This morning, as I’m sipping my first (of many) cups of coffee, I came across two articles from writers using Medium as a publishing platform, and the two are especially noteworthy if for no other reason than their tone of pessimism, or, really, DOOM.

Mind you, doom orientation is not unusual in articles about the climate crisis and there are plenty of data points and theories and trend extrapolations and news reports that are negative, and well there should be considering that we humans have been changing the climate of our planet and not for the better. Still, over-emphasis on doomism is neither helpful nor warranted (well, this last claim is an opinion, just as the extreme outcomes claimed by doomers are).

There is plenty to be agreed upon about the increasingly pervasive negative effects of climate change and the best of science does make it clear that what is ahead for us in the decades ahead is to be that much worse. But two of today’s articles need attention, and while I’ve only recently posted “Holy Jamollie, Let’s Try to Remember a Few Good Things, or Why Da Da Da Doom is Not a Tune We Should Be Singing,” I again find myself compelled to comment.

Don’t get me wrong—both authors produce a lot of great work. Indrajit (Indi) Samarajiva is a writer from Sri Lanka who writes about a wide range of subjects, and typically in entertaining ways. Will Lockett is Editor of Predict who describes himself as “journalist passionate about cutting edge technology, space and fighting climate change,” and he has a book out on Amazon titled 50 Ways to Save the World.

The first article I read this morning is “There Is A Monster Under The Arctic: Under the frigid wasteland, a deadly force lies dormant, until we wake it,” originally published on February 11, 2021 and authored by Will Lockett. The second article, “How, Precisely, We’re Fucked: A review of a seminal collapse textbook,” by indi.ca (Indrajit Samarajiva), was published on March 24, 2023. Both articles showed up on my recommended reading just today, but then only the Shadow knows what is in the heart of algorithms.

There is plenty of interesting information in each of these pieces, but some of the assumptions made within each of these are designed to paint the bleakest possible picture. The monster under the Artic is methane and, yes, there are theories that climate-collapsing tipping points can occur if trapped methane in permafrost and fire ice (methane hydrate) gets released in ever-growing volumes due to the rise in temperature triggered in part by methane—a potent, if relatively short-lived greenhouse gas—resulting in a cycle of ever-increasing methane release. This life-threatening vicious cycle is possible, although it is not known with any certainty what are trigger conditions or timelines, and, admittedly, there is a hell of a lot of trapped methane.

Lockett begins his article this way:

I will start this article off with a warning. If you have any fears for the future, you might want to put this down. The Boogyman under the arctic is a real monster waiting to be released. It will kill millions, terrify those that survive and tear this world apart. So, grab a blanket to hide under or a couch to hide behind and prepare for dread as we dive deep under the arctic ice in search of a terrifying titan.

The article describes a world transformed by the methane release cycle, and it is terrifying. He brings plenty of facts and science to his discussion and some of the most negative assumptions possible. He ends his article this way:

So, our world is under threat from this sleeping monster, and we are waking it up. Not only do we need to curtail our own emissions but somehow find a way to stop this beast from rearing it’s ugly head. Otherwise, this beautiful planet will be destroyed. We will see the effects of this monster in our lifetime, and our children and grandchildren will have to fight this head-on, as it gets worse and worse. Sadly, there is no happy ending with this story. We are headed to the sixth circle of hell and doing very little to stop it.

What, though, is the point of such a piece, especially in the face of conflicting assessments of probabilities and timelines and scopes of the methane release cycle? It makes me think about raising a child, and you want the kid to clean up the bedroom, and you attempt to motivate the kid by pointing out that a messy room can lead to food crumbs scattered about, and thus the possibility of vermin, which raises some potential for transmission of the bubonic plague and an extremely unpleasant death. I’m pretty sure that this approach would not work, just as I’m confident that excessive doom predictions can sap people’s engagement in the political and personal work essential for any significant progress against climate change.

The other article I cited has an alluring title, and who can possibly resist clicking on “How, Precisely, We’re Fucked”? Not me, apparently.

Like the article on the methane monster, there is a lot of value in this piece, including an assessment of the value of foil fuels in the development of the world and the impossibility of continuing on this way and the impossibility of not continuing using fossil fuel.

Regarding fossil fuel, the author points out the following:

We have grown up on the side of going up, but we will die in the age of coming down. At the end of our lives, our lifestyles will end with us. What goes up must come down.

Well, hear hear, but I would have liked to see some discussion about how alternative approaches to energy production might substitute for the historic benefits of fossil fuels, but then, I guess, we wouldn’t be so precisely fucked. I would have liked to see a discussion about how standards of living can be raised worldwide without using fossil fuels and making climate change that much worse. In the end, the scare tactics behind the assumptions force the conclusion mentioned right in the title of the article.

Many of us know we are in big trouble, whether that trouble comes from a rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2.0 or higher.  The climate crisis movement needs to help more people understand that we, as a species, and that the biosphere itself, is in trouble.

But what is most needed is for as many people as possible to understand this AND take action. We need to reimagine how better to make the world and assuming we cannot remake the world is what spells doom. Hiding under the blanket isn’t going to help.