If a majority of the world's population had a true understanding of the health consequences of climate change in the coming decades, this would make an enormous difference to levels of public, political and financial support for measures to avert those consequences. I do not know what the current level of understanding is, but I suspect it is minimal, even among some heads of state. I like the metaphor of a frog in a slowly boling pot of water (apprently it's not strictly true, but is a good metaphor for humanity's current situation). I was going to write something about this but found this article from 2019, which makes the same point. Citation, abstract and a comment from me below.
CITATION: Sharpe, S.: Telling the boiling frog what he needs to know: why climate change risks should be plotted as probability over time, Geosci. Commun., 2, 95–100, https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-2-95-2019, 2019.
https://gc.copernicus.org/articles/2/95/2019/
ABSTRACT
Humanity's situation with respect to climate change is sometimes compared to that of a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water, meaning that change will happen too gradually for us to appreciate the likelihood of catastrophe and act before it is too late. I argue that the scientific community is not yet telling the boiling frog what he needs to know. I use a review of the figures included in two reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to show that much of the climate science communicated to policymakers is presented in the form of projections of what is most likely to occur, as a function of time (equivalent to the following statement: in 5 min time, the water you are sitting in will be 2 ∘C warmer). I argue from first principles that a more appropriate means of assessing and communicating the risks of climate change would be to produce assessments of the likelihood of crossing non-arbitrary thresholds of impact, as a function of time (equivalent to the following statement: the probability of you being boiled to death will be 1 % in 5 min time, rising to 100 % in 20 min time if you do not jump out of the pot). This would be consistent with approaches to risk assessment in fields such as insurance, engineering, and health and safety. Importantly, it would ensure that decision makers are informed of the biggest risks and hence of the strongest reasons to act. I suggest ways in which the science community could contribute to promoting this approach, taking into account its inherent need for cross-disciplinary research and for engagement with decision makers before the research is conducted instead of afterwards.
COMMENT: At the heart of HIFA is the ideal that every person should have access to the reliable healthcare information they need to protect their own health and the health of others. Information (and understanding) about the health consequences of climate change is a hugely important aspect of this neeed. People are already dying due to climate change, and a major factor has been a reluctance or denial of science going back several decades. The heads of state of today who continue to deny climate change, or who push it under the carpet, are jeopardising the health of future generations, possibly catastrophically. This raises the question: What can be done to improve our communication of the health consequences of climate change so that the majority of the world's population is indeed aware, and can viscerally understand the implications?
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
