No, CO2 Is Not Responsible for the Floods

Eleven scientists, members of Clintel Italy, published a statement May 20, in which they reject the hoax of CO2 as the cause for extreme weather patterns, and call for infrastructure investments to prevent natural disasters in the future.

“Reducing the use of coal, oil and gas with the goal of mitigating the climate in order to prevent environmental disasters,” the scientists clarify, “is not only illusory but, worse, diverts resources from possible interventions of assured effectiveness. We therefore urge the government not to justify, with the alleged aim of protecting us from adverse weather events, initiatives aimed at achieving an illusory energy transition to technologies that are inadequate, in virtue of their unreliability and intermittency, to the needs of our society. Instead, we urge that attention be turned to adaptation efforts that achieve greater protection of our land than is currently the case. Too many areas of our country are under-protected and exposed to sporadic events, a circumstance that will continue to confront us with situations similar to the one our fellow citizens are experiencing today.”

The signers are: Uberto Crescenti, Alberto Prestininzi, Franco Battaglia, Mario Giaccio, Enrico Miccadei, Giuliano Panza, Ernesto Pedrocchi, Franco Prodi, Renato Angelo Ricci, Nicola Scafetta and Ugo Spezia. Together with a few others, they authored the recently published book Dialogue on Climate in Italian. Prestininzi, Prodi, Battaglia and Scafetta have participated in Schiller Institute conferences in the past.

Two of the signers, Professors Franco Prodi and Franco Battaglia, have been invited to talk shows in mainstream media to challenge so-called “climate experts”, so that a growing number of opinion-makers and even politicians have now found the courage to challenge the climate inquisition as well.

Lucio Malan, head of Meloni’s FdI party in the Senate, gave an interview to ANSA May 20, in which he said: “In every scientific field there are no definitive truths; there is always research. On the issue of climate change there are many voices, starting with Franco Prodi’s, different from the thinking spread by the media.” He tweeted the same day: “The only real climate change deniers are the climate Taliban who talk as if before 1880 the temperature was always stable and as if before 1970 there were no extreme events.”

His statements provoked hysterical reactions from the Democratic Party, the Five Stars and other opposition factions. But former PM Romano Prodi, a historical leader of the center-left coalition, dropped climate change arguments and called for infrastructure investments.

Last but not least, the Italian debate is remoralizing some factions in Germany, who are calling for a similar debate north of the Alps. The blog Tichys Einblick complained that while there is a debate in Italy “as to whether local decisions, such as the neglect of dams and rainwater catchment basins or extended basins for rivers, played a more decisive role than the storm itself”, there are no such considerations in Germany. “Here, journalists and politicians are jumping on a bandwagon. Especially among green politicians…”