33. The perfect one-size-fits-all doomsday story – Vitezslav Kremlik

In the mainstream journalistic and activist narrative, climate change is happening but skeptics deny that. ”That’s a crazy argument. Nobody denies that the climate is changing”, says Vitezslav Kremlik, a Czech historian and sociologist. The honest discussion, of course, centers around the question to what extent humans contribute to that change, and what can be done about it in a reasonable way. Those who spread exaggerated warnings about the effects of global warming are ”merchants of fear”, according to Kremlik, who has studied the postmodern mix of science and politics, has a popular blog and is a frequent guest on Czech media where he discusses climate issues. Kremlik points out that alarmists are not wrong about everything, and he finds it sad that they can never make the same admission about the skeptics. It should be possible to have a decent debate about, for instance, the rebounding from the so-called Little Ice Age. It should even be possible to reach some kind of consensus. ”But that’s not desirable for the alarmist side.” At its core, the debate isn’t really much about the science around climate change, it’s about growth, says Vitezslav Kremlik; whether growth is a good or a bad thing. The environmentalists ”have a Malthusian thought that growth is some kind of cancer.” How do we interpret the last two centuries of development? Is it a story of progress or a story of environmental holocaust? Kremlik’s viewpoint is clear: ”We have liberated ourselves from the Malthusian trap and almost eradicated extreme poverty. It’s a miracle.” The ”97 percent of the scientists...” argument is partly a straw man argument. No serious scientist says that the globe isn’t warming. Historically, disasters were blamed on God’s wrath. ”We thought we got rid of superstition. But it’s still here – but it is disguised as science. We are really bad at estimating risks. We react much stronger to events than to trends.” Although the environmental movement is right on some things, it is not willing to discuss its problems or rectify its mistakes. ”It is turning into a dogmatic religion. I think it will fall apart. But it won’t happen next year”, says Kremlik. Vitezslav Kremlik’s book is entitled ”A Guide to the Climate Apocalypse – How the Merchants of Fear Forged a New Religion”.