VIDEO. More than 40 years ago, volcanologist Haroun Tazieff was already talking about the risks of global warming

“We do not protect our forests to make colossal profits. If instead of destroying French forests, we protected them and increased their surface area, there would be no danger with carbon dioxide and on the contrary there would be more and more oxygen.”

40 years ago, the volcanologist Haroun Tazieff already came up against the skepticism of some regarding global warming. Yet today, his speech seems more relevant than ever. “Industrial pollution releases quantities of chemicals of all kinds, including a huge amount of carbon dioxide.”

On television sets, the man known for his popular science books and his expeditions to volcanoes around the world did not hesitate to defend his vision against personalities like Jacques-Yves Cousteau. “There could be a general greenhouse effect, a warming of 2 or 3°C in the temperature of the atmosphere resulting in the melting, melting of an enormous quantity of polar ice, both in the south and in the north and mountain ice. And there could be a rise in water levels which could lead to the drowning of all the Basque coasts and New York, Le Havre, Marseille, Nice, London…”, he declared in 1979.