Crying Wolf

Twenty years ago, the Swedish meteorologist and climate activist Pär Holmgren predicted that snow in southern Sweden would be gone for good by now. Making my way from the gym to the railway station in a freezing −13 degrees, this is one prediction that, like the many “ovinter” stories circulating back in December, has not aged particularly well. Still, it is clear that the global climate is warming and that this will have far-reaching ramifications for life on this planet.

At the same time, crying wolf – and advancing outlandish claims such as that climate change poses an existential threat to all of humanity (which it, unlike advanced machine intelligence, most definitely does not) – risks undermining not only the credibility of climate science but also introducing a Manichean logic that renders democratic deliberation more difficult.