Catastrofismo na versão Pacheco Pereira, o comportamento do gelo na Antárctica Ocidental e o criacionismo - está tudo ligado ...

Enquanto Pacheco Pereira nos esclarece onde se situa na discussão da questão do aquecimento global, e ao nível que coloca o problema e as pessoas que defendem a gravidade do mesmo:

• ABRUPTO: " [...] O catastrofismo continua muito presente no pensamento político corrente, em particular na sua versão ecológica, através desta espécie de versão actual do medo do Milénio, a catástrofe oriunda das alterações climáticas, ou no medo das experiências com o Large Hadron Collider com as suas versões cinematográficas com grande sucesso popular. Estes medos são uma expressão de desconfiança no futuro e sinal de perda de controlo da realidade [...]",

o Real Climate fala-nos do que se passa na Antárctica Ocidental (o artigo deve ser lido para se aquilatar do que Pacheco Pereira diz):

• RealClimate: Is Pine Island Glacier the Weak Underbelly of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet?: "It is popularly understood that glaciologists consider West Antarctica the biggest source of uncertainty in sea level projections. The base of the 3000-m thick West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) – unlike the much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet – lies below sea level, and it has been recognized for a long time that this means it has the potential to change very rapidly[...] Mercer further commented that the loss of ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, as has since been observed, would be an indicator that this process of ice sheet loss due to global warming was underway.", 

e finalmente, Andrew Brown explica como alguns pensam como pensam (admito, por mero exercício de honestidade intelectual, que o Pacheco Pereira não esteja abrangido por esta interpretação - deve situar-se numa categoria à parte, em termos de explicação):

• Learning from creationism | Andrew Brown | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: [...] But creationists have proved that most scientists have a very naïve and inadequate idea of evidence. In particular, they believe that the justification for believing scientific claims is that they are reproducible and produce irrefutable evidence. The creationists have shown this is mistaken. Of course the experiment must be reproducible. Of course the results must be clear. But it's just as important that we take both these things on trust. When scientists report results we take them at their word. Without a belief that they are trustworthy, nothing they do compels belief. [...] In any case, his assumption was that scientists were on the whole interested in the truth. That is what the creationists, and their successors, now dispute. If you assume – as creationists do – that scientists are malevolent, incompetent, and stupid, then none of their arguments against creationism are compelling. The need to establish that they have this bad character does something to explain the extraordinary vehemence of creationist propaganda. Taken to a further extreme, this leads into the completely paranoid style of flat-earthers the truthers, and the people who believe the moon landings were faked. Closer to home and rationality, we get climate change denialists. What all these have in common is to a greater or lesser degree a mistrust of scientists. And once you have that in place, no scientific evidence will ever be compelling."