They’re Not Listening Still
August, 2026
I sometimes feel like the Lone Ranger when it comes to climate change, though I have plenty of friends who share my concern, and a 2026 Gallup Survey showed 44 percent of US adults—that’s less than half if you’re paying attention— worry a great deal about it. For me it’s a daily haunting, and I’m increasingly irritated by those who blow it off.
The topic makes its way into my writing, perhaps too routinely. I have a highly respected friend, a 90 year old scholar and retired college professor, who suggests I write less about impending climate catastrophe, which he agrees is a certainty, and more about wildlife success stories which could inspire rather than promote a sense of doom. He gave me a link to follow, a Facebook page featuring a Dr Edmund Hale, who posts regular and interesting stories about planned and accidental wildlife recoveries.
I looked him up. His videos seemed well researched, worthwhile, and entertaining. There was just one problem: Dr Edmund Hale apparently doesn’t exist. His bio is nowhere to be found and evidence points to his being a product of AI.
That doesn’t mean his posts are completely bogus—I am familiar enough with his topics to know that’s not true—but it sets the stage for skepticism. Give me a messenger with credentials and a functioning anatomy if you want my full attention.
Which leads me to William J. McGuire, a volcanologist and Emeritus Professor of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at University College London. Unlike Edmund Hale, Dr McGuire is a bonafide human, a scholar and scientist who studies climate and draws conclusions based on current data in collaboration with the broader scientific community.
I came across a clip of Dr McGuire saying it is broadly accepted that the rate of warming has doubled in the recent decades, and a two degree C rise will be breached by 2040, But, he adds, the prediction doesn’t fit with satellite data. The German Meteorological and Physical Societies points to a half degree increase per decade, which would result in a “cataclysmic 3 C rise by 2050.”
McGuire says we’re already locked in and are returning to the conditions of the late Pliocene, three million years ago.
"We can only appreciate the reality of climate breakdown by putting current global heating into context and looking at how it fits into the 4.6 billion year history of our world. If we look back into deep time, we find that our planet has been hotter than it is now for most of its life.” No ice at the poles has been the story for more than three quarters of our planet's history.
But this has no relevance to our current predicament. What makes our situation so dangerous is the “astonishing speed of heating,” according to McGuire.
“The reality is, the planet has never been here before, because Earth is heating faster now than at any time in the geologic record—at least 20 times faster than at the end of the last ice age. Our climate has already reverted to that of the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when sea levels were six to nine meters higher than present and temperatures were about 2 degrees C hotter.” It is only reasonable to assume sea levels will return to those prehistoric levels.
We’re locked in but there’s still hope. Hope that looks away from reality isn’t hope; it’s denial. We’re in for a lot of change and discomfort. A rapid response will not occur without government policy, and in democracies, governments are chosen by people, so ultimately it’s up to us.
We need to learn to filter out falsehoods and accept truths, then plan, mitigate, and adapt accordingly. Our planet is racing back to an era that will upend or inundate much of our civilization. The world as a whole is turning a blind eye.
Don McLean wrote a song addressing Vincent Van Gogh and the inability of people to see the meaning in his paintings. “They would not listen, they’re not listening still. Perhaps they never will.” It has relevance here. We have all the information we need—we just don’t want to hear what it’s telling us.
