In tackling the global climate crisis, doom and optimism are both dangerous | Zeke Hausfather and Richard Betts

Overheated polemics won't solve this emergency - and the apocalypse is a needlessly high bar for action

Protesters march in the streets in an extinction rebellion" against the climate crisis, with some (but not all) of their leaders claiming that climate tipping points could kill billions in the coming decades. Others dismiss the importance or reality of the crisis, while new books loudly proclaim apocalypse never" and false alarm".

The popular discourse around the climate emergency all too often highlights fringe voices that predict the end of the world or suggest that there is little to worry about. But as the climatologist Steven Schneider presciently remarked a decade ago, when it comes to the climate the end of the world" and good for us" are probably the two least likely outcomes.