Writer Melissa Nichols has done children a great favour by writing this little book - 'Don't Be Afraid of Climate Change'. It classes 'Climate Change' as a big, bad wolf, and takes the young readers through several of the ways this beast has been trying to scare or mislead them:
'But like all big, bad wolves, Climate Change doesn’t like telling the truth. Let’s look at what he’s been saying, and see if he’s been truthful or if he is just trying to scare you. '
She then goes through the topics, one by one and points out how wrong they are. Here is how she handles the first topic:
'Polar bears are starving, and soon there won’t be any more of them.
Sorry, Climate Change, polar bears are doing just fine. Their numbers were down in the past, but not because of you. They were widely hunted, but thanks to polar bears becoming a protected species, there are more of them running around now than 70 years ago - around 25,000 more! That’s a lot of polar bears.'
Here are the headings for the other topics she covers:
Get ready to go for a swim. The ice is melting!
The oceans are rising. We’re all going to be underwater.
Hurricanes are getting stronger, and there are more of them.
Drink plenty of water while you can. Droughts are getting worse.
Climate Change used to be called Global Warming. And it’s still getting hotter.
Wind power is just about as good as it gets for helping the environment.
Solar power is a clean energy that everyone should have to use.
Nuclear power is evil.
Pipelines are bad. The more pipelines that are built, the more natural gas people will use.
Cow farts and fossil fuels are producing enough methane to knock us all out.
CO2 levels are going to kill the earth. They must be stopped right now!
Ban fracking. It’s bad.
She concludes (my italics):
'Climate change is not something to be afraid of. The world has been changing since its beginning. It will always will. This is not a bad thing. You have been changing from your very beginning as well. This earth has been hot, and it has been cold. We have always adapted to its changes and learned to enjoy each day as it comes. '
At the end of the book, she provides a selection of references for further reading on each of the topics. These will help older children and adults to dig a little deeper.
This is a wonderful book, one that deserves to be in every home, and in every school library. The book is brief, simply-themed, very readable and with attractive illustrations. There is surely scope for a hundred books like this, covering more ground, more topics, and with a range of content-levels. We need books for 5, 10, 15 year-olds, and 20 and 25 and 30 year-olds as well. All have been exposed all their lives to the scaremongering about CO2 and climate variation, and surely most could do with some help to get a calmer, better-balanced view of it. In the meantime, I strongly recommend this book for all age levels. It makes a great start on what will be a big, and kind, and truthful, task: helping victims of the CO2 Scaremongering recover from it.
[Hat-tip: Climate Depot]