The Cult of Climastrology reminds me of the whole Mayan apocalypse freakout, or Y2K, where we were constantly told of Doom, doom that never materialized. But, some people sure had a fun time predicting doom and making money off of it
Stop telling the public we’re not doomed, says climate change scientist
We all know that the global climate is changing, raising the terrifying prospect of floods, famines and migration crises galore. The latest installment of depressing news is the delightful prediction that dozens of American cities are at risk of drowning before the century is out, turning places like New Orleans and Miami into the lost kingdom of Atlantis.
This is pretty extreme stuff – so everyone is probably just exaggerating, right? Isn’t it time for the scientific community to change the bloody record?
Ha, ha, no. In fact, a paper published this week inNature Geoscience actually says we’re not being hysterical enough. In fact, it warns climate scientists to avoid sugar-coating the scale of the catastrophe that climate change poses.
The author, Professor Kevin Anderson of Manchester University, says scientists shouldn’t shape their findings optimistically, “however politically uncomfortable the conclusions”. If anything, he argues, researchers are censoring themselves, worrying too much about the opinions of others or whether they’ll be liked or not after publishing their studies.
They just need to keep ramping up the scary fables.
