To the editor,
Re: Don’t dismiss voices of youth, Editorial, June 5.
From your Black Press ‘denier’ editorial, which I found insulting, there is a word missing: catastrophic. None of the people I know deny the fact that climate changes. We do however, reject the “over-the-top hysteria” vociferously pushed by de-industrializing global-warming activists.
Largely I do because of my age. Having been exposed to cries of impending catastrophes since the 1960s from Rachel Carson, Paul Erlich, Jeremy Rifkin, Ralph Nader through to yesterday’s M King Hubbert, Al Gore and David Suzuki and today’s Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and company makes me skeptical. For too long I’ve been waiting for apologies from inaccurate, deceitful fear-mongers.
You might say some of us with memories have developed “failed catastrophe syndrome.” I’d say we’ve strengthened our BS detectors.
While it is appalling to cry disaster falsely, it’s disingenuous to fail to acknowledge when one proves to be wrong. Furthermore, it is the height of insincerity and manipulation when one’s inability to convince adults causes one to choose to inflict propaganda on the young.
I personally consider it child abuse to inject unnecessary fear in young minds and I condemn the entire gang of green activists who deliberately do so. The tragic story of Greta Thunberg shows the degree of exploitation the activist class are prepared to inflict.
There is no scientific basis to promoting fear, blaming carbon dioxide for temperature catastrophe. In the past the world has experienced far higher levels of both CO2 and temperature. That fact that life originates from that period is proof that life will not end if the temperature changes a degree or two.
As to what we’ve survived … 5000 feet of ice didn’t kill off humanity.
Have you not heard politicians claim climate changes is more dangerous than the Second World War? No hysteria you say?
Gary Seinen,
Port Alberni
