Insufficient Alarm

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may be rendering itself irrelevant through foot-dragging and overly-optimistic assessments. In fact, climate scientists in general have been understating the seriousness of their findings so as not to send the public into a state of despair.

Now, there are still things that can be done to prevent the worst effects happening, but those things will be politically difficult and will require a highly motivated citizenry to enact.

But why should people feel motivated? Have they got nothing better to do than write letters, alter their daily habits on the say-so of some environmentalist, etc.? Why shouldn't they simply resent the bother and handle some of the many, many other things that anyone has to deal with.

How about that we might be facing catastrophic sea level rise, but could do something about it?

During the last century human beings developed flight; going from a clumsy, home-made prototype to government programs that put people in orbit and on the moon, and are now witnessing the early flowering of private space flight. This next century, we could see the collapse of our ability to feed ourselves well and end up scratching out a more meager existence by the end than those grandparents who lived through the Great Depression.

This is perhaps worth some agitation, yes? Let's hope so.