A Controversial Play - and What It Taught Me About the Psychology of Climate | David Finnigan | TED
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- When playwright David Finnigan launched a new play in 2014, controversially titled "Kill Climate Deniers," he was not prepared for the blowback. But the conversations with climate skeptics of all stripes ultimately taught him a fascinating lesson about how many of us think about - and act upon - the climate crisis. (Recorded at TED2024 on April 17, 2024)
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He makes some good points here but I really wish we could move the conversation of climate science to understanding instead of “believing”. Do you UNDERSTAND climate science…. Not do you “believe in it” that makes it an opinion, which it is not.
Agree, it's not about belief. I usually talk about "accepting the science". Because it looks like there are those who understand the science just fine, but refuse to accept it, i.e. they deny it with their actions. Chief here are the Exxons, the Shells, the Equinors, etc.
the belief is into the instituion of science and climate research in particular. The deniers basically believe that there is whole "conspiracy to fake up evidence" for global warming. There is little point to argue facts with them until it becomes critical to everyday existence
Thanks
I don't think we can expect the majority of people to truly understand climate science. People need to trust experts for a range of issues. It's classic division of labor. Unfortunately, this is what climate deniers exploit.
Exactly. I'd rather 'know' something than merely 'believe' it. It's foundational, now we can build on that.
I had to point out to a young denier that I own a pair of Ice skates.. I live in Southern Ohio. It hasn't been cold enough to ice skate here in 30 years. I just looked at the 20 something and said, "I own Ice skates, I used to Ice skate HERE as a child." (the last ten years we barely had snow) he actually looked thoughtful .. like "Oh, how do I deny this?" . I asked him if he's ever been ice skating outside? I told him flatly, this isn't the same climate I grew up in. It has changed a great deal. My brother in law was a climate denier, but he's also a diary farmer, it's been a decade since he changed his mind because reality is where farmers live.
The Climate HAS CHANGED already.
You know those packets of seeds with the little picture on the back with the growing zones?
Now get one from 10 years ago.
Different picture.
Oh my God that's me. I just realized that we used to ice scate on lakes in my childhood and I can't remember the lakes near me being frozen in the last decade
Yeah, a thing where I live: weve had the hottest day since record 10 times in the last 12 years
The Rideau Canal in Ottawa, Ontario, was the longest naturally skating rinks in the world, but the last few years, it hardly opens. it used to be open for a month or two for skating by thousands of people that would travel here just to do it. Last winter it was open for a day, maybe two. It is radically different than when I moved to Ottawa 25 years ago.
When I was a child in Seattle, the ponds would freeze over in the winter so we could skate on them. When my mother was a child, Green Lake froze solidly enough that a team of horses with a cart could be driven on it. The climate is warming, there is no “if” about it. The only question is whether we can, at this point, do anything that will slow or reverse it. Unfortunately, convincing enough people that they need to make major lifestyle changes in order to avert a crisis is probably not going to happen. Those that are comfortable don’t want to disturb the status quo, those that are struggling don’t have the energy to focus on much except surviving.
Funny that he says 'I believe in the science of climate change.'
We don't talk about any other science this way, because it doesn't require your faith. 'I understand the science of climate change' is the accurate way to put it.
@@jabezcrisp7899 to be honest, the correct way would be (imho): I understand how science works, and therefore trust in its result (even if they make mistakes sometimes - it's the best and most rational we have). So no need to understand the details of any scientific topic, but also no need for belief, or "blind trust" if you want. It's "justified trust" .
Because modern science is about belief and nothing else. Science in its purest form is a repertoire of methods and concepts as an attempt of understanding the world around us. It is not a dogma to be followed, it is an ongoing process of disputing findings and theories. There never is a “settled science” and there never is “scientific fact”. So if you believe in science you wouldn’t attend a TED talk imposing your ill-informed moralistic views on a class of people you hardly know anything about.
Flat Earthers talk about science that way too. Since both climate change and flat Earth is rife with conspiracy theories and pseudo-science.
There is one other science I can think of in this context: Evolution.
@@Ansonidak A good point well made
The immovable object is not politics... It's greed.
And that is the absolute truth. Tack on a persistent, arrogant, and irrationally-defiant unwillingness for people to change their behaviors and we're getting to the root of the problem. I hear it SO often in my part of the country, where a large percentage of the population drives large pointless gas-guzzling white trucks and state that climate science is "fake science". For some reason most of their trucks are white....not sure why. VERY few of them work construction, haul things in them, or do "truck things" at all. They just drive them around like they are intended to be commuter vehicles. My next door neighbor is one of those people. He works a desk and phone job for a computer security company. He makes about $60k a year, but bought and financed that $80k white, large , lifted truck. I have NEVER ONCE seen him put anything in the back of it in the 5 years I've known him. In that same time, I have added a high-effeciency solar and back-up system to my house(making our property 96% self-supporting...no power bill, but I sell the extra to the power company), updated my house to all-electric utilities, and purchased 2 wonderful used electric vehicles for our family of 4 to use as commuter cars. All of that costs less than the truck he's driving. All of mine is also now paid off because of the money I've saved in utility bills, gasoline, car maintenance, and natural gas. He laughs at my choices. That right there is part of the problem. He truly thinks that I'm the misguided one and foolish, while he's still paying a monthly $200 natural gas bill, $150 power bill, and getting 20 miles per gallon on his 60 mile-a-day commute back and forth to work 5 days a week. You really can't change that man's Fox-News mentality. It's baked into his logic, which is really quite prevalent in American society. It's frustrating. The good news is that 3 of the neighbors on my street also installed solar in the last year. Progress.
Ideological hogwash
Politics is largely inextricable from greed now adays. If we can remove the greed from politics we would be in a better place on almost everything. The stranglehold of neoliberalism is real and pervasive.
The immovable object is that we as a whole have to decide: Do we want climate change? Do we not want climate change? What can we do? And who will pay how much for it? And those questions are inherently political.
If you go even deeper, it's not greed but fear. Fear of falling down the social ladder.
When you dig to the bottom there is always a primal motive. Get rid of it and you solve everything that follows.
For the first time in earth history a species is aware of an impending mass extinction, but largely chooses to ignore it.
✋ Impending?
👉 Ongoing.
World Wildlife Fund: `69% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970.`
Sure, but that statement makes no sense. What other species has been aware of their impending extinction, let alone made a choice whether to act?
Don’t Look Up
@@bjb7587 Read it again. This is the first time that a species is aware of of empending extinction. _And_ we collectively chose to ignore it.
Of course this very thing might have happened before to another species on another planet somewhere far, far from here.
My late father worked for NOAA/NODC for nearly 30 years. He basically helped to make the oceanographic data available for public viewing, so he knew damn well that climate change was real. Statistics may be difficult to master, more so to present it comprehensively, but there's no denying we're cooked, metaphorically AND literally.
That is why the Project2025 has a removal of NOAA and EPA as their first priority.
That is how believers handle contradicting evidence, the religion must always be on top.
In the 1970's my mother was a zoologist at Leeds University in the UK. Her friend there worked on global warming as they called it then. I was taught about it when I was 6 or 7 as just a matter of basic fact.
The talk was not so much about climate science as it was about the social consequences of climate change. Maybe the problem is not that people do not understand the science, but that they are not ready to share the burden.
@@miguel5785George Bush: "the American way of life is not up for negotiation"
Sharks are now showing up in the waters around the island where I live in ever increasing numbers. Sharks were not a common sight in previous years and it is attributable to changing prey numbers where their "normal" habitat is and increasing water temperatures occurring over a longer period in the summer season.
You can read Calvin and Hobbes comics from the 80s and even back then they are complaining about Climate Change and how nothing is being done to fix it. This has been a LONG time coming.
@@FindTheFun over 300 years - since the beginning of the industrial revolution
You can read Eunice Foote from the 50s...1850, who knew about green house gases.
@@sroneCorrect and the first global calculation (the first very simple climate model) was published in 1897 by later Nobel Laureat Svante Arrenius.
There's an interview by Olof Palme, Swedish PM, from 1974 where he motivated Sweden's then ongoing nuclear buildout by climate change.
Alexander von Humboldt wrote in 1844 that humanity changes the climate "through the production of great masses of steam and gas at the industrial centres."
I think a large part of inaction is the overwhelming feeling of helplessness in the face of such astronomical changes that we now face.
Actually the "helplessness" is not REAL and is cultivated by the RICH who aren't willing to give up any of their money, power or control.
I feel the helplessness is more about how the masses would need to fight against the billion dollar corporations to make any actual changes. Voting enough people into power that would take climate change seriously and actually implement laws that force corporations to take responsibility for their emissions is already an uphill battle. Even IF we had climate politicians it then comes back to the people. Perfect example is.. Well we obviously need to get rid of coal as a leader in our energy production. But coal is a huge part of my job right now. If we lose coal entirely I don't have a job. So the half of me that wants climate protections enforced and the half of me that needs my job are at odds with each other. There are a lot of jobs on the line which makes the whole conversation even more muddied because some people will be directly affected. And corporations will 100% use that fact to turn us on each other. They already have. So yes, it all feels overwhelming and pointless to even try because corporate greed is unavoidably corrupt.
The current system makes meaningful individual action very difficult. It's not designed for people who want to be better and instead favors the ones who want to keep doing what they've always been doing. Real change needs to be driven top-down and that's not going to happen unless there is money to be made.
and our entire way of living has to change. i read a lot about how we have to change to renewable energy but not much about how we have to change the way we extract resources, make too much stuff that no one really needs in the name of economic growth, throw away so much that cannot be reused, and poison ourselves and our only home with the stuff we make. i know there are millions of individual humans who are working diligently to try to educate the rest of us. but in a system in which economic wealth = power and those with that power do not seem to care what the future is going to be like...sighing and gesturing generally at everything. i sadly do not think we as a species have the intelligence, wisdom and self-sacrificing ability to do what needs to be done. i don't know how Jane Goodall remains an optimist. i am now 62. i thought i would be dead before things would start to get bad. i was wrong. i do think that if we do as much as we can to change our ways things could be less horrific than they would be if we do little or nothing. but i am not kidding myself into thinking this enormous closed planetary system can simply flip back to the way it was before the industrial revolution. we humans are an accelerant the likes of which the planet has only experienced as asteroids and super volcanoes.
And as the speaker said, part of the denial as well. Some people fight harder to defend their comfort than to defend their lives.
Who to listen to when it comes to climate change:
1) PHDs in climate science who have spent the majority of their lives investigating climate change and who have all come to the same conclusion: mankind is causing the earth to heat up.
2) Joe Schmoe who drives a gas guzzling pickup truck and who works at a call center in any given city.
That's a tough one.
Add to that group people who see it as a real problem, but not a cataclysm like most climate activists think it is. If it isn't a cataclysm, then it's obvious that our actions to fight it can also cause harm, so then it becomes an optimization problem to ultimately do the least harm.
@@paulroundy8060Obviously,the do least harm means wherever and whenever possible stop burning stuff! It’s that simple and is happening with increasing frequency worldwide.
@@paulroundy8060 It's a cataclysm in slow motion which leads most people to believe it isn't a real problem. Those people are wrong.
Or listen to the IPCC?
There is no objective observational evidence that we are living in a global climate crisis.
The UN's IPCC AR6 WG1, chapter 12 "Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and for Risk Assessment", page 1856, section 12.5.2, table 12.12 confirms there is a lack of evidence or no signal that the following have changed:
Air Pollution Weather (temperature inversions),
Aridity,
Avalanche (snow),
Average precipitation,
Average Wind Speed,
Coastal Flood,
Agricultural drought,
Hydrological drought,
Erosion of Coastlines,
Fire Weather (hot and windy),
Flooding From Heavy Rain (pluvial floods),
Frost,
Hail,
Heavy Rain,
Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms,
Landslides,
Marine Heatwaves,
Ocean Acidity,
Radiation at the Earth’s Surface,
River/Lake Floods,
Sand and Dust Storms,
Sea Level,
Severe Wind Storms,
Snow, Glacier, and Ice Sheets,
Antarctic Sea Ice,
Tropical Cyclones.
@@geraldbutler5484 A lot of the burning going on is fires on EVs and scooters and diesel generators to charge EVs
The key point here is not to address understanding, it is to address consequences.
By all means, fix the climate, but when you propose a policy, make sure that your proposal benefits the class of people who don't care about it. Don't argue with them, get them on board.
Like public transport and walkable cities.
But we saw the top-driven backlash and bizarre rhetoric and conspiracy theories over the concept of walkable communities.
In theory, I agree with you. In practice, it is very difficult. The denialism runs deep. Already pointed out, the public transit and walkable cities plans get a lot of push-back. People, especially in the USA, are very attached to their cars *for everything*. It is a very foreign concept to use a bicycle to go to a grocery store 1-3 miles away for most people in suburbia - I'm the anomaly in my area, going by bicycle for such trips. Rural communities who want to stay rural fear having buses and trains connecting them because that would lead to becoming a city in their minds, and they (reasonably) don't want to be in a city.... but that's not necessarily what would happen.
Yes, work to give people the benefits to changes required for a better environment, but expect denialism and resistance along the way (some rational, and a lot of irrational).
The greens refuse nuclear power. That's a major part of why we're cooked. And still to this day, they refuse to let go of their mental block.
@brendanoneil3489 I tried that yesterday. "Why do you hate windmills and solar farms? If anything, EVs are reducing demand on gasoline, which should lower prices for you."
The climate denier came back with, "well we have no idea what all of that reflected solar radiation from the panels is going to do the atmosphere! They (you know, "they") just keep going from one thing to the next trying to fix everything instead of just letting it be!"
We're toast and as much as that saddens me, it's deserved. We've allowed corporate greed to poison the minds of the governed.
@@questgivercyradis8462 The "buses and trains" are code for "urban people." It's not about becoming a city, it's about what being a city means, or rather brings. I work with a lot of rural people afraid of city people, I hear it all because I have good ol' boy camo and they don't mind talking to me about, "those stupid libs and what they're up to now." :D :D
Mother Nature does not negotiate. Bon voyage!
Mother Nature will ALWAYS have the last word.
People idealize nature. They are wrong. Nature ISN'T nice! That's why we call her a mother.
@@Echo81Rumple83 And she can be a _mother_ ....
@@bestbehave Yeah. The one that throws a slipper after you ...
what can we do though? i mean WE, me, and you, what can we do about it really?
I remember hearing professors complain in early1996 about how attendees at an environmental conference had come there by planes, and how we as students in a wilderness survival course often reached the parks by burning fossil fuels.
The problem is that there's really no other way to travel any distance from where you live. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. I think that's what makes doing something effective about climate change is so difficult and disruptive.
People travel because they want to and can afford it. Eventually they won't be able to afford it in large numbers. That will be OK, because there won't be that many places worth traveling to.
Criticizing people who want to experience the outdoors is foolish. Criticizing people who fly to the other side of the world to see forests is more justifiable as is chastising those who fly private to climate change conferences.
It’s an odd contradiction in behaviour versus beliefs, isn’t it? I have family members who superficially flaunt being ‘green’ yet continue to fly overseas for annual holidays and to purchase additional homes. 😢
Thats why this is a governmental, large-scale infrastructure problem, not a problem of individual choice/action: the solutions require huge changes in the way society functions (limiting personal/non public travel, enforcing production and manufacturing limits/regulations on environmentally harmful products and practices, etc) If it is not solved by government level solutions, the problems will continue to exist because people will always choose convenience for themself over sacrifices for a future they may not be living in.
The underlying question you are asking is "collectively, how much should we change our behaviours to benefit other people?". The collective answer seems to be "not much". The next question will come in the future "how much should we collectively change our behaviours to benefit ourselves (i.e when climate change is directly affecting wealthy northern nations, not just largely poorer countries in the tropics)?" That is probably still some years away.
The more important conversation is how much we can profit from these countries we impoverished before their populations start sailing for our shores.
I'll change my behavior when they stop blowing up oil fields!
Lololololol. Sure
" to benefit other people" Why? I do not want to benefit you. I want you to benefit yourself and your kids. Nothing more and nothing less. Be less altruisitic and more egoistic and egoman. Look after yourself and your family and fight for them.
@@finemandibles2671 those ships are sailing.
I am sure this has been said before: A self fulfilled prophesy. The more this is delayed, the more and drastic those consequences they fear will become.
Sadly the boomers are correct, when they say it won't be an issue in their lifetime.
But under no conditions do plausible emissions scenarios lead to cataclysmic society ending outcomes. At the end of the century, the most likely outcome, with no change in policy, is warming around 2.4-2.5C relative to pre industrial, just 1C higher than the present! It's not harmless, but far from a mass death type scenario, especially since agriculture is on top of it through crop development and agricultural practices that enable more production in less suitable situations.
@@paulroundy8060 Why only look to the end of the century? People born today will (hopefully) live longer than that.
So imho the expected temperature increase for 2200 should be taken. And while 2,5 is already on the high side, in 2200 it will be even more because even if all CO2 emisisons were stopped now, temperatures would still keep rising for almost 50 years.
"The more this is delayed, the more and drastic those consequences they fear will become" Yes, the more wealth and work it will cost.
@@paulroundy8060 Ironically; albeit about Libs, this video is all about denial.
I have always said to my friends as a gardener: "Nature doesn't give a f**k what you do, say, or believe. It will just keep right on doing what it has always done, chugging along without a care." Only people care or don't.
Pretty much. No matter what happens the universe around us will exist for a very long time whether humans still exist or not.
Sure the earth and universe will exist after us. I'd rather keep them in a state where we can exist longer, however.
@@fastestdino2this is an embarrassing dodge. Nobody is claiming the universe ends because of us, but wrecking the biosphere is truly idiotic and morally evil. You want to pretend causing extinctinctions is not morally wrong, and it’s bizarre.
Not quite true (though I accept the sentiment). We have changed nature, somewhat, but it's still an f'ing big steam roller that doesn't stop and doesn't care. It's just that we've nudged it onto a trajectory that we probably won't like!
In germany we have a saying: Nach mir die Sintflut. Which basically means, that i accept the facts of climate change, but by the time, it hurts my life, i'm already six feet under. Let the next generations deal with it, i don't want to change my habits. And that is the way, 90% of western world people behave.
That's a telling but depressing phrase.
Or as King Luis XV of France allegedly said: "Après moi, le déluge"
Do they not consider that reincarnation might actually be a thing?
@@HansLemursonThat King had one I less, it was the longest reigning King Louie XIV. Louie XV was an inbetweenie, King Louie XVI ended under the guillotine. No deluge for him
@@reuireuiop0 Thanks for the correction.
One aspect is missing. The massage therapists and the highschool teachers nowadays do not simply trust anymore in what schientists say. They want to UNDERSTAND what’s going on. And here comes the problem: in order to understand, you have to spend your life studying on a certain, very narrow topic. No non-scientist is able to do that in parallel to normal life. At the same time, by nature a human being‘s brain can hardly stand that there is something it is not able to understand. This causes frustration and anger. Now there comes a guy, ‚explaining‘ or better teaching a complex topic like climate change in very simple words and statements like „climate was always changing“ or „plants need CO2 to grow, so why bother?“. And guess what, such simple statements are directly ‚understood‘ by most people‘s brains and their ego is pleased. Now, they are able to go into a conversation on such a complex topic like climate change and tell by themselves to other people or even scientists what’s really going on. Because they ‚understood‘. And that feels so powerful.
Now, try to take this ‚power of understanding‘ back from all these people and convince them that they have been stupid and did NOT understand anything. Good luck.
Great comment. So people felt powerful KNOWING that the Great Turtle carried the sun across the sky every day. Meanwhile the scientists had to accept the fact that the more answers they found the more questions they generated.
History just keeps on rhyming.
There are many books available for every grade level/reading ability that explain the topic.
@@CleverAccountName303You missed his point badly.
@@Statsy10 The theory of a greenhouse effect is just as simple to understand as the examples he mentioned. I understood it when I was 8 years old. People refuse to understand things that they don't want to understand, while they are capable of understanding very complex things if it reinforces their beliefs or they believe it benefits them in some way.
@@CleverAccountName303 I believe there is actually more truth in your assessment about lining up with people's befiefs, to be honest.
What I learned is, most of humanity is arrogantly ignorant to any danger until it hits them in the face.
Slow boiling frog effect.
The premise of the talk is good, but I think the conclusion is innacurate.
The problem with climate change is deniers is that they prevent the conversation to move forward. We can’t productively talk about how to tackle the problem when we’re still stuck on whether it’s a real issue or not. And this is especially problematic when it reaches politicians.
Other people have their own problems to worry about.
I think you're giving most climate deniers far too much credit. In my opinion, it simply comes down to petty tribalism and identity politics, not an analysis of the actual science or the consequences of a changing climate. There is a reason why there is a strong correlation between climate denial and the acceptance of other conspiracy theories.
Valid, but it doesn’t address the systemic problem, which is our economic system.
Since you're so smart, please tell me a time when climate hasn't changed.
@@nunocorreia8032 Thank you for realising just how smart I am, and I'm always willing to help educate those who are less smart. The answer to your question is, there has never been a time in which climate hasn't changed, provided of course a suitable duration of time is being considered. Every scientifically literate person on the planet knows this, so why are you asking?
@ I love that people are prepared to leave this sort of ignorance in the public space for future generations to study and understand WHY IT ALL HAPPENED.
@1970Phoenix great answer, so, how exactly do you plan on stopping it and how can we measure that objective in a way that we know we're going in the right direction and eventually celebrate when we achieve the goal?
Something about these videos ALWAYS brings out the anti sciemce crowd and what always seems like bot comments in mass :/
OooOOOooooo not the anti science crowd!
Disagreeing with you is anti-science, we know, we know....
The climate has been changing since the world began.
Most likely Putrid's KGB bots.
@@Candlewick14 Careful there! They've got lots of thoughts and prayers!
Not bots. There really are that many stupid/selfish people.
I keep my carbon movement as low as possible. But I no longer preach climate science. Let the storms come. Let the tides rise. Humanity is too busy climbing the economic ladders for Mother Nature.
A lot of the world is also too poor to care. In african countries where poverty is high they burn gasoline in generators so they have light and electricity. Eco friendly solar arrays or wind turbines (not to mention the infrastructure) are simply too expensive.
I care more about my bowel movements …..
Drama queen
That’s the whole problem. We don’t know how, to go below low consumption. With billions of us doing it.
@@billpetersen298 we know how to go below low consumption. We choose …. the opposite behaviour.
I think a quote from C.S. Lewis of all people fits; it's from his novel "The Pilgrim's Regress":
"If all men who try to build are but polishing the brasses on a sinking ship, then your pale friends are the supreme fools who polish with the rest though they know and admit that the ship is sinking."
ouch.
I went vegan, I refurbed an old house instead of building one new, I installed PV panels, I grow fruits and vegetables by permaculture... but I am still scratching the surface. We can start to make some difference as individuals, but we need world leaders and corporations to step in heavily and soon. Otherwise we're doomed.
The problem is the voters. There is not enough political will to make the kinds of changes we need. Voters don't want things like gas, meat, etc to cost more. They don't want to drive smaller vehicles. And would vote out any politician who would affect their lifestyle. There was some inflation early on in Biden's term and they just got voted out for it (so did most incumbents). I'm not convinced that enough of the voters care and politicians can't do things that are massively out of line with what voters want. WE are the problem.
@@compedium Except, of course, the reason voters don't push for change is because they've been deceived by the wealthiest people (who - foolishly - think their wealth will insulate them from disaster, but what will actually happen is that when things get bad enough, their wealth of resources will paint a target on their backs) who have spent billions of dollars to convince the average voter that climate change is a scam being run on them by the Left, when the truth is climate denial is the result of a successful - so far - scam run on them by the Right and the oligarchs of the world.
We are doomed no matter what we do. 99% of all animals that have ever existed are now extinct. We will also become extinct. It’s inevitable.
Agreed, and the key words in your comment are word leaders and corporations to step in heavily and soon
It is an economic problem, more, bigger! never enough! and throw it away, i want a new one! Big capitalistic corp. wil not correct themself, only when adressed and pushed hard or on the brink of disaster. I have a right to it, i have worked hard for it....eh... does not make any sense. Most people did, so what? It is all so dumb, primitive and selfish.
In order to fix the climate crisis you need to leave TRILLIONS of dollars in carbon fuels in the ground. People will do ANYTHING over that sort of money.
The problem is the voters. There is not enough political will to make the kinds of changes we need. Voters don't want things like gas, meat, etc to cost more and they would need to. We need incentives towards a lower carbon lifestyle and people simply don't want it. They don't want to drive smaller vehicles. And would vote out any politician who would affect their lifestyle. There was some inflation early on in Biden's term and they just got voted out for it (so did most incumbents around the world). I'm not convinced that enough of the voters care and politicians can't do things that are massively out of line with what voters want. WE are the problem. It's going to have to get a lot more scary before voters will give a damn. The critical mass simply isn't there.
8:10 "at one degree warming we are already on a planet unlike any where humans have ever lived"
That's simply not true, as a species we have lived through several bitterly cold glaciations with sea levels lower by dozens of meters, as well as interglacial periods that were warmer than today (sea levels 6 to 9 meters _higher_ than today).
What we are seeing today is an accelerating warming that leaves little time for the biospheres to adapt combined with a host of degradations in the form of massive habitat destruction on both land and sea as well as pollution by plastics, chemicals, insecticides..
We know this, we've measured it and made projections and understand what is happening. The problem isn't really human stupidity or short sightedness, it's a leadership problem, decades of politicians promising decisive action and then do nothing.
"We are living on a planet unlike any .." doesn't just refer to the temperature. Humans have never lived on a planet with as high a human population. Humans have never lived on a planet with so many weapons of mass destruction. Humans have never been so dependent on the environment and at the same time are destroying it faster than ever before.
And like you said, it isn't the absolute temperature itself; it's the rate of increase that has never been faster.
An excellent TED talk that is clear and crystallized on a single point. Most of us who think we are passionate on this issue cannot fully allow ourselves to believe that what we know is REALLY true, because we don’t know how we would live with the truth about climate change. The ramifications of this fact are profound and I’ll be thinking about this for days. Thank you.
Unfortunately, their rightness about the changes does not cancel out their wrongness that climate change is real, and their wrongness is the part that gets the most attention and prevents us from dealing with their rightness.
Shoot, as a teacher in environmental science, this hit really hard.
I’ve stopped flying. I grow a lot of my own food. I make do and mend, upcycle and recycle. I wait till my computer or phone will no longer function before replacing them. And I realized this morning that if I really believed we were in climate crisis, I would only travel by foot or bicycle. This is only one small thing in a multitude of things that I must change, but haven’t.
Me too. Our own actions should tell us that if we find it hard to act, then many others will too.
The majority of us (regular, normal citizens) are "soft deniers" because it is believed that with the great energy transition there will be a crackdown on people's freedoms (on what we eat, how we get around and travel, where we live, etc). As a rational person with some understanding of climate science, I understand that sacrifices need to be made to help our planet ... but as a regular, normal citizen, I know it is challenging for ordinary people to no longer fly, drive an ICE vehicle, eat red meat, live near or visit coastal areas, etc.
I don't like to say this, but if we surveyed how climate scientists live, I am pretty sure that many are also "soft deniers". It is similar to medical doctors who advocate healthy lifestyles and healthy eating, and yet how many overweight, smoking and unhealthy medical doctors are there? A case of "do as I say, not as I do". 😅
@@tooflesstesla Doctors are unhealthy because nutrition science is as corrupt as climate science.
"If you believe something but you act like you don't believe it, do you really believe it?" Good point. Although, I'd rather understand climate science than believe it, but I guess nobody can understand everything, so there must exist some believing too.
You don't have to understand every scientific topic. But you should have an at least basic understanding about what science is and how it works (including the insight that if scientists go wrong at one point, it does not dequalify science as a whole). So that you can TRUST, not believe, science.
@@thomaslilly5834 Yeah, "trust" is a good word for describing the attitude towards science.
It is a good point but truly missing the mark. I could argue that quote pertains more to American Christians more than anything else. They claim to follow the teachings of Jesus, but any chance they get they are voting against helping poor people. So in one aspect they want to believe , but their actions say something completely different. But I digress. As an individual , how big of a carbon "footprint" can one truly have? Meaning, yes, I believe in the science but I do drive a gas powered car. But the changes that need to happen , need to be on a MACRO level . Not MICRO. Corporations , Local, State and Federal Govt's. Farms. Oil companies, car companies etc... Without the cooperation of these large polluters to do their part we have no chance of turning the tide. We can as individuals only do so much. Our strongest tool is to vote for politicians who first believe in the science or at least admit to it and secondly are committed to actually doing something about it. Which means , STOP TAKING MONEY FROM OIL COMPANIES. We can all drive around in EVs and recycle until there isn't one gas powered car left on the road and it still wouldn't match the methane output of farmlands and large corporations who use dirtier energy to save money. This is the battle. Republicans say "Nothing to see here. Global warming is fake news. Trust in God. These liberals want us eating tofu and walking to work. It will hurt the economy." Etc... Until they change , it really doesn't matter what we continue to believe or not believe as citizens. Only when our votes DEMAND that they do. But we need help from the people who can do this on a MACRO level. BTW, I don't need to BELIEVE that the average global temperature is reaching record levels every year and that increase corresponds with the beginning of the Industrial revolution. Nah, because that is not a belief. That is just a simple FACT. One that only a geologist who works for the oil companies would refute.
He should have focused more on the last part of his talk, or at least explained why he thought people who preach climate change are themselves "soft deniers."
The things he said are merely part of what comes with living in a society built around the technology we have. There are many, many attempts to put us all on a more sustainable future but that movement is fairly recent, like maybe the late-20th century when acid rain was a thing and there was a move to ban CFCs.
Meanwhile, the basis of our "advanced" civilization has been in place since the start of the Industrial Revolution centuries ago.
He has a point, a valid one. I wish he'd spent less time discussion it because the lesson can be lost by someone simply saying he sounds so much like many corporate PR people who put the burden of dealing with climate change on ordinary consumers - use less plastic, ride an EV - while Industry and Enterprise keep killing our ecosystems.
If someone REALLY believes climate change is an existential threat, he should fight for nuclear power, yes? But they don't. Greens and progressives propagandize each other to believe it's unnecessary, too dangerous, too slow, too expensive. Not even recognizing the inherent contradiction in believing renewable energy is super-fast and super-cheap, beating the proven nuclear solution, yet climate change will keep going, doing us all in. So I agree with him, the climate change preachers are some of the biggest soft deniers.
He did explain that, quite clearly I thought. "soft deniers" are those who say they accept climate change is real but have not really accepted what the major consequences of that are going to be (mass migrations, changes in farming and food, coastal inundation), which if we're being honest is most people.
@@nathangriffiths6218 There is a blog called Less Wrong, and there is an article regarding Stag Hunts, Prisoner's Dilemmas, and Schelling Pub problems. I think the title is that the Shelling Choice is Rabbit.
The point, if you'll allow it, is that when failure of the stag hunt (averting climate change) is imminent, the obvious choice is to defect (rabbit, or rather to enjoy modern comforts while they last). Each of us needs to make a choice, but we only win if we ALL choose to fight climate change. If only some of us give up creature comforts, then some die hot and some die comfortable. Who would choose to die hot when they could choose comfort? How do we get everyone onboard with averting disaster instead?
@@Lawrence330 Positive incentives. Carrot and the stick
@@DasRaetsel The problem with carrots is that "the medium is the message" and you can't use pleasurable incentives to teach the lesson that we must learn to forego lots of short-term pleasures--and give up power and cash wealth too.
My god can he please stop talking about carbon footprint of individuals and start talking about the co2 emissions of the 20 biggest companies on earth?
BP managers are laughing that their idea of individual carbon footprints is still holding on in 2024... This is a total desaster for climate change and he is part of it
Most of us dont think about our individual impact (me included) and its an important first step to begin thinking about these things more often so we can work towards larger changes. These large companies wont wxist without the consumers.
@@investigator2016 bullshit. stop reproducing that bullshit about individual impact. NOTHING you can do as an individual will fix anything for climate change
just political-wise punishing and stopping these biggest conglomerates and companies will stop anything
BP along with Shell and Exxon actually founded the Climate Research Unit.
meh, a long way of saying "you can't make a man understand something if his livelihood depends on him not understanding it." Consumers don't design cars. Consumers don't build power plants. Consumers don't build computers. They don't refine fuels. But the complex system that does build and design those things are subject to influence, regulation, and politics. Climate activists don't have to stop buying cars to influence climate policy.
I do not think we are in time to live another 100 years without massive disruption of human society and social order. I think we have passed that point, even though it does not look that way. But in the event we could do something, it would be zero-emission power grids for everyone in the world. The developed world could get there, but without gifting the rest of the world dispatchable baseload power too cheap to meter, it won't matter to anyone. The rest of the world will keep building coal-based baseload power and steel, still use petroleum products to power mobility and work, and climate change will run it's course over humanity.
I completely agree. Was just saying the same thing in too many words .
Why ban a PLAY about 'taking over a government' when there are so many FILMS about the same thing, 'White House Down' etc. ?
62 yrs old living in Nova Scotia Canada. Grew up starting in December we ice fished and played pond hockey. Harbour doesn’t freeze till feb if at all and fresh water late January at earliest.
Plenty of us believe it, but there's nothing we can do about it. We don't have the resources to live off the grid. We barely make enough to afford rent every month.
I grew up Evangelical Christian. I’ve radically moved away from that cultural and religious perspective at this point but when I was in my twenties, I was the youth director at our church back in the nineties. One of the first lessons I taught was based on a song called “beyond belief” and I challenged my students that their faith is meaningless unless it is put into action, they have to move beyond believing something into allowing it to radically shape their lives and behavior. Perhaps that perspective is what allowed me to escape the movement, because it never was just aimless belief to me.
Although, I disagree with his final premise. I don’t think it’s that we’re in denial; folks I know who agree climate change is happening-we all know and agree we need massive changes and there will be massive consequences. We’re desperate for our governments to take big action, we welcome the change because we know it is necessary and that avoiding it means worse consequences. We don’t get on planes because we’re in denial of anything. We get on planes because we have to get somewhere and it’s either burn fossil fuels in a car, bus, boat or plane to do it and generally those decisions are made for you by your work/family schedule and the size of your bank account. I suppose there are some electric trains but the electricity is generated by fossil fuels and they’re super expensive. I’ve never been able to afford it compared with driving or flying.
Great comment
I also think governments need to take action, but society is divided on how. I think nuclear is our best shot, but we're refusing to do it due to irrational fears and due to green mythology concerning its feasibility. For sure there's no point in me as a grass root to try to be more frugal.
WOW! This is a great and thought provoking presentation. It does exactly what TED Talks were ment to do. Keep it up!
if anyone's curious about the physical realities of climate change that Mr. Finnigan mentions, check out the 99% Invisible podcast. They have a series called "Not Built For This" where they interview people affected by intensifying weather like flooding and wild fires. I found it really helpful in understanding what climate change would mean for everyday life.
I really like how you use your arguments to pickup people from both sides of the coin. We really need to see how we all can come together and find good compromises for all. Seriously listening and learning from contrary opinions is so important.
Thanks men.
6:41 This is the most baffling thing about climate deniers because how on earth could they get the issue about global warming so wrong? The list that David brings up is a list of consequences, but climate deniers interpret this as an agenda somehow. In the end, both sides of the table want the same thing but they choose to think different about the same argument 🤯
Climate change deniers don’t doubt climate changes. They doubt co2 is the reason. There is too much data to suggest co2 doesn’t warm the atmosphere.
*GREATEST Climate Change Talk EVER!*
*The audience was absolutely stunned you could hear a pin drop. 😲 Talk about a shower of cold reality.*
*You sound like a fair-minded, thinking person so I share the following for your consideration.*
*Sadly, most people will fail to understand the point of his talk. It was not actually about "deniers". It was that most climate change "believers" only pay lip service while living hypocritically.*
*See, I believe he is incredibly honest so I will assume he didn't mention people like me because he genuinely hasn't met us yet.*
*I do not "deny" the climate is changing or the climate science. But because he agreed that, that list of consequences are inevitable as a result of the "solutions" already being forced on everyone (except on the hypocritical "priesthood of climate change") then I choose not to comply. But live free of fascism.*
*We recently got a glimpse at how those climate solutions will play out:*
*"PANDEMIC! LOCK DOWN! NO FREEDOM....for you. meanwhile me and my friends and family will travel whenever and wherever we want and enjoy ourselves because WE are 'essential', not school teachers, not food service, not whatever it is you do to feed YOUR family."*
*THAT was the final straw of trust and belief in those taking the lead. And that healthy craving for freedom can no longer be held back, because when the waters rise and the temperature gets hotter, guess what, WE CAN MOVE! Humans have been moving to better parts of the planet for thousands of years! Adapt & overcome!*
*Well guess what, scientists that worship Darwin are about to witness the so-called "survival of the fittest" play out on a grand scale. Want everyone on board? Then no more "Just for thee and not for me" crap. But sadly, the rich and powerful will never do it. They can afford to pay extra "carbon tax" and continue to live as they wish.*
Look into nutrition and you'll see how science can be wrong on purpose.
@@JohnSmith-ds7oi You'll have to fill me in. Are you saying climate change really is a hoax to push an agenda?
I'm slowly switching over all of my habits to more eco friendly ones. I also plan to build my business in the most eco way possible, even when extremely difficult. Everyone needs to continue their lives and make a living, that is why I vote with my dollar; the most powerful tool that I own in this society.
Hopefully that includes going vegan, the single most important effect an individual, ordinary citizen can have.
@@djayjpIt is impossible to be vegan these days and tbh a lot of the vegan alternatives are not much better for the planet. Like belts, a pure leather belt will last you your life it wont fray or rip… yet a vegan friendly leather free belt is made of laminated plastic fibres which lasts a few months at best… now that belt is sitting in a landfill never biodegrading.
Also look at food, have you seen the amount of artificial crap listed in vegan produced foods? Modified starches, sugars, oils, and its all bad for you.
Will make 0 difference
That's really great work. As someone involved with climate groups, changing personal habits was how I first got started, because when I ultimately realized I had to do more than just focus on my own behavior, my own experience of how easy (or sometimes not easy) it was informed me on what change was needed at the structural level.
@@RobertMJohnson _Even_ _if_ your meagre efforts will make 0% effective difference, what kind of wuss goes down without a fight?
Seriously, this is why I think people want to deny it because they're afraid of large scale migrations and I blame this fear for the rise in right-wing movements around the world.
Climate is already changing. I work with people all over the planet. And in the past 5 years the amount of climate caused catastrophes or extremeties has been off the chart. I hardly go a week now without either colleagues affected by extreme weather, flooding or climate anomalies. And even in less severely hit places, places that are traditionally not warm, it's warm way into the autumn, and the winters have left them with barely, if any, snow, where it used to be snow-covered every year.
I've read most interesting books on climate and climate change - and while not all changes are BAD, for humans, the changes come with effects that we simply do not know the outcome of. Whole ecosystems and biospheres are already collapsing, and the intertwined connection between these will eventually cause an unsustainable future, for the amount of people we are on the planet.
That means, now at the height of human population, all these eventually 10-11.000.000.000 people will need food and shelter. They will want luxuries, and they will want to move around. And the planet will not be hospitable enough to accomodate that.
And then the chaos ensues.
We can deny all we want. But the planet does not care. Cause and effect. And we, along with the biological life on this planet will be affected, wether we deny it or not. It has already begun.
No one denies climate changes. We deny that co2 is the culprit.
The average global temperature (which is the core issue) had been very stable for the last 6,000 years--until we started burning fossil fuels--and were supposed to be quite stable for the next 50,000 years.
Thousands of research studies and 40+ years of quite accurate climate models prove that our emissions caused roughly 98% of all global warming since 1900. Even children's science fair experiments prove that adding more CO2 to a glass jar makes it heat up more when a light is shined on it. Also, if it wasn't CO2 warming the planet, then Exxon's own scientists wouldn't have been able to create a climate model back in 1982 that quite accurately predicted through 2022 how much warming our future emissions would cause... but they did, and many other climate models have quite accurately predicted how much warming our emissions would cause. This debate has been over for decades in climate science.
@@dr_shrinkersame.
Denying science without evidences .
Nice long story
The data says that there are no more floods, hurricanes, wildfires, etc then 100/150 years ago.
As a matter affect there are many less victems nowaday‘s then back then.
Climate is changing, and yes C02 is partly causing it.
We need to addept to it.
Thinking we can control the climate is very arrogant.
We are not going to be able to stop the upcoming country‘s from using fossil fuels.
Climate changes yes.
Climate emergency no.
We have to use our resources wisely
@@dr_shrinker science says co2 is the culprit, that’s still denial. Fossil fuel industry creates propaganda to convince people that the problem isn’t burning fossil fuels, so that they can keep making money.
Wow, he's got a good point. We understand that climate science is accurate, but in many ways we live as if it isn't.
Just like smoking. You know damn well what a pack does to your Body and what future youre creating. Yet there are over 1 billion ppl addicted to nicotin. Ignorance will be our downfall.
And alcohol
YES. Truth hurts. People don't like to admit that responsible choices are often hard - especially when your choice benefits people and generations you will never know.
*GREATEST Climate Change Talk EVER!*
*The audience was absolutely stunned you could hear a pin drop. 😲 Talk about a shower of cold reality.*
*You sound like a fair-minded, thinking person so I share the following for your consideration.*
*Sadly, most people will fail to understand the point of his talk. It was not actually about "deniers". It was that most climate change "believers" only pay lip service while living hypocritically.*
*See, I believe he is incredibly honest so I will assume he didn't mention people like me because he genuinely hasn't met us yet.*
*I do not "deny" the climate is changing or the climate science. But because he agreed that, that list of consequences are inevitable as a result of the "solutions" already being forced on everyone (except on the hypocritical "priesthood of climate change") then I choose not to comply. But live free of fascism.*
*We recently got a glimpse at how those climate solutions will play out:*
*"PANDEMIC! LOCK DOWN! NO FREEDOM....for you. meanwhile me and my friends and family will travel whenever and wherever we want and enjoy ourselves because WE are 'essential', not school teachers, not food service, not whatever it is you do to feed YOUR family."*
*THAT was the final straw of trust and belief in those taking the lead. And that healthy craving for freedom can no longer be held back, because when the waters rise and the temperature gets hotter, guess what, WE CAN MOVE! Humans have been moving to better parts of the planet for thousands of years! Adapt & overcome!*
*Well guess what, scientists that worship Darwin are about to witness the so-called "survival of the fittest" play out on a grand scale. Want everyone on board? Then no more "Just for thee and not for me" crap. But sadly, the rich and powerful will never do it. They can afford to pay extra "carbon tax" and continue to live as they wish.*
I’ve tried to make the world a better place my whole life. Most people are just part of the problem, and they drag us all along into the abyss with their stubbornness.
My cousin used to entirely deny climate change, then he revised his belief to climate change is real but it’s not caused by humans. He believes it’s a natural shift and will return to normal. He believes this because he doesn’t want to be inconvenienced by changing his lifestyle of doing whatever he wants to do whenever he wants to do it just to save climate refugees, his neigh, his children, his grandchildren, or anyone else.
"Change his lifestyle" by taking the bus to work and buying LED lights? You cousin doesn't need to change his lifestyle. He's not the one dumping toxic chemicals in the water.
👏👏👏Brilliant. I see you. Rooting for you and much love from Corpus Christi, Texas🙏🤙🌏
This is the life I've lead. I understood our impact on ecosystems through my love of wildlife that started in childhood. By the time I was in high school I was really mad at the world... and so on. I did get married and have children, that was never the plan, but it happened. I raised my kids vegetarian for environmental reasons, and they knew why I did that. Small piece of property in a city, but I still grew some food so my kids understood a little more about food systems and grew native plants. It's not enough though for individuals to lead responsible lives. That's another joke played by the giant industries to take focus off of them. I can't change enough people, I can't ban enough businesses/corporations, it is a revolution that is needed. A complete system change.
The key point of the talk is for us to recognize the consequences of global warming and start altering our way of life to accommodate the changes. Things like massive migration out of the equatorial zones into the temperate zones. Migration away from coastal and low land area to higher ground. Things like planning and adjusting agricultural practices to accommodate change. The list is really long, and we will all experience it. Whether we plan for it or not is our current decision.
?? Everyone in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan is flocking to Texas, Arizona, Florida if they can figure out how. And I hope to join them one day. people much prefer warmer weather.
Not sure this will go fast enough to benefit much from planning. People will do what they do, and the invisible hand of the market will solve it. The major problem perhaps is countries being increasingly tough on migration.
@@SteveLomas-k6k "people much prefer warmer weather." The only problem is that our lives and food supply are totally dependent on the health of Earth's ecosystems and rapidly heating all the ecosystems on Earth is pushing them toward collapse/mass extinction event. People moving to hotter places with less water just accelerates the collapse.
@@HealingLifeKwikly Well the comment was about migration. But crops also thrive on CO2, making them more drought resistant- never mind the benefit from milder nights, I live in an agricultural area where late spring frosts are a killer, farmers have huge fans on airplane engines to try to avoid that happening. Crop yields would benefit greatly if global warming ever happened. They have already benefited hugely from the extra CO2 nutrition.
@@SteveLomas-k6kNot everyone lives in a cold climate. Those who live in already warm climates are suffering.
It’s strange you’re only able to think about yourself when climate change impacts all of humanity.
I always figured people denied a climate change because that means they would have to take responsibility for their actions and change the way they are living their lives.
“This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
😆🤦♂️The “world” doesn’t end. The complex life of this era slowly goes away. Several million years from now the Earth rediscovers balance.
Let us go then, you, and I, as the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table.
Makes me think of the quote “I know that I know nothing” Socrates was onto something..
This biggest challenge is to rewire the human mind to cope with this unavoidable problem. Outstanding Ted Talk.
I have been a physicist for more than 50 years, and I find the most charming thing about Nature is the She does not care what you believe or what you want. The deniers make the mistake of thinking that what they believe will have some effect on the future. It will, but not in the way they think. Delayed action of climate will make the damage greater and the cost much higher to maintain a livable world. I would prefer it were not the case, but I don''t control it. Neither do they. And scientists that I know 1) Want to understand what is going on in the physical world. 2) Don't want to have any control over the lives of people. We don't live in a benign universe. It is possible to screw things up badly. Deniers believe all will be well if we do nothing. Wrong.
So, what are you suggesting we do? This isn’t a problem that can be solved at the grassroots level, by people taking teensy steps to minimize their individual carbon footprints. It has to be a top-down, global response. And I don’t see any interest in that from anyone in power.
Nah Dave, it's just that I'm a nihilist. This stuff has been in the public eye since the 70s and we still have ppl in power who say "nah, bollocks, we ain't doin' diddly-squat, in fact here, have some more monies ya pollutin' little bessings, you!". So realistically (and looking at how absolute opposition was dealt with in the past, pick an era, any era), short of killing climate deniers - what do we do? Protest? Write angry letters to newspapers? Sod it, let the seas rise, we'll go fishing.
Yes, protest. Most of our societal progress has come through protest.
Hi David. Never felt compelled before to post a comment on a UA-cam Video. However, I greatly enjoyed this. I'ts a very inventive way to make the case and rethink our responses to climate change. Very well done.
I have an acquaintance I talk to at a bar who said the Earth has cycled through different climates throughout its existence. I pointed out that while that’s true, those changes took thousands of years to happen and we’re changing it drastically in 150 years of industrialization. He admitted he hadn’t thought of it that way and that what I said made sense so I think I actually converted a climate change denier. I was just glad he never actually tried to deny that temperatures are rising because then I would have stopped talking to him altogether.
Exactly. It's the speed of change that's unprecedented not the absolute temperature change.
Ice sheet annual layers have proven an ice age begins rapidly. In 20 years, the climate temperature drastically drops.
@@douginorlando6260
Wrong. It takes tens of thousands of years for a glacial period to reach its maximum extent, so any temperature drop at the beginning is not drastic, but gradual.
@ you need to get educated. Annual ice layers reveal the temperature at which it precipitated (by comparing Oxygen isotope ratios of the ice). It clearly shows in a 20 year period the climate temperature flips into an ice age. And nothing says brainwashed like deliberately closing your ears to other points of view as you professed when you said “I would have stopped talking to him altogether”.
@@douginorlando6260
I said I would have stopped talking to him if he said temperatures aren't rising, which is not a point of view, it's a fact. It's weird how you even suggested that could be a point of view. Go look up how long it takes for ice ages to actually occur and I think you'll see it doesn't happen in 20 years.
So tired of having any belief toward climate science or anything. It doesn’t matter if you believe or not, we live in a living system that is interconnected and interdependent.
One of my favorite bands made a song about raising a child and not being able to teach it anything about the future because of what you said. It's a dystopian song. But actually it's the upcoming reality. Your talk made that clear once again.
You can't just comment that without dropping the song title
@@moiaussi7722 It's in German and metal with harsh vocals, so I thought I won't mention it.
@@AlfW well i got good news for you, I am German!
Gimme
@@moiaussi7722Ok, it's The Hirsch Effekt - 2054, and because you won't understand most of the lyrics from the vocals (as it's screams most of the time), here's the lyrics:
Ewig Wachstum für eine Welt, in der nichts wächst.
Was kehrt dich eigentlich der Erhalt, das Sein und der Mensch?
Reise mit mir durch die ganze Welt.
Ich zeige dir einen fremden Ort
bevor er untergeht - auch weil wir hierher gereist sind
Wann bring ich dir bei dass alles, was ich dir beigebracht hab’, nichts zählt?
Das wird wertlos für deinen Erhalt
Wie wird es sich anfühl’n, wenn du merkst, jеder, der dir nah war, hat dir was vorgemacht?
Nеin, es wird nichts mehr für dich übrig sein.
Stets am Ende dieses Kreises meines Bangens der Moment, wo ich mich frag
Wann gesteh’ ich, dass das hier nie deine Zukunft wird
Lass mich hier nicht allein
Lass mich hier nicht allein
Vater, lass mich hier nicht allein
Kenn’ kein Mangel
Noch Entbehrung
Wie soll ich so nur besteh’n? Denn du hast mich für diese Welt nicht gemacht
So wie es wird
Ist dir das dein Leben wert?
@@AlfWPlease send it!!!! I wanna hear it so bad
To be fair the individual lacks power, as a group we can enact laws and regulations and provide systems to make these things easier.. I can’t travel without a car, I live in a place that can get to -80 and charging stations are few and far between so electric vehicles are not practical. Also Some of us can’t afford them… I’m actually finally considering a hybrid but it seems like a lot of companies are transitioning to all electric (I drive a ford focus from 12 yers ago and it was used when I got it) I can recycle but the recycling bin still goes to the landfill because the cost is prohibitive as we basically let the poor countries recycle our stuff. Fresh and local food is hard to come by (Specifically local) and I live in a farming state.. you gotta sign up for it and can pick up veggies once every other week. The other place in town is inconvenient… and more expensive than the chain grocery store a block away. We need to change systems and try and do personal things to impact everything.
theres a really cool solar car being built called the aptera, it seems like a great alternative to an electric car, the starting price is at around $30,000 which is actually amazing. im hoping to one day be able to afford one (its gonna take me a hot minute since my checks arent that big)
*GREATEST Climate Change Talk EVER!*
*The audience was absolutely stunned you could hear a pin drop. 😲 Talk about a shower of cold reality.*
*You sound like a fair-minded, thinking person so I share the following for your consideration.*
*Sadly, most people will fail to understand the point of his talk. It was not actually about "deniers". It was that most climate change "believers" only pay lip service while living hypocritically.*
*See, I believe he is incredibly honest so I will assume he didn't mention people like me because he genuinely hasn't met us yet.*
*I do not "deny" the climate is changing or the climate science. But because he agreed that, that list of consequences are inevitable as a result of the "solutions" already being forced on everyone (except on the hypocritical "priesthood of climate change") then I choose not to comply. But live free of fascism.*
*We recently got a glimpse at how those climate solutions will play out:*
*"PANDEMIC! LOCK DOWN! NO FREEDOM....for you. meanwhile me and my friends and family will travel whenever and wherever we want and enjoy ourselves because WE are 'essential', not school teachers, not food service, not whatever it is you do to feed YOUR family."*
*THAT was the final straw of trust and belief in those taking the lead. And that healthy craving for freedom can no longer be held back, because when the waters rise and the temperature gets hotter, guess what, WE CAN MOVE! Humans have been moving to better parts of the planet for thousands of years! Adapt & overcome!*
*Well guess what, scientists that worship Darwin are about to witness the so-called "survival of the fittest" play out on a grand scale. Want everyone on board? Then no more "Just for thee and not for me" crap. But sadly, the rich and powerful will never do it. They can afford to pay extra "carbon tax" and continue to live as they wish.*
Thanx David, Your talk actually moved me. 😗
Brilliantly put David, thanks for sharing this!
Interesting perspective on the whole issue of climate change. As a (very) former climate researcher, I not only believe, but understand the science behind climate change. We have a culture in the US of, “If I say it isn’t true, then it doesn’t exist.” We do that with climate change, air pollution, education, tax laws, school shootings, etc. People seem to believe if they ignore something, it doesn’t exist. While I could do more to fight climate change, we have downsized and consume far less consumer goods than we did in the past. I drive a hybrid which is 17% more polluting than an electric vehicle (based on where we live). We consume far less than 50% of the water than we did five years ago and about 60% of the electricity than we did then. Two people won’t change the fate of the world, but we can try to slow down its demise.
We'd be in a lot better place if most people did a little bit more, as you have. We can't immediately change the world we're stuck in - sometimes automobiles are necessary, our food is in plastic bags, and our clothes wear out. Most folks don't want to do *anything* unfortunately :(
Everyone needs to understand that every little bit counts. If everyone does a little, it adds up to a lot. If the majority do nothing, things will only get worse. I have friends who laugh at efforts to reduce carbon emissions in Australia because emissions in China keep going up. I agree that the answer isn't to export the emissions to other countries, but at the same time, the answer isn't to carry on with business as usual.
Not buying it. Co2 doesn’t warm the atmosphere. Vostok ice core showed it lags, it doesn’t lead.
@dr_shrinker have a look at Venus. PS you missed the point.
@@theharper1nah. You missed the point. Venus is closer to the sun and its atmosphere is 1300 psi. Earth is like 14 psi. Venus atmosphere is almost a solid.
So. Go outside and put a glass of coke near a bonfire and put another one 10 feet away. Which one gets hotter faster?
So people fear the consequences of trying to fix the problem. They feel it is easier to ignore it and let the next generation handle it. Unfortunately the longer we wait, the harsher reality will be.
Spraying chemicals in the air to block the sun sounds even worse to me than paying a carbon tax to crooked energy corporations.
Particularly interesting because he's talking about Australia, where climate change denial was so tenacious back then (selling cheap coal to China enabling its industrial boom seemed a good idea at the time - to the ignorant and, sadly, to the cynical).
My view of climate deniers is not what anyone would call "charitable". I hold them in very low regard. Substandard humans at best.
Honestly, the concept of human made climate change is a horror so deep I can understand some simply close their minds to it.
The speaker seems to have stumbled into a non-sequitur at the end. Understanding and giving credence to the scientific evidence does not imply that one is in denial of the potential consequences of inadequate action.
Yeah, we still fly using fossil fuels... obviously because that's the only option possible for rapid travel at present. But to deny the science by willful ignorance, and actively oppose technological and societal efforts to transition to sustainable practices, is to practically guarantee the arrival of the events that the 'deniers' most fear.
Listen again.
He's saying we need to lead our lives in a way that takes into account the reality of climate change, not just try to minimize our footprint.
Even if we acknowledge climate change, even if we minimize our carbon footprints, it's still happening. It's still wrecking avoc on our cities and food sources, and migrations. What are we doing to *adapt*?
@@thomastempe3301 Yes it is wreaking havoc and is likely to get worse. But people who understand and accept the evidence for climate change, and who actively support economic and political strategies for change, are being consistent in thought and action - even if the change is not happening fast enough. And, a big part of the reason that change is not happening fast enough is because of the political and economic roadblocks created by the actual "deniers".
I get that he's saying we should be more scared and proactive. But I think that to suggest not being scared enough or not planning for the very worst is a type of 'denial' that's no better than those who deny the science is a bridge too far, and likely to do more damage to the cause of solving the climate problem than good.
Organizing our own extinction. Clever.
Don’t know what the climate is like where this gentleman lives, but the U.S. Gulf Coast where I live climate change is kicking the crap out of us. Florida is about to be hit with a second major hurricane in two. Our flood insurance is now more expensive than our house notes. People may not believe climate change scientists, but insurance bills don’t lie.
And if you asked any other Floridian if they believe in climate change, they’ll deny that it’s real.
David's comments hit home. Well said. Now what the heck am I going to do about it? 🤔
I guess "picking the low hanging fruit" starts at home. Energy conservation, personal transportation, water conservation, etc. (Note: I'm already a vegetarian, so I can't cut down on meats and poultry. I already have PV and solar water heating panels installed. And I already converted all lights to LED fixtures.)
Activism. I'll have to do my research on what organizations are active locally. Otherwise, I'll do some research on what on-line organizations seem to be doing good work. I reach out to my political representatives every now and again, I'll try to keep in mind global warming issues if appropriate to the subject.
Time investment. I'll need to figure out how much time I'm willing to invest in this effort. I'm 70, time utilization is a significant issue for me.
Planting trees. Now that's something that perks my interest. Always seemed like a good outdoorsy activity for me to do in my retirement years.
His point is great! 99 % of the people I know understand climate science and express concern over the future but then switch topic to their upcoming flights to places like Thailand and Brazil without batting an eyelid. Also, these same 99 % of people would vote down any politician who was brave enough to tell them what actually needs to be done to start mitigating the problem.
Climate science isn't a belief. You either understand it, or you don't understand it. You either know, or you're ignorant. You either care, or you don't care. I think we need to reshape the way we speak about climate deniers and make sure we're pressing the point that science isn't a belief. Beliefs are reserved for things you can't see, things you can't prove, things you have no control over.
That kind of dogma is why people say science is the new religion.
CORRECTION: Actual current increase in global temp significantly higher than stated, herein and elsewhere, as shown Sept 12, 13 and 14, 2001 when airlines were not allowed to fly for three days. Global temps skyrocketed! Upwards of more than 1.5 degrees F when contrails no longer reflected sunlight back out towards upper atmosphere. Mr. Finnegan’s analysis is spot-on. Even downplayed. Mother earth is coming for deniers AND those who, like my family, have spent the past 60 years fighting to “SAVE THE WHALES” (our first national campaign from the ‘70’s). The deniers’ arguments are a;ways the same and are, more recently, shifting to: Well? The Climate is changing BUT? It’s natural! Humans had no part in these changes.
Alas, we knew THAT was coming, too. 😢
As the permafrost melts, the NEXT challenge for those who remain will be: Where to find the ‘high ground’? Away from the methane flows already choking out those with respiratory illnesses. Where is it safe from fires and resulting smoke? Who are these arsonists intentionally fueling the flames of our demise? Let alone, where will the clean air and water be for the next seven generations?
ANSWER: Not in some billionaire’s underground bunker.
Mother earth is coming for EVERYONE.
*GREATEST Climate Change Talk EVER!*
*The audience was absolutely stunned you could hear a pin drop. 😲 Talk about a shower of cold reality.*
*You sound like a fair-minded, thinking person and I agree with much of your comment, so I'll share the following for your consideration.*
*Sadly, most people will fail to understand the point of his talk. It was not actually about "deniers". It was that most climate change "believers" only pay lip service while living hypocritically.*
*See, I believe he is incredibly honest so I will assume he didn't mention people like me because he genuinely hasn't met us yet.*
*I do not "deny" the climate is changing or the climate science. But because he agreed that, that list of consequences are inevitable as a result of the "solutions" already being forced on everyone (except on the hypocritical "priesthood of climate change") then I choose not to comply. But live free of fascism.*
*We recently got a glimpse at how those climate solutions will play out:*
*"PANDEMIC! LOCK DOWN! NO FREEDOM....for you. meanwhile me and my friends and family will travel whenever and wherever we want and enjoy ourselves because WE are 'essential', not school teachers, not food service, not whatever it is you do to feed YOUR family."*
*THAT was the final straw of trust and belief in those taking the lead. And that healthy craving for freedom can no longer be held back, because when the waters rise and the temperature gets hotter, guess what, WE CAN MOVE! Humans have been moving to better parts of the planet for thousands of years! Adapt & overcome!*
*Well guess what, scientists that worship Darwin are about to witness the so-called "survival of the fittest" play out on a grand scale. Want everyone on board? Then no more "Just for thee and not for me" crap. But sadly, the rich and powerful will never do it. They can afford to pay extra "carbon tax" and continue to live as they wish.*
For the PREPPERS: We know you. You are not some new, enlightened ilk. While WE were in the old growth forests hugging the trees, you were the ones cuttin’ ‘em down.
BTW: The Rapture? It ALREADY happened.
@@Christian_Prepper For the PREPPERS: We know you. You are not some new, enlightened ilk. While WE were in the old growth forests hugging the trees, you were the ones cuttin’ ‘em down.
BTW: The Rapture? It ALREADY happened.
Understanding that climate change is real means that we must take action. Every suburb should have a small electric bus that circulates around the city frequently enough that it's convenient to use. We're not going to "electric car" our way to a greener future.
As a chemical engineer, I can explain climate change to 5th graders in about 3 minutes. Sure, it will have consequences. But, that discussion occurs after you accept the basic facts.
Excellent insight. The majority of us (regular, normal citizens) are "soft deniers" because it is believed that with the great energy transition there will be a crackdown on people's freedoms (on what we eat, how we get around and travel, where we live, etc). As a rational person with some understanding of climate science, I understand that sacrifices need to be made to help our planet ... but as a regular, normal citizen, I know it is challenging for ordinary people to no longer fly, drive an ICE vehicle, eat red meat, live near or visit coastal areas, etc.
I don't like to say this, but if we surveyed how climate scientists live, I am pretty sure that many are also "soft deniers". It is similar to medical doctors who advocate healthy lifestyles and healthy eating, and yet how many overweight, smoking and unhealthy medical doctors are there? A case of "do as I say, not as I do". 😅
5 minutes in, this was painful to watch. Your second half was some of the best spoken words I've heard on the subject.
It's easy to point a finger at an industry. We make our own choices on what to spend money on. Would you spend $100 a year to ward off climate change? $1000? More? It will surprise you what the average person is willing the change. Believe or deny might be the wrong question to ask. What are you willing to change might be the right one.
*GREATEST Climate Change Talk EVER!*
*The audience was absolutely stunned you could hear a pin drop. 😲 Talk about a shower of cold reality.*
*You sound like a fair-minded, thinking person so I share the following for your consideration.*
*Sadly, most people will fail to understand the point of his talk. It was not actually about "deniers". It was that most climate change "believers" only pay lip service while living hypocritically.*
*See, I believe he is incredibly honest so I will assume he didn't mention people like me because he genuinely hasn't met us yet.*
*I do not "deny" the climate is changing or the climate science. But because he agreed that, that list of consequences are inevitable as a result of the "solutions" already being forced on everyone (except on the hypocritical "priesthood of climate change") then I choose not to comply. But live free of fascism.*
*We recently got a glimpse at how those climate solutions will play out:*
*"PANDEMIC! LOCK DOWN! NO FREEDOM....for you. meanwhile me and my friends and family will travel whenever and wherever we want and enjoy ourselves because WE are 'essential', not school teachers, not food service, not whatever it is you do to feed YOUR family."*
*THAT was the final straw of trust and belief in those taking the lead. And that healthy craving for freedom can no longer be held back, because when the waters rise and the temperature gets hotter, guess what, WE CAN MOVE! Humans have been moving to better parts of the planet for thousands of years! Adapt & overcome!*
*Well guess what, scientists that worship Darwin are about to witness the so-called "survival of the fittest" play out on a grand scale. Want everyone on board? Then no more "Just for thee and not for me" crap. But sadly, the rich and powerful will never do it. They can afford to pay extra "carbon tax" and continue to live as they wish.*
The Stable Earthers among us are everywhere … apparently TED has Stable Earthers on their board. Stable Earthers and Flat Earthers have more in common in their mindset than might be obvious at first glance. 🌎
Well said, bit sweeping generalisation on people, but it’s true in the sense people who have an insight into the science and believe in the process are in denial about the consequences 😢 I wonder how many people experiencing the floods in Europe, or the passing heatwave, will understand the coming change 🤔 interesting times indeed 😮🌀
Great talk, David! How wonderful to see you on stage this many years later!
The education of climate issues is a key to make people aware the dangerous of climate change impacted our planet and life. As majority of people take action to mitigate climate warming, the minority of climate denial wouldn't stop the world from achieving the goal of protecting our planet.
There is evidence of warming. There is no evidence that this is causing any problems. None.
People are mean they think they'll die anyways so they don't care about the future generations i think people would destroy earth one day its sad to even think about the world being destroyed
why would i care about the future, my impact is negligible if none, a single volcano eruption or meteorite impact can destroy whole planet regardless of your actions. Also in future there will be better technology to "fix" the climate... no need to waste money nor resources now on this.
I think the world will be fine. There will still be 10^24 kg of rock orbiting the sun.
Humanity will be harmed in various ways. But the average human will likely be better off than today due to technological improvement and economic growth. (or if not, it's because of something else, like nuclear war or AI doom. Not climate change).
Polar bears might well go extinct. At least in the wild. Same for a bunch of other animals. A lot of the species going extinct will be small and uncharismatic bugs.
This is true their is only a shred of a chance we will be able to live a good life(or any life) in the future and the deniers are destroying it.
I wonder what are the factors could make people do care about future generations in the first place.
Having children or young relatives? Having a responsible attitude in general? Believing in reincarnation?
Just throwing up some ideas.
Rest assured that as a species we will have made ourselves extinct well before destroying the planet...
Collective inaction breeds apathy which leads to the continuation of collective inaction, a self feeding cycle of doom
Shawn 100% accurate. Denial and distraction is what alot of us are engaged in. Mad Max seems to be our future...at best.
*GREATEST Climate Change Talk EVER!*
*The audience was absolutely stunned you could hear a pin drop. 😲 Talk about a shower of cold reality.*
*Love your comment. You sound like a fair-minded, thinking person so I will hare the following for your consideration.*
*Sadly, most people will fail to understand the point of his talk. It was not actually about "deniers". It was that most climate change "believers" only pay lip service while living hypocritically.*
*See, I believe he is incredibly honest so I will assume he didn't mention people like me because he genuinely hasn't met us yet.*
*I do not "deny" the climate is changing or the climate science. But because he agreed that, that list of consequences are inevitable as a result of the "solutions" already being forced on everyone (except on the hypocritical "priesthood of climate change") then I choose not to comply. But live free of fascism.*
*We recently got a glimpse at how those climate solutions will play out:*
*"PANDEMIC! LOCK DOWN! NO FREEDOM....for you. meanwhile me and my friends and family will travel whenever and wherever we want and enjoy ourselves because WE are 'essential', not school teachers, not food service, not whatever it is you do to feed YOUR family."*
*THAT was the final straw of trust and belief in those taking the lead. And that healthy craving for freedom can no longer be held back, because when the waters rise and the temperature gets hotter, guess what, WE CAN MOVE! Humans have been moving to better parts of the planet for thousands of years! Adapt & overcome!*
*Well guess what, scientists that worship Darwin are about to witness the so-called "survival of the fittest" play out on a grand scale. Want everyone on board? Then no more "Just for thee and not for me" crap. But sadly, the rich and powerful will never do it. They can afford to pay extra "carbon tax" and continue to live as they wish.*
I'm an optimist. I think tens of thousands of us will survive to re-populate.
Yes. But joke aside: This is also just one of the many "counterarguments" by climate "skeptics": They say, oh, this is all alarmist, mankind wil survive. But that's not the question. Mankind would also survive a worldwide thermonuklear war, imho. The question is, in what state?
For me, it is crisis enough to know that 50 years from now, the habitats of, let's say, 2 billion people will not be habitable any more. The consequences will be catastrophic, making WW2 look like a minor issue. But mankind will survive. If that is "alarmist", so be it.
Oh it will be MILLIONS. Which is still only one person in a thousand, but not nearly as bad as you seem to think.
The more interesting thing to think about is:
When does the climate change impact become so economically damaging as to collapse the US economy. 50 years? 30 years? 10 years?
The US economy is ALREADY close to collapse simply due to the excesses of capitalism and greed (you can only abuse the peasants so much before they revolt, and US peasants are armed, even the really poor ones).
No food? No life on 🌎 get real
I think so too, our current civilisation will crumble but there will still be some of us remaining.
@@filispirit There'll be food and lots of dead humans, but there are billions of us. Don't need more than 0.1% of us to survive as a species.
In a highly controlled, individualistic and materialistic society the concept of personal extinction is intolerable, this then is externalised into a denial of species extinction. So if you accept your own mortality, decay and death, you can more readily accept species extinction along with the terrifying loss of control that that engenders.
The first time I remember going to a gas station, as a very young boy, the nausea was overwhelming. I cried. Over time, that went away, which I do not think was an improvement. I would like to know, from ordinary people, where do you think this filth goes, from millions of cars, every day, round the clock? I specified 'ordinary people' because the people who make money from the fossil fuel industry know in excruciating detail, exactly what's up.
I spent 1/3 of 2024 writing a "chapter" on tipping points that I was invited to write for a book... I ended up with 75 pages of text, 75 figures at present... it's going to become 5-7 smaller chapters... I haven't even attempted to address technology or politics or special interests or behavioral psychology impacts on economics yet...
I do not have a formal background in climate science but am largely self taught. What I do have is a phd in systems engineering, feedback cycles, modeling, stochastic, decision making under uncertainty and statistical inference. If you can't understand how these tools might be applied to understanding climate science... well let me summarize the state of affairs with the following: feedback cycles ( aka tipping points, ecological avalanches ...) are not a side story to the conversation about climate change; they are the *entire* conversation.
And furthermore "climate change" ( which is obviously a mix of perpetual, natural changes as well as anthropomorphicly generated, unnatural ones... ) is just the tip of the iceberg. We have feedback cycles that couple together the effects of a) climate change, b) biodiversity, c) pollution, d) human behavior.
So I'll summarize the situation with the following: a) the situation is catastrophically more severe than 99.9999% of humans realize, even professional climate scientists (if they spent their career studying climate science that's tantamount to saying they have *not* spent their career studying inference/prediction/feedback cycles/ stochastic systems / non-linear estimation... I'm more broad less deep, they're the opposite. We're complementary to each other. And if the world was sane we would have teams of people with complementary skills working together. This is absolutely not the case...). b) these impacts are not 60, 80, 100 years in the future. This is not some future generation's problem. We're looking at society as we know it becoming unglued within 20 years. And just like investors in the stock market... we don't have to wait for some very negative event to happen to spook the market. The ecological "investors" (e.g. the set of people who like to eat at least once a week...) will anticipate the market... and that anticipation in and of itself is capable of destroying our social stability entirely.
Agriculture is the Achilles Heel of humanity -- Naomi Klein
The planet has resources enough for 680 million people to live an American lifestyle, sustainably... there are currently 330 million Americans already and 8 billion- 330 million other people. Ie we're burning through the world's resources ~12x faster than is sustainable... and the rate at which this situation is growing worse is growing exponentially through time.
So as this speaker very aptly suggests... your retirement plans, your 401k, your vacation home, your dreams of putting your baby through an Ivy League school 20 years from now... these ideas are mirage with no substance at all. You don't need to be trying to optimize between Harvard and MIT 20 years from now if the United States doesn't exist 20 years from now... and likewise for our notions of material wealth / value.
The state of the biosphere, the oceans, our crops, pollution, invasive species, the balancing act between organisms across the planet is in complete SNAFU status right now. It's a total burning, reeking dumpster fire.. which is growing exponentially worse over time.
So seriously folks, it's time to start focusing on what matters in life. I don't want to see people watch their children die... and that's exactly where we're headed right now. Wildly out of control... for hundreds and hundreds 9f different self-reinforcing reasons.
We're in a 0 sum game between past and future where we're putting 0% emphasis on the future and 100% emphasis on the present. And a certain number of atrocities may occur in consequence.
If our political system can't change and learn to plan on a 20, 50, 100, 1000, 100k year time horizon instead of a 1 day, 1 week, 1 financial quarter, 1 election cycle planning horizon then humanity is finished.
*"The planet has resources enough for 680 million people to live an American lifestyle, sustainably..."*
I have never been impressed by such calculations. They typically include CO2-emissions in some arbitrary way as the major contributor, and CO2 emissions are fixable when we want to fix them, especially through nuclear power.
*"Ie we're burning through the world's resources ~12x faster than is sustainable..."*
Everyone doesn't live like Americans so this doesn't compute, even if there were some valid numbers behind the original claim about having resources only for 680 million.
*"The state of the biosphere, the oceans, our crops, pollution, invasive species, the balancing act between organisms across the planet is in complete SNAFU status right now. It's a total burning, reeking dumpster fire.. which is growing exponentially worse over time. "*
Some indicators aren't good, to be sure, but I'm sorry, this is exaggerated. "Getting exponentially worse" how? It makes no sense.
Many good points made, well delivered too. But I don't believe the gravity of all these interlinked consequences of the climate disaster are well realised. Couple this with people's ability to kick the can down the road, I'll do it tomorrow! attitude. And you realise what the deniers have really achieved is far more powerful. By injecting doubt, vitriol and hate into the "debate" (it's not a debate!) potential discussion goes against polite and friendly conversation. So it doesn't get discussed. How can you consider or be held accountable for something that doesn't get talked about?
No wonder people just do the wrong thing all the time, safe in their little worlds. Why bother insulating your house when you could have a holiday. Buy a massive SUV or truck instead of a compact. Ask politicians how they are going to look after future generations and not just this one. I don't know, but I reckon your first idea was a solid one. Get people talking. Maybe in a different way.
YES! The ONLY thing that is constant is change.
(8:09) _"At one degree warming, we are already on a planet unlike anywhere humans have ever lived in the past."_
*That's ridiculous.*
Besides of being ridiculous, it's obviously not true.
I know, I know, "he didn't mean that".
But that sentence shows the attitude.
I'd rather everyone take those small steps than only some of us take the large ones. It's a numbers game and the more people that make a small difference the better prepared we'll be when it comes time for big changes.
Because we're not ready. Tech has been there, sure but only recently has it become viable to the masses... we need to thank those who bought solar in the 60's-90's even though their panels were basic they led the charge.
Clever but ultimately meaningless turns of phrases. No, deniers aren’t “right” they’re wrong and doing far less than others
Everybody believes what they have they deserve. And we come up with rationalizations to justifying our wants. Combating climate change requires sacrifice and behavior changes. This is more than most people are willing to do.
Marketers are constantly trying, often successfully, to tell us what we need--a larger house, an exotic vacation, a new phone, etc. All these things take energy. Is it possible to be content with what we have?
Excellent talk and illustrative of the problem
I've had similar conversations to this several times with co-workers over the past month who seem to have a hard time understanding that I could just stop eating red meat (I work at a brewpub in a rural area). So I've explained this several times now, "It started because I listened to an audiobook that covered the multitude of crises we will face in the next 100 years. I learned that nearly 60% of the world's argicultural land is used for beef production. Yet beef only makes up for 3% of global calorie production. On top of that, beef production is one of the globe's worst producers of greenhouse gases and consumes by far the most water of any common livestock.. If learn all that and don't change my actions, I'm a climate denier."
But, in truth, it's bigger than that. It's also about showing to myself that I can learn to change. That I can accept some change in my life now, so the generations to come might have any kind of life that resembles what we have now. Anyone with a basic understanding of Economics knows that Capitalist growth can't be infinite: but if we don't mess this up, there is potential for infinite humans to live after we're gone. They will all look back on us and see that we knew that we're destroying the planet. That we knew that infinite growth in a Capitalist system can't exist on a finite planet. Yet we still chose to go to Wal-Mart, McDonald's, buy a bigger gas powered SUV, overfish our oceans, or just eat beef because we thought that knowing compensated for action. So try a vegan or chicken burger the next time you eat out. Who knows? You might like it more, or, you might just save the world.
Did not expect, but now appreciate, his concluding point. Brilliant.