ARMAGEDDON is here, or at least you might well think if you listen to parts of the press and media.
Apocalyptic footage of wildfires consuming tinder-dry parts Greece and Italy and reports of record temperatures in the US and China add to the sense of doom.
Matt Ridley, an eminent writer on science and the environment, says heatwaves are becoming more intense, and extreme precipitation more frequent, but the ‘alarmism is shameless’.
He adds that every adverse weather event is being politicised and ‘recruited to the net zero cause’, particularly by the BBC.
He points to historical evidence that the earth has been much warmer in the past, for much longer.
But the climate crusade marches on, exemplified by slow-marching zealots, who believe there’s no time for democratic change.
This continuous barrage of gloom is having a detrimental effect on us all, particularly the young, says Cambridge Professor Mike Hulme.
The language of ‘cliff edges’, ‘tipping points’, and the 80-foot Climate Clock counting down to July 2029 above New York’s Union Square, all add to the ‘atmosphere of deadlines’, he told the Times.
He highlights a 2021 survey, showing that 60 per cent of 16 to 25-year-olds interviewed were worried about climate change and saw the future as ‘frightening’, while two thirds felt sad, afraid or anxious.
Understandably, cynicism, despair and apathy result; already, birth rates in the western world are falling.
What’s sinister is the possibility that the hysteria is, to some extent, being orchestrated.
There’s evidence that the infamous behavioural insights teams, or ‘nudge units’, which kept us terrified during lockdown, are now working with news outlets to ‘drive behaviour change’ to support the net zero goals.
After the week’s headlines, it’s easy to believe.