ABC News published a hard-hitting article about climate change denial, claiming we are all part of the process. We thought denying THAT would be futile if it were true. We decided it was more constructive to identify our position on their three shades of climate denial spectrum. Then we would know where we needed to focus first.
The New Language of Three Shades of Climate Denial
ABC News cites this example of the new language of climate change denial. “There is no climate emergency”, a group of ‘self-proclaimed scientists’ wrote UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after Greta Thunberg’s presentation.
Therefore, they urged him to follow “a climate policy based on sound science, and realistic economics. And genuine concern for those harmed by costly but unnecessary attempts at mitigation.” This is one example of the first of the three shades of climate denial, outright rejection. It is alive and well in the corridors of power, and enjoys support from major contributors to the situation in which we find ourselves.
However the Other Two Shades are More Insidious
The second shade of changing climate denial is more subtle. It does not deny the phenomenon. It simply argues it is just a natural fluctuation. A second variety on this theme claims the greenhouse gas accumulation is actually a result of natural warming, not the cause.
The third of the three shades of climate denial is more innocuous, and this is perhaps where many of us err. We don’t accept personal accountability. We implicate someone else for causing the problem. This lifts the psychological, political, and moral burden off our shoulders.
We blame the people who make the gasoline and gasoline cars, not we the people that drive them. We appease our consciences by drinking through paper straws. Therefore, “We are almost all guilty, to some extent, of engaging in implicatory denial,” says ABC News.
“Almost none of us individually – or we as nation – have acted as we ought to on the science of climate change. But that does not mean we can’t change how we act in the future.”
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Climate Change Denial Myths Exposed
Preview Image: There Is No Climate Emergency
