New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells wrote in a Wednesday article that “apocalyptic” predictions for drastic climate change from scientists were way off.
“Just a few years ago, climate projections for this century looked quite apocalyptic, with most scientists warning that continuing ‘business as usual’ would bring the world four or even five degrees Celsius of warming,” the article read. (RELATED: ‘Most Irresponsible Act Of His Entire Presidency’: Liberal Journalist Rips Biden For Refusing To Repeal Debt Ceiling)
“Acknowledging that truly apocalyptic warming now looks considerably less likely than it did just a few years ago pulls the future out of the realm of myth and returns it to the plane of history: contested, combative, combining suffering and flourishing — though not in equal measure for every group,” Wallace-Wells wrote.
Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality Is Coming Into View – The New York Times https://t.co/i28yB67SIP
— Cal Perry (@CalNBC) October 27, 2022
In 2017 Wallace-Wells explored a “doomsday” scenario in which he predicted temperatures could rise by about five degrees Celsius over a century.
“If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible,” Wallace-Wells wrote in New York Magazine. “If the planet is five degrees warmer at the end of the century, we may have as many as 50 percent more people to feed and 50 percent less grain to give them,” he continued.
In his article Wednesday, Wallace-Wells lowered his predictions for climate warming to an increase of two degrees Celsius.
“Now, with the world already 1.2 degrees hotter, scientists believe that warming this century will most likely fall between two or three degrees,” Wallace-Wells wrote, citing a United Nations report.
“At four degrees, the impacts of warming appeared overwhelming, but at two degrees, the impacts would not be the whole of our human fate, only the landscape on which a new future will be built,” he continued.