Belluno, the climate denial book remains in schools: the councilor continues

Belluno's environmental councilor keeps the point: the denialist book on climate change will not be withdrawn from the municipality's high schools. In a chapter written by the president of the Order of Geologists of Veneto Giorgio Giacchetti it was written that "the increase in temperature we are witnessing is part of natural climate cycles and not from anthropogenic emissions".

The thesis is now clearly denied by science. The gases generated by fossil fuels cause the greenhouse effect and warming of the Earth.

The first to notice the denialist thesis in the volume "Climate changes: scenarios, challenges, solutions", published by the Municipality and distributed in high schools, were the scientists of the Cnr: "The thesis according to which anthropogenic emissions have a negligible role in global warming, the origin of which should be traced mainly to natural cycles, is not consistent with current knowledge and therefore requires a denial, especially since it is a volume also intended for schools in the Belluno area" wrote the scientists of the Institute of Belluno last Tuesday Geosciences.

But the Municipality continues. That volume will remain on the children's desks. "We - insists the municipal councilor for the Environment Lorenza De Kunovich, of Forza Italia, with the Corriere del Veneto - have simply published the speeches of a conference. We have never claimed to establish who was right and who was wrong on scientific issues that are not the responsibility of the administration. In my opinion, a huge exploitation has been created. We have never dreamed of replacing school textbooks. Some fourth and fifth graders were given because we thought it could be a useful technical text."

Not content with having maintained her position, the councilor also reiterated: "The Municipality is available to organize a conference in which scholars who support different positions can discuss each other". That is, in which the deniers are also given a voice, now a small minority after the heat records set in the atmosphere in recent years, and in particular last summer.

Democratic Party senator Andrea Martella had presented a question to the ministers of Education and the Environment regarding the financing and distribution of the volume: "School must educate critical thinking, not confuse established facts and opinions".