Don't overstate 1.5 degrees C threat, new IPCC head says – DW – 07/30/2023
www.dw.com
Jim Skea, the new head of the UN's IPCC climate panel, said it was not helpful to imply that temperature increases of 1.5 degrees Celsius posed an existential threat to humanity.

In short, we aren’t on track to an apocalyptic extinction, and the new head is concerned that rhetoric that we are is making people apathetic and paralyzes them from making beneficial actions.

He makes it clear too that this doesn’t mean things are perfectly fine. The world is becoming and will be more dangerous with respect to climate. We’re going to still have serious problems to deal with. The problems just aren’t insurmountable and extinction level.

  • drphungkyEnglish
    5•1 year ago

    I literally had a convo with two friends this weekend about how they won’t have kids because they think it’s irresponsible to raise them in a world “that might not exist when they’re adults”. The doomsaying and hyperbole is absolutely real.

    • @assassin_aragornOPEnglish
      7•1 year ago

      What worries me about that thinking is that historically children have been the big reason for people to care about the future and what they’ll leave behind.

      • ANGRY_MAPLEEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        Yes, but you can also still care about doing that without having children. I hope that this doesn’t follow those trends.

        People can also love nature, animals, history, the arts, and lots of other things. They might want other people to still be able to enjoy the things that they love in the future. I would still care regardless of if I have kids or not, personally.

        • @assassin_aragornOPEnglish
          1•1 year ago

          Of course, yeah. I’m just thinking of the average person.

    • mrnotoriousman
      3•1 year ago

      I personally don’t want kids, and while that may be a bit of hyperbole, kids being born now are going to be living in a vastly different world 35+ years from now. I think people denying the impacts and going “eh, we’ll figure it out” are worse than the doomers.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•1 year ago

      This isn’t uncommon now, and it’s sad. Social media algorithms pushing doom and gloom for clicks are scaring people out of living their lives.

      The whole thing feels very similar to how Fox News scares old people for viewers, except maybe less intentional.

      • Athena5898
        2•1 year ago

        as my friend says “Despair is a commodity, don’t buy into it”