Climate Realism not Doomerism

A critique of the WaPo article : Why climate ‘doomers’ are replacing climate ‘deniers’


An article called “Why climate “doomers” are replacing climate “deniers” ” by Shannon Osaka was published on March 24th 2023 in the WaPo. I consider myself to be somewhat of a climate doomer so I thought it would be interesting to see what they had to say about “doomers”.

The article starts with the story of a young man, Sean Youra, who learns the truth about climate change, we are basically screwed, it’s too late, climate change is going to destroy the world as we know it. But apparently, according to “scientists and experts”, his discoveries are just “defeatism”, which could “undermine efforts to take action” and “may be just as dangerous as climate denial.”

Really? I’d be interested to learn how these efforts can change the fact that the concentration of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is now above 500ppm CO2e, which will warm the planet by about 10°C in the long term, according to the latest paper by James Hansen.

We are then introduced to Zeke Hausfauther, a contributor to the IPCC report, who says “It’s fair to say that recently many of us climate scientists have spent more time arguing with the doomers than with the deniers”. I dug a little to learn more about the fellow. Zeke is the typical paid climate scientist who spreads absolute non-sense, like the myth that “climate change stops at net zero”.

I recently wrote a thread on this subreddit debunking this myth. The gist of it is that the biggest contributor to climate change are the 1 trillion tons of CO2 already in the atmosphere, not current emissions. It can sound counter intuitive, but current emissions are keeping us cool because burning fossil fuels also produce aerosols which cool the planet by about 1°C. But unlike greenhouse gas, who stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years, aerosols only stay there for a few days/weeks. Net zero will therefore accelerate global warming and not stop it. Net zero is not even possible anyways since just to feed 8 billion people, you need fertilizers made with fossil fuels. And like we saw above, with current GHG concentrations, 10°C of warming are locked in.

We are then introduced to Guy McPherson, with whom many here must be familiar with. Guy claims that humans will be extinct within 10 years. I don’t want to enter in a debate about this claim or the person behind the quote, but knowing how much global warming there is in the pipeline, even if it’s not in 10 years, is it that crazy to believe that humanity won’t make it?

She then describes Guy McPherson as the type of conspiracy theorist who claim that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is downplaying the seriousness of the issue. Is it even a conspiracy theory at this point? The IPCC has consistently been downplaying the pace and severity of climate change. One good example from the link I just shared : “The IPCC has always confidently projected that the Arctic ice sheet was safe at least until 2050 or well beyond 2100.” How is that going?

We are then introduced to a man called Andrew Smith. I’ll leave the full quote because I believe that Andrew is completely right, and he is probably the sanest person quoted in this article.

Andrew Smith, a retired engineer from Yorkshire, England, is slightly turned off by the term “doomer.” It provokes, he says, a sense of being on the fringes of society, or visions of doomsday preppers filling their bunkers with canned food. “For me, a climate doomer is simply a person who’s taken a look at the peer-reviewed science, taken stock of the natural world around them, and come to a conclusion,” he wrote in a message via Twitter. Smith believes that the world is on track to warm 4 to 8 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial times.

The author then mentions 2018 as the year that doom really started spreading, with the strikes from Greta Thunberg, protests from Extinction Rebellion, the publication of Deep Adaption by Jem Bendell – I somewhat agree with this, it’s the time when I started opening my eyes too.

That same year, the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C was published too. The author quotes Hausfather again regarding that report, who says that “part of the problem is that climate targets — say, the goal to limit warming to 1.5C — have become interpreted by the public as climate thresholds, which would drive the planet into a “hothouse” state. In fact, scientists don’t believe there is anything unique about that temperature that will cause runaway tipping points; the landmark IPCC report merely aimed to show the risks of bad impacts are much higher at 2C than at 1.5.”

Again, Hausfather is spreading nonsense. First off, it's not possible to limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C. Climate change is driven by GHG concentrations in the atmosphere. The study of paleoclimates has clearly shown that. During the Pliocene, 3 millions years ago, GHG concentrations were around 400ppm CO2e and temperatures were around 3-4°c higher. We are now at more than 500ppm CO2e, why does he think it’s possible to limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C?

The 1.5°C and 2°C objectives are an invention by people like William Nordhaus, an American economist from Yale University. They have no basis in science, it’s all based on what he thought capitalism could get away with. The idea was that we were only at 1°C of warming, that we still had a “carbon budget” and that we could keep emitting greenhouse gas for a while, for the sake of economic growth. He even got a Nobel Prize for economics in 2018 for being such a good defender of the status quo.

Funnily enough, Hausfather is a fellow at the Breakthrough Institute, founded by no other than Ted Nordhaus, William’s nephew. The Breakthrough Institute advocates for technological development, and increasing economic growth, through a combination of nuclear power and urbanization. While people are starting to cook to death, the Nordhaus family keeps its priorities straight : infinite economic growth!

The author then quotes, Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute, who has said that while humans probably won’t go extinct due to climate change, “not going extinct” is a low bar. I hope that Kate has some solid advice for surviving in a +10°C world, because I frankly don’t. It’s funny that it’s pretty much always people with kids like Kate who spread hopium. I guess it’s easier than telling your kid that all they will ever know is a dying world?

At the end, we learn that Youra corrected his way, rejected doomerism and embraced hopium, with congratulations from the Washington Post.

Now here is my advice. I don’t know how long civilization or humanity have, or how exactly this will end, but I can see the ship going down with the next few years or decades. We are beyond screwed. The first step is to accept this reality. You may feel terrorized by this, you may feel numb, powerless, and it’s a completely normal reaction to have, many have gone through this in this space. Then it’s up to you to decide what you want to do with the time you have left. I would personally recommend not having kids, preparing at least a little, both physically (storing food, water, etc.) and mentally, not working too hard, and just doing what you enjoy most while you can.