Climate Hushers Need to Get Real

“Let’s be real.” That’s the view of a growing number of voices in U.S. climate circles. In October, billionaire Bill Gates claimed that a 2 degree Celsius global temperature rise was inevitable and not a “very bad outcome” – a view unlikely to be shared by the millions of people whose homes would be destroyed by the deadly storms and resulting rising seas. In November, The Washington Post analyzed social media posts and public appearances to document how Democrats across the country were “shutting up on climate” to focus on affordability — as if we couldn’t talk about both. In December, a New York Times The opinion piece applauded the abandonment of goals that were supposed to be “never achievable” anyway, such as reducing global emissions to zero. A second said Democrats must “support America’s oil and gas industry” if they want to win the presidency in 2028.

Proponents of this strategic shift present themselves as models of realism at a time when President Donald Trump is attacking any form of environmental progress. But “climate silence,” as the practice is called, rests on a fundamental flaw: it focuses on only one form of climate realism – the political – while ignoring a more important form, the scientific.

The Hushers may or may not be right about what is realistic to expect from current leaders and political setups. But the politics of climate change must be weighed against what thousands of alarmed scientists have been saying for years: that civilization is heading toward irreversible catastrophe, and the only realistic outcome is to phase out fossil fuels as soon as possible. “Things are not just getting worse. They’re getting worse faster,” Zeke Hausfather, co-author of the latest U.N. climate science report, told the Associated Press last June.

Political realities, of course, matter, but they can be changed by human action; the laws of physics and chemistry cannot. This means that citizens and leaders around the world must find ways to align their respective political realities with scientific realities: creating the conditions necessary to elect candidates, pass laws, and implement the many available solutions that scientists believe could prevent unfathomable loss and suffering.

An overwhelming majority of the world’s population – 80% to 89% of them – want their governments to take stronger climate action, as reported by Covering Climate Now’s partners in the 89 Percent Project. Even in the United States, a petro-state in all but name, that figure is 74 percent. When a candidate wins an election with 60 percent or more of the vote, we in the media call it a landslide. A total of 74 percent or more equates to overwhelming support for climate action.

People don’t necessarily vote that way, but U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse says it’s wrong to blame the electorate. Democrats continue to “get caught in this stupid doom loop where our pollsters say, ‘Well, climate is not one of the top issues voters care about, so we don’t talk about it,'” the Rhode Island Democrat said. “So this will never become one of the top issues voters care about.” »

One of the most effective things you can do about climate change is to talk about it, says Katharine Hayhoe, a senior scientist at The Nature Conservancy. And this is double, she adds, for media professionals who reach large numbers of people. Thinking that any problem can be solved by not talking about it requires magical thinking, which is anything but realistic.