Judging by the New Year Messages of Heads of government around
the world, climate change will range far behind employment,
fiscal consolidation, structural reforms and competitiveness
among the top priorities in 2013, whether in Europe, USA or
Asia. The global society seems to have forgotten the floods,
droughts, wild fires and other climate-related disasters in
2012. It does not mind warmer or excessively cold winters and is
looking forward to the prospect of ice-free passage in the
Arctic Sea. Only climate specialists worry about the
accelerating pace of melting glaciers, which will lead to rising
sea levels and drowning coastal civilisations. Normal human
perception lacks the capacity to discern global climate changes
and the imagination of how these might develop in the future. It
rejects instinctively any long term projection of catastrophes.
Over generations human beings have seen Nature continue with
small changes to which they can adapt without major difficulties
. Europeans have survived the Ice Age