[AnthonyMouse]

A few decades ago there were hoards of people breathlessly demanding that something be done about the hole in the ozone layer or else we're all doomed. Then we banned CFCs and now the ozone hole is starting to heal itself.

But if we hadn't banned CFCs we would have been doomed. The ozone layer actually is really important.

Now the danger is climate change and what we need is to stop burning carbon. The lesson from past experience is not that everything will be fine if we don't do anything, it's that everything will be fine if we do what is necessary. Everything will not be fine if we don't do what is necessary.

[jjoonathan]

Except for your extrapolation, that's an excellent example, and it needs to be brandied about a hell of a lot more than it is because doing so builds credibility!

My high school science teacher telling me that we were running out of oil and that gas would be $10 a gallon by the time I entered the workforce did not build credibility.

This is an iterated game. The takeaway is that it's important to be right, important to not be wrong, and important to make sure people know it, not that it's important to lie your ass off (sorry, overstate your cause) in a misguided attempt to help.