germs.
Until climate change transforms into a human being, puts on a uniform, and starts killing people dramatically and obviously in cold blood, there are tons of people who can comfortably bury their heads in the sand and ignore it.
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Part of the strength of the doomer movement is that it emphasizes the futility of political action, which is pretty easy for laypeople to understand; after all, government ineffectiveness is hyper-visible and effectiveness typically goes unseen. Doomer messaging typically ignores industry technology and processes because those things are relatively hard for laypeople to understand.
Contributing to public awareness and governmental/professional uptake of new processes and technologies is both important and effective. This is why I often share seemingly boring videos about zero-emissions heat technologies for industry and similar things on this website. They rarely get as much attention as posts like this. But there is a tremendous amount of opportunity here.
Policy is ultimately the most effective way to enforce consistent behavior around climate. However, it is not the only pathway for change. We must remember that industry is bound by economic forces just as much as political ones. Because most fossil fuel technologies are relatively mature, there are not a whole lot of fundamental or easy ways to reduce operational expenses (i.e. improve efficiency). For instance, there is basically no economical way to make coal mining cheaper: we have been doing it for over 300 years (technically thousands), at scale for 200, and it's at a bit of a practical limit. For some fossil fuels, there are plenty of opportunities for efficiency improvements/cost savings (petrochemical engineers make a lot of money for a reason), but the level of R&D required to access them is typically high relative to their value.
In contrast, most renewable technologies are already at cost parity with fossil fuels... and also are fundamentally at a less mature point in their development life-cycles. For any particular renewable technology, there are about 20 different engineering pathways to significantly reduce cost: and I'm not talking by 5%, I'm talking 50% or more. Industry fundamentally reacts to cost more than it does ideology; that is part of the "beauty," some would say, of neoliberal market economics. People know about electric car batteries, but that is basically all they are aware of. There are many more important mechanisms out there. For example:
It is in industry's best interest to invest in research to solve all of these problems, which is why they are currently investing in such research (a lot). If you are not in one of these industries, or particularly interested in the technologies, you probably wouldn't know this. Same for the general population. I think this lack of awareness contributes significantly to doomer and doomer-sympathetic attitudes. If people knew how much was happening, they would be a lot less cynical.
Fundamentally, people want status and creature comforts, so people will consume more, so they will produce more.
Even the poorest 10% of Americans have a carbon footprint comparable to 90% of India (excluding India's wealthiest 10%), according to the NYT. Our lifestyles are not sustainable at any socioeconomic level, whether it's Taylor Swift's or some poor American living in Mississippi.
Ultimately, it's up to people to redefine status outside the paradigm of consumption.
The way I see it is, after shit hits the fan we will need to rebuild along sustainable lines. Everything we do is getting a head start on that. Even if something won't scale up in time to prevent disaster, it will be in place to lead the way when the old way has collapsed. So either way, it's doing some good.
I think the 'deadline' set by our current predicament unfortunately creates a fail condition in people's minds that doesn't need to be there. Supporting sustainability even in small ways is a long term good, whether or not it addresses our current climate crisis in time. We absolutely should fight to address it in time, but if that becomes impossible it doesn't render the sustainable practices pointless.
Ii’ve told this story before, and I’ll tell it again because it bears repeating.
I went once to a Bill McKibbon lecture. mcKibbon is a climate change activist. He was talking about climate change. In Asheville, NC, ostensibly very progressive, climate aware town. It was a standing room only event, 1000+ in attendance. My estimate, half lived within two miles of the venue. Guess how many people rode their bike? 4. Four! To a Bill McKibbon lecture!
At that point I switched to a doomer. If the the people who profess most loudly to want change can’t make such a simple lifestyle change themselves, what hope is there from those unaware of the problem? Let alone those with vested interests in “not looking up.”
I still do my part, my conscience didn’t die. But I am not optimistic that disaster can be averted.
The Buddhist in me would also like a word: the Earth is going to die. Whether it dies from climate change in 100 years or the solar nova in 100 million, it’s definitely toast. So I pay attention here and now.
People en masse don't make lifestyle changes for the benefit of others or for benefits far in the future. It's just not how human beings are wired. If you told Americans that all they had to do is push a button as soon as they woke up and 100 africans would be spared death, within a month the entire continent would be wiped out.
Most people don't even exercise despite that having obvious and clear health benefits such that not doing so is virtually a guaranteed early death sentence. Expecting them to change their individual behavior to spare people in the developing world who will take the brunt of climate change in a decade is completely unrealistic.
Areas with high bike ridership didn't get that way because people care more about the climate there, they got that way because they made riding a bike easier, cheaper, and more convenient than driving a car.
I am pretty dialed into climate change and city planning discourse, but I use a car for 90% of my trips. In the area I live, if I didn't, my entire life would have to revolve around transportation. I'd have to ride in dangerous conditions for four hours for my commute, I'd have to spend an hour just going to and from the grocery store, it's just not realistic.
This isn't unique. Virtually everywhere in the US, driving a car is the most comfortable, convenient, fastest, easiest way to get around. It doesn't have to be that way. Policy made it that way, just like policy makes it so that appliances are cheaper and easier to throw away than repair, coal is still a very widely used, cheap power generation fuel, plastic is the cheapest and most convenient packaging material, flying is the cheapest and quickest form of mid to long range transportation.
You can't just tell large groups of people that they should adopt better habits. It doesn't matter how intelligent and thoughtful that group is, human beings just don't work that way. That's what legislation is for.
I agree with everything you said as it applies to general populations, and those living in suburban morasses as I do now.
I’m just…well I’ve just given up. when not even 1% of the “choir” will practice basic tenets of conservationism there’s little call for optimism as far as I can see.
Practicality is a huge element in determining what people do/don’t do. To continue with your example of cars, it’s often repeated that replacing a vehicle with a hybrid or EV isn’t really fixing things and there’s an element of truth to that, but people do it because it’s practical and reasonable given their situations.
This extends to lots of other things. For instance, I’d rather live in a dense city center to reduce my footprint, but doing so, the amount of paycheck I’d get to keep compared to living in a suburb would be more than cut in half, making it much more difficult to remain financially secure, to prepare for any kind of big life change, or to act as support when family hits a bumpy stretch.
That said, we should be advocating for things like improvement in local transit and downzoning and voting accordingly, but these things move absolutely glacially at the best of times. As such I think it’s counterproductive to discourage people from what little they can practically accomplish in the meantime.
I have noticed this a ton in my area. I'm on the east coast and a ton near me has been debating putting up offshore wind turbines. There has been a huge push to "wind turbines do more harm to wildlife" rather than "climate change doesn't exist". It's incredibly frustrating because, no matter what evidence is presented, it still ends with "but what if they hurt the whales?". It's crazy considering how many animals are harmed due to the burning of fossil fuels and even just the simple act of boating, whether recreationally or commercially, but people want to focus on fucking windmills 20 miles off shore.