terça-feira, agosto 28, 2007

Aquece ou arrefece?

Um pouco de história. Na rubrica “Danger” de quase todos os media, podem-se encontrar notícias como estas:

The Globe Is Cooling

- New York Times, February 24, 1895: "Geologists Think the World May Be Frozen Up Again."
- New York Times, October 7, 1912: "Prof. Schmidt Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age."
- Los Angeles Times, October 7, 1912: "Fifth ice age is on the way. Human race Will have to fight for its existence against cold."
- Chicago Tribune, August 9, 1923: "Scientist says Arctic ice will wipe out Canada."
- Washington Post, August 10, 1923: "Ice Age Coming Here."
- Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1924: "If these things be true, it is evident, therefore that we must be just teetering on an ice age."

The Globe Is Warming

- Los Angeles Times, March 11, 1929: "Most geologists think the world is growing warmer, and that it will continue to get warmer."
- Chicago Daily Tribune, November 6, 1939: "Chicago is in the front rank of thousands of cities [throughout] the world which have been affected by a mysterious trend toward warmer climate in the last two decades."
- New York Times, August 10, 1952: "We have learned that the world has been getting warmer in the last half century."
- New York Times, 1953: "Nearly all the great ice sheets are in retreat."
- U.S. News & World Report, January 8, 1954: "Winters are getting milder, summers drier. Glaciers are receding, deserts growing."
- New York Times, February 15, 1959: "Arctic Findings in Particular Support Theory of Rising Global Temperatures."
- New York Times, February 20, 1969: "The Arctic pack ice is thinning and [...] the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two."

The Globe Is Cooling

- Science News, November 15, 1969: "How long the current cooling trend continues is one of the most important problems of our civilization."
- Washington Post, January 11, 1970: "Get a good grip on your long johns, cold weather haters -- the worst may be yet to come." O artigo era intitulado "Colder Winters Herald Dawn of New Ice Age."
- New York Times, December 29, 1974: "Present climate change [will result in] mass deaths by starvation and probably in anarchy and violence."
- Christian Science Monitor, 1974: "The North Atlantic is cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool."
- Newsweek, April 28, 1975: "The drop in food output [as a result of climate change] could begin quite soon, perhaps only ten years from now. [...] The central fact is the earth's climate seems to be cooling down."
- New York Times, 1975: "A Major Cooling Widely Considered Being Inevitable."
- Science News, 1975: "The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed."
- New Scientist, 1975: "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind."
- New York Times, 1976: "The cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people in poor nations."

The Globe Is Warming

- New York Times, August 22, 1981: "Global warming of an almost unprecedented magnitude is predicted."
- Washington Post, January 18, 2006: "Rising temperatures could, literally, alter the fundamentals of life on the planet."
- Time, March 26, 2006: "Polar Ice Caps Are Melting Faster Than Ever . . . More and More; Land is Being Devastated by Drought . . . Rising Waters Are Drowning Low Lying Communities . . . By Any Measure, Earth Is at the Tipping Point; The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame."

A angústia é o melhor produto vendido pelos media, tanto embrulhada com o frio como com o calor. Adivinha: - Quando começa a arrefecer? Em 2010? Em 2015? Em 2020? Em 2025?

O tempo dará a resposta devida. O mainstream projecta somente calor até 2100. Apoia-se na hipótese (que nem sequer é uma teoria) exclusiva de ser humana a responsabilidade da variabilidade do clima.

Para o IPCC não existe frio. Mas existem pontos de vista alternativos que prevêem o aparecimento de uma fase fria (bem) antes do fim do século. Somente o tempo revelará de que lado está a verdade.