by Judith Curry
. . . according to the cover of the April 26 issue of Time magazine. How do we fool ourselves into thinking that man-made climate change is the main cause of social problems?
Some excerpts from Time magazine article:
From his perch in the West Wing, McCarthy has been tasked by Biden with overseeing a dramatic change in the way the United States pursues action on climate change. Rather than turning to a handful of environmental-focused agencies to make climate policy, McCarthy and her office are working to incorporate climate considerations into everything the Administration does. The task force she runs includes everyone from the Secretary of Defense, who is assessing the climate threat to national security, to the Secretary of the Treasury, who is working to contain the risk. risks that climate change poses to the financial system.
For decades, the idea that climate change affects everything has grown behind the scenes. Leaders from small island nations have begged the rest of the world to pay attention to how climate change is already starting to impact their lives, in areas ranging from healthcare to schools. Social scientists have gathered data that sheds light on how climate change will pervade society, contributing to increased migration, reducing productivity and increasing crime. And advocates and thinkers have proposed everything from a conscious move toward economic development to eco-capitalism to making climate the driving force of government.
Now, fueled by alarming science, growing public outrage and a deadly pandemic, government officials, corporate bosses and civil society leaders are finally Finally woke up with a simple idea it’s time: climate is everything. Beyond this recognition, the EU has allocated hundreds of billions of euros to put climate at the heart of its economic plans, seemingly unrelated activist groups have made environmental goals, and Investors have flooded the companies driving the energy transition with trillions of dollars. “The world is passing the long-awaited political phase climate tipping point right now,” said Al Gore, the former Vice President of the United States who won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his climate activism. “We are witnessing the beginning of a new era.”
The process of climax – the process by which climate change will transform society – will take place in the coming years in every corner of society. Whether it leads to a more resilient world or exacerbates the worst elements of our society depends on whether we adjust or just stumble. “We are at a point where climate change means changing systems – and almost every system,” said Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a longtime climate leader. Will change. “That understanding is long overdue, but I don’t think we know exactly what it means yet. It was a moment of utmost hope; It was also a time of great risk. “
How climate became ‘everything’
Climate change has been the norm throughout Earth’s 4.6 billion year history. Earth’s temperature and weather patterns vary naturally on time scales from tens of years to millions of years. Natural variations in climate originate in two ways. Internal climate fluctuations exchange energy, water and carbon between the atmosphere, oceans, land and ice, altering the surface climate. External influences on the climate system include variations in the energy received from the sun and the effects of volcanic eruptions. Human activities also affect the climate by changing the concentration of CO in the atmosphere2 and other greenhouse gases, alter the concentrations of aerosol particles in the atmosphere, and through land use and land cover changes.
Over the past few decades, the definition of ‘climate change’ has shifted away from the broader geological interpretation. Article 1 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defines ‘climate change’ as:
“Climate change is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that changes the composition of the global atmosphere and complements the natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. ”
Therefore, the UNFCCC distinguishes between climate change due to human activities that change the composition of the atmosphere, compared to climate change due to natural causes. The redefinition of ‘climate change’ to refer to anthropogenic climate change has effectively removed natural climate change from the public discussion of climate change. Any change observed over the past century, on any time scale, is implicitly assumed to be man-made. This assumption leads to connecting any unusual weather or climate events with anthropogenic climate change from fossil fuel emissions.
The UNFCCC definition of ‘climate change’ creates two logical fallacies. The fallacy of single cause occurs when it is assumed that there is a simple cause of an effect, when in fact it may be caused by several sufficiently general causes. Climate variability and variability is influenced by both natural climate processes and human activities. ONE tinkling sophism based on the assumption that two things called by the same name have the same structure. ‘Climate change’ as defined by the UNFCCC is a much narrower construct than climate change in the geological sense. The use of the term turns out to be a minor mistake when one infers that all climate change – recent and future – is man-made.
The widespread fallacy surrounding the UNFCC’s definition of climate change leads to a frame prejudice. The framework is like the organizing principles that shape the way people conceptualize an issue. The framework can guide how the problem should be raised, what should be excluded from consideration, what questions are relevant, and which answers might be appropriate. Framing occurs when a narrow approach is used that leads to a conclusion to a much more complex problem. The constriction of climate change as anthropogenic global warming has limited natural climate variability. This narrow framework also governs our understanding of human and society’s relationship to climate. An assumption is made that future climate change is controlled by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The regional causes of climate change, their impacts and their local solutions are marginalized by the assumption that the causes of climate change and its solutions are irrefutable global arguable.
The term ‘climate change’ refers not only to the science of man-made global warming, but also to society’s entire worldview. Hulme (2010) identifies the fallacy of climate mitigation, a form of analysis and prediction in which the interdependence that shapes human life in the physical world is correlated with climate change. Man-made climate change was then elevated to the role of the main predictor of social change. Many possibilities of the future are effectively closed when climate predictions confirm their effects on food production, health, tourism and recreation, human migration, conflict. violence, etc. Other environmental, economic and social factors influencing these social issues are marginalized.
One waterfall available is a self-reinforcing process of collective belief formation that causes a self-perpetuating chain reaction: the more attention a danger gets, the more people worry, leading to more coverage and more alarm. than. Because the slow rise in temperature does not seem alarming, ‘businessmen willing’ push extreme weather phenomena, public health problems, human migration etc due to global warming man-made – more of which will be in store if we don’t act quickly to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
The ever-expanding story of climate change involves a range of social values into the proposed solutions. The dynamics of the climate change narrative leading to claims that there is a solution to many other social problems in the causes of climate change – one example is social justice in the context of the Green New Deal of the United States. This link works to energize both causes and push the climate change narrative to blame or attack those who oppose separate causes.
As a result, climate change has become a big story, in which anthropogenic climate change has become the main cause of social problems. Everything that went wrong after that reinforced the belief that there’s only one thing we can do to stop social problems – stop burning fossil fuels. This big story makes us think that if we solve the problem of human-caused climate change, other problems will also be solved. This belief leads us away from further investigation into the real causes of these problems. The end result is a narrowing of perspectives and policy options that we are willing to consider in dealing with complex issues such as public health, weather disasters, and national security.
And so, climate becomes everything.
