The Crisis Report — 07 (part one of two)

We look at Global Warming the wrong way.

The Earth is not a pot of water, and we are not frogs.

There is a story about frogs in a pot of water that climate writers use a lot. It’s a good story.

You know how it goes, we all do. If you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water. It will jump out and save itself.

But, it you put the frog in a pot of cold water. It will sit quietly in the pot.

Then, if you raise the temperature gradually. The frog will never realize the danger. It will sit in the warming water until it dies.

Here’s the important thing about this story, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. The story isn’t about frogs and how to cook them.

The story is always used as a metaphor for our failure to respond adequately to the threat of global warming caused by our CO2 emissions. It’s a metaphor, because it’s about the danger of inaction in the face of slow gradual changes.

We are the “frogs”, the Earth is the pot, and CO2 is the burner.

It’s a solid metaphor. A good, easy to understand, way of communicating the dangers of Climate Change to a mass audience.