There’s been a shift in how we think about climate change
www.vox.com
A climate psychologist explains how we’ve moved beyond hope, anger, and complacency toward something more promising.

My takeaways are that more news exposure is good (see the availability heuristic and mere-exposure effect) for putting climate change concern on the agenda, while information campaigns aren’t very useful unless they’re paired with avenues for action. Policy changes (incentives and disincentives, regulations, price changes, social norms) can help with action.

  • Aksamit
    7·
    10 months ago

    Scientists are on it. Everybody have HOPE! We can fix it! Carry on eating meat, recycling and having children, and just remember- DON’T LOOK UP! (And pay no attention to the rest of this comment.)

    A huge amount of polar ice has melted this year and a massive amount of carbon has been released into the atmosphere from the wildfires , on top of the huge amounts from industrial pollution.

    More carbon in the atmosphere means more heat in the next few years.

    5 more years as hot as 2023, and we’ll have less than 100,000 sq km of polar ice left, the oceans will be absorbing the massive amounts of solar radiation that the ice had previously reflected, and will start releasing massive amounts of methane clathrate from the sea floor. This is called the Blue Ocean Event. And is also known as the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis.

    To add to all this terribly offensive fearmongering: There are over 8 billion people on earth and global fresh water reserves will be 40% over capacity by 2030, and 90% of global top soil and arable land is ‘at risk’ of depletion by 2050. (‘At risk’ is in quotes to highlight it’s a conservative estimate from the UN.)

    .

    If anyone does actually have proper scientific evidence that there is reasonable cause for hope in our ability to ‘fix’ climate change, I’m all ears and would very much appreciate it, because from where I’m sitting it just looks like if magically the blue ocean event and clathrate gun don’t go off and end us first, the drought and famine will shortly after.

    • Syl ⏚@jlai.lu
      11·
      10 months ago

      On the BOE blog, they also mention a temp rising of 18° by 2026, that’s surprising…

      • Aksamit
        4·
        10 months ago

        Which bit? I found nothing saying 18c by 2026 on the boe page. 1.6c by 2026 is there. And so is a sentence saying that altogether after the boe there could be as much as 18c rise in temp.

          • Aksamit
            5·
            10 months ago

            I think I’m going to need to find another resource to link as an explanation for the BOE, the rest of that site is giving misinformation vibes and fact checking that will take longer than I care to spend. Thanks for pointing this out.

            • Syl ⏚@jlai.lu
              11·
              10 months ago

              and thank you for being reasonable. BOE could happen, Al Gore mentioned it in his first movie, but it’s unlikely to happen in this century. Sadly it will happen because we aren’t slowing down enough…

              • Aksamit
                2·
                10 months ago

                Eh I’m still on team BOE is going to be soon. You do you though.

                I only linked that page as it was a good explanation of the BOE, before today I hadn’t looked at the rest of the blog.

                And tbh, panicking about climate collapse, collecting and organising huge amounts of data on it, and then getting blasè about the upcoming genocide, is a very justifiable reaction. So while I’m no longer going to be linking that page on the BOE (as I haven’t got the mental engery to fact check the rest of the blog), I’m not holding it against the author (provided they’re not shilling disinformation propaganda that is).