Climate Change Apocalypse Part 2: Debunking the Myths
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/c0idmkDnrgk
In part one of this series about the world burning down to ashes, we talked about why it’s happening. But enough of that whole history stuff, it’s all in the past, and we live right now in the fiery crucible of our heat-suffocated Earth. So let’s talk about what’s happening right now, and what people are saying, what arguments they’re making and whether or not they make sense. Let’s go through some of the most stubborn and lingering myths about climate change the world over, and the actual truth behind them.
Because one of the most powerful things you can do to deal with climate change yourself is to get informed! Pay attention to what’s being said, and get active. Take in these myths and the actual facts behind them so you can debunk them in your daily life. Learn how to argue with your friends, your family, or the voices from the AC unit that talk to you when no one else is around!
Let’s dive in!
One big myth about climate change is the idea that somehow not all scientists agree that it’s even happening. But it turns out that actually, they really, really do all believe it. A 2021 meta-analysis done by researchers from Cornell revealed that 99% of the peer-reviewed scientific literature concluded that climate change is happening and that it’s human-caused. The thing about conspiracy theories is that you have to somehow believe that a secret, malicious collective is bribing 99% of study authors to conclude what they want them to. There is zero evidence for that, despite the fact that there is public evidence that the oil and gas industry funds its own political army of climate change deniers, the vast majority of whom belong to one particular political party, and it’s not even close. And, the idea that not one person out of all those scientists has ever spoken up, or one lab assistant, or one spouse, or one hormonal teenager who hates their lab rat, workaholic parent who just missed another school play -- it’s just totally mindbogglingly ludicrous to imagine. The problem with conspiracy theories is that in reality, someone always, always, talks.
Another myth about climate change centers around the confusion and waffling that experts have done over the decades since the phenomenon was discovered. In the 1970s, the Earth was actually said to be cooling and reports were universally suggesting that an ice age was imminent. Except that climate scientists didn’t say that at all. It was solely a media narrative that went completely off the rails and took on a life of its own. Over a period of 14 years, there were just seven studies that predicted an overall global cooling, compared to the other 44 that predicted warming. So, we’re stuck with this one because 7 people got it wrong or were given enough oil and gas money to become willfully dishonest. It’s that classic American pastime of creating false equivalency with mainstream science vs fringe beliefs. Somehow, we just can’t fight this obsession with the idea of giving unequal positions equal time and equal consideration. That fun corporate media narrative that because an anchor is interviewing an expert researcher with thirty years of practical experience and discoveries, they also have to bring on the guy who thinks lizard people live inside his oatmeal to see what he thinks. America’s obsession with false equivalence is bigger than baseball here. And I don’t even know anyone who watches baseball, not even at baseball games. Baseball games are for hot dogs and summer shandies and funny mascot antics during breaks in the baseball game. Beyond that, nobody’s watching, you’re just talking to your friends about your other friend who just ruined his marriage and moved in next to the burger hut in an unincorporated nudist colony. Look, to be honest, the nudists are going to have an advantage over the rest of us when it gets too hot to go outside. Way less layers. They just really need to mind the sunscreen. And it’s probably best to stay away from beaches in that case, especially Rehoboth Beach -- that place gave me cancer. True story.
Another myth about climate change is the idea that it’s simply a natural process and human activity isn’t extensive enough to have any impact, that it’s just absolute hubris to think that we could change the Earth’s climate and affect something so large as the ecosystem of an entire planet. And honestly, I think that’s kind of a fair argument, if not one made in complete bad faith. Because it’s meant to appeal to reason and logic, and it comes from a point on the total opposite end of the spectrum. This talking point comes out of the belief in the primacy of humankind over the Earth, a sort of Genesis-style prophetic vision that justifies any action people take against the world, because it simply belongs to us. These are the same sort of narcissistic anthropocentric corporcrats that spew the unending drivel about how only human beings who create profit for shareholders have any intrinsic value. The truth is, we can literally measure the effects that human activity is having on the planet. We can see the volume of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We can measure the pace of the natural emission of these gases through volcanic or other means, and we can see that in the last 200 hundred years, human beings have put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than natural processes have in the 800,000 years before the Industrial Revolution.
A fun climate change myth that does make a certain amount of sense to me is the idea that we don’t need to worry about it even if it is happening because humans are really smart and innovative, so we’ll just invent our way out of it. Yeah, that makes sense. Why not? We’ve gotten ourselves this far, through tons and tons of horrible existential obstacles that should have thrown us all in the landfill of history time and time again. I get the optimism in that sentiment. Though under a more analytical lens it looks a bit like willfully hiding one’s head in the sand. We shouldn’t bet on our ability to get ourselves out of a horrible extinction scenario if we simply don’t have to, if we can just do something about it now so that we don’t end up at the point where we’re facing utter collapse. It’s like preventative care in medicine; sure, you can even cure some cancers these days, and others have gotten to the point that they’re chronic conditions instead of immediate terminal diagnoses, but if you let it go too far without starting treatment, the prognosis isn’t going to be good no matter what. Preventative care is the best kind of care, especially for an ecosystem as large and complex as an entire planet.
A pervasive myth about climate change that gets tossed around by the “fiscally responsible” types is that clean energy is just too expensive to shift to, that it’ll ruin the economy. Well, first of all, if we don’t make the shift to clean energy, we aren’t going to have an economy to ruin. In the hierarchy of things to concern ourselves with, it goes 1. Extinction, 2. Having enough to eat, 3. Human connection and love, 4. Personal safety, 5. Dogs, because dogs are wonderful and we don’t deserve them, 6. Getting enough exercise for your physical and mental well-being, which could involve walking your dog, 7. Learning stuff and improving yourself, 8. Taking care of that weird rash that’s been developing between the wrinkles in your inner elbow skin, and then 9. if you have some spare time: The Economy.
The truth is that clean energy is less expensive than fossil fuels, and that the proliferation of infrastructure and systems required to run it will create millions of jobs and elevate the economy in ways not seen for almost a hundred years. And it’s already happening. Electric cars are gaining market share, solar and wind energy generation are both being adopted by private households and businesses alike, and this year these two clean energy sources have actually overtaken coal in overall energy production. The discussion around safe nuclear energy is picking up again within government and international circles. We’re already well on our way to embracing the green new deal all the cool kids have been talking about. So why is this still a problem? Because of that whole time situation, and that, unfortunately it’s not going to happen soon enough. At this rate, we’re still totally f*cked.
In part three we’ll check out what we can actually do about any of this, and you’ll hear some things you may not like, or maybe already know and agree with, but above all, you’ll probably hear a few surprising things that you weren’t expecting. Stick around for the finale of the series about the finale of the Earth.
Sources for the climate change series:
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