Writer Rebecca Solnit tells The Guardian that after years of denouncing climate change deniers, she now has to dedicate efforts to combating skeptics. To those who doubt that the approved policies are of much use and think that the reality is getting worse day by day.
I said skeptics. I could say pessimists, degrowthists (supporters of degrowth) or collapsists. Each one with its nuance. The truth is that there is a fierce combat between gradualists and non-gradualists. Among those who think that the climate crisis can be managed with a transition through renewable energy, putting a price on carbon and relying on technological advances. And those who, on the contrary, think that the climate crisis is so severe that it is necessary to make drastic decisions that change our way of life.
This summer has been fruitful for pessimists. Four simultaneous heat waves in different parts of the planet. Historical temperature records both on land and in the oceans. And a UN Secretary General who says that we are in the Age of Boiling.
I feel scientifically incapable of determining where the truth is. But I must confess that it has been a revelation for me to differentiate between the flow of CO2 emissions and the stock of CO2 (accumulated) in the atmosphere. I had always thought that with the decrease in atmospheric emissions, some day, even if it was distant, the warming would begin to subside. But what matters so much are not the emissions, but the stock, the accumulated CO2. You can lower emissions, but the earth does not “cool”.
The best mental model to represent how CO2 works in the atmosphere is that of the bathtub. The greater the difference between the water that comes out of the tap (our emissions) and the one that goes down the drain (due to the action of tropical forests and oceans), the more the water level in the bathtub will rise (the carbon accumulated in the atmosphere).
The simulation of the bathtub (model developed by Tom Fiddaman, from MIT), better reflects where we are. And frankly, assuming that CO2 emissions are still increasing, the reality is that we are not doing so well.
