The Coming Climate Uncertainty Conundrum

We are entering a new era where our efforts to control the climate have produced chaos that outstrips our understanding and control
January 23, 2025

From Desmog

  • Uncertainty is growing, not decreasing: Despite our growing knowledge of climate change, the uncertainty surrounding its impacts is increasing, particularly regarding regional temperature fluctuations. This means we need to prepare for a range of outcomes, including both hot and cold extremes.
  • Adaptation is crucial: Rather than solely focusing on decarbonization, we must prioritize strategic adaptation to the changing climate. This includes planting diverse species, preparing for both hot and cold climates, and embracing a new approach that recognizes the full spectrum of climate breakdown.
  • Policy-makers are missing the point: Many policy-makers are assuming a hotter future, neglecting the possibility of a colder future. This lack of preparedness is a major concern, particularly in the UK, where there are no plans to harden infrastructure against a colder future.
  • Mindset shift required: The public and elites alike need to shift their mindset to acknowledge the uncertainty and chaos surrounding climate change. This requires embracing a new paradigm of radical uncertainty, deep precaution, and humility.
  • The Chaoscene is here: We are entering a new era where our efforts to control the climate have produced chaos that outstrips our understanding and control. It’s time to adapt and prepare for the unpredictable future ahead.

This piece is about what we talk about when we talk about ‘climate change.’

Mostly, whether in the campaigning world or the policy world, the tech world or the business world, the everyday world or the world of international summitry, we mainly talk about cutting carbon emissions. And if we talk about impacts, we talk about the impacts of global heating, plus the impacts of the growing chaos.

But we don’t talk enough about climate impacts, our vulnerability to them, let alone how to prepare adequately for them, or to tackle them ‘upstream’ before they land or get worse. And if we talk about chaos, we virtually never talk about it in a big enough context, or in terms of its full potential dimensions.

This article is designed to start to change that situation.

The recent unprecedented worldwide epidemic of flooding, followed swiftly by the dire Los Angeles fires has woken another significant tranche of people up. Devastating climate impacts are here. Climate chaos is here. The adaptation challenge should now be getting strategic pre-eminence. That it isn’t is a key marker of how far off the pace the dominant (still decarbonisation-centric) climate narrative now is.

And the growing evidence of the true scale and nature of the coming chaos should decisively change that narrative. 

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Read the full post at Desmog.

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