Scientists Warn Climate 'Big One' Is Inevitable

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the California Institute for Water Resources, said the warnings carry a credibility cost. "The risk is that people just think you are exaggerating," he told the AP. "It's the 'Boy Who Cried Wolf' problem. Sometimes wolves are real. If it's outside the door, wouldn't you want to know?"

Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climate scientist at Australian National University, said she had a "come to Jesus moment" on realizing extreme events would not stop even if the world hit net zero immediately. "It's the issue of the frog in the boiling water," she said. "If we get used to bracing ourselves, are we going to notice?"

Sonia Seneviratne, a Swiss climatologist who vice chairs a working group of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, compared the risk to smoking and lung cancer — not a certainty, but higher odds a doctor is obliged to name. "If such an event happened, I could already see the criticism of people saying, 'Climate scientists didn't tell us,'" she said. "But we did."

Jones, the seismologist behind the LA earthquake push, said belief drives action. "Climate denial is one way of coping," she said, describing the rationalization as "I won't believe it's true, so I'll feel safer."

President Trump has called climate change "the greatest con job ever," labeled climate policies a "Green New Scam" and said U.N. climate predictions were made by "stupid people." The AP reports there is no expectation of major government-led U.S. efforts to combat climate change as the country marks its 250th birthday.

Robinson, whose novel was published in 2020, told the AP that if he were writing today he would add a chapter on wildfires, which have become larger and more destructive. The book, he said, "still has a purpose."