[
]
Road to 2045
Road to 2045 When Greta Thunberg became Editor-in-Chief – briefly By Peter Berlin
“H
anding over the responsibility for Sweden’s largest daily newspaper to an uneducated teenage activist is sheer madness, were it not for the fact that we live in an existential crisis which is still being ignored in our society.” Thus read the stark opening lines in the December 6 editorial of the mainstream newspaper Dagens Nyheter, and the words were those of famous climate activist Greta Thunberg. The newspaper had decided to throw its weight behind the sustainability agenda and invited her to be its Editor-inChief for a day. In her editorial, Greta went on to insist that, to save our climate, the task of stemming greenhouse gas emissions has to begin today, not in 2025 or 2030. More action and less talk is
Greta Thunberg at the European Parliament on 4 March 2020.
needed, she insists. Only if the general public is made sufficiently aware of the crisis situation will they exert the necessary pressure on industry and governments to act, and it is up to the news media to instil this awareness. So let’s get our skates on! Climate change doubters point out that the global climate has fluctuated between hot and cold over centuries and millenia. It is a natural phenomenon and has nothing to do with human activities – or so they say. However, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to examine satellite images and realize that the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps are melting at an unprecedented rate; nor does it require a geophysicist to conclude that receding coastlines are the result of rising ocean water levels. The scientific observation of climate change is quite recent. In 1988, the World Health Organisation (WMO) set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) dedicated to “providing the world with objective, scientific information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of the risk of human-induced climate change, its natural, political, and economic impacts and risks, and
possible response options.” Its first chairman was the Swedish meteorologist Bertil Bolin. It is interesting to follow the IPCC’s conclusions since its inception. In 1990, the first Assessment Report stated that the observed global warming is of the same magnitude as natural climate variability. The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect is not likely for a decade or more. So far, the doubters were vindicated. However, the tone in the subsequent IPCC reports issued in 1996, 2001 and 2007 became more and more alarmist.
Dagens Nyheter invited Greta Thunberg to be its Editor-in Chief for a day. Photo: DN.se
The latest published report is dated 2014 and spells out the causes and effects of global warming in no uncertain terms: Warming of the climate system is unequivocal. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. It is extremely likely (95-100% probability) that human influence was the dominant cause of global warming between 1951 and 2010. The next report will be released in 2022. The trend seems clear. Greta Thunberg – who was nominated for the 2019 and 2020 Nobel Peace Prize – may have work to do for years to come. And so do the news media, as long as Greta has a say in the matter.
[ ]
Swedish Press | February 2021 23
