Some advice for conversations about climate change

Not trying to debate the science in this post, just trying to encourage thinking

Here is a recent tweet that is not about climate change, but it is still illustrative of part of the problem.

Let’s assume that both of these headlines are basically true, but even if so, there is a definite difference in reporting posture by CNN. Skeptical language is added to the first, implying to the reader Israel’s claim probably isn’t true, whereas the second is reported uncritically. For the second, though this might be too kind, I have sometimes used the phrase “bias-induced laziness”. Tell the journalist something they want to hear, and they will have no further questions, they will do no further investigation, they will happily just repeat whatever you said.

There is a parallel here in climate change reporting and conversations. Near as I can tell (though I wasn’t there), in the 1970s, when there was some media concern about global cooling, the stories emphasized all the bad things that would happen. And today, very obviously, when there is concern about global warming, the stories emphasize all the bad things that will happen. There are only three possibilities:

1. A cooler Earth would be, on the whole, better for humans and life.

2. The present temperature of the Earth is best for humans and life.

3. A warmer Earth would be, on the whole, better for humans and life.

Now, just from the mathematical fact that #2 occupies an infinitely narrow space on the line, the answer is almost certainly either #1 or #3. So one way to try to inject missing intelligence into these discussions is, if someone is going on and on about how warmer would be worse, ask “so you think a cooler Earth would be better?” Hopefully this would lead to a discussion about how, well, a cooler Earth would have some benefits, but some obvious drawbacks too… just as a warmer Earth would have some drawbacks, but some obvious benefits too.

We should not forget that there has been plenty of climate change in recorded human history and pre-history, nearly all of it before the industrial age. One of the genius aspects about making climate change the present boogeyman is that it is happening, because it is always happening. Famously, cave paintings in the Sahara show animals that can’t live there anymore, suggesting the climate used to be wetter. Dial the clock back only 20,000 years (that’s yesterday, geologically speaking, yesterday), and the place where our own home sits was thought to have been buried underneath thousands of feet of ice. More recently you have things like the Medieval Warm Period, when global temperatures were somewhat warmer than at present, followed a bit later by the Little Ice Age, which saw famines and death because crops wouldn’t grow like they formerly did.

Indeed, the warm periods were generally good for humanity - we can move into new areas of the world, we can grow more crops - and the cool periods were generally bad. Even today, the equator is bustling with human and animal life, but who lives on the poles? From that Warm Period link:

Its effects were evident in Europe where grain crops flourished, alpine tree lines rose, many new cities arose, and the population more than doubled. The Vikings took advantage of the climatic amelioration to colonize Greenland, and wine grapes were grown as far north as England where growing grapes is now not feasible and about 500 km north of present vineyards in France and Germany.

So again, one way to make conversations more intelligent, next time someone is telling you about how terrible a warmer Earth would be, is to ask them, “what would be some benefits of a warmer Earth?” They will not expect the question, and it might shock them into doing some thinking.

This whole post was actually prompted by me seeing the following tweet:

Let’s give the headline writer the benefit of the doubt there and say they’re correct. But if warmer temperatures would make certain regions of the globe that are presently used for growing grapes unsuitable, wouldn’t they made other regions of the globe that are presently NOT suitable for growing grapes, newly available? Almost certainly. There is a positive other-side to all of these stories that is just ignored from a desire to stoke panic.

THE END.

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