Roger Hallam, cofounder of @ExtinctionR, says "The fact of the matter is we're facing mass starvation in the next ten years, social collapse, and the possible extinction of the human race. It couldn't be worse." Know that this is NOT what the science says.
Know too that it is perfectly logical - rational even - to be very concerned about climate change, to work on mitigation, adaptation, biodiversity, social justice, etc, but to refuse to endorse the non-scientific scaremongering, illegal tactics and political aims of @ExtinctionR.
Also: it's entirely appropriate - vital, in fact - to teach kids about climate change, even if it's scary (which it is). But lying about climate science to frighten kids, and then using them as a tool for political reasons by encouraging them to break the law - that's despicable.
Finally, to those who think that naked fear is the only thing that motivates action, you're wrong, you need to lay out a positive vision; and to those that think you need to break a few factual eggs to make an omlette, you are wrong too, and slowing action, not accelerating it.
BTW, have a very different take on @Fridays4future and the school strikers. They - and @GretaThunberg are (usually) pretty careful to stick to peer-reviewed science. In fact that's their whole thing. I hope they realise the importance of distancing themselves from @ExtinctionR.
To those who say we should still target decarbonization by 2025, even if that's not what the peer-reviewed science says, please bear in mind what happens when political zealotry meets food sytems: China's Great Leap Forward (18-56m deaths); Ukraine's Holodomor (3-12m deaths).
Our food system is entirely dependent on oil and gas for transport and fertiliser. Shut those down and billions of people stream out of cities and ravage the countryside (without any thought for biodiversity). Countless numbers would die. Can we transition? Yes, but over decades.
BTW this is all just another iteration of the age-old Karl Popper / Herbert Mancuse "Revolution or Reform" debate from the 1960s. I say reform the current system to respect planetary boundaries, @ExtinctionR says we need to break the system and build anew.
scribd.com/doc/211487130/…
scribd.com/doc/211487130/…
It may have been possible to argue for "Revolution" in the 1960s - by pretending not to know about Stalinism, Great Leap Forward, etc - but by now it should be obvious that "Reform" has delivered extraordinary results while "Revolution" has almost universally delivered misery.
Finally, this NOT to say that we are on track to solve climate change, or that unregulated markets will avoid planetary boundaries. What I do say is that if we break the system we have for developing and deploying innovations, rather than redirecting it, things will be far worse.
So how do we redirect our regulated market economy, so that it continues to deliver extraordinary advances in human wellbeing that have characterised the recent past, while remaining within our planetary boundaries? Here is an important earlier thread:
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1028944…
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1028944…
Coda: I have nothing against protests and civil disobedience per se. But it has to be rationally informed and based on a programme that is objectively better than that which it seeks to replace. So #schoolstrike4climate & @Fridays4future pass the test, but @XRebellionUK does not.
Postscript before posting me climate scare stories: 1) You don't get to demand that the other side sticks to peer-reviewed science, but then go freestyle 2) If your story is based on RCP8.5, know that energy experts do not consider it a plausible scenario.
While we're at it, let's get real: even by being pointlessly arrested, Broccoliman here is never going to persuade the average Brit to take dramatic climate action - the exact opposite in fact.
