Greta Thunberg’s 2018 tweet that read, “A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years,” is going viral and for the wrong reasons.
The climate change activist is getting trolled on social media for being groundless.
One user wrote, “I’m sorry to say – all humanity has been wiped out today according to Greta Weirdo. But at least the climate cult keeps their perfect record of ZERO predictions coming true ever.”
Another tweeted, “We had five years to stop fossil fuels to prevent wiping out ‘all of humanity’ from June 21st 2018, Greta Thunberg claimed in a now deleted tweet” It’s just a Big (load of) Grab. The “End of the World” is always predicted about 10 years before the tragedy.”
One user came to Thunberg’s defense and tweeted, “The Tweet did not claim that humans would be dead in 5 years. It basically argues that if things are not changed in the next 5 years it may be too late.Humans are absolutely responsible for helping to change the climate. Is it as dire a problem as that article stated 5 years ago? Probably not.”
However, the article that Thunberg posted in 2018, which quotes Harvard professor James Anderson, does not state that humanity will be wiped out in five years.
Anderson, a world-renowned climate scientist who pioneered research that resulted in a global ban on industrial gas chlorofluorocarbons, was quoted as suggesting that all fossil fuel use should be phased out by 2023 in order to safeguard the Earth’s remaining polar ice.
Also Read| What are the health consequences of being trapped in a submarine, US Navy expert reveals
According to Newsweek, Anderson is not reported as claiming that humanity will be wiped out, but rather that continuous usage of fossil fuels will inflict permanent damage to the polar ice caps.
Anderson told Forbes, “We have exquisite information about what that state is because we have a paleo record going back millions of years, when the earth had no ice at either pole. There was almost no temperature difference between the equator and the pole. The ocean was running almost 10ºC warmer all the way to the bottom than it is today and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere would have meant that storm systems would be violent in the extreme, because water vapor, which is an exponential function of water temperature, is the gasoline that fuels the frequency and intensity of storm systems.”
Anderson also said that recovery would be impossible without a “World War II-style transformation of industry—an acceleration of the effort to stop carbon pollution and remove it from the atmosphere, and a new effort to reflect sunlight away from the earth’s poles.” Forbes summarized these remarks.
Also Read| Rescue team for missing Titanic submersible heard ‘Banging’ from area: Report
Sea levels would increase dramatically all around the world in addition to the negative effects that the melting of the ice caps would have on the North Pole and Antarctica’s natural ecosystems.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, if all of the glaciers and ice caps on Earth melted, sea levels would rise by about 70 meters and inundate all of the world’s coastal cities.
