Vårt lands främste klimatforskare professor Lennart Bengtsson drar sig till minnes några av de förutsägelser om framtidens klimat som gjorts av klimatdomedagssektens predikanter. Så därför frågar han sig varför oroa oss om klimatet – det har ju redan hänt, eller hur?
1988, Dr. James Hansen. Asked by author Rob Reiss how the greenhouse effect was likely to affect the neighborhood below Hansen’s office in NYC in the next 20 years, Hansen replied: “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change… There will be more police cars…[since] you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.”
Sept 19, 1989, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “New York will probably be like Florida 15 years from now.”
1990, Michael Oppenheimer, The Environmental Defense Fund: “By 1996, the Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers… The Mexican police will round up illegal American migrants surging into Mexico seeking work as field hands.”
October 15, 1990, Carl Sagan: “The planet could face an ecological and agricultural catastrophe by the next decade if global warming trends continue.”
1990, Actress Meryl Streep: “By the year 2000 – that’s less than ten years away — earth’s climate will be warmer than it’s been in over 100,000 years. If we don’t do something, there’ll be enormous calamities in a very short time.”
July 26, 1999, The Birmingham Post: “Scientists are warning that some of the Himalayan glaciers could vanishwithin ten years because of global warming. A build-up of greenhouse gases is blamed for the meltdown, which could lead to drought and flooding in the region affecting millions of people.”
April 1, 2000, Der Spiegel: “Good bye winter. Never again snow?” And December 5, 2006 our own VäderPär in 20 years we would have forgotten how to ski. Vasaloppet will just be a memory.
March 29, 2001, CNN: “In ten years’ time, most of the low-lying atolls surrounding Tuvalu’s nine islands in the South Pacific Ocean will be submerged under water as global warming rises sea levels.”
Oct 20, 2009, Gordon Brown, UK Prime Minister (referring to the Copenhagen climate conference): “World leaders have 50 days to save the Earth from irreversible global warming.”
The great mystery is that people more than ever believe in these doomsdayers. May be the answer is that.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
― Charles MacKay, in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Lars Bern
Krönikan har tidigare publicerats på Anthropocene.
Lars Bern är en svensk teknologie doktor, företagsledare, författare och samhällsdebattör. Han är ledamot av Stiftelsen Svenska Dagbladet som är minoritetsdelägare i SvD, av Kungl. Ingenjörsvetenskaps- akademien sedan 1988 och Etikkollegiet.
Han har bland annat författat boken Varför försvinner våra kronjuveler? : dikeskörningar i svensk industri och driver opinionssajten Anthropocene
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