It is hard to keep up the climate panic as reality diverges from the alarmist predictions more than ever before: the global temperature has not risen over the past ten years, it has declined precipitously in the last year and a half, and studies show that it might not rise again before the middle of the next decade. With a global recession looming and high oil and food prices undermining the living standards of the Western middle class, it is becoming ever harder to sell the high-cost, inefficient Kyoto-style solution of drastic carbon cuts.
但是这背后可能存在更大的问题。现实与惊世骇俗的预言差距越来越大，因此很难继续保持这种气候恐慌。在过去十年中，全球气温并没有上升。过去一年半时间里，气温突然下降。研究结果表明，在下个十年中期以前气温不会再次上升。当今全球经济面临衰退，高昂的油价和食品价格破坏了西方国家中产阶级的生活水平，因此也就越发难以推销代价巨大、没有什么效率的京都议定书风格的大幅度减少二氧化碳排放措施。