Action on climate change faces new threat: The doomers who think it's too late to act

Misty, sepia-toned scene of a tropical shoreline overtaken by nature, with the remnants of shattered buildings and a rusted robot partially submerged in water. Tall palm trees and dense foliage frame the skeletal remains of skyscrapers in the background, suggesting a long-abandoned civilization.

Climate change science is, unfortunately, a controversial topic. Disinformation campaigns driven by political and economic opposition — both historical and current — mean that despite overwhelming evidence in support of human actions altering the climate, greenhouse gas emissions are still peaking.

While denialism is a prominent and well-known barrier to action, in this excerpt from Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World (PublicAffairs, 2025), authors Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and Peter Hotez, Dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, examine another obstacle: climate doomism.