The differences over decisive action on climate change, evident at the recent meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland, are troubling because the meeting brought together political, economic and thought leaders from around the world. This was no ordinary gathering but one where only the best arguments were expected. In the event, unfortunately, the divide on climate change, perhaps the most pressing existential issue of these troubled times, reveals the deep disconnect between the sunny optimism of those who believe that the world can continue to behave as usual, and the pessimistic anxiety of those who think it is doomed if it fails to act immediately.
The divide was dramatised by the argumentative distance lying between United States President Donald Trump and Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. Mr Trump dismissed prophets of doom who sought to control how people lived and worked. He argued that technology not invented yet would provide solutions to the challenge. After all, the world has survived the predictions of those who warned of overpopulation in the 1960s and 1970s, and those who later predicted an energy crisis when the world would run out of oil in the 1990s. However, population and energy both worked within predictable ecological parameters, which are precisely what climate change is threatening to undo irretrievably today.
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