V short thread on some of the criticism of #HothouseEarth and the media's reporting of it, which smacks of yet another double standard for climate reporting.
There's been some complaints that the caveats and context in stories like this one are not clear enough businessgreen.com/bg/news/303718…
I'm not sure that is justified. The 'coulds' are pretty clear, as are the fact it is not conclusive, it is a summation of existing work, and there are complex risks at play here.
If there were other reports that suggested 'hothouse earth' 'will' happen then that would be wrong and it would need correcting, but I haven't seen that reporting.
There's also been criticism that it is not new science, it is just a rebranding exercise. To which the only reply has to be 'so what'. If an important piece of information is not cutting through there is nothing wrong with rebranding it as long as underlying claims remain sound.
Some of those making this criticism would sell their grandmother to be able to rebrand their 'lukewarmer' theories this effectively.
Anyways, back to the general tenor of the reporting. There has been suggestions it is alarmist or doom-mongering'. Again, I think this misunderstands one of the media's key roles and applies a different standard to climate than other fields.
Much like the different standard of cause and effect that is applied for climate and no other field that I discussed here. businessgreen.com/bg/blog-post/3…
Here's the point. Highlighting low probability/high impact risks is something you *want* the media to do. It needs to be in context. It needs to be balanced. It needs to be factually correct, but you want those risks reported.
If a fault means there is a small but clear risk your tumble drier might catch fire, the story does not start '99 out of 100 tumble driers of this model will be fine' and then five paragraphs down explain 1% of them could burn your house down.
If a handful of MPs are rinsing expenses, the story is not about those who aren't. If an investigation reveals some corrupt police officer, the lede is not 'the risk of meeting a corrupt officer is very low'.
One of the jobs of the media is to avoid alarmism while raising the alarm about things that are alarming. That is a powerful and important democratic function. We don't always get the balance right, but you want a media that strives to highlight high impact/low probability risks.
And yet with climate if you do so you immediately get slammed for daring to 'overstate' the risks. Even when you include the caveats. Even when you make the uncertainties clear. The same standards do not seem to apply in other areas.
Scientists have been clear for a long time that there is a small but not insignificant risk of tipping points in global warming that could prove disastrous and irreversible. We know with fairly high degree of confidence they exist, we just can't be sure of the exact trigger point
If we pass those trigger points - and there are feasible reasons to think some of them could be quite close - the full results may take centuries to play out but #hothouseearth is likely an accurate description.
Given how resoundingly these low probability (but not that low) and high impact (potentially existentially high) risks are ignored by people in power there is nothing wrong with some scientists re-badging their messaging and the media reporting on it.
In fact, given what is at stake that is actually what you want from your media (as long as the caveats and context is included, which as far as I can see it was).
Cos this is what is at stake businessgreen.com/bg/blog-post/3…
Sorry, much longer thread than intended in the end.
One last point. We've been here before with some of the response to @dwallacewells brilliant piece on long tail climate risks last year. @drvox has chapter and verse on why attacking different ways of framing very real climate risks is so, ahem, galling. vox.com/energy-and-env…
