[MCN] Climate change will demand ugly tradeoffs from environmentalists — and everyone else

[Lance Olsen]

Reckoning with climate change will demand ugly tradeoffs from environmentalists — and everyone else <https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/27/16935382/climate-change-ugly-tradeoffs>
By David Roberts <https://www.vox.com/authors/david-roberts>
Vox January 27 2018
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/27/16935382/climate-change-ugly-tradeoffs <https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/27/16935382/climate-change-ugly-tradeoffs>

1st 3 paragraphs

Climate change is a crisis. Serious damages are already underway <https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/loss-and-damage-from-climate-change-is-already-happening-says-unu-report>, there’s enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to ensure more damages to come, and if carbon emissions continue unchecked, species-threatening damages become a non-trivial risk <http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.925.9288&rep=rep1&type=pdf>.

Lots of people acknowledge this. But it’s one think to acknowledge it and another to really take it on board, to follow all the implications wherever they lead. Very few people have let the reality of the situation sink in deep enough that it reshapes their values and priorities. Being a consistent climate hawk, it turns out, is extremely difficult.

Let’s take a look at an example of what I’m talking about, and then pull back to ponder the broader problem.

Sample excerpts from mid-article

When I first started covering climate change, I kept running into the same problem. The only term available to describe those concerned about climate change was “environmentalists,” and that just didn’t work. Not all environmentalists prioritize climate change and not everyone concerned about climate change would self-identify as environmentalist.

It is genuinely difficult to wrap your head around the scale of action needed to avoid catastrophic changes in the climate.

Concluding paragraphs

To absorb the full implications of climate change is to realize that even a level of action beyond what’s reasonable to hope for can at best avert the worst of the damage. Changes in ecosystems that are effectively permanent and irreversible are already underway; within the century, we will enter a range of climate conditions entirely new to our species. There is no “safe” available any more.

To take that seriously is to support massive, immediate carbon reductions, not only at the level of theory, not only in statements and proclamations and pledges, but in the sense of preferring the lower carbon strategy in every local, city, state, or federal decision, whether it’s about land, housing, transportation, infrastructure, agriculture, taxes, regulations, or lifestyle habits.

It means preferring the lower carbon strategy even if other things you value must be sacrificed, even if the lower carbon strategy is suboptimal in light of your other preferences and priorities.

Judged by that harsh criteria, pure climate hawks are a rare species indeed. None of us can claim purity on that front, so we should show one another compassion <http://grist.org/climate-energy/everybody-needs-a-climate-thing/>. But we should also, at every opportunity, drag our eyes back, unflinching, to the terrible truth <https://www.vox.com/2015/5/15/8612113/truth-climate-change>.


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A species or ecosystems recovery from disturbances can be reversed, and  fail; e.g.,  “  …  recovery rates decrease as a catastrophic regime shift is approached, a phenomenon known in physics as 'critical slowing down.'  ….  In all the models we analyzed, critical slowing down becomes apparent quite far from a threshold point, suggesting that it may indeed be of practical use as an early warning signal” (van Nes and Scheffer  2007).

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