A thread on following science. Let's start with COVID.

Epidemiologists gave clear, simple guidelines: Keep social distance and wear masks. A few weeks ago in the US, a large herd of people suddenly chose to ignore these guidelines, and this happened. Cause, effect.

Maybe the herd had good reasons. Maybe they were duped by anti-science misleaders like Trump. Maybe both. But the virus doesn't care what the reasons were or whether they were good or not. It just follows natural laws. That's *why* scientists can come up with GUIDELINES THAT WORK

Nations with anti-science misleaders that scoffed at the guidelines like the US and Brazil saw cases explode. Nations that carefully followed the science like New Zealand and Canada flattened the curve. Cause, effect.

Some countries followed the science so well their main concern now is keeping us from reinfecting them. They aren't propagandizing the premature opening of schools, pretending by some miracle this won't be a complete disaster. They followedthescience https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1269941858739859456

Now, as a climate scientist, I can tell you that there are equally clear and simple scientific guidelines for halting global heating and catastrophic, potentially civilization-ending climate breakdown too: Stop emitting greenhouse gases.

Just like the pandemic, global heating follows natural laws, which is why we scientists can give that guideline with such certainty. Keep emitting GHGs, disaster. The more GHG in the atmosphere, the more heating there will be. More heating, worse impacts.

Some differences: With global heating, heat & related impacts will be effectively permanent, there's potential to upend and kill billions, and wars have been fought for much less and this one would likely be nuclear because well - do YOU trust the folks with the nukes?

I find it horrifying that I'm here, in 2020, writing these words. In 2006 I had more faith in humanity. I thought we'd have figured this out by now.

The anti-science people in charge are killing us. We need to rise up and get them out of power by hook or by crook. Cause, effect.