I wish climate change news would make some effort to distinguish among the following levels of climate change outcomes: 1) the change would mean we have to change our way of life in some way like wear more sunscreen and not eat cows anymore and food gets more expensive and glaciers melt and polar bears now live only in zoos vs. 2) there will be major upheaval like every coastal city goes underwater and central USA for example will become like the sahara desert and many people die and it causes wars vs. 3) we reach some feedback loop where earth becomes just literally venus and every liquid and metal vaporizes and every human dies even the grandchildren of billionaires and even the ones who tried to burrow under ground.
I feel like so many stories about climate change the headline is like 'humans are doomed if we don't stay below 2 degrees Celsius increase since pre-industrial baseline' and then the body of the article is like 'our way of life will be affected by climate change if we don't do whatever'. I feel like this framing is bad. I'm not a climate change denier. I'm not even one of the guys who is like 'woke democrats are trying to hijack the climate change issue to take away my steaks and make me live in the pod and eat bugs'. I just want some information and not be lied to. Maybe it's normal journalistic sensationalism but I feel like it's extra damaging for this issue in particular.
I feel like so many stories about climate change the headline is like 'humans are doomed if we don't stay below 2 degrees Celsius increase since pre-industrial baseline' and then the body of the article is like 'our way of life will be affected by climate change if we don't do whatever'. I feel like this framing is bad. I'm not a climate change denier. I'm not even one of the guys who is like 'woke democrats are trying to hijack the climate change issue to take away my steaks and make me live in the pod and eat bugs'. I just want some information and not be lied to. Maybe it's normal journalistic sensationalism but I feel like it's extra damaging for this issue in particular.