Climate change exists and is caused by human action. On this there is no doubt. But the scaremongering around the information on climate change can sometimes be very misleading. We live in an era dominated by fear for the future; a fear delivered by the media, and exploited by the political machine, and anyone who can profit from it. Newspapers tend to emphasise doomsday scenarios, and 2030 is seen as the breaking point between survival and the end of life as we know it. The only solution discussed nowadays is to radically transform our economy, eliminate the use of fossil fuels, and reduce carbon emissions to zero. Our salvation, we are told, is renewable energy. Time is running out, the clock is ticking and people are genuinely worried. More and more often we are witness to scenes of collective panic, such as activists who break into museums trying to draw attention to the issue, and parades of young people with placards inviting those responsible to take a stand. One young protester who stood out for many people was holding a placard which said "you will die of old age, I will die of climate change". There are also plenty of books that declare we are on the verge of irreversible decline, and that the situation is going to become extremely critical if we don't act now.
In the last twenty years, scientific data on climate change has become extremely precise, and we now have numerical confirmation that the doomsday scenarios predicted by the media are not real. Of course climate change is a problem that should not be underestimated, but we also need to wake up to the fact that it is a problem that can be dealt with. At the same time, however, the rhetoric used by non-experts has become increasingly irrational and extreme, with particular focus on the need to ban fossil fuels, which is only one part of the problem. This is not to say that we don’t need to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, but this is not the only aspect of climate change we should focus on. In doing so we are completely ignoring other critical and more manageable issues that affect the future of our planet.
