Known risks vs. unknown risks

Howdy folks,

Hope you’re enjoying your Thursday so far, or the remains of the day on whichever day you read this. I’m heading back to New York for a bit, so if you’re keen to chat about energy and sustainability things in person, and that’s where you’re at presently, then next week’s a good bet. Let me know.

♡ If u find this work valuable, please support it here. U can do so for $1. I put a lot of thought, time, and heart into these, either way. ♡

LOST IN ORBIT

Here’s some (more) not-so-hot news (sorry): MethaneSAT, the ambitious methane monitoring satellite launched in March 2024, lost contact with mission control on June 20, 2025. The exact cause of the failure remains unknown.

MethaneSAT was a nonprofit-led satellite mission designed to detect, measure, and map methane emissions globally, with an advanced onboard spectrometer technology developed by Ball Aerospace to facilitate the detection of even small plumes of methane at high resolutions. The total cost to build, launch, and commission MethaneSAT was approximately $88 million, with significant support coming from the Bezos Earth Fund, which provided a $100 million grant, including funding for data infrastructure and advocacy initiatives. Additional contributions came from the New Zealand government, which invested NZ$29 million (~$18 million) to participate in development and operation. Other private donors and institutional partners also supported the project. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) spearheaded the initiative, leading the development, organization, data administration, and publicity efforts.

A significant loss in and of itself, what was most interesting to me in the wake of this news was the admission to myself that, prior to this incident, it hadn’t even really occurred to me that MethaneSAT might simply go missing. I had a vague notion that satellite launches in particular can certainly go awry. But, post-launch? A $100 million satellite disappearing into space was not a possibility, not a risk I was even discounting in my mind. Simply wasn’t on my proverbial radar, in parallel to how the satellite is now literally on no radar.

Of course, upon further research, I learned it’s not at all uncommon for satellites to “fail,” whether because of onboard equipment failures, collisions with other satellites or debris in space, or any other number of potential proximate causes—for more reading on all the things that can go wrong and imperil satellites, whether during launch or orbit, there’s some good reading here from Data Center Dynamics.

Once you start thinking about how hostile an environment like space is, and have a proof point forcing you to reckon with the very realizable risk of something, the risk shifts from an unknown risk to a known risk quickly. Still, the fact that it was, at least to me, an unknown risk for quite some time, sparked some broader reflections, as unknown risks really should rule much of the climate discourse.

Unknown risks > known risks

Akin to the heuristic Donald Rumsfeld coined surrounding known unknowns and unknown unknowns, initially a product of counterterrorism and defense discussions in the early aughts, it’s the unknown unknowns (or unknown risks, as I’m more focused on here), that often cause the most significant surprises (and big problems). With respect to Earth’s climate systems, as I’ve often written about, the unknown risks of destabilizing or simply changing and tinkering with many of the more important levers that impact the extremely complex system that is Earth’s climate are, at minimum, as concerning as known risks and projections of disruption that climate change and global warming will cause and/or exacerbate. With respect to complex systems in general, the amount we don’t know will often outweigh what we do. With respect to Earth’s climate system, this is true, raised to the nth degree, considering how complex a system this is.

Why am I rambling on about this? Well, for one, this is a departure from many climate communications of the past, which have focused on the amount we do know about Earth’s climate system and the extent to which climate change could disrupt it. And we do know a lot; I’m not here to deprecate the vast repertoire of research on these topics, which is constantly evolving and improving thanks to many, many judicious researchers and scientists. That said, I think that the overwhelming emphasis on known risks, without much discussion of unknown risks, at least catered to the general populace, has obfuscated for many people the extent to which unknown risks persist. Really, I think arguments for climate mitigation can be as if not more elegantly by focusing on unknown risks, especially considering the degree to which climate skeptics and deniers, including at the top of U.S. federal institutions, often question the scientific basis of how severe known risks really are, or how established the science behind there being “known” is in general.

While it doesn’t happen often, having been immersed in climate change and climate mitigation conversations for over five years at this point, I sometimes step back and ponder how I might make the case for climate mitigation in general to someone who remains a climate change skeptic or a fully-fledged climate change denier. At present, the bones of my argument would look as follows:

In essence, this flow chart features only a few key ‘inputs’ that require agreement to establish a case for climate mitigation efforts, specifically for phasing out fossil fuel use and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Some of the “requires agreement” boxes above barely strike me as contestable, but I figured I’d build in some leeway. A lot follows pretty logically.

The first required condition to structure an argument in favor of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, at minimum, hinges on acceptance of the fact that the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere in general matters to the survival of our species. This is a markedly different thing to get someone to accept than, say, that the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is too high presently or will be soon for optimal human (and add more species or “planetary,” here if you like) flourishing.

Accepting that the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere matters, that greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere do influence Earth’s climate system significantly, is not something I have ever really encountered debate around. Simply put, without any greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the Earth would be uninhabitably cold. In fact, without greenhouse gasses in the first place, it’s unlikely the Earth would have ever formed an atmosphere at all, let alone one capable of supporting life. Exactly how Earth formed an atmosphere capable of supporting water and Earth’s oceans, to say nothing of life, is the subject of much interesting, albeit dense, comparative planetology. However, whether or not greenhouse gases, like methane, were integral to their formation, or for the Earth to warm sufficiently to support life, is not in question.

From there, we can make a tidy argument in favor of climate mitigation, that really just boils down to the precautionary principle. Restating the flow chart:

• If atmospheric GHG concentrations help shape a climate that has, for the past thousand years or so, been particularly ideal for humanity to flourish, then, logically, there are ranges of GHG concentrations that would also not support a friendly climate. This has been true in the past; there were times when atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations were far higher than they are today, when crocodile-like creatures likely lived near the poles, and well-documented ice ages when, effectively, the opposite was true. Not inducing these extremes again is very much desirable—that much isn’t in question either.

• Bringing this back to unknowns, we also don’t know—and certainly would have a very difficult time establishing global consensus on (based on geopolitical differences)—where ideal atmospheric GHG concentration ranges start and end. We’re very far from a level of sophistication, not even in terms of technically controlling, but from scientifically determining with confidence, exactly what optimal GHG concentrations for human civilization at large, to say nothing of other species, are. How would you even measure optimality?

• It follows that, based on the fact that the present Earth’s climate supports a global population of 8 billion people, many of whom have a very high standard of living relative to history, the present climate and present GHG concentrations, or ones from the very recent historical record (say, even 35 years ago), when greenhouse gas emissions really started to accelerate dramatically, are worth maintaining. Not just worth maintaining, but highly desirable, lest we trigger many known and many more unknown risks that different atmospheric compositions would yield.

• From there, limiting greenhouse gas emissions is a straightforward decision.

Again, notice how this argument required no invocation of climate change, while still preserving a strong appeal to treat climate mitigation efforts as urgent prerogatives. I’ve often said that I want to spend my time finding ways to reframe even foundational language and arguments for the more specific technologies and companies we discuss frequently. Here we are—this is my best current attempt at a first principles argument that should be reasonably robust, save in the face of people mired in the most absurd quackery (for e.g., perhaps some people don’t even think greenhouse gases shape Earth’s climate at all. There are flat earthers, after all.)

Why rehash all this at all?

Why do I think about this stuff, and why do I think it’s worth writing about? Because it integrates a more open conversation surrounding the profound amount of uncertainty we still face with respect to how Earth’s climate system works, exactly how much risk climate change presently represents and how much more risk it might pose in the future, as well as what an “ideal” state might be without diminish arguments in favor of moving mountains to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (or other drivers of climate change and global warming) in a short amount of time.

We can admit there’s a basically infinite amount of unknown risk inherent to living on Earth in general, let alone inherent to climate change, without abnegating the helm of climate leadership, or whatever else you want to call it. We can acknowledge that the amount of unknown risks present in complex systems will likely always outweigh the known risks, and will continue to do so, regardless of how much energy and computational power we continue to unlock as a species to advance scientific understanding, modeling, and decision-making based on what we learn. We can say “we don’t know everything—far from it—and that’s all the more reason to act. Which is an argument that’s more faithful to our circumstances than expressing certainty about exactly how bad, for whom, climate change will be and how soon.

Another nice aspect of this argument is that it doesn’t require making judgments about fossil fuel use to date, lambasting fossil fuel companies, or engaging in antagonistic arguments at all, which are mires that many climate arguments often get stuck in. Even as someone very concerned about climate change, I think it’s altogether possible that, in a future where greenhouse gas emissions and other climate change drivers have stabilized, over the long arc of history, fossil fuel use may be viewed as a necessary “J-curve” that risked destabilizing the Earth’s climate system but also provided us with the energy and computational power to more fully understand it. Of course, the realization of that future likely hinges on meaningful reductions of emissions now, lest we risk said destabilization.

The extent to which I’ve called climate communications of the past into question, particularly surrounding the extent to which, at present, apathy surrounding climate change, even just as a topic of media discourse, has increased markedly, means I should offer fresh ideas for how to flip the script. This was that. I’m curious about what you all think. I’m highly sensitive to the challenges climate practitioners faced in the past in getting people to believe in climate change in the first place; I understand that betraying uncertainty in that environment, rather than certainty, would have been risky.

But I think we’re past that point, and as I often say, I don’t take a dim view of the modal human’s intellectual curiosity and capacity. As much as the MO in politics is typically to make points as simply as possible, well? How far has that gotten us? It has certainly brought us to a point where most people believe in climate change, and a significant amount of climate mitigation work is being done. But for the next phase of climate mitigation work—which would, of course, benefit from profoundly more capital allocation and urgency—more appreciation of and conversation surrounding all that we don’t know, of unknown risks, strikes me as an essential pillar.

Fin,

— Nick