Climate change denial

One reason for the refusal to accept the reality of climate change is what is motivated interference, which occurs when we hold a specific bias to ignore evidence. As science writer Nicole Mortillaro noted, this can include a general unease with large government projects that are expensive and interfere with individuals’ lives. Other reasons, she writes, include “people whose livelihood is dependent on…the oil industry” and resentment of “government taking money out of individuals’ pockets in the form of public spending on carbon mitigation efforts.”

In addition to motivated interference, there is also a powerful psychological component to this blindness to scientific reality: denial. A lot has been written about climate change denial and there are clearly many explanations for it. For one thing, an enormous amount of money is being spent encouraging us to ignore climate change. Corporations, especially the fossil fuel industry, have spent huge sums attempting to obfuscate the reality of climate change. We are constantly told by them that “more data are needed” because “climate scientists don’t agree.” While no scientist would ever disagree with a call for more research—that line is, after all, found near the end of almost every scientific paper ever written—it just is not true that scientists don’t agree that climate change is real. To some extent, then, we are the victims of a well-funded and sophisticated misinformation campaign that attempts to keep us in the dark about climate change.

But studies persistently show us that simply providing people with the facts about climate does not reliably change minds. The science that proves the earth is warming is very technical and difficult for most of us to grasp. Humans aren’t well wired to act on complex statistical risks. Even when the evidence about climate change is relayed in very clear terms with lots of compelling graphics, many people either don’t believe it or shrug it off. Hence, the problem of climate change denial is not simply a matter of an information gap.

Among the many reasons that we shun this problem is its enormity. We aren’t just being told that unless we take action our identities will be stolen, we will lose thousands of dollars, or even that it will take a few years off our lives. What the climate scientists are telling us is that if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels the human race faces extinction.

We can grasp a potential disaster if we know it is made up and will be okay in an hour and a half or if it's a hurricane that will come and go. But we resist when that event is real, will be spread out over decades, and is of catastrophic proportions that can only be averted if we change almost everything about the way we live. Stop driving your car, eating meat, and flying in planes, we are told. Shut down ExxonMobil, Shell, and British Petroleum. Move quickly to build solar fields and energy-producing windmills. Simply writing that list makes us totally exhausted. What we are being asked to do will take gargantuan efforts and face vicious opposition.

In one of the most poignant recitations of this sense of being engulfed by the enormity of the implications of climate change, scientist Alison Spodek Keimowitz wrote about her change in perspective after her brush with death from cancer. “I found that I no longer could see a track that turned away from the edge. We are already locked into catastrophic changes, terrible human and animal suffering, the loss of so much of what makes this Earth itself." The problem is just so huge that it is nearly unthinkable. Our minds try to save us from utter hopelessness by pushing aside thoughts of climate change. Denial kicks in as our minds’ default for temporary self-preservation.

Climate change denial is in some ways a new mental process for psychologists to understand. Of course, the concept of denial itself is well understood. Psychologists consider denial—the refusal to accept facts in order to protect us from uncomfortable truths—to be a primitive defense mechanism. But despite the fact that psychologists know a lot about denial, they have never had to face denial on this scale before. Millions of people share the phenomenon of climate denial. This is clearly not something that is amenable to individual or even group psychotherapy.

One approach to motivating us to take action about climate change is to emphasize relatively simple things that individuals can do in their everyday lives. According to this approach, instead of telling people to stop driving gas-powered cars altogether, we recommend trying to take the train to work one day a week. Instead of forgoing all flights, we are asked to skip one international flight a year. The list of these everyday recommendations includes such things as bringing reusable bags to the supermarket to cut down on the amount of plastic that winds up in the earth’s oceans and switching all the lightbulbs in your home from incandescent to LCD.

It is quite clear that such individual steps, however needed, are insufficient to stop climate change, and therefore some environmental advocates believe that emphasizing is contributing to climate denial. Instead of telling people to be more careful recycling soda cans we should work harder to make them understand that only the complete cessation of greenhouse gas emissions will save us.

Nevertheless, there are at least two psychological reasons that encouraging people to adopt climate protecting activities in their daily lives may help promote action on the larger scale needed. First, denial is a response to something we fear, and we know from animal and human studies that fear induces freezing and passivity. But studies also demonstrate that giving a fearful animal or human a task that even symbolically addresses what is feared can minimize freezing and promote action. Thus, recommending tasks that we can perform in our daily lives may help us overcome our feeling that mitigating climate change is a hopeless enterprise and motivate us join the voices insisting on ending burning fossil fuels.

Second, these quotidian activities can be the basis for the formation of committees and communities that bring people together with the common goal of addressing climate change. Being part of a group with a common goal may help people overcome denial and have the courage to face the realities of climate change, however grim they may be. It may be easier and more effective for groups of people to demand that countries impose carbon taxes and spend

Ultimately, only large-scale political activity has any chance of saving civilization from the oncoming ravages of continued greenhouse gas emissions. Entire nations must come together as they did in forging the Paris Climate Agreement and agree to enforce what will have to be very extensive and often highly inconvenient changes in our sources of energy and food. It is true that replacing oil and gas with sustainable energy and switching to plant-based diets will be difficult and even painful for some, but the alternative—continuing to ignore that climate change is already affecting us will be catastrophic.

You got any back up for any of that ?
Or , is it just your own personal interjection ?
There are good debate points from all sides.
Yet you take only one and deny the others.
Who is really in "denial" here ?

originally posted by: Gothmog
You got any back up for any of that ?
Or , is it just your own personal interjection ?
There are good debate points from all sides.
Yet you take only one and deny the others.
Who is really in "denial" here ?

No back up what-so-ever!

Nah, I'm not in denial. Just thoughts. I know what I see and I see a lot of changes that just don't feel right.
I got all the feels... does that count?

No, no , no.

The term should be Climate Change Cause denial.
The climate goes through cycles for sure - as it has been doing since the dawn of time. It is getting warmer - yes. And in a few centuries it will get colder again.

Not much us puny humans can do about it but shake down the ignorant middle class for carbon taxes.

So go ahead and implement those silly measures. Destroy agriculture, transport and the middle class.

Mother Earth will still smile and go her own way as she has done long before we crawled out of the mud.

originally posted by: Skorpiogurl

originally posted by: Gothmog
You got any back up for any of that ?
Or , is it just your own personal interjection ?
There are good debate points from all sides.
Yet you take only one and deny the others.
Who is really in "denial" here ?

No back up what-so-ever!

Nah, I'm not in denial. Just thoughts. I know what I see and I see a lot of changes that just don't feel right.
I got all the feels... does that count?

So , personal projection ?
That is not listed anywhere I know in scientific methodology

Why deny it?

I'm all for the climate changing and acknowledge that it is changing. Warm weather is good for the human species, cold weather is bad since you cannot live under a mile of ice.

I just cant...read this anymore. I think I maybe clicked on my last "Climate Change" thread.

originally posted by: MoonMine
No, no , no.

The term should be Climate Change Cause denial.
The climate goes through cycles for sure - as it has been doing since the dawn of time. It is getting warmer - yes. And in a few centuries it will get colder again.

Not much us puny humans can do about it but shake down the ignorant middle class for carbon taxes.

So go ahead and implement those silly measures. Destroy agriculture, transport and the middle class.

Mother Earth will still smile and go her own way as she has done long before we crawled out of the mud.

Yes, I also agree with this. The Earth is constantly changing and will most certainly take care of herself and continue on long after we are gone. Humans don't have as much power as we think we do. But at the same time... I am assuming that you keep your home clean and in order correct? So even if everything about climate change is false, why fight against taking care of our environment? It doesn't make any sense.

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: Skorpiogurl

originally posted by: Gothmog
You got any back up for any of that ?
Or , is it just your own personal interjection ?
There are good debate points from all sides.
Yet you take only one and deny the others.
Who is really in "denial" here ?

No back up what-so-ever!

Nah, I'm not in denial. Just thoughts. I know what I see and I see a lot of changes that just don't feel right.
I got all the feels... does that count?

So , personal projection ?
That is not listed anywhere I know in scientific methodology

It's my own made-up scientific methodology! I believe they'll start teaching it in college soon!

a reply to: Skorpiogurl

I can accept the possibility that climate change science is correct, but what I can't accept is that any government, group of governments, or government policies are capable of solving the problem.

In case you haven't noticed, government isn't very good at solving problems but they are very good at making problems worse and/or pissing away, skimming, and using monies collected for purposes other than what they were intended for.

As I always say, if climate change science is correct and government policy is the "solution" then bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
Why deny it?

I'm all for the climate changing and acknowledge that it is changing. Warm weather is good for the human species, cold weather is bad since you cannot live under a mile of ice.

I don't deny it. I love hot climates! Been trying to move to one for years to get the hell away from our used-to-be cold Winters!

yep, Scripture says the Earth is wearing out like a garmet....

a reply to: MRinder

The climate has changed, no question in my mind at all
Did mankind cause it is my question
Bit of scientific evidence would be pretty handy

Not keen on the “climate change deniers”
“Man made climate change deniers” would be more apt

originally posted by: MRinder
a reply to: Skorpiogurl

I can accept the possibility that climate change science is correct, but what I can't accept is that any government, group of governments, or government policies are capable of solving the problem.

In case you haven't noticed, government isn't very good at solving problems but they are very good at making problems worse and/or pissing away, skimming, and using monies collected for purposes other than what they were intended for.

As I always say, if climate change science is correct and government policy is the "solution" then bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.

Yeah - agree! In the end we'll all have to bend over and kiss someone's ass I'm sure!
Part of that, as stated, is the problem is so big at this point it's exhausting even thinking about it let alone finding a solution. I also believe we're past the point of a solution. Every man/woman for his/herself! This is why I train MMA, I'd prefer to go out fighting!

Climate changes. That's what it does. Didn't they ever teach you about Ice Ages in school?

That we have the sole power to change it like we have some kind of global thermostat and that taxes and dictatorial government bureaucratic control of said taxes are the means to control said thermostat are other matters entirely.

Many things could be done right now for the environment. The "Evangelistic Climatist" law makers however like AOC, Bernie and Warren never submit any bills that have a chance of passing.

They are also not scientists. Somehow though, they know everything there is to know about a complex issue. It would be like following the instructions of a shade tree car mechanic on how to land the next rover on Mars. The result will be a total disaster.

Some things though could be done right now. For one, get rid of residential recycling programs. It waste way more money and resources than it preserves. If you don't believe that, go read Rachel Maddow's thoughts on it. She worked in the industry and says it's a scam but it's not that hard to figure out why. It would be better to pay the homeless to make trash art so they can buy drugs instead of recycling and I'm not kidding.

Another easy fix; get rid of junk mail or charge them double to send it. DON'T give them a discount. This will save a massive amount of trees, landfill space, and energy.

These are simple fixes but no, we can't do these things. We have to waste more money on other failed programs which, IMO, is really all climate change is at this point; another way to re-distribute wealth or steal money from others.

a reply to: Skorpiogurl

Could not these same conditions support acceptance of AGW as the sole catalyst for climate change?

2nd

originally posted by: ketsuko
Climate changes. That's what it does. Didn't they ever teach you about Ice Ages in school?

That we have the sole power to change it like we have some kind of global thermostat and that taxes and dictatorial government bureaucratic control of said taxes are the means to control said thermostat are other matters entirely.

Okay - You are a shining example in this dusty world, of what I am trying to relay in the OP

Lots of straw man arguments, and no facts.

I haven't seen anyone deny that the climate is, does and will continue to change. But stick to your talking points and buzz words.

And keep ignoring that fact that none of the proposed "fixes" for climate change even address how they will work.

Ignore the countless instances of manipulated and falsified data used to prop up the arguments you base your feels on.

Ignore that it has been much hotter with more co2 several times over the earth's history,

I gnore that humans had nothing to do with the climate changing then.

Here's a cold hard reality check.

Unless the church of climatology wages war against ever ycivilized country and those not so civilize on the face of the globe.

Seize everything people own, and every place of business, and every natural resouce including the very air we breathe.

Institute FASCIST control the likes the world has never seen.

Your literally snipping in the wind.