What does our climate past say about our climate future?
Mathematica’s Mike Burns sat down for a conversation with Professor Michael Mann , climate scientist and author of Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis.
“Climate doomism” – the idea that it’s too late to act on the climate crisis – is a common refrain that promotes inaction. But in his book, Mann argues that we can avoid catastrophe if we take meaningful action to address the crisis.
Topics addressed in Mike and Michael’s conversation include:
o Lessons that can–and cannot–be drawn from Earth’s climate history
o Why seemingly insignificant temperature changes aren’t so insignificant
o The concepts of urgency and agency, and obstacles to climate action
o “Shifting baseline syndrome” – the gradual change in expected norms for environmental conditions
o Weighing the paleoclimate record with other sources of information about the climate system
o Effective communication and messaging strategies around climate science and climate change