What if Climate Change Predictions Don’t Come True?

Scientists do not publish their predictions to prove them right but to encourage us to take action to prove them wrong.

As scientists writing about climate change we face criticism. It comes with the territory. But one particular question crops up again and again: “What if your predictions are wrong?”

We understand where the skeptics’ fears come from. Indeed a recent story by George Dillard on Medium gave us a deeper insight: our predictions could indeed be wrong if something truly remarkable occurs to help us combat climate change.

Dillard explains how Thomas Malthus, an economist in the 18th century, predicted that population growth would outstrip food production, leading to widespread famine. Malthus wasn’t wrong about the trends he observed; he was wrong about the future because he couldn’t foresee the technological innovations and agricultural advancements that would eventually allow us to feed an exponentially growing global population. His predictions spurred a fear of impending doom, which, paradoxically, fueled the very innovations needed to prevent it.

This historical lesson is particularly relevant to our current climate crisis. Like Malthus, today’s scientists warn us of imminent environmental damage due to unchecked carbon emissions and other unsustainable practices. And, like the generations before us who faced the fear of mass starvation, we are not sitting on our coaches waiting for the worst to materialize. Well, some are, but not most.

We invest in green technologies, from wind and solar to electric vehicles. Yes, the transition will cost us money, but it will also save us billions in the future, helping us reduce pollution in major cities. Just see this recent study in California that observed a pollution reduction after the expansion of electric vehicles in the area. If we don’t do it for the climate, let’s do it for our health!

Similarly, governments and corporations are taking adaptation and mitigation strategies more seriously than ever. For decades, this concerted effort has helped us avoid the worst outcomes predicted by early climate models. Do you need an example of an environmental policy implemented decades ago that is helping us have a cleaner environment in the present?

The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, a landmark legislation in the US, significantly reduced air pollution by setting stricter regulations on emissions from factories, cars, and other sources. The policy led to the development of catalytic converters for vehicles, which dramatically reduced harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. You can see the benefits of its implementation in the chart below, or visit the Environmental Protection Act’s website for a full report.

According to the report, the regulations have helped lower pollution this much:

• Carbon Monoxide (CO), -67%
• Ammonia (NH3), -22%
• Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), -59%
• Direct Particulate Matter 2.5 microns (PM2.5), -30%
• Direct Particulate Matter 10 microns (PM10), -25%
• Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), -88%
• Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), -42%

The message is clear. Scientists warned of the potential harms of certain pollutants, policies to halt pollution were implemented, and scientists’ predictions didn’t (luckily) come true. Not because they weren’t correctly made but because they were adequately addressed before we could reach the worst-case scenario.

Yet, despite these efforts, the threat of climate change persists; scientists warn us of the harms, and we are (slowly but surely) implementing policies that could prevent us from reaching the worst outcomes.

If we continue to innovate and implement new technologies at an even greater scale, we might reach a point where climate change, while still a concern, becomes a manageable part of our global circumstances. This scenario, in so many ways, mirrors the agricultural revolution post-Malthus. Innovations like the Haber-Bosch process for synthesizing ammonia and the Green Revolution’s high-yield crops have shown us that human ingenuity can rise to the greatest challenges.

So, what if our worst predictions about climate change are wrong in the future? What if they don’t fully materialize, not because they were incorrect, but because we collectively took action to alter the course they predicted? If so, future generations might view us as the ‘Climate Change Malthuses’ — alarmists whose warnings prompted the necessary action to avert disaster. And that’s a label we should perhaps wear with pride. I strongly believe that Malthus saved us.

Besides that, transitioning to clean energy would have more economic benefits than maintaining a business-as-usual scenario. So, even if climate change predictions were wrong, the solutions to prevent them from happening can have cascading benefits in our society. See my favorite comic of all times below.

In essence, ringing the alarm is not about hoping to be proven right; it’s about spurring action to turn these predictions wrong. If you tell people they need a higher fence to deter theft, and they build that fence, you may never know if a theft is truly imminent. But the important question is, do we want to find out by not building the fence?

This story isn’t just about accepting the potential inaccuracies of our climate models, which could be altered by variables unknown to us yet. It’s about understanding the role of such predictions in driving the collective human effort toward innovation and adaptation. Just as Malthus’ incorrect predictions led to a revolution in agricultural productivity, today’s catastrophic forecasts could spur the technological revolution needed to manage and mitigate climate change.

It is important to state, however, that the majority of climate change science has so far been proven accurate. See the image below, which showcases an important study of climate scientists accurately predicting future scenarios. It summarizes all global warming projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists in internal documents between 1977 and 2003 (gray lines), superimposed on historically observed temperature change (red). Solid gray lines indicate global warming projections modeled by ExxonMobil scientists themselves; dashed gray lines indicate projections internally reproduced by ExxonMobil scientists from third-party sources. Shades of grayscale with model start dates, from earliest (1977: lightest) to latest (2003: darkest):

Even the oil and gas industry knew the cause-and-effect implications of their actions. But if you are understandably skeptical about internal oil and gas industry science, then consider this research by Dr Hausfather from the University of Berkeley and their collaborators. In 2020, they published a research article evaluating the performance of past climate model projections and found that model simulations published between 1970 and 2007 closely estimated future global warming. You can read their study here or look at NASA’s outreach coverage here.

Ultimately, however, whether our predictions are right or wrong may be less important than what we do in response to them. If we use history as a guide, our response to these predictions will define our future, not the predictions themselves. Science discovered the hole in the Ozone layer and predicted how much bigger it would get — and the dangers to life on Earth if it did — by continued use of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons). Therefore, the world got together in 1987 and signed The Montreal Protocol, phasing out the production of numerous substances responsible for ozone depletion, including CFCs. The hole didn’t only not get bigger as projected but began to close and is expected to close by 2050 fully.

As we continue to discuss and debate the best paths forward, we must remember the power of human ingenuity and our remarkable ability to face challenges head-on. Whether or not we become the Climate Change Malthuses of our time, our actions today will certainly shape the world of tomorrow.