A ‘Plan B’ for addressing climate change and the energy transition - Highlighted Article

From: Climate Etc.

By: Judith Curry

Date: March 17, 2022

A ‘Plan B’ for addressing climate change and the energy transition

I have a new article published in the latest issue of International Affairs Forum.

The topic of this issue is Climate Change and Energy.  Mine is one of twenty papers.  A range of topics are covered.  My article is the least alarmed among them.  You may recognize several of the authors, which include Don Wuebbles and Bill McKibben.

Here is the text of my article:

A ‘Plan B’ for addressing climate change and the energy transition

Climate change is increasingly being referred to as a crisis, emergency, existential threat and most recently as ‘code red.’  Climate change has become a grand narrative in which manmade global warming is regarded as the dominant cause of societal problems. Everything that goes wrong reinforces the conviction that that there is only one thing we can do prevent societal problems – stop burning fossil fuels. This grand narrative leads us to think that if we urgently stop burning fossil fuels, then these other problems would also be solved. This sense of urgency narrows the viewpoints and policy options that we are willing to consider in dealing not only with our energy and transportation systems, but also regarding complex issues such as public health, water resources, weather disasters and national security.

So, exactly what is wrong with this grand narrative of climate change?  In a nutshell, we’ve vastly oversimplified both the problem of climate change and its solutions.  The complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity of the existing knowledge about climate change is being kept away from the policy and public debates.  The dangers of manmade climate change have been confounded with natural weather and climate variability. The solutions that have been proposed for rapidly eliminating fossil fuels are technologically and politically infeasible on a global scale. (continue reading)

A ‘Plan B’ for addressing climate change and the energy transition