Pointing out the Climate-Mastery Denialists

"'We are typically taught that whatever the benefits of fossil fuels or other forms of energy are, they always come at the expense of our environmental safety and health.
    "'But the history of climate safety shows that fossil-fueled machine labour makes us far safer from climate— a phenomenon I call 'climate mastery....'

 

"What has allowed humanity to reduce climate-related deaths by 98% over the last century is Climate Mastery. '[O]ver the last century, as CO2 emissions have most rapidly increased, the climate disaster death rate fell by an incredible 98 percent. That means the average person is fifty times less likely to die of a climate-related cause than they were in the 1920s.... not only does our knowledge system ignore the massive, life- or- death benefits of fossil fuels [illustrated so well by this one], but it has a track record of being 180 degrees wrong about the supposedly catastrophic side-effect of climate danger — which has dramatically decreased...'

    "'Knowing that our knowledge system consistently denies [this] temperature mastery is crucial context to keep in mind whenever we hear claims about 'catastrophic' temperature changes in the future; there is a very good chance those claims are based on climate mastery denial, and that without such denial catastrophe would be implausible....'
    "'As [climate-mastery denialist Paul] Krugman puts it [for example], 'We can see the damage now, although it’s only a small taste of the horrors that lie ahead.' '
    "'But the idea that climate danger is bad and getting worse, overwhelming our mastery abilities, is completely false....'
    "'[I]f we look at the universally acknowledged history of climate and life on this planet, we inevitably come to the conclusion that rising CO2 levels leading to an unliveable planet is literally impossible — because the planet was incredibly liveable for far less-adaptable organisms, with much in common with us, when CO2 was at levels that we could not come close to even if we wanted to....'
    "Given all of the horrors of nature that humanity has already mastered, humanity can clearly master some more. Yes, we can imagine worst-case scenarios that overwhelm our abilities. Imagination, after all, is infinite. But that doesn’t show that such scenarios are likely enough to worry about.
    "As I’ve argued before, our default should that worst-case scenarios are highly unlikely. After all, humanity already got this far. If specialists with a long track record of hyperbole warn us of doom, we should ignore them. Unless, of course, specialists with a long track record of calm, measured thought chime in, 'For once, the doomsayers are right.' Show me these specialists, and I’ll read them."

~ Alex Epstein, with comments interpolated by Bryan Caplan, from Caplan's post 'The Meaning of Climate Mastery'