[PeterisP]

There's no consensus that it "must" be dealt with, however, there is a clear consensus that if we don't deal with it (which is a quite possible scenario) then places like Florida Keys will cease to be inhabitable within the next 50-100 years.

[hackuser]

> There's no consensus that it "must" be dealt with

If you mean that there is no political consensus in the United States, yes, that's true beyond a doubt.

If you mean that there is no consensus among scientists and experts in the field, then that's wrong. There is and has been a clear consensus that we "must" act urgently.

[PeterisP]

Scientists have a clear consensus that if we don't do it, then we'll have certain consequences.

However, if we're looking at the actions of everyone who might actually deal with it, then there's a clear consensus that we're actually choosing to face the consequences instead.

"Must" implies a degree of certainty, a statement that we will have to deal with it one way or another, and thus we will deal with it - however, that doesn't seem to be the case here, it is quite plausible that we will choose to not deal with it properly. It would be nice if we acted urgently, but there's no "must" there - it's quite likely that we will not do so.

If we want to use the word "must" then it might be more appropriate to say that irreversible climate change is the thing that must occur, given the current global political 'climate'.

[hackuser]

I generally agree, and don't want to bicker over the wording, except one important point ...

> if we're looking at the actions of everyone who might actually deal with it, then there's a clear consensus that we're actually choosing to face the consequences instead.

Very many are denying that climate change is happening, or falling back to denying the consequences, or falling back to saying there's nothing we can do about it.

[PeterisP]

At least from the political perspective, I feel that most of it is simply justification and rationalization.

After you've made a decision that for your country/company/party/economic group/whatever the desired course of action is to not work against climate change, then you still have to communicate and "sell" that decision to everyone else, and denying the consequences or saying that we can't do anything has much less backlash than openly saying "fuck you, got mine".

While it's also true that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!", I believe that most of the involved politicians understand the future consequences (at least the mid-term consequences to their particular area) quite well, but politic communication is about telling whatever will get your goals achieved the best, not about communicating your personal beliefs truthfully.

It's the same thing with jobs - can you imagine any politician telling to a distressed area/industry "no, your jobs are never going to come back" even if that's an obvious truth?

[hackuser]

I think you are right; I got caught taking their arguments at face value, a mistake I strenuously try to avoid!

> can you imagine any politician telling to a distressed area/industry "no, your jobs are never going to come back" even if that's an obvious truth?

One thing I like about Bill Clinton is that he actually would say that, at least sometimes. Few have that political courage.