In official models, there is not one answer to this question, but many.

Different models tell us what happens at different levels of warming, which range from

the miles to the catastrophic. Broadly speaking, over the last few years, official predictions

of a key aspect of these models, called climate sensitivity, have moved decisively away

from the milder end of the spectrum, but also away from the most extreme upper end, with

the most likely level of this parameter settling one moderately high. So climate change is likely

to be bad, perhaps very bad, but it's unlikely to kill, say, everyone.

But there are other people who argue that these models don't capture the reality of what's

really going on, which is to say, ongoing and widespread social collapse.

Among these, perhaps the most well-known is Jen Benton. In 2018, he wrote a paper called

Deep Adaptation, which was a huge influence among the activists of Extinction Rebellion.

It's solidified a new approach to the politics of climate change, one defined by attempting

to work through the intense pessimism of climate change politics and to form a new space

of political agency. A purpose.

Bendle is a controversial figure. Scientific critics have accused him of exaggerating the

likely hield of our collective doom. Political critics have accused him of instilling a depressive

slump in those who would otherwise become climate activists. It's important to note

that I'm not a climate scientist, and podcasts aren't good spaces for debating the finer details

of scientific model. For all their inbuilt small-sea conservatism, official bodies, like

the IPCC, remain the best sources of information on climate change. But as a thinker of our possible

political future, figures like Bender open to and engaged by the problems that climate

change throws up, remain, I think, indispensable to the conversation about our planetary future.

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