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Comment by rekabis | Hacker News Reader

Talk to most any climate scientist that has a decent to good overall grip on what is happening (including the actual actions of humanity to correct the issue), and they are (often) well past the “stark raving terrified” stage, and well into the “whelp, this is the end of modern civilization” stage.

Even the IPCC is quietly and unofficially gearing up for a major collapse in the global human population by 2050. And not a blip, either, but - by their _conservative_ estimates - a whopping 20+% _at minimum_.

Fear can motivate a lot of people. Massive changes in culture and in history have arisen out of mass (and often unjustified) fear. I say we _need_ this fear, and a lot more of it, too. We just need to impart it more accurately, and less bombastically (which is great for clicks and eyeballs, but often gives the wrong impression).

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Cliff Mass _is_ a prominent climate scientist, in case you didn't know.

Prominent for what? He comes across very strange, writing things like this:

"Global warming is a very serious issue, but most of the impacts are in the future. There is much we can do to address global warming, both in terms of adaptation and mitigation. There is, in fact, much reason for optimism."

(I do agree that there much we can do, but most of these things are hard problems of collective action)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Mass

Quote: "He has published over 120 articles in peer-reviewed scientific venues, and served on the board of over a dozen regional and national meteorological committees, conferences, and scientific journals."

That's as prominent as it gets. Sorry he doesn't exactly tow your particular party line on all this.

Nobody tows lines at all.

The "tow your line" bit above was a troll move. There's no need to engage it.

That's as prominent as it gets.

Actually 120 papers (by late career) and a few board memberships is fairly median on the prominence scale.

Nowhere near "as prominent as gets".

I think a few fellow scientists at his institution (University of Washington) would argue against calling him a prominent climate scientist, or perhaps a climate scientist at all. He's a meteorologist, as stated on his faculty website (https://environment.uw.edu/faculty/clifford-mass/).

The population is collapsing due to the decline in fertility, the only growth is from increased life expectancy in the elderly and sub-Saharan africa high fertility rates, both of which are slated to end in the next few decades.

links please? I haven't read any scientists who have a view that a population decline is a forgone conclusion... I am interested in reading that PoV.

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