Today @WilliamJRipple et al released the 2023 report on the terrifying state of our #climate.
It should be read by every policymaker, decisionmaker, and journalist on the planet.
Here is a thread of some key takeaways.
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"Unfortunately, time is up."
"The rapid pace of change has surprised scientists and caused concern about the dangers of extreme weather, risky climate feedback loops, and the approach of damaging tipping points sooner than expected."
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[for the visual thinkers among us]
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"It appears the green recovery following COVID-19 that many had hoped for has largely failed to materialize. Instead, carbon emissions have continued soaring, and fossil fuels remain dominant, with annual coal consumption reaching a near all-time high."
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"By [2100], an estimated 3 to 6 billion individuals—approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of the global population—might find themselves confined beyond the livable region, encountering severe heat, limited food availability, & elevated mortality rates because of...climate change"
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"We ... need to change our economy to a system that supports meeting basic needs for all people instead of excessive consumption by the wealthy."
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"Negative emissions technologies are in an early stage of development, posing uncertainties regarding their effectiveness, scalability, and environmental and societal impacts ... [Thus] we should not rely on unproven carbon removal techniques."
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"We call for an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report that focuses on the perilous climate feedback loops, tipping points, and—just as a precaution—the possible but less likely scenario of runaway or apocalyptic climate change."
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"As scientists, we are increasingly being asked to tell the public the truth ... in simple and direct terms. The truth is that we are shocked by the ferocity of the extreme weather events in 2023. We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered."
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"This is our moment to make a profound difference for all life on Earth, and we must embrace it with unwavering courage and determination to create a legacy of change that will stand the test of time."
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Here is a link to the report. Please read it. If you're a journalist, please cover it. Thank you!
Last month I spoke to @350NYC about William Nordhaus and economics of decarbonization, using material from *The Language of Climate Politics*.
TL/DR: all too much discourse about the “cost” of climate policy is bullshit.
🧵
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A prime piece of fossil-fuel propaganda is that resolving the climate crisis will “cost” Americans too much.
But the truth is rather the opposite: NOT halting global heating will, within decades, cost Americans way more than creating a net zero economy.
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In fact, phasing out fossil fuels and creating a net zero, ecologically integrated economy will make 90% of people on this planet, including most Americans, way better off than they are now.
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In all the drama over Biden, & all the mockery of Trump's unhinged (yet super-boring) convention speech, I haven't seen much attention to the language of climate politics during the Republican Convention.
But the GOP did unveil new climate propaganda, so let's take a look!
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First of all, both Vance and Trump introduced a new term, replacing "hoax," that suggests climate change isn't real.
That term is "Green New Scam."
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The word "scam" will of course be familiar to anyone who follows climate news on X and is thereby exposed to the MAGA tolls using the "ClimateScam" hashtag.
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Of course Vance went on to blame Democrats and immigrants for working-class Americans' suffering, which is of course absurd (but not *totally* absurd, given that even Dems were embracing neoliberal economic theory, if tempered by some Great Society policies like Obamacare).
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Yes, this is just the rhetoric of populism, which exemplifies Adorno's dictum about ideology ("an imaginary relationship to one's real conditions of existence"), because obviously Trump and the GOP are on the economic side of the rich and the rich only.
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Next month, @OUPAcademic will publish my big climate book, THE LANGUAGE OF CLIMATE POLITICS.
The book dismantles the core propaganda of the fossil-fuel era, and it offers readers powerful new ways to talk about the #ClimateCrisis that will help create transformative change.
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Focus-group polling has found that the messages I develop in the book increase support for phasing out fossil fuels among Democrats AND Republicans alarmed and concerned about the climate crisis by up to 10 points.
That’s a big shift.
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(Here’s the whole report on the polling if you’re curious.)