I don't think this problem is limited to climate change - miserablism handicaps all sorts of progressive campaigns. Telling people everything is awful and going to get worse is a great way to motivate your core activists, but a terrible way to motivate anyone else.
https://twitter.com/StuartJRitchie/status/1455447529060016128
I have noticed this time and again on imm and race, two areas I research. Any time I post some of the wide range of evidence showing that racial prejudice is in steady, LT decline, or that immigration attitudes are improving, my replies fill up with progressive miserabilists.
It is a curious mentality I still rather struggle to understand (being by nature a cautious optimist). I think part of it is an Eeyorish wallowing in the awfulness of things, but a bigger part is status signalling - "I am smart &virtuous because I recognise the horror of it all."
It is weirdly at odds with the common stereotype about the right being political pessimists (stick with what we know, change can only be for the worse) and the left being political optimists (we can make the world anew! we can make it better!)
On a related point, I would love to read more on the history of political/social movements focussed on mobilising/reinforcing such "we're all doomed" type thinking - anyone have any suggestions?
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