Thread by @DoctorVive

Took a moment to read this @NatureClimate comment, and I must say I am truly shocked by its fundamental misreading of the statement it purports to critique, not to mention its assuming important claims for which it provides no evidence.

[Thread]

https://twitter.com/Oliver_Geden/status/1153322459166326786

@NatureClimate First of all, the comment claims that the @IPCC_CH projection of a temperature rise of 1.5 C by 2030 lead to "political" claims that we have 12 years to avoid dangerous climate change.

This is a blatant misreading of the @guardianeco article linked to support this claim.

2/n

@NatureClimate @IPCC_CH @guardianeco Granted, the prose in the 1st paragraph of the Guardian article is kind of garbled, in part because the article as a whole talks about mitigation deadlines and the differences between 1.5 and 2 C in one jumble, BUT...

3/n

@NatureClimate @IPCC_CH @guardianeco a minimally conscientious reading shows that the 12 years target is an interpretation of the amount that emissions must decline by 2030 to have a greater than 50% to keep temperatures at the more desirable 1.5C.

4/n

@NatureClimate @IPCC_CH @guardianeco And then this claim--that the 12 years claim is "usually" seen by scientists as "misleading" but they have "so far kept silent" about it, seemingly endorsing it -- is a half-truth easily disproved by a cursory google.

5/n

@NatureClimate @IPCC_CH @guardianeco Here's an interview with @DrKateMarvel and @KHayhoe who state explicitly that the claim is misleading -- but not because it's too alarmist, but because, as Dr Marvel says "We don't have 12 years to prevent climate change — we have no time."

6/n

axios.com/climate-change…

@NatureClimate @IPCC_CH @guardianeco @DrKateMarvel @KHayhoe And then this statement that activists and politicians who talk about the 12 years deadline are engaging in a "(mis)use" of science. Why the fancy parenthesis, authors? Are you uncomfortable setting yourselves up as the spokesmen for science? Well, you should be.

7/n

@NatureClimate @IPCC_CH @guardianeco @DrKateMarvel @KHayhoe People have the right to interpret & speak about science in moral ways and for moral reasons. It is a fact that we have 12 years to draw down emissions to some level to have some change at holding warming below 2C, thereby saving more lives. We have a right to say that.

8/n

@NatureClimate @IPCC_CH @guardianeco @DrKateMarvel @KHayhoe There are certainly critiques to be mounted about the "12 years until the end of the world" trope (which is not supported by any IPCC report, of course), but your comment is not one of those.

9/n

@NatureClimate @IPCC_CH @guardianeco @DrKateMarvel @KHayhoe Your comment is a political polemic that attempts to attenuate the power of climate campaigning. And its argument rests on misinterpretation of the rhetoric at issue and misrepresentation of the discursive field.

/fin