Listen to the episode:

You can find the transcript through this link.

---

Are you interested in why we have pessimistic and optimistic views on climate change? 

---

Summary of the article titled Pessimism and optimism in the debate on climate change: A critical analysis from 2021 by Anders Nordgren, published in Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how our attitudes can influence this debate. This article presents why such attitudes, concerns and opportunities are present.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. There is an observable pessimism and optimism in the debate on climate change, and a person can be pessimistic in some aspects and optimistic in others.
2. Pessimism and optimism were found in a varying degree in climate change as an unmitigated or poorly mitigated process, mitigation of climate change or specific measures of mitigation.
3. The diversity of approaches can be due to the uncertainty of scientific climate models and the political and ideological assumptions on the measures taken.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: In the debate on climate change commentators often express pessimistic or optimistic views. We see this mainly in the media and popular literature, but also in various academic fields. The aim of this paper is to investigate different kinds of pessimistic and optimistic views put forward in this debate and suggest explanations of the diversity of views. The paper concludes that pessimism and optimism may concern, for example, climate change as an unmitigated or poorly mitigated process, mitigation of climate change or specific measures of mitigation. These aspects are important to distinguish, because a person can be pessimist concerning climate change as an unmitigated or poorly mitigated process and optimist concerning mitigation of climate change, and be pessimist concerning one specific mitigation measure and optimist concerning another. It is suggested that the diversity of pessimistic and optimistic views is due to the uncertainty of scientific climate models and the influence of evaluative and ideological assumptions.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.007 – World scientists’ warning of climate emergency;
• No.093 – Interview with Professor Jeni Paay about pessimism;
• No.120 – Interview with Matt Ferrell about tackling urban pessimism;

---