Column: Profile of climate denial - The Morning Sun
Column: Profile of climate denial - The Morning Sun
Headlines tell the story: Death Valley Sizzles as Brutal Heat Wave Lingers (Free Press; FP, July 18, 2023, pg. 2A); Smoke Returns Air Quality to the Ranks of World’s Worst (FP same date, pg.3A); At Least 40 Dead after 9th Day of Deadly Downpours in SKorea (FP same date, pg. 11A); Monumental Heat Wave Bakes US (Wall Street Journal same date pg.A4); Greece: Thousands Flee Wild Fires (WSJ, same date pg. A5). WSJ, July 19: Why Summer Swelters Around the World (pg. A1); Drought, Late Rain Test Wheat Harvesters (pg. A3). FP pg. 6A).
The National Weather Service said record highs were possible from the Four Corner states and Texas to the Lower Mississippi Valley and Southern Florida; Heat-related emergencies more than triple in El Paso area; Storms set to bring heavy rainfall to Midwest, East. These are headlines for verifiable situations. Climate is truly changing because of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and the transformation of land for forestry and agriculture. These release large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
While three out of four Americans believe that climate change is happening, 10 percent don’t, and 15 percent aren’t sure. Of Americans who believe that climate change is factual, 54 percent said that they believe human activities are the cause. Fourteen percent of respondents said that climate change is caused by natural changes across the world. Scientists say that reasoning is incorrect. The remaining third said that they believe it’s a mix of both. Eighty-nine percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans agree that climate is changing.
The director of George Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication Edward Maibach says, “Although some politicians continue to traffic in climate denial, corporations are too smart for that because they realize it will alienate most of their consumers.” He considers the discredited, exaggerated concept that climate change is a hoax consistings of fabricated lies.
Sara Kiley Watson is a News Editor at Popular Science. She exposed four myths that deniers believe:
Myth no. 1: Clean energy will hurt working-class people. Some op-eds state that renewable energy policy will hurt the vulnerable (trying to make the case for expanding fossil fuels). Solar and wind have become inexpensive, and prices continue to drop. Francesco La Camera, director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency said, “Renewables present countries tied to coal with an economically attractive phase-out agenda that ensures they meet growing energy demand, while saving costs, adding jobs, boosting growth and meeting climate ambition.” John Cook, a research fellow at the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash University in Australia adds, “the costs of climate inaction will be far greater than the costs of climate action.”
Myth no. 2: Scientists and activists are overreacting; opponents are being realistic.
Climate deniers such ad the Heartland Institute contend proponents of countering climate change of being extremists pushing a political agenda. Cook says, “These kinds of arguments tap into people’s social identity and are quite corrosive as they have a polarizing impact on society. When issues become culturally or politically polarized, progress becomes more difficult.”
Myth no. 3: Corporations are already doing the necessary work. Fossil fuel companies are playing “Let’s Pretend” with advertising campaigns with actors pretending to work on ways to solve climate change. Chevron, for example has “set goals for minimizing emissions.”
Myth no. 4: We’re doomed! As long as we take actions soon to counteract the climate dilemma there will be no end of the World as we know it. Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy wrote, “To ensure healthy people and a healthy planet we must:
1. Cut our carbon emissions as much as possible and as soon as possible;
2. Build resilience to the impacts we can no longer avoid;
3. Conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends.
(See The new age of climate denial, explained | Popular Science (popsci.com.)
Ed Fisher is a Morning Sun columnist.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.