On Saturday, millions of people around the world took part in events to mark Earth Day, the annual celebration of all things environmental. It’s traditionally been the day when we are supposed to pause and think about this little blue planet we all share on our trips around the Sun. There are no second chances, no re-runs, no re-writes. How we manage our resources, how we care for our environment, and how we manage our stewardship of the world for future generations matters critically — and Earth Day is supposed to highlight any opportunity for us all to reduce, reuse and recycle while thinking globally and acting locally.
But Saturday was also a day when tens of thousands of scientists marched to highlight the need for real evidence-based research to overcome the legions of naysayers who have emerged from the darkness of sceptical ignorance and special interests to undermine true academic work. In the past three decades, since scientists started to ring alarm bells over greenhouse gases, the warming of Earth, and the slowly rising temperatures that are going to have a devastating effect on future generations, their work has been negated by those who choose to place their head in the sand.
The reality is that our planet is getting warmer, the ice caps are melting, our rain forests are being devastated, our particulate emissions have increased to the point where Earth is like a greenhouse, and our environment is changing. The rate of change is our doing, the climate crisis is man-made.
Alternative facts cannot alter what is happening. Shooting the messengers won’t make climate change go away. After all, without science, it’s just fiction.
