Climate Change Denial?
Photo: Climate change concept by Marco Verch under Creative Commons 2.0
In her groundbreaking 1969 book “On Death and Dying”, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified “Denial” as the first stage of grief. She was examining how humans react to the death of a loved one, but the insight has a much wider relevance.
The twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous begin with an admission that life “has become unmanageable” and that you are “powerless to deal with your addiction on your own”. Most of us can think of some time in our lives when we have swept awkward facts under the carpet, hoping they would go away, only to be forced eventually to face up to reality.
‘Anosognosia’ is the medical term for a condition where a patient’s brain is unable to recognise a health condition and avoids or actively resists treatment. It is easy to see how this happens. Faced with a frightening situation, one obvious way to avoid reality is to persuade yourself that it doesn’t exist.
Climate change denial is “the pseudo-scientific dismissal or unwarranted doubt that contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change.” It is partly the product of psychological denial, but there is another big driving force - MONEY.
Climate scientists, especially in the USA, report government and oil-industry pressure to censor or suppress their work. In this country, right-wing, so called “think” tanks linked to the fossil fuel lobby are working hard to cast doubt on the net-zero target. For over a decade the “Net Zero Scrutiny Group” (NZSG) of about thirty Conservative MPs have sabotaged plans to promote onshore wind power, domestic solar power and home insulation. They have now forced Rishi Sunak to slow down the UK’s plan to wean ourselves off our addiction to fossil fuels.
If I were the CEO of an oil company or the autocratic ruler of a petro-state, I would find the alternative reality of climate change denial very attractive. What will happen when we finally stop oil? But unless we are prepared to hand a terminally ill planet to our children, we must all come to terms with reality. Once we have moved on from denial, the facts are kind. There is more than enough clean energy to supply the needs of our species. We know what needs to be done. The green transition is a real economic opportunity not a threat. Let’s wake up and get on the zero-carbon waggon!
Bob Turner