I don't think China needs convincing. They have likely already hit peak emissions and will start dropping, potentially rapidly, going forward. Europe is big. It just needs to move forward with purpose and things will happen. Getting that purpose is the hard part because world leaders have consistently said 'it will destroy our economy' and never actually tried. China, again, is showing that this isn't true. You can have both, a strong economy and a plan, backed by action, to decarbonize. Had Europe and the US had the forethought to actually invest in solar and batteries then they could be leading the energy transition and profiting, with literal profit meaning hard cash, right now by selling to the rest of the world. Instead the boogyman argument of 'it will destroy our economy' keeps rearing its head. I am absolutely done with that argument.

China has made huge efforts toward sustainable power. Google it.

The us on the other hand is well you know blowing up oil all over the world with military conflicts that are wars but aren't wars but are wars that are over but evolving and over and evolving. They are also rolling back green energy projects , fueling data centers with gas, etc.

It seems naive to think this will only have big consequences for the EU, it'll be disastrous for everything around the Atlantic, and likely beyond.

It won't be the case that a global scale ocean current collapses and its impact is local. It's like a butterfly effect where the butterfly is the size of an ocean - its wing flap will resonate throughout entire world with unpredictable natural and social consequences. There will be no winners, only losers.

While there is definitely a big consequence for the EU (and surrounding countries), the article mentions big impacts for the whole world. When it comes to climate, nobody is left untouched...

> the 50th headline they’ve read on how we’re screwed today that hasn’t happened

the things are happening though.

e.g. if you read a headline in the 70s that said something like "ski seasons will shorten by an average of 1 day per year, leading to only 5 inches of snow water equivalent in Colorado resorts by 2026, and eliminating the economic viability of skiing in the northeast by 2060" that would have been completely correct.

This isn't some accident, the public could understand many complex situations that just don't have billions of dollars in FUD propaganda networks that takeover the Whitehouse whenever the public is starting to get what it wants.

I don’t think it’s unactionable, just as one example, sadly investing in Northern Europe on a long time frame is pretty risky as a result of this.

There is and should be pressure to decarbonise at this point - it is still going to help and we can vote to make that happen.

Tyrants like Putin want you to think you are powerless, but you are not.

Those with the ability to do something about it have the means to avoid it long enough to not matter to them.

Its perfectly actionable. Its just inconvenient. Imagine if tomorrow we discovered that internal combustion engines produced a gas which immediately killed everyone with 200 feet. What would change?

It is easier said than done. Politicians do not like to be disturbed by some pesky experts. Mentor Pilot discusses 2025 D.C mid-air collision[1], and finds the most disturbing reason for it: experts tried to escalate issues with too much traffic for years, but they were repeatedly told that it was "too political", so, in other words "just shut up and deal with the traffic, don't bother congressmen and congresswomen, they are too important to be bothered with limits of possible stemming from physics or engineering".

Politicians thought (and some think to this day) that climate warming is "too political" to listen to experts. Most of them will think that Atlantic current is too political, till it stops.

It is easy to say "convince a politician", but it is hard to do. Politicians think politics, and you have to be a genius among politicians to transform a game field, so some concerns of scientists became a political issue that is not possible to ignore. Geniuses among politicians as as rare as in any other discipline, the most of them will just play existing games, without even thinking of rewriting the rules of the game. BTW, when they try to rewrite, the boring old "play by the rules" might start to look pretty good.

Politics is the hardest unsolved problem the humanity faces. We could send humans to the Moon, or it seems increasingly likely we can create an AGI, but we can't make politicians to listen to the reason.

[1] https://youtu.be/41UYPeTr96s

So they should be more like "Atlantic currents might shut down, we'll see what happens and if it'll be good or bad" when they already can tell the effects will be pretty bad? Wouldn't that be basically burying the lede?

Who then should inject their feelings? Journalists don't care because it's too abstract, politicians don't care because it won't happen in their term, business doesn't care because there's no money to be made, and the people don't care because of all of the above people telling them to ignore it.

That has nothing to do with science communication and whether or not scientists should avoid sounding too alarmist when publishing their models for the purpose of getting their desired climate policy enacted by governments.