4.22 Chicken Little and Climate Change
Chicken Little is an old story that was passed on from mother to child in Scandinavia and then written down in Danish. Chicken Little believes the sky is falling. He tells everyone and they all march off to tell the king. In the end the king asks them some questions and they realize that chicken little had been hit on the head with an acorn and that's why he thought the sky was falling. When he tried to find the acorn that hit him on the head he couldn't but there was a squirrel nearby who had taken it. The lesson or moral of this story is just because someone says a disaster is happening doesn't mean it is. The Walt Disney people who animated this must have thought the story was too boring so they made it more exciting. I got the clip below off of youtube. My children tell me that this clip is only a small part but I won't spoil the ending, if you want to see that you'll have to watch the show on the Disney channel or rent it or buy it.
What is the moral of the Disney animation? In the disney animation all sorts of disasters happen as the animals panic. The disaster they believed was happening wasn't happening but because they panicked they made real disasters happen. When they finallly question chicken little and start thinking about what happened they arrive at the truth and stop creating more disasters.
People who predict that fossil fuel use will lead to climate disaster are like Chicken Little. They are causing new disasters by making people use much more expensive sources of energy so that many can't heat their homes. It is leading to inflation and higher prices which makes it harder and harder for people to afford the basic things they need. In the video below a person dressed up as Chicken Little to make some points about how absurd the warnings about carbon dioxide leading to climate disaster are. He asks people to stop breathing because every time we breath we breath out carbon dioxide otherwise known as CO2.
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How much of the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is due to people burning fossil fuels? Could the carbon dioxide increase be coming from somewhere else?