11k scientists say climate change is an emergency, 30k say it’s nothing to worry about

To start off, we do believe the earth is warming. Whether we can do a thing about it is an open question. This week, it seemed like scientists were done arguing, as headlines everywhere blared — 11,000 scientists declare it’s a “climate emergency.”

The document is titled, “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency.” The second sentence states, “We declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency.”

There is extensive documentation of a large number of worrying trends: warming, loss of ice, rising meat production and air travel, shrinking forest cover, and more. All of these are contributors to or indicators of climate change.

ArsTechnica reports: “But there’s also a bit of an odd focus on economics that aren’t necessarily linked to climate change. At one point, the document declares, “Our goals need to shift from GDP growth and the pursuit of affluence toward sustaining ecosystems and improving human well-being by prioritizing basic needs and reducing inequality.” This is especially odd because two trends that are promoted as positives—a declining fertility rate and the growth of carbon pricing—have been largely driven by high-GDP economies.”

This reminds us of the words of AOC’s former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti.

During a meeting with the Washington Post Magazine, and Sam Ricketts, climate director for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who was running for president, Chakrabarti complimented Inslee’s climate plan. [which is Draconian]

Chakrabarti said, “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.” Then he asked Ricketts, “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

“The document itself clearly isn’t a scientific one, regardless of the total number of scientists involved,” ArsTechnica reports. “It is published in a scientific journal (BioScience) that is produced by a professional organization of biologists. But the journal is notable for publishing essays and discussions in addition to peer-reviewed research; this letter appears to fall into this “essay” category of work.”

A competing petition claims 30,000 scientists are saying that climate change is nothing to worry about.

Ars Technica says the latter is wrong, but whatever your viewpoint, climate change has, somewhere along the line, become an excuse to trash capitalism and turn us into a totalitarian utopia.

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