According to a policy paper published by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, an independent think tank based in Melbourne, there is a “high likelihood of human civilisation coming to an end” by 2050 if immediate action is not taken.
Vice published an article about the paper on Tuesday with the headline “’High likelihood of human civilisation coming to an end’ in 2050, new report suggests”, which was later edited to read “starting in 2050”. The initial headline led to understandably panicked reactions on social media.
Climate messaging is critical at this time, and there have been moves to “rebrand” it. The Guardian recently announced a shift to using the terms “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown”. Editor-in-chief Katharine Viner explained that “climate change” sounded too passive when scientists are talking about a “catastrophe for humanity”.
Climate scientists and journalists face a dilemma of how to share information without promoting a sense of inevitability, fatalism and nihilism.
The pros and cons of doomsday messaging
Brian Kahn, senior reporter at Earther and lecturer in Columbia University’s master’s program in climate and society, told Crikey “the report raises a lot of questions for me”.
“I think scenario planning has its uses, but the idea that there is a ‘high likelihood of human civilisation coming to an end’ by 2050 seems to rely on some tenuous assumptions about the climate system and human behaviour.
“A bigger issue, though, is that the hubbub about whether civilisation will end or not detracts from the very real issue that we’re in for a very rude surprise if carbon emissions aren’t curtailed soon. Society doesn’t have to come crashing down for a world that’s 1.5°C or 2°C warmer to be a very dangerous, challenging place to live.”
Considering all that, I asked Kahn whether the media using language like “climate emergency” is helpful.
“Whatever gets people to act on climate change and push for systemic change is useful. For some, thinking about climate change as an emergency will spur them to redouble their efforts. Doomsday scenarios can shake people from the reverie to understand the gravity of humanity’s current predicament.”
However, while doomsday scenarios spur some into action, they can have the opposite effect. Kahn explained that for some people, and particularly conservatives, framing the issue as a crisis or an emergency can “trigger a backlash or boomerang effect, entrenching their belief that action isn’t necessary”.
Costa Avgoustinos, an academic and PhD candidate researching climate change and the Australian constitution at the University of New South Wales’ law faculty acknowledged that doomsday messaging can be harmful if it stops people from acting. He also added, “if thinking about doomsday scenarios is the kind of thing that compels you into action, then great! Keep thinking those dark thoughts! I want more people treating climate change as the emergency it is. We’re all too quiet for people running for our lives.”
For climate messaging to be effective, more collaboration is needed between researchers and the media. “The media needs to be honest about climate change and the challenges we face while also having a critical eye,” Kahn said. “And perhaps most importantly, it also behooves any journalist to find an opening to talk about climate change in their daily beats. It’s not just an environmental story, it’s an everything and everywhere story.”
Avgoustinos agreed. “It affects infrastructure, travel, national security, food, agriculture, public transport, etc. It should be weaved into all of these discussions,” he said.
Both argue now is the time for the media to promote climate action, not climate inevitability. I asked Kahn what this should involve. “Vote. Organise. Take to the streets. Talk openly about climate change with family and friends.”
Are words like ’emergency’ and ‘catastrophe’ accurate?
Professor Penny D. Sackett of the Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute, and former chief scientist for Australia, responded to the policy paper’s findings by saying “the bleak, and indeed possible, scenario the authors present for 2050 is one in which ‘climate change provokes a permanent shift in the relationship of humankind to nature’. I would phrase this in a different, more confronting way: humankind has shifted its relationship to nature in a way that has provoked climate change, with possibly permanent consequences for both”.
“Some may call this alarmism; exaggerating a danger to cause needless worry. In fact, it is an alarm, a word that has its roots in the call ‘to arms!’ when an enemy threat is imminent.”
Sackett described the challenges that scientists face in generating sufficient action to hold climate change to safe levels. “As scientists, we have assumed that climate change understanding is lacking, and focused our attention on increasing that understanding. But in spite of stronger evidence and local, real-time examples of climate disasters, the institutions on which we have relied to take appropriate action: politicians, business, and international governance, have not done so.”
Professor Hilary Bambrick, the head of school of public health and social work at Queensland University of Technology, and a Climate Council councillor, said “For decades scientists have resisted telling it like it is regarding climate change, instead couching every projection within bounds of statistical uncertainty. But over the years we’ve become much more certain about how things will play out, and we’re already seeing the devastating effects of climate change around the globe as extreme weather records tumble time and again and once rare and dangerous events become the norm. Meanwhile Australia’s emissions continue to increase every quarter and to keep on this path will most certainly bring climate catastrophe.”
Bambrick added, “It’s not a stretch to think that — unless we urgently and meaningfully reduce our emissions — we are heading into the endgame. We actually have a choice right here and now as to whether that’s where we want to go.”
While Sackett does not believe that the human species will be extinguished by climate change, she said that we “are at a crossroads demanding that we face our own ‘humanity'”.
“‘Humanity as we have known it’ is not doing us any favours in this climate emergency. Individuals the world over could define and demand a new future, embracing our common humanity and rejecting proposals that place private, isolated profit over the common, unified good.”
I asked Kahn whether climate inevitability is as dangerous as denialism. “Denialism and alarmism aren’t remotely comparable,” he said.
“Denialism comes from a place of entrenched special interests looking to get the last few bucks out of the fossil fuel industry. It’s completely driven by an adherence to a radical free market ideology that completely blocks out science.”
While climate inevitability, alarmism and denialism may have very different consequences, the media has an obligation to avoid misleading headlines and scaremongering tactics. Instead, outlets should use appropriate language and provide information that is well supported by evidence.
This needs to be implemented now, for the years leading up to 2050 and, hopefully, beyond.
Accelerating climate change seems a reasonable term given the scientific data to back it up ..Climate crisis ? The word ‘crises’ seems to have a more psychological impetus that tends to panic the punters’ into all kinds of bizarre responses…Better to approach oblivion in a measured rational way than a blind reactionary way perhaps ?
I live where climate change has a pretty sharp end. What is more I have lived here for 60 years. I have seen the worst that drought has to offer. My rainfall records go back to 1890. Never have there been 3 such dry autumns and winters in a row. You may say the headlines are unduly catastrophic, but if our world population continues to grow at the present rate, if our idiot capitalists and their government lackeys continue to preach indefinite growth and we increase the use of the planet’s resources beyond the 14-15 months worth that we use every year, then disaster is where we are bound. No ifs, no buts, no maybes.
As a counterpoint, I’ve just spent the northern winter above 55N – one 20mins snowfall after a sunny morning followed by a sunny, cloudless arvo, and 3 frosts, and one of those in October.
Also, despite being in the acknowledged wettest county of the wettest of the various british islands, in 8 months there was not a single wet day – when normally there would be weeks of continuous rain – and what little rain did fall from Sept to April was mostly in sun showers of less than 5 minutes.
So, clearly, climate change is a kommunist plot.
If you want to have a thorough insight into climate change framing, suggest reaching out to Common Cause Australia, they are part of A24 and consult to the NGOs about communications, framing and campaigning about climate change and other social justice issues.
The idea that “climate alarmism” – stating the truth about our critical circumstances – leads to paralysis or denial, is just not true. Think about the most effective public health campaigns: the AIDS “grim reaper” campaign, grisly cigarette plain packaging imaging, shocking road safety ads in which children die tragic needless, deaths. All these are designed to shock, to cause fear, reflection and response. They have all worked, in that they changed people’s behaviour for the better. A shockingly honest public health campaign around climate change could have the same impact.
I have to disagree with you Tony….if the recent election showed us anything about Australian voters attitude to climate change, it’s that, despite all the talk of a ‘climate emergency’ and the protestations of all those who marched earlier in the year, for the average voter it just sounded too much like Chicken Little yelling about the falling sky, when the average punter sees the sky in the same place it’s always been. No amount of scare campaigning is going to change that majority attitude until some problem that they can personally define as being a result of climate change appears in front of their eyes.
You might be right EB… But I did say “a shockingly honest” public health campaign. We get half-hearted, or misleading, or cynical media coverage and government denial. Yes, it seems unlikely that we’ll see government and media invest at scale in the overwhelming truth, rather than in obfuscation and avoidance. So then it’s up to other institutions, organisations and communities to carry it to the public. Breakthrough is, as far as I can tell, essentially the national security community. They clearly see the threats to order and life posed by climate change. They are trying to go around government and recalcitrant industry sectors to present the case for climate change to be a central element of our national public policy. If they are overwhelmed by the seriousness of the situation, then let them have a crack at convincing the population that it should be as well… Or not.
Would you be so kind as to elaborate on your comment about Breakthrough (National Centre for Climate Restoration) essentially being the national security community. I don’t doubt what you say, just interested in more information. Thanks.
Except for the inconvenient fact that there’s lots of research that shows that positive-message behaviour change campaigns are more effective than negative ones.
Like: https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/73/1/4/1806771
and
https://createhealth.com/blog/positive-messages-make-most-impact-in-public-health-cam/
It was shown that the Grim Reaper ads weren’t affective, they turned people off so the message didn’t get through.
Evil Brian you’re right, the problem needs to be defined in a way that people can relate to, in line with their values.
Sure. The foreword to Breakthrough’s Policy Paper is by retired Admiral Chris Barrie, former chief of the ADF. The video campaign (worth a look if you haven’t seen it at https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/), features Barrie plus a former deputy chief of the RAAF, a former Army officer and a former Deputy US Under Secretary of Defence. The framing is around the need for the ADF and governments to quickly develop appropriate policies for dealing with the threats climate change pose to national security, such as potential impacts of sea-level rise on military bases, the prospect of regional population upheaval threatening “a second invasion of Australia” and the “potential breakdown of the nation-state”, risks to regional stability etc, etc. So, I’m surmising here, but I get the strong impression that this is the national security sector, inside and outside government, trying to move public opinion beyond politics with an appeal based on good old-fashioned fear, from people whose professional expertise lies in knowing what we should be fearful of. Beyond that, since the election, I’ve been told by one very senior climate scientist that he’s given up on trying to influence government, and he now intends putting all his effort into working with the national security community “because they get it.”
You’re assuming the (whole of) media knows right from wrong….?
And even if they knew the difference, why would that alter the preset bias?
Their function is to push the capitalist barrow and, like Jagannath, the bleeding bodies crushed beneath its wheels grease the inexorable journey to oblivion.
At the risk of appearing pedantic the matter of the press and its readership is a tad more serious.
Let’s think in terms of revenue for a moment and how revenue might be maximised. Given that the media is reliant upon “sales” in one form or the other the ONLY option they have (for profit maximisation) is to have (e.g. per week) 26 articles FOR and 26 articles AGAINST per year on any given topic.
For the media, it is NOT in their (collective) interest to have the problem “solved”. Its a bit like politics. Some problems have been in existence since the end of WW2 and are no closer to a solution than they were at inception.
Mill, who was an intellectual child prodigy, took the view that with more certainty there would be less to discuss and hence fewer (world) problems. Mill did not anticipate a corresponding squared law of ignorance for the universal suffrage electorate.