CLIMATE CHANGE AND INTELLECTUAL MANIPULATION

 Four years ago, I wrote an article about climate change because I thought it was a timely topic. Time has passed, and today I still see, across all media, and with a certain sense of perplexity, how climate change is presented as a near-universal explanation for many of the problems in our society. That is why I have gone back to that text, to see how it has aged.

I never write to convince anyone of anything. Nor do I write to disagree for the sake of it.

I write because, amid so much noise, I have the feeling that we have stopped taking the time to think.

We live in an increasingly polarized society, almost like opposing trenches. When you do not align yourself with one side, you are automatically placed on the other. We have brought the fanaticism of sports rivalries into our daily lives: you are either one of us or one of them.

And climate change could not be an exception. It now occupies a central place in public debate. It is discussed in the media, in institutions, and in everyday conversations. Changes to our habits and ways of living are proposed, almost always in the name of a greater cause.

And yet, we rarely ask ourselves a very simple question:

to what extent do we truly understand what we are forming opinions about?

The climate is a complex system. It always has been. We know that it changes, that it has changed, and that it will continue to change. We also know that human activity is part of that equation. But between what we know and what we believe we know, there is an important difference.

That difference is the space of thought.

In recent years, many ideas have stopped being debated and have started to be repeated instead. They are assumed, shared, and defended quickly, but not always with depth.

And perhaps that is where the issue lies.

Not in denying or affirming, but in asking ourselves whether our opinions are truly our own.

Whether they arise from our own reflection, or whether we have simply learned to repeat them and adopted them as just another trend.

It is not about being right.

It is about not giving up on thinking.