By overpromising and underdelivering, the climatological community has done more reputational damage to itself than its critics ever could.
‘We cannot wait for speeches when the sea is rising around us all the time,” said Simon Kofe, the one-time foreign minister of the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, in a 2021 address. Kofe’s warning was the kind of boilerplate climate-change catastrophism to which all save the most dedicated activists long ago became inured. It wouldn’t have made any waves if Kofe hadn’t delivered his missive standing in hip-deep water, flanked by United Nations and Tuvaluan flags, and wearing a smartly tailored suit. The theatrics made the point Kofe’s formulaic rhetoric could not.
