Germany: Climate Change Deniers To Face Up To Five Years in Jail

Berlin | Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet has successfully passed a new law that renders it illegal to deny the reality of climate change.
The new addition to the German criminal law could make offenders face up to five years in jail if convicted.
“As the COP 21 illuminates, it is a necessity in these times of global climate change to cut the debate short and take action for the future” spoke chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday. “The world is facing its worst global crisis since WWII,” she told reporters during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
“Holocaust deniers and climate change deniers are the same as they are guilty of disturbing the public peace, an offense punishable by law,” she explained. “It is a great day for democracy and free speech that the Parliament has unanimously voted to pass this law,” she concluded.

Climate change deniers will be liable to imprisonment for three months to five years under German criminal law, a sentence similar to the offense of holocaust denial

Greenpeace approved
Gunter Heinsbeck, spokesman for the German chapter of Greenpeace, fully approves the new law.
“Germany is a trend setter and an example for the world in its courageous approach towards climate change” he admitted, visibly enthused by the news.
“We hope other country leaders will take similar actions to finally end the debate surrounding climate change,” he expressed. “Climate change deniers should be seen as eco-terrorists and judged as so,” he assures.
Climate change denial and mental illness
Climate change denial could be explained by a predisposition to mental illness believes psychiatrist and bio-geneticist, Franzen Fischer, of the University of Frankfurt.

Professor Franzen Fischer, psychiatrist and bio-geneticist at the University of Frankfurt, believes climate change deniers have a genetic predisposition to mental illness

“Climate change deniers personalities are overwhelmingly cynical towards the government and prone to believe in conspiracy theories,” explains the Director of Frankfurt University’s psychiatric department.
“A 2014 recent study suggests climate change deniers have a genetic predisposition to mental illness and diseases such as depression, bipolarity and even show high risks of developing schizophrenia,” he explains.
“I fear imprisoning them might exacerbate their condition, I would favor a clinical treatment approach such as the use of medication and prevention through education,” he warns.
Other countries could follow, believe experts, after world leaders such as President Barrack Obama and President François Hollande have saluted favorably the new law as a “path to progress.”