Some useful pushback to my worst-case climate story. Wallace-Wells responded to the criticism with this tweet: “ If there is no hope, there will be no action, and goodness knows we need a lot more action to reign in greenhouse gas emissions right now.” “M y own experience in speaking to public audiences is that doomsday stories such as this article are so depressing that people shut down and stop listening,” Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers, wrote in an email to me.
Wallace-Wells then described many of the scientists he interviewed as “improbably” optimistic, adding that “climate scientists have a strange kind of faith: We will find a way to forestall radical warming, they say, because we must.”Ĭritics say such doom-and-gloom is unpersuasive and discouraging. After spending 6,000 words on the worst-case scenario, Wallace-Wells devoted fewer than 1,000 words to possible solutions-and yet, gave credence to geoengineering, the controversial and highly unlikely idea that we deliberately manipulate the atmosphere by dumping sulfur dioxide into the the lower stratosphere to block sunlight. The more common critique is that Wallace-Wells engaged in some hyperbole to describe what might happen, and then didn’t present enough solutions or optimism to counter it.
But there is also a danger in overstating the science in a way that presents the problem as unsolvable, and feeds a sense of doom, inevitability and hopelessness.” In a Medium post, Daniel Aldana Cohen, an assistant sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania who works on climate politics, called the piece “climate disaster porn.” “ It is important to be up front about the risks of unmitigated climate change, and I frequently criticize those who understate the risks. “ I am not a fan of this sort of doomist framing,” Michael Mann, a climate scientist who often warns of the potentially devastating impacts of global warming, wrote in a lengthy Facebook post. The article has generated significant controversy, and not just from the usual denier crowd. “ N o matter how well-informed you are, you are surely not alarmed enough.” “ It is, I promise, worse than you think,” he declares. Thicker, hotter air could bring a “ rolling death smog that suffocates millions.” Drought, heat, and crop failure in conflict-ridden zones could create “perpetual war” and violent death. If humanity does nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Wallace-Wells writes, prehistoric ice could unleash million-year-old bacteria, sparking devastating disease outbreaks. Over 7,000 words, reporter David Wallace-Wells lays out global warming’s worst-case scenario in excruciating and apocalyptic detail. New York magazine’s latest opus on climate change, “ The Uninhabitable Earth ,” is a horror story.
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