Climate change is a challenging issue on multiple levels – it’s challenging for scientists to understand all of the complexities of a changing climate, it’s difficult to know how to optimally communicate to the public about climate change, and of course we face an enormous challenge in figuring out how best to mitigate climate change. The situation is made significantly more difficult by the presence of a well-funded campaign of disinformation aimed at sowing doubt and confusion about the issue.

I recently interviewed climate scientist Michael Mann about some of these issues and he confirmed one trend that I had noticed, that the climate change denier rhetoric has, to some extent, shifted to what he called “doomism”. I have written previously about some of the strategies of climate change denial, specifically the motte and bailey approach. This approach refers to a range of positions, all of which lead to the same conclusion – that we should essentially do nothing to mitigate climate change. We should continue to burn fossil fuels and not worry about the consequences. However, the exact position shifts based upon current circumstances. You can deny that climate change is even happening, when you have evidence or an argument that seems to support this position. But when that position is not rhetorically tenable, you can back off to more easily defended positions, that while climate change may be happening, we don’t know the causes and it may just be a natural trend. When that position fails, then you can fall back to the notion that climate change may not be a bad thing. And then, even if forced to admit that climate change is happening, it is largely anthropogenic, and it will have largely negative consequences, there isn’t anything we can do about it anyway.

This is where doomism comes in. It is a way of turning calls for climate action against themselves. Advocates for taking steps to mitigate climate change often emphasize how dire the situation is. The climate is already showing dangerous signs of warming, the world is doing too little to change course, the task at hand is enormous, and time is running out. That’s right, say the doomists, in fact it’s already too late and we will never muster the political will to do anything significant, so why bother trying. Again, the answer is – do nothing.

This means that science communicators dealing with climate change have to recalibrate. First, we always have to accurately portray what the science actually says (a limitation that does not burden the other side). But we also need to put this information into a proper context, and think carefully about our framing and emphasis. For example, we can focus on all the negative aspects of climate change and our political dysfunction, trying to convince people how urgent the situation is and the need for bold action. But if we just do this, that would feed the doomist narrative. We also need to emphasize the things we can do, the power we have to change course, the assets (technological and otherwise) at our disposal, and the fact that any change in course has the potential to make things better (or at least less bad). As Mann says – we have created the sense of urgency, and now we need to create a sense of agency.

The framing, therefore, should be one of strategic optimism. Pessimism is self-defeating and self-fulfilling. Admittedly, optimism can be challenging. Trump has pledged to nominate for energy secretary Chris Wright, an oil executive who essentially denies climate change as an issue. Apparently, he does not deny that human-released CO2 is warming the climate, he just thinks the negative consequences are overblown, that the costs of a green energy transition are too great, and that the efforts of the US will likely be offset by emerging industrial nations anyway. Again – do nothing. Just keep drilling. I would dispute all of these positions. Sure, the media overhypes everything, but climate scientists are generally being pretty conservative in their projections. Some argue, too conservative if anything. Yes, the cost of the green transition will be great, but the cost of climate change will be greater. And for the investment we get less pollution, better health, and greater energy independence.

That last claim, essentially – why should the US bother to do anything unless everyone is making the same effort, is simply not logical. Climate change is not all or nothing, it is a continuum. Anything anyone does to mitigate greenhouse gas release will help. Also it’s pretty clear that the US has a leadership role to play in this issue, and when we take steps to mitigate climate change other countries tend to follow. Further still, the US has released more CO2 than any other nation, and we still have among the highest per capita CO2 release (mostly exceeded only by petro-states with high oil production and low populations), so it makes little sense to blame emerging economies with comparatively negligible impacts.

But if I’m trying to be optimistic I can focus on a couple of things. First, there is a momentum to technology that is not easily turned off. The IRA has provided billions in subsidies to industry to accelerate the green transition, and a lot of that money is going to red states. It’s doubtful that money will be clawed back. Further, wind and solar are increasing rapidly because they are cost effective, especially while the overall penetration of these sources is still relatively low. Electric vehicles are also getting better and cheaper. So my hope is that these industries have enough momentum to not only survived but to thrive on their own.

Also, there is one green energy technology that has bipartisan support – nuclear. As I discussed recently, we are making moves to significantly increase nuclear energy, and this does require government support to help revitalize the industry and transition to the next generation. Hopefully this will continue over the next four years.  So while having someone like Wright as energy secretary (or someone like Trump as president, for that matter) is not ideal for our efforts to make a green energy transition, it is not unreasonable to hope that we can coast through the next four years without too much disruption. We’ll see.

There is also some good news – bad news on the climate front. The bad news is that the negative effects of climate change are happening faster than models predicted. One recent study, for example, shows that there are heat wave hot spots around the world that are difficult to model. Climate models have been great at predicting average global temperatures, but are less able to predict local variation. What is happening is called “tail-widening” – as average temperatures increase, the variability across regions also increases, leading to outlier hotspots. This is causing an increase in heat related deaths, and bringing extreme heat to areas that have not previously experienced it.

We are also seeing events like hurricane Helene that hit North Carolina. Scientists are confident that the amount of rainfall was significantly increased due to increases in global temperatures. Warmer air holds more moisture. Dropping more rain meant increased flooding, bringing extreme flooding events and catastrophic damage to an area that was not considered a flood risk and was therefore largely unprepared to such an event.

What’s the good news part of this? Events like extreme heat waves and hurricane destruction seem to be shifting the political center of gravity. It’s becoming harder to deny that climate change is happening with potential negative effects. This gets back to the doomism phenomenon – increasingly, doomism is all the climate change deniers have left. They are essentially saying, sorry, it’s too late. But it is objectively not too late, and it will never be too late to make changes that will have a positive impact, even if that impact is just making things less bad.

The Biden Administration actually showed a good way forward, using essentially all carrots and no sticks. Just give industry some incentives and assurances to make investments in green energy, and they will. We also need to invest in infrastructure, which is also something that tends to have bipartisan support. Climate activists do need to become strategic about their messaging (the other side certainly is). This might mean focusing on bipartisan wins – investing in industry, investing in infrastructure, becoming economic leaders in 21st century technology, and facilitating nuclear and geothermal energy. These are win-wins everyone should be able to get behind.