Climate Change: The Keywords (Part 1 of 3)

Written by Geraldo Luís Lino, special to Climate Change Dispatch In the not too distant future, it will likely be difficult to understand how so many educated people believed in and accepted uncritically for so long a scientifically unproven theory like the so-called Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Taken almost as a dogma, the AGW has been forcefully imposed by means of a barrage of scare stories and indoctrination that begins in the elementary school textbooks and is volleyed relentlessly upon us by the media and many scientific institutions (including some pseudo-scientific ones), while gullible or opportunistic politicians devise all possible means of inserting climate-motivated items into their power-seeking schemes.

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The threat allegedly posed by that supposed world emergency would justify the need of at least halving the human carbon emissions until mid-century, meaning a draconian reduction of the use of fossil fuels worldwide. Despite the drastic potential impact of such measures upon the living standards of all nations, the failure to do so and of establishing a “low-carbon economy,” we are told, would usher the environmental apocalypse in. Well, fortunately for Mankind it won’t. However, that avalanche has gone too far. So, it’s high time to turn the alarmist page and discard the buzzwords with which the subject has been marketed once and for all: (undeserved) hype, (unmotivated) scare, (unnecessary) restrictions and (unacceptable) sacrifices. In their stead new keywords are needed to put the climatic phenomena into their proper perspective again: proportion, knowledge and resilience. Let’s begin with trying to give the climate theme the right proportion concerning its nature and relationship with Mankind. More...

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