Mann actively tried…sorry, still tries to shift blame for not doing anything on so many of these “alarmists” who are waving their arms pointing at the problems getting worse (yet agrees that the facts are alarming - which is it Michael?) I note that the author uses the term “alarmists”, almost lock in step with how “doomer” is used as a negative. Jesus, the house is on fire, AND we’re trapped in the house, and everyone is asking what’s for lunch. Yes, I’m alarmed and shouting! I guess at least the alarmist name doesn’t imply pacifism or apathy, it “only” paints the guy screaming things are worse and we’re still not doing much as crazy.

I turned doomer/alarmist when the IPCC showed their true colors and not only lagged way behind the breaking science evidence (which I realize has some reasons, but there are some like methane that should have had footnotes back then), but in the last major announcement decided that we’re probably going to shoot past the limit they had set as a “we don’t dare go past this” mark, but it’s okay because we’ll just use technology we have then in the future to draw things back down. They really think the average science-aware person is this stupid. But it made their string-holders economists and politicians feel better, so it’s all “scientific”.

We’re in the process (maybe/likely already done) of pushing the environment into a totally different pattern that would lead to a new and hotter planet for millennia. The ice age cycles are gone. Past such disruptions led to mass extinctions while other species adapted and changed, but those gave time to do that adaption. We’re doing it geologically as fast as a meteor impact, however what we’re doing is far more than such an effect.

But this is alarmist. I guess part of that label is not because such observations aren’t wrong, but they don’t give some solutions to keep doing what we’re doing and fix the problems. Worse…some say that even if we try and do things, it will still likely be that bad. I guess seen one way that is apathetic and doomer…but does that make it necessarily wrong? Just because you see the train heading towards the stalled car and say, that’s going to be bad, doesn’t make you a doomer and your point should be discarded. It’s just morbid and it’s more comfortable to not watch and hope no one was in the car. Or to be like the IPCC and figure that the car will magically start right before it’s hit, or maybe will start rolling off the track on its own accord.

I wear the labels thrown at me proudly, because I know that even though I can’t provide any answers to those it upsets, at least I’m not pretending it’s fine.

I’m sure even after what I said I’ll get a reply asking “then what should we do?” I can only say to think locally what you can change about your life to make yourself more self-sufficient and knowledgeable of how to get by if you can’t go get something from the store. Know your neighbors and who you can rely on in times of crisis. Reduce what effects you have, not because it will help the planet, but it will help you adapt to a worsening one. Some may say don’t have kids…I think it’s too late for that mindset, and the population will go down on its own once food becomes scarce anyway. There’s the philosophical problem of bringing someone into a setting where it’s bad and going to always be worse, if that’s fair to them, but I’ll let each wannabe parent work that out themselves.

Adapt and mitigate. It’s all we have left. We aren’t going to stop or even slow what’s already baked in, which is much more than that 1.5C limit that was proposed to make us feel better about continuing our society as-is.