Thread by @FlavioPons

[THREAD] #climatechange, #climateaction, #ethics in research and communication, #merchantsofdoubts.

Let’s start from the *very* beginning. In 1856 Eunice Foote published a paper titled “Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun's rays” (static1.squarespace.com/static/5a26141…)

showing the capability of CO2 to retain more heat than atmosphere and hydrogen if exposed to sunlight. Following this discovery, she theorized, first in history, that CO2-enriched atmosphere would be warmer: she was paving the road to the understanding of the Greenhouse Effect.

40 years later, Svante Arrhenius wrote another seminal paper, “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground” (rsc.org/images/Arrheni…), where he explicitly stated that burning fossil fuels could potentially lead

to an increase in the atmosphere average temperature. He proposed some estimates, even considering some feedback mechanisms.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive history of climate science, so let’s jump straight to 1963, when Edward Lorenz introduces the idea of “attractor”.

This concept is crucial not only in numerical meteorology, but also for the understanding of climate: the atmosphere is a chaotic, high-dimensional complex system, whose physical states orbits around a “basin of attraction”.

Today, it is not possible to think of climate dynamics without Today, it is not possible to think of climate dynamics without considering Lorenz’s finding; we also know that chaotic systems may have multiple basins of attraction

and external forcings can lead the system to abruptly jump from an attractive state to another. In the case of climate, glacial and inter-glacial states can be seen as different attraction basins, but this is not the end of the story: more “attractive” states may exist

such as a “hot house Earth”, poorly suitable for life.
Perturbing the composition of the atmosphere and its radiative properties may lead to an abrupt jump towards one of such unobserved states, with dramatic consequences (see, e.g., pnas.org/content/115/33…).

During the second half of the XX century, Arrhenius’ prediction starts to sound worrisome to climatologists, as atmospheric CO2 concentration keeps rising, pushed by industrial and other human processes: the theory of anthropogenic climate change is born.

Scientists understand that not only human-produced CO2 can increase the average temperature of the atmosphere; feedbacks and interactions with other elements of the Earth system can produce unpredictable changes, due to high physical complexity.

However, one thing is clear: a mitigation of CO2 emission is desirable, through a strong reduction in fossil fuels consumption.
In 1982 this is crystal clear, so much so that not only environmentalists, but even Exxon managers are made well aware of this

through the company’s internal research department (climatefiles.com/exxonmobil/198…).

Fast forward until today, we observe very concerning signs of possibly approaching tipping points, such as a disruption of the density-driven Atlantic current (AMOC) due to excessive ice melting (amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.thegua…).

And yet, after 40 years of warnings, climatologists wake up every day to articles written to mislead the general public.
An example, published yesterday by the Italian newspaper @ilfoglio_it, inspired the original version of this thread (

https://twitter.com/ilfoglio_it/status/1423161872908439554

).

Articles like this deny the well-understoon link between CO2 and global warming, downplay its complex and potentially disruptive effects, and shamelessly gaslight scientists.
It’s been quite a while since the time we could believe that these articles are dictated by ignorance.

Truth is, they are maliciously dictated by convenience, just like when Exxon managers buried the results of their internal report, at the expense of generations to come (i.e. ours). The same strategy was also shared by the tobacco industry

which was well aware of the health impact of cigarettes, and tried its very best to keep selling them (see the book “Merchants of Doubts” for a complete report).

Today, mass media publishing such contents are complacent to a political class that doesn’t want to take crucial decisions that would benefit humanity and the whole planet, and industrial lobbies that would lose their financial status following a decarbonization path.

Nevertheless, in the meanwhile younger generations are understanding. The #fridaysforfuture movement initiated by @GretaThunberg is a bright example of this, and of the anxiety felt by young (and not only) people facing governmental lack of concrete action.

Of course, also climatologists now understand more, thanks not only to better models and increased computational power, but also because we are starting to observe some of the predicted changes unfolding in front of our eyes. We know that we must expect more than “just” warming.

Climate dynamics is changing and will change more: some areas may experience paradoxical local cooling, precipitation may become more volatile and concentrated in intense episodes, feedbacks from the biosphere may lead to further, partially unpredictable changes.

Areas of the planet that are home of many millions of humans may become inhabitable before the end of the century; an ironic twist of fate, considering how political parties opposing climate action are usually also committed to fighting immigration.

In such a context, media diffusing misleading articles are not mere “merchants of doubts”; they are poisoning the wells. They mislead the general public, so that it becomes less accepting of measures to fight the problem, perpetuating government inaction.

This poisoning happens at all levels; however, while the consensus inside the scientific community is impressive, parts of the general public keep resisting hard.

Wells poisoners leverage on fear. Fear of losing existing welfare in favour of a future wellness, yet to be seen and therefore harder to grasp.

Yesterday, I tried to appeal to an eminent Italian scientist, also writing for @ilfoglio_it and an expert of science ethics and wells poisoning to speak out against the article. I was out of luck.

He did not like the tone of a response to my original tweet, and that was his excuse to withdraw from the discussion.

I think it was more about fear of indisposing someone, even though his income and his reputation do not certainly come from that newspaper.

This is not a time for fear. #climateaction requires clear and loud voices. If you have the privilege of being heard, please, speak out. If you can choose not to write for a newspaper or a journal that poisons the wells, please, refuse to do so! Do it for the future of humanity.

@stebaraz la versione in inglese! :)

@threadreaderapp please unroll!

@stebaraz Versione pdf: we.tl/t-GMLTxhfygt