But scientists have also identified at least

climate movement

renewable technologies

may already have been passed

corporate sustainability targets

climate anxiety

a flurry of activism

In the run-up to the Global Tipping Points conference in July, Guenther talks to the Guardian about the need to discuss catastrophic risks when communicating about the climate crisis.

ising seas and heating oceans

soaring carbon dioxide levels

The difference between gradual warming and tipping points is similar to the difference between chronic, manageable ailments and acute, life-threatening diseases, isn’t it? Yes. When people downplay the effects of climate change, they often represent the problem as a case of planetary diabetes – as if it were a kind of illness that you can bumble along with, but still have a relatively good quality of life as long as you use your technologies, your insulin, whatever, to sustain your health. But this is not how climate scientists represent climate change. Dr Joelle Gergis, one of the lead authors on the latest IPCC report, prefers to represent climate change as a cancer – a disease that takes hold and grows and metastasises until the day when it is no longer curable and becomes terminal. You could also think of that as a tipping point.

a false narrative

It depends. I talk about three different kinds of doomerism. One is the despair that arises from misunderstanding the science and thinking we’re absolutely on the path to collapse within 20 or 30 years, no matter what we do. That is not true.Second, there’s a kind of nihilistic position taken by people who suggest they are the only ones who can look at the harsh truth. I have disdain for that position.Finally, there’s the doomerism that comes from political frustration, from believing that people who have power are just happy to burn the world down. And that to me is the most reasonable kind of doomerism. To address that kind of doomerism, you need to say: “Yes, this is scary as hell. But we must have courage and turn our fear into action by talking about climate change with others, by calling our elected officials on a regular basis, by demanding our workplaces put their money where their mouth is.”

the direst predictions

it is bananas

“tipping points” – thresholds where a tiny shift could cause fundamental parts of the Earth system to change dramatically, irreversibly and with potentially devastating effects.

tipping points

Tipping points

Even at the current level of about 1.5C, the impacts of warming are emerging on the worst side of the range of possible outcomes and there is growing concern of tipping points for the

In his models, he does not account for climate damages to labour productivity, buildings, infrastructure, transportation, non-coastal real estate, insurance, communication, government services and other sectors.

Economic assumptions about risks of the climate crisis are no longer relevant

environmental externalities – the costs of our economic system, including our greenhouse gas pollution

global heating

climate threat

ecosystems – ice sheets, coral reefs, ocean circulation and the Amazon rainforest

ridiculously lowballed

doomerism

wealth as a shield

Too many of these and an abundance of unfortunate incidents lead to the Doomer, the Wojak who has effectively given up. Doomer represents a patchwork of pessimistic views about a range of issues—about his own future prospects and the future of the world, impending environmental collapse, and social decay and degeneracy.