Dipo Olowookere
By Anthony Elikene
Wikipedia says “Climate Change occurs when changes in earth’s climate system result in new weather patterns that remain in place for an extended period. This length of time can be as short as a few decades to as long as millions of years.”
In a simpler explanation, Climate Change is the rise in average surface temperatures on earth. Also called Global Warming, Climate Change is the biggest threat to the world and mankind – this is beyond the environment.
What causes Climate Change? The western Public Relations firms and media have developed several explanatory narratives that seek to exonerate the West (Europe and America) of complicity in the deterioration of our collective planet.
Some of the causes of Climate Change these Western PR outfits and media postulate are:
Greenhouse Effect, which is warming when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from earth towards space.
Using the word ‘Humans’ to replace Europe or the West, by this, they make it an all involving culprit (we all did it together). You find narratives such as “in the mid-20th century, human expansion of the Greenhouse Effect.
Another narrative is “Human activities are changing the natural greenhouse. Over the last century, the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). To a lesser extent, the clearing of land for agriculture, industry, and other human activities has increased concentrations of Greenhouse gases.” – NASA Global Climate Change
Other minor narratives are: “The warming is caused by a more active sun… since 1750, the average amount of energy coming from the sun either remained constant or increased slightly.” – NASA.
The United Nations, in its “Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 1,300 independent scientific experts from countries all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations, concluded there’s a more than 95 percent probability that human activities over the past 50 years have warmed our planet.” – UN.
These Western narratives are spins of logical truth but not the ultimate truth.
The ultimate truth will be used to disarm these tactical lies and they are as follow:
Logically, it is correct to say humans contributed greatly to the Climate Change issues but the ultimate truth is that the West (Europe and America) unilaterally caused these problems through several activities in the guise of science and warfare. NASA space activities; nuclear activities; unnecessary global warfare to colonize the rest of the world; inventions of destructive weaponry; invention and use of biological weapons; over mining and destroying of the earth’s core for minerals; production of carbon-emitting cars and generators; commercial production of chemicals, and industrial pollution of the environment among others.
In a recent CNN report on Climate Change, experts said Africa’s contributions to the Climate Change problem is less than one percent (1%) but failed to say Europe and America’s contributions are ninety-nine plus percent (99+%).
The less than one percent (1%) the experts identified are largely not from Africans but from European corporations and industries that would stop at nothing from exploiting the natural reserves in Africa. These activities and the dumping of Western originated toxic wastes in Africa will cause environmental problems.
The West, through NASA, also blamed the sun’s increased warming effect claiming it started since 1750. According to Eric Hobsbawm, “the European industrial revolution began in Britain in the 1780 and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s” while T.S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830.
According to Britannica, from December 5 to 9, 1952, there was the Great Smog of London, this was the name used to describe the combination of industrial pollution and high-pressure weather conditions. People could not see themselves on the streets due to the thickness of the smoke pollution which destroyed the environment and all these activities damaged the Oxone Layer as it cut across Europe. The UN science experts’ findings are correct in the sense that 95 percent Climate Change issues are caused by humans but failed to identify the humans were Europeans and Americans.
The destruction of the Oxone Layer started a long time ago in Europe and America when Africa was all jungle with the cleanest ecosystem on earth. The African system of subsistent agriculture did not allow them to over hunt, over fish, overuse the soil, until Europe colonized Africa and changed everything.
Colonialism was an attempt to forcefully create a new market for the Western products and exploit the rich resources of Africa especially as Europe was in economic turmoil. But the narrative played was that they brought Western education and Christianity to save Africa when Africa was already very rich without mentioning the millions of Africans killed and enslaved for the commercial benefits of Europe and America.
The effects of Western-caused Climate Change issues are being felt in Southern parts of Africa as reported by CNN. Even though Africa is an agrarian society, it is paying the price of commercialization and capitalism tendencies of the West.
Today, Europe is experimenting on the commercial production of solar energy cars, leaving Africa to suffer the damage they created while they seek solutions for themselves. A Tesla car goes for about $135,000 but it won’t get to Africa for decades, maybe not this century, as the West only shares what it doesn’t need at a price.
The Public Relations practitioners in Africa should brace up and be proactive to tell the true stories of Climate Change before the Western propaganda portrays Africa as the cause of Climate Change issues.
Sympathizers of everything Western might come to the defence of the West, but they should remember that a people that blame the sun and everything else for what they did will not think twice to blame a continent they have exploited and branded negatively for centuries.
Anthony Elikene ANIPR is the Strategist at Brandfit PR & Events
