What is happening to the climate? Predictions of imminent doom abound and have for a long time. Back in 2007, the International Panel on Climate Change predicted that we would have to act decisively “before 2012”. Prince Charles gave a 100-month warning for a climate tipping point which expired this year (he has updated us with a new 18-month deadline). Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth foresaw such catastrophes as California flooded by the Pacific, the snow melting from the Kilimanjaro and hurricane frequency increasing dramatically – rather than reduce, which is what has actually happened.
Fast-forward to 2019, and we are being told to prepare for Armageddon again. Led by teenage phenomenon Greta Thunberg and the Extinction Rebellion protest group, climate alarmists are predicting a global catastrophe, including acidification of the seas, rising sea levels, mass extinction of species at an unprecedented rate, food and water scarcity and deadly pollution.
Now, climate change is not alone in having been heralded as the harbinger of man and earth’s doom. Nuclear war, acid rain, bird flu, AIDS, SARS, Ebola, population growth, oil and metals disappearing – to mention some of the most prominent – have all at some time in the recent past been predicted to cause mass death or human and ecological disaster. Yet none of the predicated apocalypses have actually happened. No nuclear weapon has been used in war since WW2. Acid rain, forecast in the 1980ies to destroy forest globally, including the famous Black Forest in Germany, was never a serious threat, and trees claimed to be its victims actually died from disease, weather, and other factors, with acid rain playing an insignificant role. An AIDS diagnosis is no longer a death-sentence; bird flu, SARS and Ebola have all been contained before the death toll was anywhere near forecasts from the stories peddled by a media hungry for the next big story to entice the public’s seemingly insatiable appetite for disaster. Malthusian predictions of starvation due to overpopulation have failed to materialise, with actual hunger catastrophes attributable instead to poverty, bad governance or military conflict. Natural resources continue to be plentiful.
Concerns over the environment, however, persist. And despite the enormous complexities in forecasting the long-term patterns and impact of changes to earth’s climate, the vociferous laymen in the climate emergency crowd are taken deadly seriously by both politicians and the general public. Young people are being told that unless we all dramatically change the way we live, they are unlikely to survive into old age. In the debate, climate activists are most often pitted against those who think climate change is a deliberate hoax perpetrated by government and big business with sinister motives in mind. And while it is certainly true that virtue signalling about one’s concern for the climate is a simple route to favourable publicity and that alarmism is an effective vote winner; what about the moderates? Where in the debate is there room for those who predict more benign climate change scenarios and less dramatic consequences, or those who question the radical action suggested by people like US Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex, whose Green New Deal aims to transform the entire US economy – and with it society – in the name of the climate emergency? Why do we not hear more from those, like Bjoern Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus, whose work points to the astronomical cost and broad futility of attempting to resist the change in Earth’s climate – a change that is not conclusively proven to be man-made (at least not primarily) and which is not predicted by experts to result in the catastrophe foreseen by campaigners? Where is the optimism over humankind’s ability to overcome challenges like those championed by ‘lukewarmer’ Matt Ridley? Where is the belief in technological innovation to find new energy sources and reduce consumption, boost crops yield, reduce reliance on scarce natural resources or protect against inevitable changes in weather patterns? Why is the focus on enacting draconian laws and regulations to reduce energy consumption, when the human sacrifices from such policies are enormous? Why do apocalyptical predictions get all the press?
A fearful population is easier to control, and the government oversight of the economy needed to enact radical climate policies certainly appeals to leftist politicians. But is also seems every generation wants its apocalypse. The media loves a scare-story, politicians and influencers like Thunberg feed off it to gain power and status – and the general populace greedily gobble it up, possibly because it makes us feel important that we may be the last generation on earth unless we act to stop the catastrophe. It seems our collective vanity is served well by being tasked with the responsibility to save the planet and ensure mankind’s survival.