Listen to science on climate – not the myths
Mario Du Preez is angry with climate change deniers and wonders how they can continue to disbelieve what is staring them in the face
T HIS piece aims to invoke the principle of audi alteram partem. Which other side, you may ask? Well, the side that does not dwell in the quagmire of myth; the side that does not repeat half-truths in the hope that they will authenticate themselves; the side, which is not obscurantist in nature; the side that has not given up; the side that represents hope, undiluted dedication, and a belief that a good and safe future for our children is still possible.
One such maskirovka is the notion of a global Medieval Warm Period (i.e., 950 to 1250AD, a conjectural period of uncommonly high temperatures in Europe). Demagogues of climate discontent offer the existence of this period as support for their bogus theory that our current climate woes are solely a result of natural causes, thus, completely devoid of human involvement. Coupled with this notion is the belief that Greenland’s early Viking settlers prospered and then later foundered due to changes in the region’s climate. These ‘facts’, the climate change deniers argue, provide cartesian clarity about the disconnect between ‘man-made’ greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. It’s all au naturel they say, so why worry? Why panic if things heat up a bit? It has happened before, and we are still intact. In fact, we are flourishing and will continue to do so.
Instead of believing this nonsense, I would rather put my trust in one of the celebrated triumphs of the Enlightenment, namely scientific method. I would, thus, rather believe and trust those glacial geologists who measured the magnitude of Western Greenland and Baffin Island’s glaciers over the last 1,000 years (the study’s results were published in the Scientific Advances journal). The scientists found that glacial coverage, which serves as a proxy for temperature, during the supposed Medieval Warm Period, was marginally less than during an ensuing cold period, the so-called Little Ice Age.
In other words, the difference in size of the glaciers during the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age was very slight. Thus, temperatures during Medieval times probably did not deviate much from the norm. A further scientific finding: although days in Europe during the Medieval Warm Period were sometimes steamy hot, those same days in the western North Atlantic were relatively cold. The conclusion? The Medieval Warm Period did not envelop the entire planet, i.e., there was nothing global about it.
Arguing climate change is a ‘naturally-occurring’ phenomena, climate change deniers would like us to abandon mitigation measures.
Hopefully, the aftermath of the COP26 summit, which we are hosting this year, will witness countries declaring climate emergencies, formulating climate change-busting policies, and embracing circular economic practices, which respect both our social foundations and the earth’s ecological ceiling.
And who knows, maybe we will eventually be able to drag the climate change deniers out of their selfimposed amnesiac fugue.