to cope with the climate crisis? people asked. Weil seemed to anticipate this debate, which has remained contentious at least since David Wallace-Wells’ “The Uninhabitable Earth” made a splash in 2017. Near the end of the piece, Weil asks, “How do you describe an intolerable problem in a way that listeners even you, dear reader will truly let in?”
It’s a tough question, and experts are split over the right response. “Some people believe that we should emphasize the risks and generate fear and that many people are not scared enough yet,” said Jennifer Marlon, a research scientist at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. “And then other people think we really need to just focus on solutions.”