Climate doomism means I'm gonna need a bigger pickup truck

We know which way we have to go, but everyone seems to be running in the opposite direction.

Some people apparently want no low-traffic neighbourhoods and more dead kids, no low-emission zones and more toxic air.

It's difficult not to be a doomer this summer. Floods in Nova Scotia and Vermont, fires across Canada, scorching heat from the southwest US to Spain to India, soot-filled air, just one thing after another. The UN Secretary-General says global warming is over, and "the era of global boiling has arrived."

The problem is that fixing this is no fun; people like their pickup trucks and vacations. Peter Kalmus writes in the Guardian, "Each minute the fossil fuel industry exists, each drilling permit, airplane flight, gallon of gas, fossil fuel ad, lobbyist's email, takes us further into irreversible heat catastrophe, socially and physically." But not flying or driving is inconvenient! Thus doomism and defeatism are on the rise, replacing denialism which is a tough sell when you can’t breathe or get insurance for your house. It's another way to avoid doing anything except cranking up the AC.

In the Guardian, Rebecca Solnit writes that We can't afford to be climate doomers.

"They're surrendering in advance and inspiring others to do the same. If you announce that the outcome has already been decided and we've already lost, you strip away the motivation to participate – and of course if we do nothing we settle for the worst outcome. It often seems that people are searching harder for evidence we're defeated than that we can win."

Solnit concludes by noting the importance of this fight against doomism.

"Some days I think that if we lose the climate battle, it'll be due in no small part to this defeatism among the comfortable in the global north, while people in frontline communities continue to fight like hell for survival. Which is why fighting defeatism is also climate work."

I have written two books where I try to make the case that we can win the climate battle, but we all have to pitch in. In my upcoming book, The Story of Upfront Carbon, I have a chapter devoted to doomism. Here is an excerpt:

About a decade ago, climate journalist Dana Nuccitelli described the five stages of climate denial as the IPCC released its fifth round of reports. They were:

Stage 1: Deny the problem exists. We are well past that now, although a few flat-out deniers still exist in comments sections of newspapers.

Stage 2: Deny humans are the cause. There are still a few of these about, still blaming sunspots and claiming that the earth goes through natural cycles.

Stage 3: Deny it's a problem. More CO2 means more plants! More warming means more Canada!

Stage 4: Deny we can solve it. It's too expensive; it will hurt the poor; it will trash the economy. This is the popular one right now with Lomberg and Shellenberger.

Stage 5: It's too late. When Nuccitelli wrote these, he noted that "few climate contrarians had reached this level." Today, the world is full of what author and climate scientist Michael Mann called "doomists."

Exaggeration of the climate threat by purveyors of doom—we'll call them "doomists"—is unhelpful at best. Indeed, doomism today arguably poses a greater threat to climate action than outright denial. For if catastrophic warming of the planet were truly inevitable and there were no agency on our part in averting it, why should we do anything? Doomism potentially leads us down the same path of inaction as outright denial of the threat.

Hannah Richie of Our World In Data recently raised the same point, suggesting that doomers were worse than deniers.

"Climate deniers want us to choose to do nothing; that it's not a problem and doesn't require any action. Climate doomers tell us that we don't even have a choice to do something; we're already screwed and it's too late to act. Follow either and we end up in the same place of inaction. That's a place that we can't afford to be."

The problem today is that we are not seeing inaction; we are seeing action in hard reverse. Every day I see another giant pickup truck in our neighbourhood; it almost seems like a doomist response, to get a higher truck that can carry more stuff through the flood and the smoke. I’ll be safe in this!

People want to ignore the problem because they like their lifestyle; It seems there should be  Stage 6 of climate denial: “It’s happening, it’s real, it’s someone else’s problem, and it is too inconvenient.” Or, as the child says, “I don’t want to! I don’t have to! You can’t make me!”

And, if you look at what the IPCC says we have to do, it is a pain in the ass! Sure, we can cut emissions in half by 2030 and eliminate them by 2050, but I would have to look at a wind turbine! Or eat less meat! Or drive a smaller car! Or keep my phone for three years!

Nobody wants to make changes or give anything up, and the politicians are smelling blood in the water.

In Canada, the likely next Prime Minister is promising to kill the one significant thing that the current government did, the carbon tax, and to roll over for fossil fuel fantasies like hydrogen, carbon capture, and, yes, pipelines to reduce emissions!

Or in the UK, where the Labour and Conservative leaders are competing to see who can roll over faster for the drivers who don’t like being slowed down by traffic calming or paying for pollution. He may be pro-motorist, but as Lior Steinberg notes, he is anti-health, anti-kids, and anti-planet.

And I don’t dare look south at what the Republicans will do when they get back in power; that would turn me into a doomer for sure.

But this is why our individual actions matter so much, with the single most important action being to vote these bums out or ensure that the other bums don’t get elected. To show that the majority demands fast trains, safe streets, complete bike lanes, and efficient homes in 15-minute cities powered by zero-carbon energy. Because we are not doomers or deniers, and we can fix this if we really want to.