Climate change mythbusters

Social media, newspapers, fake news… It now has become very complicated to get our heads round what’s happening today. Is climate change even a real thing, or just an invention from crazy, old but very manipulative scientists? In this article, we are going to help you define the often invisible line between the facts and the fiction, and hopefully help you form an opinion of your own.

Today, many myths and lies surf the web in order to form a wave powerful enough to break down the young organisations, programs and goals that activists, from national leaders to individuals, established to answer the increasing danger of climate change. The goal of our blog is to progressively transform your habits to take better care of the planet but we think that before you change, you need to know the right from the wrong. We have put together a list of 5 tales that you may have heard or even believe:

1. Climate change isn’t real – I was ice-cold today

Your frostbite supports perfectly your argument.  However, do you think that since you are cold, then the planet isn’t warming up ? Following your reasoning, this would mean that if you have had a delicious dinner, then global famines would not exist. 

Let’s take a recent example: in February 2021, Texas suffered from an immense ice wave. Electricity was cut, people were forced to stay home, swimming pools had become ice rinks: snow covered up everything. How can a colder period than usual be a consequence of global warming ? Essentially, as the Earth warms up, it destabilizes the normal weather patterns and increases the intensity, unpredictability and frequency of unusual phenomenons (such as cyclones). This can also go the other way round : in 2050, London in summer will be just as Barcelona in July today, an oven. 

2. Climate change isn’t real – the Earth’s climate always changes

Yes, it is true that the Earth’s climate changes through time, just like on every other planet. The merry-go-round between ice ages and cool temperatures has played on loop from the planet’s creation. However, such a sudden change hasn’t occurred from the birth of the Earth and her toddler’s life. Nature hasn’t got the time to evolve and adapt, like it has done before : this is leading to the next mass extinction.

Here is an interesting video on the subject : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbCR0KSU52g  

3. Climate change isn’t real – it’s just a marketing device of big companies

This could be an interesting track : look at all the business climate change can generate! Green energies, ecological items shopping, carbon emission-free fashion… We all see big companies trying to reduce their ecological impact to please more individuals, and the idea that this could just be a marketing device could be possible. 

Sorry to break it to you but climate change has nothing to do with enterprises. In fact, the pollution generated by them and their powerful advertising techniques insight us to consume more and more and turn a blind eye on the important side-effects. 

For example, the giant Amazon generated 465 million pounds (= 211 million kg or 211 thousand tonnes) of plastic packages found in the ocean. Try to imagine the total picture of just this company. We are not saying that you need to stop using Amazon, some of us are dependent on it, we’re trying to show you that the amount of pollution generated by those companies is gigantic, so maybe you could consider minimising your day-to-day consumption. 

As you can now see, climate change isn’t an advertising device, it’s a real problem.

4. Climate change isn’t real – we can all adapt to every climate changes

All species – including our own, Homo Sapiens , have adapted to the restrictions and changes that Nature confronted them to: ice ages, climate catastrophes . . . to which biodiversity responded more or less. There were many outcomes, but here are the two major ones : either a majority adapted slowly and survived through time, or the change was too sudden and 99% of the biodiversity disappeared, leaving the Earth a nearly-blank surface, where Nature took a few million years to reconstruct herself. Sadly, climate change is a crisis very much resembling the latter.

Today, we are in the blooming years of the 6th mass extinction (the last one was the dinosaurs’). If we don’t act now, Nature as we know it will disappear forever, and many of its treasures will be left closed, undiscovered. This crisis also bears the name of Anthropocene extinction (anthropocene meaning the human stage).  As you can understand, this means that this will be the end of the Human Age : possibly, we, humans, might disappear too. Slowly, every spark of life will burn out, and the planet could face a long and seeming-to-be endless night.

5. Climate change is real – we just need to get rid of humans

As misanthropic as this idea seems, it could work on the thesis : we are the bacteria that caused the Earth’s fever, we just need to get rid of it. The question is : how are we going to get rid of ourselves ? Well, this is not a solution as it is physically impossible to kill even half of the population or all migrate to Mars. We are a part of Nature, of the Earth’s biodiversity, whether we like it or not. We can, we must and we are going to save our home together.

Here are just 5 myths that can easily be found around our world. We hope our explanations will help you develop your idea of climate change, that you will be able to understand why we are so attached to this cause, and that you will help us save our home. Look out for ecological ideas on the subject to help you improve your “green footprint” as well as other articles that will help you distinguish fact from fiction, hope from despair.

If you enjoyed this, feel free and we might do another article with 5 new myths.

Written in June 2021 © Your Green Footprint