When we hear or see “billions of people are going to die” or “climate change means war” I think we do this subconscious thing where we’re like “you don’t know that for sure... and therefore, you are in my mind, an unreliable source of information and I shall discredit everything you are saying”.
As climate activists it’s important to be careful with our choice of words. Even if you fix the carbon emissions or the degrees of warming, trying to predict exactly how this plays out is nearly impossible. It’s an unbelievably complex issue in that regard and most people know that, so predicting outcomes with certainty can actually undermine confidence in the message and the messenger.
Using adverbs or phrases like “almost certainly” or “highly likely” means that you are acknowledging that uncertainty which stops people falling into that subconscious thinking trap.
On the flip side, it’s also important that we don’t use the level of uncertainty as an excuse to assume the best and carry on as normal, which would be inviting disaster (almost certainly according to the science… if we fail to transition quickly away from fossil fuels, it’s the degree that we’re unsure of).
We should aim to get a clear picture around a realistic best and worst case outcome as well as the likelihood of those scenarios so we can make informed decisions and act in our best interest… because as always, we don’t want to facc this up for ourselves.
As climate activists it’s important to be careful with our choice of words. Even if you fix the carbon emissions or the degrees of warming, trying to predict exactly how this plays out is nearly impossible. It’s an unbelievably complex issue in that regard and most people know that, so predicting outcomes with certainty can actually undermine confidence in the message and the messenger.
Using adverbs or phrases like “almost certainly” or “highly likely” means that you are acknowledging that uncertainty which stops people falling into that subconscious thinking trap.
On the flip side, it’s also important that we don’t use the level of uncertainty as an excuse to assume the best and carry on as normal, which would be inviting disaster (almost certainly according to the science… if we fail to transition quickly away from fossil fuels, it’s the degree that we’re unsure of).
We should aim to get a clear picture around a realistic best and worst case outcome as well as the likelihood of those scenarios so we can make informed decisions and act in our best interest… because as always, we don’t want to facc this up for ourselves.