Marx once said that "religion... is the opiate of the masses", meaning that it reduced people's immediate suffering and provided them with pleasant illusions which gave them the strength to carry on. Nowadays, such plesasant illusions are not only provided by religion but also by the entertainment industry, media and medical science in form of legal narcotics.

Wishful thinking is today so prevalent that it even has infected the brain of people who are trained not to be biased, scientists. I mean sure, economists have always been blissfully ignorant and wrong in their predictions but what I’m talking about is more widespread. It's a deep denial among the people researching our most critical issues: climate change and energy limitations. 

You see it in the media when scientists discuss oxymorons like “green growth”, or proclaim that we can “decarbonize our entire economy within 20 years”, or that “agriculture will save biodiversity”, or that “lab grown meat will solve our food problems” and so on. It's nothings but grasping at straws in a world that is on fire. Such delusional statements are more about belief systems and identities reflecting values than science. It's also because climate scientists have been told by behavioural psychologists not to scare people as it may hamper action. But isn't it odd that the profession that claims to be devoted to curiosity and truth seeking wants to restrict exploration of future possibilities and censor people due to how it might come across to others?

Our climate reality is harsh. Most scientists tend to underestimate our predicament because they are too conservative, not the other way around. But now it's becoming clear, predictions made by oversimplified climate models have underestimated the changes we're already witnessing due to climate change. Earth, the biosphere, ecosystems and human systems such as the economy are dynamic complex systems and their behaviour is nonlinear. A model that does not include critical feedbacks in the system will not be able to accurately predict results in the real world. This has now become obvious as real world observations about the sad state of our climate is pouring in. Climate change is accelerating.

Sea ice in the Arctic is melting at an alarming rate and looks to be completely gone summertime some time in the coming years (2022?), accelerating global warming further. Ice and snow reflect about 80 percent of the Sun’s energy back into space while the darker ocean and land will absorb 90 percent of that heat. The albedo effect due to vanishing sea ice is already responsible for about 25 percent of global warming (Pistone et al. 2014). Greenland shed about 280 gigatons of ice per year between 2002-2016 and the island’s lower-elevation and coastal areas experienced up to 4 meters of ice mass loss (expressed in equivalent-water-height) over a 14-year period (NASA, 2018). Accelerating rates of ice loss also implies accelerated rates of sea level rise. Certain cities will have to be abandoned. In ten years prior to 2016 the Atlantic Ocean soaked up 50 percent more carbon dioxide than it did the previous decade, speeding up the acidification of the ocean (Woosley et al. 2016). And the list goes on and on with increasingly worrisome observations.

With an increase of carbon emissions of 2% in 2017 (Carbon Brief, 2017), the so called “decoupling” of economic activity from emissions is not yet making a net dent in global emissions. Even if we start reducing emissions now it's not going to be enough to prevent dangerous climate change since there is about a decade lag between emissions and resulting warming (Ricke & Caldeira, 2014). We have already (95% probability) gone past the 2°C warming point/UN target (Raftery et al. 2017), and are  likely headed towards 4-5°C (Steffen et al. 2018). That's because the Earth system is dynamic and is more likely to continue warming until it stabilises at another point, which in the Earth's past occurred at about 4-5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels. By the way, it is generally accepted that a 5 degree rise in temperature is not compatible with human civilisation as we know it. At the same time, perhaps a complete collapse of civilisation could prevent the worst climate change outcomes (Garrett, 2012). But no one is going to promote or talk about that in public. Even if diminishing returns on resources, especially oil, likely will shrink our civilisation in the near future, whether we like it or not (Turner, 2014). 

No one likes either outcomes of this predicament and that's why most experts are basically just arguing over different options of removing carbon from the atmosphere through geoengineering. Using machines to suck out carbon, however, is not feasible both in terms of cost and scale and could cause more harm than good. Current technology would have to be scaled by a factor of 2 million times within 2 years. That's just not going to happen. Biological approaches to carbon capture such as planting trees, restoring soils, holistic grazing, and growing seagrass and kelp appear far more promising. 

Anyway, the real issue for ordinary people is how to adapt to a world that is increasingly hostile while using less energy? Not wasting time listening to myths about "green tech" or believing in fantasies like "colonising Mars" or "geoengineering the entire planet"

It’s too late when someone is already gone. That is the lesson one learns when a close relative dies. I have witnessed up close how truly crushing futile optimism can be. The fact that our human brain refuses to accept sad news and tries to cope by counteracting it with hope right up until the end can be a very cruel thing. Not being mentally prepared for the misery to come causes a shock so severe it puts one in a state of almost complete apathy. I am both lucky and cursed that I have experienced plenty of misery, both in my work as a nurse and in my own life, to know how bad things can get and therefore be somewhat mentally prepared for it. Some may call me a pessimist but I prefer the term realist. It´s not that I don’t have hopes, dreams and wishes just like anybody else. I obviously do. It’s simply that I am aware of the human brain's tendency for denial in face of difficult truths, like one’s own mortality. Denial is not only a coping mechanism but also an inherent trait of the human species. Because we are aware of our own and others suffering we realize our own mortality, which is a terrifying thing, that could lead to fear and depression that hinders reproduction and survival. Thus we need to deny death risks and mortality to keep on going, in evolutionary terms. That’s why we are overly optimistic, despite difficult circumstances, because we are wired for it.

Sure, unwarranted optimism (or reality denial) can be a good thing in certain situations, giving people extra strength to carry on despite high odds of failure. But it can also be very detrimental. For example in the case of climate change or species extinction where there is no going back. In these cases blind optimism in high tech solutions or unknown future discoveries etc. is actually dangerous. We have already perturbed the climate system to such a degree that it may change abruptly and shift into another stability domain, a much hotter and hostile one than we humans have never experienced. This is a fact. It’s not a very pleasant one but denying it doesn’t change anything. It only makes things worse, both in terms of not mitigating the worst impacts and being prepared for them. Without, at least, mental preparation people will be shocked, confused and in a panic when devastation hits. They will likely blame other people around them instead of understanding the underlying reasons for why such events happened. Like two rats in a cage getting electrocuted they won't know what to do but fight to the death.

Accepting one’s own mortality and living in a meaningful way to minimize regrets is a better way to deal with unpleasant facts. Accepting, for example, death, climate change and biodiversity loss doesn’t imply we like it. It simply means that we understand it and that we can take constructive action to build a life that is more meaningful and resilient to future shocks and disturbances. We can all find a life of meaning that is also beneficial for society and nature. A farmer knows this. We simply have to have the courage to strive for it. One day it’s truly too late...