Thread by @chrislhayes

As intense and at times terrifying as this discussion is, it's really hit a nerve and I've been enjoying reading people's feedback on it.

One key point that comes through in the convo that I wanted to hammer on a bit.

nbcnews.com/think/opinion/…

I think there's a very strong temptation to succumb to despair when you think seriously about the climate crisis. I feel that tug myself, and part of the way it manifests is the sentence "We're screwed!"

And what @dwallacewells does a really great job of showing is that "screwed" just doesn't capture the immense range of possibilities before us. And because it's not binary, it's not just "screwed" or "not scewed," we simply CANNOT shrug our shoulders.

It is true that we *already* have a put a lot of warming into the system, with more to come. But there's an enormous difference between 2 degrees and 3 degrees, or 4 or even 8 (!)

Each additional fraction of a degree means more suffering and misery and disruption and we, as a human race, have to find some way to come together to avoid the most catastrophic outcomes, even though we're already going to get some truly awful ones.

Maybe that sounds more despair-inducing, but to me it reasserts our own agency in all of this. There is no "screwed" out there in the universe, like a meteor headed to earth. It's us, and we have the power to save ourselves from the very worst futures that are heading towards us