This article discusses our climate crisis, and why ‘doomism’ doesn’t help.
Our old friend Tom Toles captured the essence of a dilemma in the Washington Post a year ago, as seen here. It’s what Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State, calls “doomism.” Mann, a renowned climate expert, is concerned about overstated scenarios backed by inadequate and sometimes shoddy science. Such hype makes effective action to mitigate our mean warming climate less likely. Mann’s concerns were laid out well before a study was released a few weeks ago by an Australian think tank concluding humanity would likely face an existential crisis by the middle of this century. The study received wide circulation, and reads as an accelerated worst case scenario. Even I, the less scholarly Don Paul, touched on the overstatement concern a few months ago in the Buffalo News.
Here is a tidy summation from NASA of the basic evidence connecting human activity with the irrefutable mean global warming.