A terrible, tragic, and bitter irony
It must be one of the most tragic ironies of all time. Just as the bulk of the world's political leaders were gearing themselves up to combat a dubious "climate emergency", the world was struck with a real one: the coronavirus Covid 19. The responses, moreover, have been radically different.
A Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg, called on the world to "panic" about "climate change". For this she was rewarded with an invitation to appear at the World Economic Forum earlier this year, while she swiftly gathered a huge fan club around the globe, thanks to massive and largely supportive media coverage.
With a handful of exceptions, global leaders kowtowed to her while parents in dozens of countries encouraged their children to boycott class in solidarity with her call to "panic". A German teenager, Naomi Seibt, who called on people not to panic but to "think", was stigmatised as having links with one of that country's right-wing parties.
Now, of course, leaders around the world are warning everyone not to involve themselves in panic buying because of the coronavirus. Otherwise tens of thousands would have been trampled underfoot across the globe as they stampeded into supermarkets.
The spreading of alarm has all along been a key strategy of climate activists both in South Africa and elsewhere, as some of them have openly admitted. Ever since the "earth summit" in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 we have been told that the world is reaching the point of no return thanks to what was once called "global warming" but is now called "climate change". The climate apocalypse somehow recedes further and further into the future with each dire forecast.