It's worse than that. If you say something bad will happen unless we do something about it, and then we do something about it and it doesn't happen, then years later when you say something else bad will happen unless we do something about that...people will say the earlier bad thing didn't happen so why should we believe you this time?
For example, in the 50s and 60s we had rapidly rising levels of smog and other particulate matter pollution in the US, and scientists warned that bad things would happen if we didn't get this under control.
We did get it under control, and indeed massively reduced it, and the bad things did not come to pass.
And now, bringing up those predictions from back then and saying that since they did not come to pass we shouldn't worry about current predictions on climate change or do anything about them is a staple of climate change denial arguments.
For example, in the 50s and 60s we had rapidly rising levels of smog and other particulate matter pollution in the US, and scientists warned that bad things would happen if we didn't get this under control.
We did get it under control, and indeed massively reduced it, and the bad things did not come to pass.
And now, bringing up those predictions from back then and saying that since they did not come to pass we shouldn't worry about current predictions on climate change or do anything about them is a staple of climate change denial arguments.
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