Against climate doomerism
By Ilan Kelman, from the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, UCL Institute for Global Health.
We hear so much about climate change doom. It will kill us all. Humanity will go extinct. It is too late for hope. No wonder eco-anxiety, climate grief, and solastalgia (the technical term for environmental distress) are prevalent.
How much of this doomerism (or doomism — we have plenty words to describe negativity) is legitimate? Should we give up trying to solve the problems, instead enjoying life in hedonistic overindulgence? Or might some faint glimmerings shine through the global darkness?
Zero doubt exists that human activity is changing the climate rapidly and substantively. Without action, dire consequences are certain. Climate change’s impacts are visible now.
Nevertheless, plenty of positive news is around, namely in actions available. I propose a three-point plan to be accurate and balanced in overcoming catastrophist storylines promoted for climate change:
1. Highlight science.
2. Avoid distracting rhetoric.
3. Act to inspire, inspire for action.
1. Highlight science
Climate science shows that much, although not all, of climate doomerism is not scientifically supportable. So far, no viable scenario of human-caused climate change leads to human extinction. Some realistic scenarios have high mortality and sweeping disruption, which no one wants. They still leave plenty of people to continue humanity.
Disasters are not caused by environmental events such as hurricanes, blizzards, tornadoes, landslides, and floods. Instead, they are caused by people lacking power, choices, and resources to live in safe places, to pursue livelihoods providing needed resources, and to access health, education, and other basic services. This is why we at the IRDR avoid the phrase ‘natural disaster’, because disasters are not natural, being created instead by society.
Climate change is significantly altering weather. Stronger hurricanes or more frequent floods do not need to mean disasters. We could avoid harm if those with knowledge, power, and money would choose to help others. Even droughts typically emerge more from water (over)use and (mis)management than from precipitation or snowmelt variations.
One frighteningly lethal exception, that we see now, is heatwaves. Climate change is pushing heat-humidity combinations into realms where human survival is threatened in some locations. People will either have high death rates or feel forced to leave. Where these areas are agricultural, worldwide food supplies could have problems.
We have recently seen heat-related disasters substantially exacerbated by climate change in Europe and South Asia. They can only get worse.
Meanwhile, warmongers do not look at the thermometer to determine whether or not to pursue violent conflict. Decisions on peace, diplomacy, war, conflict, and cooperation are made by people for political reasons. Sometimes, they use disasters and environmental phenomena as excuses to follow their pre-determined political pathway. We also see hazards impeding, even destroying, armies. We have not evidenced climate conflicts or water wars without deeper, wider, and longer-term contexts.
2. Avoid distracting rhetoric
Dramatic phrases such as ‘climate breakdown’, ‘climate collapse’, ‘climate disruption’, and ‘climate chaos’ do not make scientific sense. As a statistical calculation, climate cannot be broken or non-functional, so it cannot break down, collapse, or be disrupted per se. It has always exhibited properties of mathematical chaos, meaning that climate chaos is the norm, not a new, strange, or worrisome observation.
Yet human activities are affecting weather statistics. Tropical cyclones are becoming less frequent and more intense. Fire weather is increasingly dangerous. Are we into a climate crisis and climate emergency?
Human-caused climate change is fundamentally due to human over-consumption. It comes from our values, attitudes, behaviour, and actions. If we stopped human-caused climate change immediately, then the same values, attitudes, behaviour, and actions would continue numerous other societal ills, from human trafficking and slavery to overfishing and deforestation. Human-caused climate change is one awful symptom among many, not a specific cause, of the widespread inequity crisis and exploitation emergency.
Rather than focusing on climate, let’s highlight the origins. Do these ongoing, dangerous people emergencies and societal crises suffice for doom-and-gloom-ism?
3. Act to inspire, inspire for action
Without denying the immense challenges hurting us, we can proffer a plethora of eco-hope and eco-inspiration. For starters, no new money is required to implement successful solutions. While it is discouraging how many trillions of pounds are spent each year on killing people through fossil fuel subsidies and weapons, transferring this money to helping people offers a pathway forward without extra costs.
Huge strides have been made in removing investments from fossil fuel companies, with a long way yet to go. Design professionals prove how our homes, communities, and infrastructure can use less material, energy, and water with improved functionality. Again, though, increasing heat-humidity tests the limits of these achievements. Recycling as an option remains far less preferable than rethinking, reducing, reusing, and repurposing.
Not all approaches work everywhere. We must overcome rampant discrimination, oppression, and marginalisation. Ethical population stabilisation with reduced consumption per person persists as a baseline goal. Doing all this is part of averting human-caused climate change, whereas averting human-caused climate change might not resolve all these other concerns.
As we know what to do, how to do it, where the resources would come from, and how we should begin, we have no reason for climate doomerism. Now is the time for action to move this conversation from theory to reality.
