The award for one of the most vacuous phrases in climate goes to — ‘To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, scientists say…’
By Climate Scientist Dr. Patrick T. Brown: This framing misleads for at least three reasons.
The first is that the phrase “scientists say” implies that there is a scientific consensus on the need to limit global warming to some particular level and therefore a scientific consensus on the size of our supposed carbon budget. That is not the case.
The second reason is that tying the phrase “in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change” to the particular 1.5°C level of warming implies that there is something special about that threshold. But that’s not the case either.
Finally, focusing only on “scientists” and “the worst impacts of climate change” takes an issue that should be looked at through a society-wide cost-benefit lens and puts the focus exclusively on the benefits of avoided warming—ignoring the costs involved in avoiding that warming.
By Marc Morano
January 9, 2024
4:53 pm
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/to-avoid-the-worst-impacts-of-climate“To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, scientists say…”
One of the most oft-repeated phrases in the climate discussion is also one of the most vacuous.
By Climate Scientist Dr. Patrick T. Brown
We heard a very familiar framing of the climate change problem coming out of the 28th annual United Nations (UN) climate negotiations in Dubai last month. Journalists covering this event leaned on the crutch of using some form of this phrase: “In order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, scientists say CO2 emissions must be reduced fast enough so that global warming does not exceed 1.5°C above preindustrial levels”.
Here is how The New York Times put it:
https://www.climatedepot.com/2024/01/09/the-award-for-one-of-the-most-vacuous-phrases-in-climate-goes-to-to-avoid-the-worst-impacts-of-climate-change-scientists-say/
