In ‘Human Nature,’ Kate Marvel bridges the gap between climate science and emotions

Climate activists have misled the public into thinking there’s proof that our actions have led to global warming and possible climate catastrophe, according to former energy industry scientist Steven E. Koonin. On the contrary, Koonin argues that the facts about climate change are far from certain.

In his 2021 book, Unsettled, Koonin concedes that the climate is warming and humans are partially responsible for this warming. However, he contends that the evidence is overstated and climate scientists’ predictions are based on unreliable models. In turn, public misconceptions about climate change abound and the proposed solutions to climate change are unlikely to succeed.

In this guide, we’ll discuss Koonin’s assessment of climate science and its conclusions, in addition to his critique of prominent responses to climate change and his proposed alternative responses. Throughout this guide, we’ll also consider counterarguments from climate scientists and updates to climate science since Unsettled’s publication.

When thinking about the future of Earth, some people brush off any concerns (denialism) while others feel terrified and helpless (doomism). There’s another approach—climate optimism—but its advocates say we must choose the right kind of optimism to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

Though it’s become widely accepted that climate change is real, the questions still remain of what steps we should take to fix the damage and whether they'll be enough. Many scientists and activists believe that the climate has already passed a tipping point and that environmental catastrophe is inevitable. In Apocalypse Never, award-winning science writer Michael Shellenberger says that it’s time to assess the crisis from a rational perspective. He argues that we’re in a much better position to curb climate change than alarmists would have us believe, and that people who bend scientific truth in order to spur environmental action are doing more harm than good.

In this guide, we’ll explain Shellenberger’s argument that environmental alarmists overstate their claims and that there’s ground for hope for our planet’s future. We’ll also look at counter-arguments to Shellenberger’s claims and examine what independent research says about the solutions he suggests. We’ll point to recent developments in industry, agriculture, and the political climate that frame the conversation around climate change.

When thinking about the future of Earth, some people brush off any concerns (denialism) while others feel terrified and helpless (doomism). There’s another approach—climate optimism—but its advocates say we must choose the right kind of optimism to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

Climate activists have misled the public into thinking there’s proof that our actions have led to global warming and possible climate catastrophe, according to former energy industry scientist Steven E. Koonin. On the contrary, Koonin argues that the facts about climate change are far from certain.

In his 2021 book, Unsettled, Koonin concedes that the climate is warming and humans are partially responsible for this warming. However, he contends that the evidence is overstated and climate scientists’ predictions are based on unreliable models. In turn, public misconceptions about climate change abound and the proposed solutions to climate change are unlikely to succeed.

In this guide, we’ll discuss Koonin’s assessment of climate science and its conclusions, in addition to his critique of prominent responses to climate change and his proposed alternative responses. Throughout this guide, we’ll also consider counterarguments from climate scientists and updates to climate science since Unsettled’s publication.

These days, the world is moving faster than ever. Every day new scientific discoveries are announced, conflict breaks out somewhere in the world, and nature and the climate behave unexpectedly. If you feel overwhelmed or destabilized by this, you’re not alone—no period in the history of humanity has ever been subject to such quickly changing conditions as today.

In Thank You For Being Late, author, journalist, and columnist Thomas Friedman explains how these conditions arose—the three forces that shape the world, technology, globalization, and climate change, all accelerated at once—and how we can adapt to them.

Merchants of doubt are people or organizations who discredit science that threatens their agenda or ideology. The first merchants of doubt were members of the tobacco industry—when scientists discovered that smoking caused cancer, that was bad for businesses. It was also bad for capitalism in general because it suggested that the market wasn’t self-regulating, and lack of regulation was killing people. Other defenders of the free market started using the tobacco industry’s techniques, such as funding new (and hopefully more favorable) studies or calling for balanced media coverage.

In Merchants of Doubt, science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway study the doubt-mongering techniques used in several other important “debates”—nuclear disarmament, acid rain, the ozone layer, climate change, and the pesticide DDT. These techniques are still in use today.

Climate activists have misled the public into thinking there’s proof that our actions have led to global warming and possible climate catastrophe, according to former energy industry scientist Steven E. Koonin. On the contrary, Koonin argues that the facts about climate change are far from certain.

In his 2021 book, Unsettled, Koonin concedes that the climate is warming and humans are partially responsible for this warming. However, he contends that the evidence is overstated and climate scientists’ predictions are based on unreliable models. In turn, public misconceptions about climate change abound and the proposed solutions to climate change are unlikely to succeed.

In this guide, we’ll discuss Koonin’s assessment of climate science and its conclusions, in addition to his critique of prominent responses to climate change and his proposed alternative responses. Throughout this guide, we’ll also consider counterarguments from climate scientists and updates to climate science since Unsettled’s publication.

Aside from causing extreme weather events and the loss of polar bear habitats, climate change has other effects that have a direct impact on your day-to-day life: hotter tempers, lower productivity, and even a future without your morning coffee.

A lot of the conversation around climate change is still about preventing it; but at this point, it seems unlikely that we can. What if, instead, we turned our efforts toward preparing for a post-climate change world?

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is a New York Times best-selling, no-nonsense, apolitical discussion of climate change. Bill Gates's decades of philanthropy inform his writing on the urgent need to curb emissions while still encouraging development. Complementing his empathetic approach to reducing carbon emissions, he uses his experience in the technology industry to highlight the most practical technology-based strategies for reducing global carbon emissions with a straightforward assessment of their challenges and limitations.

While Gates discusses several promising emergent sources of green energy throughout the book, he also stresses the need to reduce emissions quickly. Therefore, this guide focuses on the technologies and strategies he discusses that are most feasible today. For clarity, we’ve broken Gates’s ideas into three categories: the climate problem, its causes, and Gates’s proposed strategies for curbing emissions. This guide supplements Gates’s discussion with commentary on scientific principles, timely examples of the impacts of climate change, and additional data and statistics.

When thinking about the future of Earth, some people brush off any concerns (denialism) while others feel terrified and helpless (doomism). There’s another approach—climate optimism—but its advocates say we must choose the right kind of optimism to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.