Bill McKibben: This is how the earth works now

[GliderGuider]

49. They will always find outliers to bolster their case.

That shouldn't be any reason to expect those who think the more pessimistic forecasts are still too timid to keep their tongues in their pockets. James Hansen springs to mind here.

Frankly, the people who take the greenhouse meme to the Venusian extreme are not under our control. But, the expression of those possibilities should never be forbidden. I regret far more the people who try to keep us from exploring the outer corners of the envelope, than I do those few who sometimes go over the top.

In fact, I'll gladly make the case that a certain amount of "Chicken Littleism" is essential if we are going to generate the emotion required drive urgent change. The cool, rational presentations of the skepticalscience crowd - or those of actual working scientists - simply do not create the sense of urgency that I think we all agree is warranted. It's because of that "hyperbolic discount function" we have wired into our brains when it comes to risk perception and threat response. I address this in a number of my articles. Only emotion generates urgency, and the more emotion the greater the urgency.

I agree that collapsing into paralytic despair isn't helpful - I tried it, and it doesn't work - but if we are to generate any movement it's essential that people understand the realities of the situation. And those realities are dire to the point of catastrophe right now.

Unfortunately, most people are incredibly resistant to the idea that something as big as our global industrial civilization might be at risk. Given how far gone the situation really is, and how desperately people don't want to hear that uncomfortable truth, I consider the act of walking away from "environmentalism" - the conscious refusal to clap for Tinkerbell and go do something else instead - to be worthy of great praise. And if people scream from the rooftops their reasons for doing so, I say more power to them.