Essay by Eric Worrall

“… Overstating the dangers can overshadow the significant progress being made and can undermine public trust in scientific discourse. …”

Most people fear climate change will end the world during their lifetime

By Sanjana Gajbhiye
Earth.com staff writer

A recent survey has unveiled a startling statistic: nearly half (48%) fear they will witness climate change wreak havoc on Earth within their lifetime. 

The survey, conducted by Talker Research, found Hawaiians to be the most anxious, with 61% expressing this belief. Vermont and New Mexico residents followed closely behind, with 59% and 56% respectively.

However, this widespread fear might be misplaced. “Belief in the urgent fight against climate change has shot far past the territory of science and become an ideology,” notes Cambridge professor Mike Hulme.

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Data scientist Hannah Ritchie of the University of Oxford offers a contrasting perspective. Once convinced of an impending climate disaster, she now believes that such extreme predictions can overshadow significant achievements. 

In her book, Ritchie highlights that emissions per person have plateaued since 2012, suggesting some stabilization. She also argues that the dreaded 2.7°F (1.5°C) warming threshold is not necessarily a catastrophic tipping point.

Ritchie’s views suggest that while climate change remains a serious issue, it’s essential to recognize progress and avoid undue pessimism. She calls for a balanced approach that acknowledges both the ongoing challenges and the advancements made.

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While acknowledging the potential impacts of climate change is crucial for raising awareness and driving policy changes, it’s equally important to avoid exaggeration. Overstating the dangers can overshadow the significant progress being made and can undermine public trust in scientific discourse.

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Read more: https://www.earth.com/news/most-people-fear-climate-change-will-end-the-world-during-their-lifetime/

This tightrope act, maintaining a pitch of anxiety which facilitates desired political outcomes, while trying but sometimes failing to steer followers away from total despair, this has real consequences.

In 2019, Dr. Alex Wodak, a renowned Aussie drug rehabilitation specialist, testified to a government commission that fear of climate change was a significant factor driving young people to become addicted to hard drugs.

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First, the threshold step is redefining drugs as primarily a health and social issue rather than primarily a law enforcement issue. Second, drug treatment has to be expanded and improved until it reaches the same level as other health services. Third, all penalties for personal drug use and possession have to be scrapped.

Fourth, as much of the drug market as possible has to be regulated while recognising that part of the drug market is already regulated, such a methadone treatment, needle and syringe programs, medically supervised injecting centres. It will, of course, never be possible to regulate the entire drug market. We have regulated parts of the drug market before. Edible opium was taxed and regulated in Australia until 1906 and in the United States Coca-Cola contained cocaine until 1903.

Fifth, efforts to reduce the demand for powerful psychoactive drugs in Australia have had limited benefit and require a new focus. Unless and until young Australians feel optimistic about their future, demand for drugs will remain strong. Young people, understandably, want more certainty about their future prospects, including climate, education, jobs and housing affordability. Change will be slow and incremental, like all social policy reform.

As Herb Stein, as adviser to President Nixon said:
Things that cannot go on forever don’t.

Drug prohibition cannot go on forever and will be replaced by libertarian paternalism. Thank you.

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Source: https://www.iceinquiry.nsw.gov.au//assets/scii/transcripts/Decriminalisation-round-table/Decriminalisation-Roundtable-Transcript.pdf (EW 6/8/23 – available on Wayback Machine)

Next time you look at the horror show Fentanyl death statistics in Western nations, ask yourself how many of those people got their start in addiction because most of the authority figures in their lives told them that climate change would destroy the world – except for those authority figures who told them there was room for a little optimism, providing we all support green policies.

News Brief by Kip Hansen — 24 May 2024

There has been a lot of silly nonsense in the mass media about Early Springs.  Concerns that the season, Spring, has been coming days or even, in some cases. weeks earlier than “it did before”.   Worries have been expressed that the timing of natural events, such as bird migrations and the emergence of their food species will become out of synchronization —  migrating birds may arrive before their favorite bugs are available to eat in the North – or before the nectar flowers hummingbirds need for  nourishment bloom. 

Almost every mass media outlet has banged on about how earlier Spring has lengthened the allergy season – and, that is correct:  trees, grasses, weeds, flowers all bloom and spread pollen in accordance with the seasons.   Naturally, if Spring temperatures come a week earlier than the oft-touted “long term average”, then plants will act accordingly, and off they go.

This image is from the ever-alarmist Climate Central for the year 2020. Of course, keeping in line with the editorial narratives of Climate Alarmism, the Media seldom, if ever, mention the positive side of Early Spring.  Early Springs and later Falls mean a longer growing seasons and that means more food.  In many cases, agriculturalists (farmers, ranchers, orchardists, truck farmers) are able to get two crops out of a single field in the same year.  Dairy farmers in my area, most of whom grow their own feed, are getting an extra cutting of hay.   In double-cropping systems, an extra three or four weeks in the growing season can make a huge difference.

Journalists for national and international newspapers and broadcast news are, in a general sense, “city people”.  They don’t live on the land and are easily led astray about things in the natural world.  Even if they are outdoor hobbyists or enthusiasts, they just don’t get it.  The natural world has its own timing, its own cycles, and its own methods of keeping itself going.  If not, we wouldn’t be here.  

PHENOLOGY — which is the “the study of the timing and cyclical patterns of events in the natural world, particularly those related to the annual life cycles of plants, animals, and other living things” — can enlighten us to the true situation.  We’re in luck, in the United States, we have the marvelous USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) [which has supplied out news for the day], whose staff members are employees of the University of Arizona, and is sponsored by the University of Arizona, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (both of which are sections of the U.S. Department of the Interior), the National Science Foundation (an independent U.S. Federal agency),  the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

And the incredible iconic Saguaro Cactus?  It is in bloom!

Finally…Spring has come to Arizona, finally. 

This is the “Spring Leaf Index Anomaly” – it shows an index of the timing of Spring Leaf Out as a proxy for Arrival of Spring.  How many days “earlier” than the long-term average or how many days “later” than the long-term average. 

It is quite interesting.  The three neutral colors (very pale beige, white, and very pale blue) show where Spring has arrived well within the average expected timing.  The deep reddish/brownish, though quite dark, represents where Spring arrived 10-14-21 days sooner than average, and the blues mean that Spring was late.

Florida, southern Texas, coastal Gulf states and the majority of the Intermountain West  have had a later than usual Spring this year. 

The general public has been repeatedly informed in the press that the waters of the Gulf of Mexico are warmer than usual – much warmer, so they say.

I would have thought that all that hot water would have forced an Early Spring on the Gulf Coast – but, apparently Nature didn’t agree. 

The Saguaro Cactus know when Spring has arrived but not by looking at the calendar:

Arizona’s saguaro cactus bloom is running four weeks late this year.

Just to make comparison easy, I put 2024 side-by-side with 2020:

In 2020, the pattern was almost a mirror image of 2024.  Only the mid-Atlantic states are early in both years.

Bottom Line:

In a world that has slightly warmed, coming up out of the Little Ice Age (finally), Spring comes when it will, different every year.

It would be no surprise, at least in North America, if in general, Spring is arriving a few days earlier as the North American climate gently warms a bit:

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Author’s Comment:

The fears that somehow Nature will get out of sync with itself are a dystopian fantasy.   It is surely possible that some individual anomalously-timed season in some region or locality could take place and play havoc, temporarily, with some of the plants and animals.   Looking at the long-term climate records, for what they are worth, reveals that there have been periods of rapidly changing temperatures, and certainly rapidly changing precipitation regimes, at various times and places which must have changed things up for the living inhabitants.  That, my friends, as they say, is life.

Much of the beauty of the world comes from the changes we can see in the passing of the seasons, particularly, but not limited to, areas that have a full four-season cycle, such as I have in the Central Hudson Valley of New York State.   I really missed the seasons during the decades I spent in the tropics.

Thanks for reading.

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