Really Sciency

Visit my other blog 'Really Sciency' looking at Climate Science and its portrayal, misrepresentation and denial in the media.

Monday 20 June 2011

Why Climate Change Deniers wind me up.

I really couldn't care less what nonsense people personally believe ... as long as those beliefs don't impact me personally. People denying the science supporting climate change is a perfect example of this.


 
But what I do care a great deal about is the policies and strategies that are taken or will be taken to mitigate and adapt to climate change. I do not want to pay more tax. I do not want my travel costs to rise. I still want to be able to afford foreign holidays. I must be like most climate deniers in this.


If we are paying more in taxes or if money is being diverted from one area to another because of climate change then the discussion we should all be having is whether these policies will work? Will they be effective? Good value for our money? Or just some political fudge paying lip service to the need to do something, or just a convenient way to collect more of my hard earned money as tax and needlessly reducing my standard of living? So this is the debate we need to be having now, not about the established science, but what governments are and should do about it's implications.


The problem is that deniers don’t want to have this discussion. They have their heads buried hoping that all the science is wrong, or worse if they can convince enough people that it is wrong, it will be, and the need to actually debate solutions will vanish. For me that is the real problem with climate denial. It's a bit like getting stuck in an argument about whether bad hygiene can cause serious illness instead of debating the best way to improve sanitation.


While denial or disbelief in climate change still accounts to a sizeable minority of the population, instead of having people arguing what is the best and most cost effective solutions to adopt, we have people wasting time and sowing confusion by harping from the sidelines that there is no problem.

1 comment: