Fear of global warming has led us to invent a new planet-wide doctrine.
It consists of half a dozen observations, analyses, conjectures and conclusions that have come to be presented as an indivisible whole, although it is useful to consider them separately for they do not all carry the same scientific weight. They are as follows.
The earth’s average temperature has been rising ever since the Industrial Revolution, with a very marked acceleration in recent decades; this phenomenon is largely a result of human activity producing CO2 emissions that accumulate in the upper atmosphere and cause a ‘greenhouse effect’; the consequences are catastrophic and irreversible for the earth in general and the human race in particular, with the poorest countries in the front line; neither the inherent biological forces of plant and animal life (mutation, migration or the emergence of new species) nor human societies’ traditional avenues of recourse (to migration, scientific innovation or tried-and-tested market mechanisms) are capable of offsetting – never mind halting – the literally apocalyptic process that is now under way; humanity as a whole therefore needs to make an unprecedented effort, entailing radical changes in methods of production and ways of life; if our generation can pull that off, the apocalypse will be averted.
Lire la suite…