matthew lau: stop scaring children about the climate!
we need balance in the climate discussion, instead of exaggerated predictions of death and destruction
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“ecological grief” and “ecological anxiety” are phrases i heard for the first time recently while watching a webinar put on by the walrus on the subject of “youth and the climate crisis.” the webinar, which began with a lengthy indigenous land acknowledgement bordering on the extravagant, featured four panelists. three were actual youth, so i hold them to no account for their views. the other panelist, not a youth, was the dean of the school of arctic and subarctic studies at memorial university’s labrador campus. according to her, ecological grief and anxiety are natural, reasonable, and rational responses to climate change. in fact, she says we should probably have more grief and anxiety given the severity of the crisis, and that these emotions can be supported by, among other things, going to therapy.
i read the walrus regularly for its interesting, well-articulated essays, even if most are completely wrong whenever economics and public policy are involved. i’m happy to report that the climate webinar follows this same pattern of error and that youth or anybody else sending themselves to therapy in support of their ecological grief can therefore stop doing so in the calming knowledge that, in fact, there is no climate crisis. predictions of fast-approaching catastrophe do pervade much of the media and school system, which explains why some youth may be inordinately distressed over the climate, but such predictions are not supported by the preponderance of scientific research.
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children and youth suffering grief and anxiety as a result of climate alarm is not unique to canada, unfortunately. authors of a lancet study published in december 2021 surveyed 10,000 people aged 16-25 years in 10 countries (australia, brazil, finland, france, india, nigeria, philippines, portugal, the u.k., and the u.s.a., with 1,000 participants per country). the majority of those surveyed believed that: people have failed to take care of the planet (83 per cent), the future is frightening (75 per cent), humanity is doomed (56 per cent), the things they value most will be destroyed (55 per cent), and their family’s security will be threatened (52 per cent). quite depressing, if you think about it.
juxtapose the climate fear and horror among children and youth with the likely actual effects of climate change. as bjorn lomborg summarizes in a july 2020 journal article: “climate change is real and its impacts are mostly negative, but common portrayals of devastation are unfounded. scenarios set out under the un climate panel (ipcc) show human welfare will likely increase to 450 per cent of today’s welfare over the 21st century. climate damages will reduce this welfare increase to 434 per cent.” so instead of humanity being 4.5 times as well off as today by the end of the century, we will only be 4.34 times as well off. that is still a huge social improvement and will be even if the 434 per cent were to end up being only 200 or 300 per cent.
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lomborg continues: “arguments for devastation typically claim that extreme weather (like droughts, floods, wildfires, and hurricanes) is already worsening because of climate change. this is mostly misleading and inconsistent with the ipcc literature.” not that the ipcc is exactly a neutral body of scientific inquiry. the late professor stephen schneider, a scientist involved with the ipcc since it was established in 1988 and a contributor to the first four ipcc assessment reports, infamously recommended in 1989 that to “capture the public’s imagination” scientists need to get “loads of media coverage. so we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”
more than three decades on, the ipcc continues to publish political documents offering scary scenarios. roger pielke, jr., of the university of colorado notes that in the ipcc’s working group 2 (wg2) report, released last month, the “rcp8.5 scenario” — an extreme scenario “widely understood to be implausible” — is “infused throughout.” in fact, pielke reports, rcp8.5 is more prevalent in this ipcc report than in previous ones and “dominates the wg2 report’s outlook on the future.” in his takedown of the report, pielke documents other embellishments of climate damages, including wg2’s claim of flood risks that inaccurately represent the literature cited to justify the claim. he concludes that the ipcc has gone “all in with implausible scenarios and political exhortation.”
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implausible, extreme scenarios, repeated throughout the report, and then reported in the media and taught in classrooms. no wonder the children are frightened! there is no need to send them to therapy though. instead, we just need a little balance in the climate discussion, instead of exaggerated predictions of death and destruction.
matthew lau is a toronto writer.
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