Elon Musk’s Climate Denial for Dummies (Starring Elon Musk)
Why the world’s loudest amateur scientist keeps getting the climate crisis wrong, and how his ignorance is slowing the planet’s last chance at survival.
Elon Musk has spent so many years branding himself as a misunderstood genius that he now seems to believe it. It’s a remarkable case study in what happens when a man with a bachelor’s degree in physics, a bachelor’s degree in economics, and the attention span of a fidget spinner decides he is a climate theorist. Musk offers scientific analysis the way a karaoke bar offers music: technically recognizable, deeply off-key, and best not taken seriously.
His latest contribution to the climate conversation? The claim that climate change won’t become a “serious issue” for another fifty years. Just let that marinate. According to Musk speaking on the All In podcast, the planet is basically fine until around 2075, at which point we should consider maybe doing something about it, presumably right after he finishes tweeting about how the word “climate” is “gay.”
The man does hold thoughts; the problem is that none of them are tethered to reality.
