UN Says 2023 Global Heating Was "Red Alert" But Is the Message Too Doom And Gloom?

"Red Alert."

The UN's World Meteorological Organization called
climate change in 2023 a "red alert" but is dire
messaging the best way to encourage the public
to take action on climate change?

That's the conclusion of the World Meteorological Organization regarding the effects of climate change in 2023. 

The annual WMO Global Climate report is essentially the last word reviewing the crazy weather and climate events of 2023. 

 Records were smashed last year for the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,  land and water temperatures, and the melting of glaciers and sea ice. 

 "'Earth's issuing a distress call,' U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. 'The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink. Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts.'"

 The Associate Press writes:

"WMO said the impacts of heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones, exacerbated by climate change, was felt in lives and livelihoods on every continent in 2023.

'This list of record-smashing events is truly distressing, though not a surprise given the steady drumbeat of extreme events over the past year, said University of Arizona climate scientist Kathy Jacobs, who also wasn't involved in the WMO report.

 'The full cost of climate change accelerated events across sectors and regions has never been calculated in a meaningful way, but the cost to biodiversity and to the quality of future generations is incalculable.'"

Other quick takeaways in the WMO report: 

--- Extreme weather is undermining socio-economic development around the world

--- The cost of climate inaction is higher than the cost of climate action

--- The increasing pace of transitions to renewable energy does provide hope. 

 The United Nations' goal of holding the extent of climate change to within 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.  It's unclear whether that goal is even attainable. 

The 13 consecutive months through February averaged a bit more than that 1.5 degree threshold.  El Nino worked in concert with climate change to boost global temperatures to that level. 

As La Nina takes hold as expected later this year, the world will probably cool a tiny bit to a level below that 1.5 degrees. So it's not yet a permanent change. But at the pace we're switching to renewables, it looks like we'll blow past UN goal within a couple decades - so much for that idea

GLOOM/DOOM NOT HELPFUL?

The UN World Meteorological Organization report was released with a serious gloom and doom vibe, but was that really a good idea?   

According to Resilience.org, not really. 

"It turns out that critics are right to worry that doom and gloom can demoralize the public into inaction. We found that this strategy had no effect on policy support or climate beliefs. 

And doom and gloom even backfired when it came to more effortful behavior. When faced with the enormous stakes of the climate crisis, personal actions - and perhaps even policy change  - can seem futile. People withdraw or disengage." 

Doom and gloom messaging is great for social media clicks, the research shows, but not for motivating people.  

Potential audiences and societies in general are complex, so there's no one way to communicate about climate change and what people can do about it.  Different people responded differently to a variety of climate messages. The response varies country to country. 

Resilience.org continues:  "Sadly, we did not find a silver bullet for spurring climate action. But our research found several messages that moved the needle on climate change beliefs and actions. We suspect that similar lessons apply to other issues, from strengthening democracy to public health. In fact, we were recently part of a similar project designed to reduce affective polarization and found that several messages either didn't work or backfired. " 

However, framing messaging through a moral or ethical lens seems to be the most effective. 

Will Simplified Winter Storm Messaging Help?

Motorists struggle with a slippery hill in St. Albans,
Vermont during a heavy winter storm in 2017. The
National Weather Service plans to streamline
how winter storm warnings are issued this season
to make them less confusing to the public. 

 Messaging is complicated when a big weather hazard looms. Or even a small weather hazard, for that matter. 

I mentioned this issue not long ago in this here blog thingy concerning Hurricane Ian. Evacuations ahead of the storm didn't seem adequate. I don't think even emergency managers, never mind the general public, fully understood the nuances of the warnings. 

On a (usually) much less dangerous scale, National Weather Service offices in the Northeast, including Vermont, recently tried simplifying autumn and spring frost advisories and warnings to make them less confusing. 

Now many of these same National Weather Service offices, including our very own headquartered in South Burlington, Vermont, are taking a crack at making winter storm warnings less confusing. 

Yes, yes, I know, many of us (me included!) are not quite ready to deal with snowstorms. But winter weather will come soon enough. 

In the past, the National Weather Service in South Burlington would issue a winter storm warning if we expected six inches of new snow within 12 hours or nine inches of snow within 24 hours. 

One reason this can be confusing is winter storms can be quick or long-lasting. These warnings would be a little less perplexing if we just de-emphasized the time frame approach to storms. So, this winter, you'll hear a winter storm warning if meteorologists expect seven or more inches of snow from the storm. Doesn't matter if that seven inches comes down in five minutes or over two days. 

The decision by meteorologists to issue a winter storm warning will depend on the expected impacts of the oncoming snow. 

Other areas covered by different National Weather  Service offices will have slightly different criteria, based essentially on what people are used to in winter weather.

Northern New Hampshire and northern Maine will get a winter storm warning if the expected system will drop eight inches or more of snow. Most of central and southern New England get a similar warning if six inches or more is on the way. 

For the record, there will be no winter storm warnings in Vermont this week. Or next, for that matter. 

 

Van Gogh, Climate, Tomato Soup, Despair, Stupidity And Hope: Protest Stunts Reflect Nihilism And Backlash Risk

Climate activists threw tomato soup on a Van Gogh 
painting in a London gallery on Friday. Attention-
getting, yes, but probably not so effective messaging. 

 Among the many weird headlines on various news sites on Friday was the breaking news that some climate activists went into the National Gallery In London, uncorked two cans of Heinz tomato soup and threw the soup onto Van Gogh's painting "Sunflowers."

Then the two activists glued their hands to the wall. 

Yes, this is incredibly stupid in any scenario, and like probably everyone else, I'm at a loss as to how this will blunt the dangerous effects of climate change. 

As the Washington Post reports:

"'What is worth more, art or life?' one of the protesters shouted, her hand glued to the wall behind her. '..... Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet?'"

I'm being Captain Obvious here, but t's unclear how trying to destroy a work of art will save any lives that could be claimed by climate change. 

Don't get me wrong. It IS  appropriate for climate activists to make the fossil fuel industry and the politicians who support these industries uncomfortable. However, to be too literal, I don't think it's Van Gogh's fault that we are facing a climate crisis. 

The good news is "Sunflowers" was protected by glass, so it was unharmed, though the frame suffered light damage from the acidity in the tomato soup.  Six hours after the incident, "Sunflowers" was back on display in the National Gallery.

The Washington Post's report notes that the "Sunflower" attack was one of a series of climate protests that have targeted famous art.  I don't know why. 

If you want to do something about climate change, you need allies. You want to convince people the cause is important, that everyone should participate in efforts to wean ourselves away from fossil fuel.

The art attacks and other strange climate activist stunts, has the opposite effect of alienating potential allies. 

It's true these wacko climate moments do garner plenty of attention. Various video of the Great Van Gogh Tomato Soup Incident of '22 has garnered tens of millions of views on social media.

But how many people who watched the video became more sympathetic to the cause?  My guess is very few. In fact, I bet they had quite the opposite effect. People who might have been persuaded that climate activism might actually help the planet now might  incorrectly dismiss most climate change activists as kooks and attention seekers. 

There's research to back this up.  Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist, cited research from Stamford suggesting that bad or extreme messaging backfires. In the study's abstract, the researchers wrote:

"....we find across three experiments that extreme protest tactics decreased popular support for a given cause because they reduced feelings of identification with the movement."

This isn't at all to say that climate activism among youth is bad.  Most of the time, it's extremely helpful as many young people are creative, super smart and bring a lot of energy in the fight for climate change reform. 

Mann tweeted: "I love the passion of the youth climate movement - it has been a game changer, precisely because it has WON hearts and minds. Let's not forget that."

I completely agree with him. 

I'm not sure if Friday's tomato soup group was just looking for social media clicks, or they succumbed to despair.  I suspect the later, judging from public statements from the soup kids and their supporters. 

I thought Terri Mitchell's @Storm4Nosey defense of the pair was pretty representative. "There will be no art on a dead planet. Climate change will not just destroy the natural world, but everything that humans have ever created. No beauty, no culture, no past, no future no life. Nothing..... There won't be any beauty in the world if we allow the climate to be destroyed."

My response was, "So the solution is to try to preemptively destroy beauty before climate change does it?"

I worry about Mitchell's nihilism and that of the soup group. And that of the other despairing activists. The climate crisis is obviously an enormous foe, and everything needs to be done to stop it.  But this apparent need to try and destroy things before climate change gets a chance seems counterproductive. Why try to blunt climate change when all is already lost?

Climate scientist Peter Kalmus had a more nuanced, but still supportive take on the soup group, In a Twitter thread, he notes that the anger over the vandalism to the Van Gogh painting, which really caused no damage, is misplaced. In part, Kalmus writes:

"How tragic, that there is LITERALLY more outrage over this act that caused zero damage, than about fossil fuel executives lying, colluding, and blocking action for decades, locking in intensifying heat waves, flooding, fires, rising seas, collapsing crop yields and death? 

Kalmus continued: "These activists and their bold act of desperation shattered the collective sleepwalk, if for a moment. It stirred things up. It caused discussion. It shone a light."

I still worry that it might have caused the wrong discussion.  The climate crisis is so big that we need as many of us as possible to participate in a solution. Trying to damage a painting, sitting down and blocking roads (thereby making cars sit and idle, spewing more CO2 into the atmosphere) and other stunts turn too many people off. 

Why not turn our attention toward the fossil fuel executives that Kalmus refers to. And the politicians that aid and abet them.  And others would would deny the dangers of climate change, all for fun and especially profit?

Van Gogh had nothing to do with the climate change. I know it is hard for younger people especially to not succumb to nihilism and despair over the climate crisis?  But what choice do we have. Give up and throw soup cans, or do the real work of changing the world before it's too late.

I know many people, especially those younger than me are doing just that. Changing the world to save it. Let's join them instead of denying and destroying the beauty of the world that still exists.