Climate doomsday prognostication has gone so far over the top even the folks at CU Boulder are saying it’s time to tone down the end-of-world scenarios.
Chill out on climate change, say the science dudes in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
We should all be aware of the potential for global catastrophes, while at the same time realizing it’s not likely, they explained with a straight face.
Their letter is a response to a University of Cambridge study that argues more studies need to be conducted on how climate change will lead to the extinction of the human race.
The CU Boulder folks, including assistant professor Matt Burgess, preach that more moderate doomsday scenarios are more likely, so that should be the focus of future sturdies.
“We want to know what might happen in extreme scenarios, and physical climate cycle feedbacks might make warming worse than emissions would suggest. But for the emissions in that scenario to happen, all the regions in the world in 2100 would need to have over $100k GDP per capita, with no climate policy the whole century, all-in on coal, despite facing unlivable heat in tropical regions with the warming that scenario produces. That’s just not realistic.”
Researchers also note that “climate catastrophism” has a significant impact on the youth mental health crisis. Over 40 percent of young adults say they dwell on climate change issues, and it negatively affects their daily lives.
“We don’t want to ignore the possibility of catastrophic societal collapse or human extinction, but it shouldn’t be our main focus right now,” Burgess concludes.
We’re guessing further studies are needed on the studies to conduct more studies, to determine whether more studies are warranted.