Self inflicted braindrain.

Nothing about the prediction is populistic. Claiming that one simulation was already given imperative results is populistic. Like I said, it took considerably longer than just until the 1950 until this climate scenario was scientific consensus.

Things do move slowly, not always but if we are talking about radical change of our infrastructure and also uprooting the way the economy works, those things are measured in decades, not years. We can deny that and just detach ourself from reality or work within reality.

To point out anything more detailed, I would need to know what the article actually writes about. I am not saying that there were no failings.

Railway infrastructure is commonly built for a 100 year lifespan. Even if it is updated, many norms are grandfathered in. Changing that requires enourmous effort.

That aside, your 1950 date is rather populistic. It was absolutely not scientific consensus back then that climate would change like that. It was only in the 1970s that this changed. That was 50 years ago and yes, that is not an enourmous long timespan for reworking our entire infrastructure. The Netherlands for example needed that time to undo the car centric dogma back to a multimodal one. The harmonisation process for rail control systems in Europe is easily 2-3 decades in the making and will easily need another 1-2 decades to even cover most of the primary network.

The article is behind a paywall so I can’t comment ton specifics but to think all the norms and all the infrastructure could be easily changed, is taking a few short cuts. Granted, a lot of things can be changed at much faster pace but then also at much higher cost and also much higher waste.

I am not saying one should not be serious about those changes, but nothing is gained from polemics.

Rail infrastructure is to a large extend older than Univac 1. Never mind that just because one prediction came to a result, doesn’t make it scientific concensus and standards don’t change over night.

Things are built to norms and standards. Quite some of it was built when the current trends were absolutely not foreseen, well before the 1970s. Updating everything is no small task, especially if that requires complete reconstruction of some parts.

Yeah, but what that doesn’t tell you is that if you actually walk that, you won’t be alive at the end of the day anymore and with transit you have at least a standing chance, if you try hard.