Stop Telling Kids Climate Change Will Destroy the World

[Frodo]

Finally a voice of sanity.  Terrorizing children on an issue on which they can do nothing who are frightened enough already about more immediate threats like gun violence is a step too far:

Stop telling kids that climate change will destroy their world
Some “climate anxiety” is the product of telling kids — falsely — that they have no future.

[emailking]

We don't know if it will or not. It'd definitely going to be bad. I'm not a fan of sugar coating or hiding things.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

We don't know if it will or not. It'd definitely going to be bad. I'm not a fan of sugar coating or hiding things.

We do know in a general sense that literal human extinction is not on the table, although Kelsey Piper's "it's not even going to make our standard of living worse" Enlightenment Now shtick is BS as well and exactly what you'd expect from someone who had the worst influence on the Tolkien fandom of any one individual in history before she even turned twenty.

[T'Chenka]

We don't know if it will or not. It'd definitely going to be bad. I'm not a fan of sugar coating or hiding things.

[emailking]

We don't know if it will or not. It'd definitely going to be bad. I'm not a fan of sugar coating or hiding things.

We do know in a general sense that literal human extinction is not on the table,

No I don't think we know that. But I would agree it's unlikely.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

It's not going to destroy the world or even human civilization, that will probably be the responsibility of an undetected asteroid crossing into Earth's orbit, but it will make things a lot worse if things get severe enough to cause major famines.

[Hammy]

We don't know if it will or not. It'd definitely going to be bad. I'm not a fan of sugar coating or hiding things.

The problem is, like with Jan 6, and even before that with covid, flatly telling people the truth--instead of presenting solutions that can be spun as being of personal benefit to the people you're talking to--is the quickest way to get people to not believe you or claim you're being alarmist. It's not right, but failing to take the reality into account is highly counterproductive.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Well, if we would stop emitting CO2 we wouldn't have this issue.

Kids have no control over this, and boomer politicians, being spoiled from birth, are committed to milking every last cent out of federal coffers and treating the young people who will be subsidizing their lifestyle like sh**t.

[Kamala's side hoe]

We don't know if it will or not. It'd definitely going to be bad. I'm not a fan of sugar coating or hiding things.

I'm basically a Doomer on climate change, but telling kids they don't have a future because climate change will f things up doesn't make them more resilient or prepared to take on the challenges of adapting to such a world. IMO it's better to be less f'ed over than more f'ed over, so knowing that we're f'ed over doesn't mean the situation is hopeless.

Kurzgesagt makes this argument by highlighting global progress made in 1) reductions in renewable energy costs and 2) decoupling of economic growth from increased CO2 emissions in the last decade, which have happened in spite of entrenched fossil fuel interests and a general lack of political willpower for meaningful government action. They argue that progress in these fields has averted the worst case warming scenario (RCP 8.5?) by 2100, and has bought humanity more time to transition, prepare, and adapt for the coming ecological S019-storm.

[emailking]

Well preparing them isn't my motivation for telling the truth. But I wouldn't literally tell a kid s/he has no future because of global warming. I'd tell them all of the facts and predictions but if they asked me could the world become unrecognizable I'd say yeah it's possible in some outlier scenarios. I hope you're right renewables can ramp up to something non trivial, but I remain pretty skeptical they'll be anything more than a band aid.

[GeneralMacArthur]

It really is incredible what a massive self-own the youth climate movement has been.

Everyone speaks in this ridiculous hyperbole and it's very off-putting.  They take this "we're doomed and nothing matters" stance that's entirely performative and unhelpful.

In the mid-2000s, during the Inconvenient Truth era, the focus of the climate change movement was on personal choices, renewable energy sources, pollution, and policy decisions to curb emissions.  And it was successful!  From 1990-2007 America's CO2 emissions per capita hovered between 19-21 metric tons.  Between 2008-2009 it dropped down to 16.8, then further declined to 15.8 by 2012 and 14.8 by 2017.  The system worked!

Lately, though, that strategy has been abandoned, in favor of simply pinning all the responsibility on large corporations.  And it's been tied in with leftist rhetoric about "climate justice" and how we have to abandon capitalism to fix climate change.  There's been a successful effort to assimilate climate change into the giant intersectionalist borg, and now you're not allowed to just have a conversation about climate or just focus on climate, you also have to share your activism with all the other activist causes of the week.  I mean we all know what happened.  The radicals and professional agitators got in charge of the messaging, just like they did for everything in the Democratic activist class between 2015-2020.  And it's been a disaster because now they just alienate everyone and nobody takes them seriously.  And the messaging has completely lost its focus and personal touch and now is just part of this giant list of extreme, transformative, puritanical, revolutionary demands that the borg pumps out.

But honestly this pales in comparison to the greatest self-own in the history of self-owns, the Green New Deal.  I don't think Republicans could have wished for a better gift if they'd tried.  Here you've got a ditzy, clueless backbencher who constantly says stupid things and seems primarily focused on destroying her own party.  And she writes a bill that does everything Republicans always promised Democrats wanted to do -- pass a whole bunch of transformative social legislation under the thinnest possible guise of being tangentially related to climate policy, and spend tens of trillions of dollars to do it, all while arguing that "money isn't real."  And she's all over TV telling people that "climate policy is socialism" and "yes my bill is socialism and all the Democrats support it."  And she's slapping her Green New Deal label on literally every climate policy anyone else proposes and being so loud about it that she drowns out all the conversation.  I mean this is a Republican dream come true.  They've completely won the political battle here because they can just keep saying "Green New Deal Green New Deal Green New Deal" every time Democrats want to talk about climate change.  Everyone hates the Green New Deal and AOC, but now she's the face of the climate change movement, and her stupid bill is the only climate change proposal anyone knows about.  Great going guys.  That's us completely f---ed for the next decade.

[T'Chenka]

But honestly this pales in comparison to the greatest self-own in the history of self-owns, the Green New Deal.  I don't think Republicans could have wished for a better gift if they'd tried.  Here you've got a ditzy, clueless backbencher who constantly says stupid things and seems primarily focused on destroying her own party.  And she writes a bill that does everything Republicans always promised Democrats wanted to do -- pass a whole bunch of transformative social legislation under the thinnest possible guise of being tangentially related to climate policy, and spend tens of trillions of dollars to do it, all while arguing that "money isn't real."  And she's all over TV telling people that "climate policy is socialism" and "yes my bill is socialism and all the Democrats support it."  And she's slapping her Green New Deal label on literally every climate policy anyone else proposes and being so loud about it that she drowns out all the conversation.  I mean this is a Republican dream come true.  They've completely won the political battle here because they can just keep saying "Green New Deal Green New Deal Green New Deal" every time Democrats want to talk about climate change.  Everyone hates the Green New Deal and AOC, but now she's the face of the climate change movement, and her stupid bill is the only climate change proposal anyone knows about.  Great going guys.  That's us completely f---ed for the next decade.

Okay, now tell us how you REALLY feel about Ocasio-Cortez.

[jamestroll]

I tend to be quite confident that technological advances will help us mitigate climate change. People who are currently teenagers probably will not see a place like Miami become completely cover by the ocean until the twilight of their lives.

I tend to be a bit dismissive of inflation right now as much of it is external factors. Looking at the big picture, shortages of necessities and food are unlikely on a wide scale in the United States.

The largest impact of climate on the United States would be if the western drought continues. Want to see major food shortages in the United States and extreme inflation on our most basic need? That could happen if the Colorado River system collapses. That could this decade year and even within a couple of years.

[jamestroll]

I spent about 1/4 of my life in the American West and it is very sad to me that entire cities collapse.

If the Great Salt Lake runs dry the toxic chemicals in the air could cause mass sickness in the Wasatch Front, there would be no longer a great salt lake effect which would exacerbate the long range decline in snow pack in the Wasatch Mountains. Contrary to popular belief, moisture levels themselves have not dramatically decrease and could not change much at all.  The problem is that Salt Lake City exists because the snow pack was efficient in creating a stable and secure water supply for the region. Rainfall in the Wasatch Mountain gets sucked up by PLANTS and does not roll down to reservoirs as efficiently.

Rainy April and Mays in the Wasatch do little to nothing for water supply. Even if it does make the mountains look green.  Like this picture I took about a month ago near Sandy, Utah



Last October, I went to Colorado and I planned to visit the Colorado River head waters near La Poudre Pass. It was bitter sweet, but I was unable to due to heavy amounts of snow and I was hoping it was the start of a strong snow pack season across the west.  

In fact I remember looking towards the direction of La Pourdre Pass and seeing this snow and storms



But after a strong start there was a dry spell in January and February and a warm spring across the west.

And I came back to the west at the end of the snow pack season only to see this:



A horribly low lake between Summit and Wasatch counties in Utah that looks far drier than I remember it. The Wasatch Back has Alpine forests and desert landscaping within sight of each other, so the deserty vegetation does not alarm me, but the lake level does! Though, I will say it is a bit brown in the landscape for May.

And that lake is one of the many lakes that provide water to Salt Lake County and a part of Utah County.

If we do not get a strong snow pack this winter we could headed towards a national emergency with regards to food supply and entire cities being short on water.

But the good news is this: There will be an abnormally wet year eventually. 2019 was actually well above average in the west and 2010 was an epic in snow pack.

We never know if we will have a year like 1983 which nearly destroyed the city of Salt Lake and it only survived due to the city coming together and sandbagging US-89 and creating the State Street river. If we had a year like 1983 this upcoming winter, there would be virtually zero chance of that being needed as all that water would flow into reservoirs, Utah Lake, and the Great Salt Lake.



**Not my own picture



***Not my own picture.


Long live the west and let's hope Utah receives a winter like 1983 this upcoming winter.

Utah is the center of my worries of the American west because

1) Personal bias. I lived there a long time and a essentially a quasi local

2) Its location in the interior west makes it impractical to impossible to pump desalinated water from the Pacific Ocean or the Sea of Cortez. Especially with the elevation changes.

3) St. George, Utah is the most sizeable city that could literally run out of water in the United States.

4) The warming in Wasatch Front could destroy the system that allowed it to even exist.

5) The life style in Utah is heavily dependent on large water usage, and difficult to change quickly.

[Pericles]

Most people in the US and other developed countries will be ok. It will be a significant problem and lead to lots of undesirable consequences, but it is survivable. Importantly, these countries can afford to implement measures that adapt to climate change. The countries that are really vulnerable to the impacts of climate change also tend to be poorer countries that will struggle to adapt to it. This will lead to a huge refugee problem in the coming decades, which will be worsened by the fact that impacts of climate change will cause more wars. This process has already started. We will be better off if climate change is reduced and the effects of it are reduced, and we absolutely can use our votes to achieve that.

[jamestroll]

Most people in the US and other developed countries will be ok. It will be a significant problem and lead to lots of undesirable consequences, but it is survivable. Importantly, these countries can afford to implement measures that adapt to climate change. The countries that are really vulnerable to the impacts of climate change also tend to be poorer countries that will struggle to adapt to it. This will lead to a huge refugee problem in the coming decades, which will be worsened by the fact that impacts of climate change will cause more wars. This process has already started. We will be better off if climate change is reduced and the effects of it are reduced, and we absolutely can use our votes to achieve that.

The American West is my largest worry.

I am more worried about the fragile Colorado River than I am inflation, covid, crime, etc.  The system collapsing is a threat to the entire country on food supply mainly. But Lake Mead running dry could cause severe power shortages on the West Coast, and it if it happened during a very hot summer it could cause thousands of deaths and become a public hazard.

We need more toilet water. After treating the toilet water we should embrace what dogs do and DRINK and SIP the TOILET water.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Finally a voice of sanity.  Terrorizing children on an issue on which they can do nothing who are frightened enough already about more immediate threats like gun violence is a step too far:

Stop telling kids that climate change will destroy their world
Some “climate anxiety” is the product of telling kids — falsely — that they have no future.

This would be constructive, to say the least.

[Person Man]

Most people in the US and other developed countries will be ok. It will be a significant problem and lead to lots of undesirable consequences, but it is survivable. Importantly, these countries can afford to implement measures that adapt to climate change. The countries that are really vulnerable to the impacts of climate change also tend to be poorer countries that will struggle to adapt to it. This will lead to a huge refugee problem in the coming decades, which will be worsened by the fact that impacts of climate change will cause more wars. This process has already started. We will be better off if climate change is reduced and the effects of it are reduced, and we absolutely can use our votes to achieve that.

If you don’t like refugees, you should be concerned about the oil industry.

I don’t think people are going to go extinct…but in the worst case, probably the way the Roman’s went “extinct” and probably for similar reasons except their situation was caused by natural global cooling on a less extreme scale but it did create 1) less food and eventually the economy was in a recession more than not and 2) oppressed refugees who eventually had successful uprisings.

[parochial boy]

No climate change won't end the world but it will be at best extremely expensive and will be catastrophic in terms of the real human impact it has, and if you don't recognise this you are ultimately just being dishonest. Having said that, at least it's nice to see that climate denial has seemingly been abandoned towards the "it won't be so bad thesis" - that's progress - at least..?

It really is incredible what a massive self-own the youth climate movement has been.

Everyone speaks in this ridiculous hyperbole and it's very off-putting.  They take this "we're doomed and nothing matters" stance that's entirely performative and unhelpful.

In the mid-2000s, during the Inconvenient Truth era, the focus of the climate change movement was on personal choices, renewable energy sources, pollution, and policy decisions to curb emissions.  And it was successful!  From 1990-2007 America's CO2 emissions per capita hovered between 19-21 metric tons.  Between 2008-2009 it dropped down to 16.8, then further declined to 15.8 by 2012 and 14.8 by 2017.  The system worked!

And yet the youth climate movement has put the issue on top of the agenda and galvanised governments into pursuing policies on the issue. It has been a central political issue in most of Europe's recent elections, with the theme always been who can be most credible on it - not whether or not to take action on it all. It's unfortunate that the US is still not taking the issue seriously and still has a much less visible climate movement; but you can't really deny that where the climate movements are strong, they have led to action being taken.

In any case, the biggest driver of reducing carbon emissions in the US was the shift to shale gas, which is much cleaner than the coal or oil that preceeded it. From a carbon emissions perspective that is obviously good, but it still insufficient and only really something you can do once, which is why it is reaching the limits in terms of how useful it is.

More to the point though - while US emissions are down around 30% on the late 20th century peak (a lot of that is corona as well, and some deindustrialisation and isn't even particularly helpful as in practice it means exporting emissions abroad combined with the impact of longer supply chains). In most of Europe the decline is around 50%, a bigger decline that should have been more difficult to achieve seeing as Europe was starting out from a much lower base to begin with; but, as I said, where there is less climate scepticism and more important climate movements.

Or more to the point - the route that the US has been taking to date has been insufficient even though it was based off the relatively easy win that is shale gas. In which case, yes, frame it like you want but there is an urgent need for the US to start taking major proactive actions - investments in renewables, investments in low energy technology, cap and trade, carbon taxes, improved infrastructure (heat pumps, insulating houses, public transport) and all of these things require a proactive state because the laissez faire strategy used up until now isn't cutting it.

[GP270watch]

 Those young people are coming up with the solutions to mitigate climate change. The discoveries happening all the time at college research labs and startups is almost all being done by people under 40. They're really the first generation that has lived with and acknowledged the climate change that is happening is dire, Gen Z is going to be even better and groundbreaking on these solutions.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

What it won’t do, however, is make the Earth unlivable, or even mean that our children live in a world poorer than the one we grew up in. As many climate scientists have been telling us, the world is a better place to live in — especially for people in lower-income countries — than it has ever been, and climate change isn’t going to make it as bad as it was even in 1950.

This article is garbage. There's actually a number of scenarios where the Earth could be made unlivable for humans due to climate change. Are these scenarios particularly likely? No but they are plausible and non-trivially possible - it's just that the possibility of this occurring is on a very long time horizon.

Overall, I am struck by how sanguine most people are about climate change. Current levels of carbon dioxide constitute a massive forcing event in global climate history, which we are able to reconstruct reasonably well. It isn't unprecedented for carbon dioxide ppm to be this high - the last time this held, our planet had a "hothouse" climate with sea levels much higher than anything predicted to be possible by the IPCC. There are many reasons why extrapolating based on this doesn't make sense but I would argue that IPCC projections are actually massively biased towards sanguine outcomes because they explicitly ignore feedback, which has been the driving force in all of our planet's climate history (it's the only way you get radical shifts in climate based on small perturbations).

[Person Man]

My guess is that the hottest it can get on Earth because of Global Warming is 8*C/14.4*F hotter than it is today. The average temperature over the whole world was 55*F in 1850 and now is around 57*F. So in a worst case scenario, I think we could see an average global temperature of 20*C/69*F. That's about what Jacksonville is today. So no. The world isn't suddenly going to be like Venus or something like that. What it could mean is that our society can't adapt and collapses us into a Dark Age or something like that. I think the typical bad ending will be something out of the documentary Earth2100.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

We don't know if it will or not. It'd definitely going to be bad. I'm not a fan of sugar coating or hiding things.

We do know in a general sense that literal human extinction is not on the table, although Kelsey Piper's "it's not even going to make our standard of living worse" Enlightenment Now shtick is BS as well and exactly what you'd expect from someone who had the worst influence on the Tolkien fandom of any one individual in history before she even turned twenty.

Never heard of this person until now. Pls elaborate.

[Hermit For Peace]

I would just like to interject something here. What if "climate change" was simply Mother Nature's way of balancing herself out? What if there really is nothing to worry about, that it's just a natural cycle doing its thing?

I could tell my kid that with good conscience, and it is more likely than not, true.

[Person Man]

I would just like to interject something here. What if "climate change" was simply Mother Nature's way of balancing herself out? What if there really is nothing to worry about, that it's just a natural cycle doing its thing?

I could tell my kid that with good conscience, and it is more likely than not, true.

It’s like the CRT vs lost cause/replacement theory binary choice. It’s a false one but somethings still to consider.