the climate story right now is in a very weird state of flux
a) the warming we've priced in is bad and really starting to show itself
b) the renewable story is astoundingly good and getting better
we are left with "warming is going to get worse but almost certainly not as much as it could have"
it's always important to demand better, but part of the reason that the story of climate policy isn't sticking is partly because bad news feels more plausible and partly because the people most invested in this policy understand its limits. www.notus.org/biden-2024/v... hard to sell "mixed-positive"
I think a lot of folks steeped in climate doomerism have internalized "we break 1.5/2C and we're Totally Doomed" but every tenth of a degree we can prevent, warming-wise, is very important!
1.6C > 1.7C > 1.8C, etc
it is important to take the good news as evidence that we can limit the damage
absolutely
it's a weird balance to strike, because we absolutely have not done enough and there's endless work to do here - both in mitigation and repair
the message that I hope we can take is "it's worth doing that work, because the work we've already done is making a difference"
I also think that there’s people who are saying “we’re not done, there’s a lot to do, I don’t want to imply this is enough” because news nuance is hard.
It also makes money, which is why it has come so far lately.
Oil and gas companies have been forced to make their industry as viable as they can going forward, even if that means capturing natural gas from farms and waste dumps. The investment in innovation was the main bottleneck 10-15 years back.
