Climate change is real and is not the civilisation-threatening disaster it was sold as, and the expensive policies bought nothing.

Added to korrents 7 Sept 2026 · How quotes work · Something wrong? Tell us

Where this collides

• Cannot both be true

  Sustainable energy alone will not save humanity from extinction events; temperature-controlling satellites and large-scale geo-engineering will be needed.

  Musk says sustainable energy alone will not save humanity from extinction events and that temperature-controlling satellites and large-scale geo-engineering will be needed. Cochrane says the thing was never civilisation-threatening and the expensive policies bought nothing. These are the two ends of the range of things a person can currently believe about the same climate.

• In tension with

  The planet is probably getting too hot and CO2 has something to do with it, but whether it can be fixed in time is unknown, and pre-emptive despair helps no one.

  Hansson says the planet is probably getting too hot, that CO2 has something to do with it, that whether it can be fixed in time is unknown, and that pre-emptive despair helps nobody. Cochrane says it is real and not civilisation-threatening and the policies did no good. The distance between them is smaller than the distance between either and the discourse, which is itself worth recording.

• In tension with

  The way to cut emissions is to tax the most emission-intensive goods, not to stop growth.

  Milanovic wants emission taxes rather than degrowth, which assumes emissions are worth paying to cut. Cochrane says climate change, though real, is not the civilisation-threatening disaster it was sold as and that expensive climate policies do no good. They agree degrowth is the wrong answer and disagree about whether there is a bill worth paying at all.

Shared subject first, then similar wording. They may agree or disagree.

• A Mars base is not a backup plan for climate change or nuclear war, because self-sufficiency there is centuries away. AFAdam Frank22 Dec 2024climate change
• All five mass extinctions were ultimately climate change — the climate shifting faster than life could adapt to it. DHDave Hone4 Sept 2025climate change
• Building only clean energy without reducing fossil energy will not effectively combat climate change. BMBill McKibben13 Oct 2026climate change
• Carbon capture technology is worth continuing to research, even though it is not yet a solution to climate change. BMBill McKibben7 Sept 2026climate change
• Carbon emissions should be priced and government subsidies for oil, coal and gas companies should be ended. LDLeonardo DiCaprio23 Sept 2014climate change

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