Interview with Professor Eric Verecchia

Geologist specializing in cycles (especially carbon). Professor at the University of Neuchâtel, then in Lausanne before taking his uclimate emergency?academic retirement recently.

Also available as a podcast

The critical view of Professor Éric Verrecchia

Global warming is often presented as the major emergency of our time. However, some scientific voices are being raised to question the solidity of this consensus. This is the case of the Professor Eric Verrecchia, geologist, biogeochemist and professor emeritus at the University of Lausanne. In several talks, he invites us to nuance the dominant discourse and to place the climate in a broader geological perspective.

🔎 Conflicts of interest and the dominant model

According to Verrecchia, climate research is sometimes influenced by conflicts of interest. The statistical models of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) are based on scenarios that tend to prioritize the impact of anthropogenic CO₂, sometimes to the detriment of natural factors. For him, science should be “depoliticized” in order to regain a more independent vision.

🌋 Forgotten natural cycles

From a geological point of view, the Earth has always experienced periods of warming and cooling : medieval climatic optimum, Little Ice Age, interglacial periods… Verrecchia underlines that current models tend to neglect these natural dynamics of the geobiosphere.

🌲 Fires, ice floes and glaciers: beware of shortcuts

Whether it is the forest fires, from the melting of Alpine glaciers or the decline of the Arctic ice floes, the professor calls for caution. For him, these phenomena exist but are sometimes instrumentalized mediatically, forgetting that similar episodes have already occurred in the past.

📊 The precautionary principle under debate

Verrecchia also criticizes the systematic use of precautionary principleAccording to him, humanity must take care of its environment but not give in to permanent fear, nor reduce the climate issue to a catastrophic emergency.

🎤 A critical conference in Switzerland

THE December 1, 2024, a conference was organized by Positive Planet and the French-speaking Federal Movement was held in Switzerland. Éric Verrecchia spoke alongside other researchers to discuss the limits of the current climate consensus and explore alternative visions.

👉 More information: Positive Planet – events

To summarize

Professor Eric Verrecchia does not deny global warming, but he calls for it to be addressed. put into perspective from a geological perspective and to question the political instrumentalization of scientific discourse. According to him, understanding the climate also means accepting its complexity and its multiple causes, without reducing the discussion to a single media emergency.