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Climate Change is the Risk We Keep Ignoring [1]

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Date: 2023-01-14

Two stories over the last few weeks demonstrate the extent to which the risk of climate change has been allowed to accelerate. Firstly, revelations emerged that Exxon, the global oil and gas company, predicted the effects of climate change as far back as the 1970s and 1980s. Secondly, California’s devastating, climate change driven storms, which are a reminder of what the future holds for the world.

Climate Change is a Gray Rhino

In her book, The Gray Rhino, Michelle Wucker suggests that the most dangerous risk we face isn’t from random stuff that comes from nowhere. The idea that randomness, or high impact, highly improbable events, or “Black Swans” dominate the future, has been popular since Nassim Taleb’s book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Wucker, on the other hand, says that what we should really be worried about are those high impact, highly probable events that just keep getting ignored.

Wucker proposes that these high impact, highly probable events, are ignored for a variety of reasons. For instance, it may not be in the interests of key players to believe those predictions. News that Exxon knew as early as the 1970s that the world was entering an era of fossil fuel caused global warming, and environmental disasters, is a profound example of this. Exxon’s scientists predicted with what has been called “breathtaking” accuracy , that the world’s addiction to fossil fuels would cause climate change.

Source: The Guardian

Rather than release their findings and support investments into renewables, the firm chose to bury these reports, and support research that queried the reality of climate change. Exxon is not alone among oil and gas giants in having known that they were selling a dangerous product, burying that knowledge, and pushing lies about climate change. These revelations will add weight to legal campaigns to hold fossil fuel companies liable for climate change .

The media has not helped. Climate change is one of the most, if not the most important threat facing humanity. Take a look at the top stories in every newspaper every day of the week, and climate change barely features. If it does, it’s because of some conference. Governments too have done little, and continue to do little, and after decades of fossil fuel industry propaganda, there is little appetite for truly profound measures.

The Future is Bleak

The reality is that we have passed the point of no return. With decades of failure in climate policy, the world has not been able to wean itself off of its fossil fuel addiction. Fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas), make up 77% of our energy sources. In 1970, fossil fuels were responsible for 80% of our energy. In Five decades, the world has barely done anything.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/14/2147218/-Climate-Change-is-the-Risk-We-Keep-Ignoring

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