In the last few weeks, a number of extreme climate-related episodes have occurred around the globe. In June, New York was engulfed by the smoke from wildfires in Canada. In the Mediterranean Sea, the Greek islands of Corfu, Rhodes and Eviaand the Italian island of Sicily, as well as Cascais in Portugal and Dubrovnik in Croatia were also battered by wildfires, caused by the extreme temperatures reached in July and August (up to 48 degrees Celsius). In some parts of Latin America, temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius, in spite of it being winter there. And the temperature of the oceans, at almost 21 degrees, has been the highest on record, as the El Niño phenomenon re-appeared this year.
Northern Europe has also been characterised by severe weather conditions, with floods in Northern Italy, Austria and Slovenia. In some parts of the Dolomites, it snowed in early August. As it did earlier this year in Sierra Nevada in California, which had previously been characterised by severe droughts during the last few years.
What’s going on? Well, according one view, all these are phenomena related to climate change, due to so-called global warming. According to NASA, the 15 warmest years on record have been registered since 2005, and the last 8 years have been the hottest 8 years on record. A 2021 report by Cornell University found that 99.9% of more than 88,000 climate change studies agree that humans have accelerated the phenomenon, largely due to carbon emissions. This is the so-called “anthropogenic theory” of climate change, according to which global warming has been created by the carbon emitted by humans in the last couple of centuries, since industrialisation begun. Recently, the movement Fridays for Future launched by Greta Tunberg were among the most vocal activists. But there are also many other groups, such as “Last Generation,” Greenpeace, WWF, etc. They are well represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded, together with Al Gore, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
While one may think this is an undisputed theory, in reality there is an entire army of negationists that are organising themselves, in order to push the opposite view. Recently, a document supposedly signed by scientists and academics, under the title “World Climate Declaration” says that “There is no climate emergency,” as planet earth has gone through cycles of warming and cooling. The most organised group is called Clintel (Climate Intelligence) Foundation, a Netherlands-based climate science denial group founded in 2019 by retired professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and journalist Marcel Crok. According to independent review, a large percentage of the supporters of Clintel are linked to the fossil fuel industry.
Recent events show, in our opinion unequivocally, that these extreme weather events are related to climate change caused by global warming. But it’s notable that an opposite camp of climate negationists is emerging and becoming organised. This is not a new phenomenon. During the recent Covid pandemic for example a movement of anti-vaxxers got organised and became vocal. Not to mention that the prevailing evolutionist theory about the origin of the species (deriving from Darwin’s seminal works) got challenged by the “creationists.” Interestingly, in the US state of Texas, this second approach is taught in public schools as a plausible alternative to the prevailing scientific theory.
While we believe that the arguments are overwhelmingly in favour of the climate change theory, we also believe that an organised negationist movement, which finds its political references mostly in right-wing parties around the globe, and is supported by the fossil fuel industry, will manage to stop or delay the adoption of the climate-mitigation measures that are needed to prevent global warming from becoming irreversible.
The number of disasters related to a weather, climate or water hazard has increased by a factor of five over a 50-year period, driven by climate change, more extreme weather and improved reporting. According to the WMO Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes (1970 – 2019), there were more than 11 000 reported disasters attributed to these hazards globally, with just over 2 million deaths and US$ 3.64 trillion in losses.
