Top climate scientists sceptical that nations will rein in global warming (2021)

Quod erat demonstrandum is about all I can say. As far as I can see, most governments and institutions moved from a broad denialist position to a "maybe we should do something" but the "something" tends to be lip-service or woefully ineffectual masked with bright-green hooray-statements (because anything effective would be actualy political suicide: people won't vote for people who cut their jobs, tell them they can't have things they want, or otherwise radically restructure their lives).

The overal approach over the last 20 years or more reminds me of Yes, Prime Minister's protocol[1] for dealing with international incidents:

1. Nothing is going to happen.

2. Something may be going to happen, but we don't need to do anything about it.

3. Maybe we should do something, but there's nothing we can do.

4. Maybe there was something we could have done, but [shrugs] it's too late now.

:-/

[1] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5t4iz6 at 18:13.

I understand why nature would ask these scientists these questions, but alas, it's a pretty vapid exercise that only outs the IPCC as a fully captured ideological organization rather than a scientific establishment. Take the first profiled person. She lived through civil war and drug cartels going to war with government. Columbia has a very very bright future as manufacturing from China redistributes to India, Vietnam, Mexico, and Columbia. Yet, in the midst of a truly breathtaking comeback for her country, where everyone wins, she is worried about inequality, rainfall, and sea level rise of 3mm/year. So much so that she has decided not to have children.

"As a leading climate scientist, Paola Arias doesn’t need to look far to see the world changing. Shifting rain patterns threaten water supplies in her home city of Medellín, Colombia, while rising sea levels endanger the country’s coastline. She isn’t confident that international leaders will slow global warming or that her own government can handle the expected fallout, such as mass migrations and civil unrest over rising inequality. With such an uncertain future, she thought hard several years ago about whether to have children.

“My answer was no,” says Arias, a researcher at the University of Antioquia in Medellín"