Is climate change a science problem, an economics problem, a moral problem, or something else?: Scientific consensus

Thirty-six years of confirmed predictions

In 1988, James Hansen testified before the Senate that human-caused warming had begun. He presented three scenarios. The planet has tracked his moderate-emissions curve for thirty-six years with a fidelity that would be career-making in any other field. In most fields, thirty-six years of confirmed predictions would settle the question. In this one, we are still asked to prove the thermometer works.

We are not activists, though some of us have become activists out of something between desperation and bewilderment. CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. John Tyndall demonstrated this in 1859. The mechanism is not a theory in the colloquial sense. Gravity is also a theory.

The Nordhaus economists accept our data and discount the future. Literally. A dollar of harm in 2080 is worth less than a dollar today. The math is consistent. The implication is that your grandchildren’s suffering is worth less than your quarterly earnings. We understand the logic. We do not understand how it survives contact with the photographs from the 2023 Canadian wildfires.

The moral emergency camp shares our urgency but translates it into language we find imprecise. Banning plastic straws addressed 0.03 percent of ocean plastic. We would prefer to talk about methane capture and albedo modification. What the 1960s got right — rivers on fire, smog killing people — was making damage visible and local. Climate change is global, distributed across time, and legible primarily through data.

We have been saying the same thing for thirty years. The river is on fire. You just need a longer timeline to see the flames.

Where we concede ground: We presented findings in probability ranges. The fossil fuel industry exploited that honesty. We did not adapt.

What would change our mind: Global temperatures plateauing for fifteen years without a reduction in greenhouse gas concentrations.

Read the full synthesis: Is climate change a science problem, an economics problem, a moral problem, or something else?