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
The “doomers” I’ve been listening to mostly talk about the unknowable cascade effects of breaching 1.5c-2c. A lot of really really depressed scientists out there.
china's shift to renewable energy has been incredible. they're also doing the work of exporting that renewable tech to other countries in the global south.
part of why i'm so optimistic about fighting climate change is because of how far ahead of us China is rn.
the US tends to perform better as a country when it has a clear economic rival to compete against.
ex: we probably wouldn't have landed on the moon if we weren't trying to outdo the soviets.
