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Climate Change Denier Admits He Doesn’t Care What The Truth Is

Posted in Editorials on June 3rd, 2014
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On Sunday night, against my better judgement, I started an argument with someone on the Cosmos Twitter hashtag. But in doing so I got at something I think environmentalists and climate change activists need to understand. Many people who deny that climate change is occurring do not care what the truth is.

This conversation is edited for space and clarity. See my twitter page for all comments.

I’m oversimplifying here a bit. But it is true. Coal and gasoline have the hidden costs of damage to public health.

I was referring to this article in Think Progress, “Germany Sets New Record, Generating 74 Percent Of Power Needs From Renewable Energy.” Rob was incredulous at first but then he started quoting other sources about how this makes electricity more expensive.

But I didn’t say that renewable energy would be cheap or easy. My point in citing Germany as an example was a refutation of Rob’s assertion that we couldn’t do anything about climate change unless we “all go back to living like 1750.” It’s clearly not 1750 in Germany right now. The Germans are planning for the future, and trying to abate climate change as well. If we keep going the way we are now, we will face catastrophe.

Clearly missing the point here, Rob sees clean energy as some kind of money making scam. I wonder if he sees fire extinguishers and car air bags that way too?

And here’s when I first found out that the person I was talking to has no idea what the evidence for climate change is.

First he called me a Nazi:

Then he went back to “this is a money making scheme:

And finally, to his main point, that being contrary for the sake of being contrary is a good thing:

Claiming that the IPCC is just “a single source” and just some random website on the internet, revealed that Rob actually has no idea what the evidence for climate change actually is.

And he said yes.

But then he had to immediately make a joke about how silly this all is.

So although he has never looked at the evidence for climate change, it seems awfully silly and conformist to go along with, dont ya think? Almost like a religion! Rob clearly has no idea what the scientific method is, or why it works if he equates reading papers filed with data and then basing your views on public policy on that data is the same thing as religious faith. Science changes in response to new information. Religion does not.

And that, right there, is the money quote. For Rob, climate change denialism is not about moneyed interest in fossil fuels, a religious belief that God will protect the Earth, a misunderstanding of the scientific evidence, or even a failure to examine the information available to him. It doesn’t matter what the data is, he won’t believe it, no matter what, because to do so would make him a “sheep.” Nonconformity is more important to Rob than truth.

How to respond to people like this, I have no idea. But at least he told me why he believes what he does.

UPDATE: As I responded in my initial tweet to Rob, BRIC countries will probably decide to limit greenhouse gas emissions on their own. And China looks like they are heading that way right now.

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