Jargogled Impressions.

I don’t understand why climate change denial still exists as a practice with people. There’s nothing to be gained from denying scientific proof and facts when the data is screaming at your face. While I believe the Overton window has moved over and only the fringes entertain such ideas, the fact that they do exist tells me something about the ways in which our mind works.

It could be how we perceive a future event (it’s not staring at us in the face right now) or how we allocate our limited pool of worries (money, jobs, health, economy, etc.), but the science deniers still exist even if they continue to course correct from denial to deflection to subterfuge. And that is detrimental to the fast and effective progress we need to make to arrive at a ministry for the future before it’s too late. We have been successful before – especially with the mass movement that inspired the complete ban of CFCs from the aerosol industry. Which tells me we can still turn the ship around. And that’s something. But it may help to keep track of the “other side” and try to address, repel, and eventually win over the debate so we can progress further and not backwards.

We are conditioned by our situations and by what we see around us. Our reality is effectively a derived version of the true reality – if there exists one – but we start to believe in it because it conforms with the mental model we develop through our interactions and experiences. Further compounding this is the impetus or trust we inevitably place in the experts we can see around us – those that speak with conviction, enjoy a broad spectrum of support from people we are close to, and have attained a modicum of popularity with their ideas and opinions. Our trust equation is, in effect, a complex multi-headed hydra that is influenced by a number of factors outside our control and may aid or abet our thinking in rationality.

We are not rational beings, but we like to believe in rational thinking. Only, the rationality spectrum is wide and subject to personal interpretation. We approach rational thinking mostly through how we have learnt to think – which does not necessarily amount to much because the average-joe formal education does not place as much emphasis on the scientific method or in principles of rationality. Our thought processes therefore suffer from the Duning Kruger effect – that is, we think we are rational enough when we are not. And that is where the problem lies. The deniers all actually believe in the rhetoric around climate change being a hoax, they do consider themselves logical beings and convince themselves of the fabricated facts and stories that keep cropping up in the ether.

Surely there are people who actually proactively manufacture these fabrications. Like meme culture, there’s someone out there manufacturing those nutty stories and zany anecdotes that form the subsurface on top of which these deniers derive their nutrition. But who are they and what is their motivation? As a passive spectator I can understand the biases that can creep in when you are lazy and only want to believe in things that come easy. But when you are taking an active role in manufacturing these lies, there’s more at stake.

Which brings me to the complex machinery that drives capitalism and the various nooks and crannies of corporate management that forgets what corporations stand for, and instead are relentlessly pursuing the mirage of wealth and power. We have seen this story unfold before when it came to cigarettes, DDT, acid rain, CFCs, etc. The “merchants of doubt” – a cabal of bought-out scientists, industrialists, academic think-tanks with subservient agendas attempting to subvert scientific facts and humanity. But their trade-tools of influence were/are savvier than their opinions and they tap into the existing fabric of doubt in public consciousness to seep savage falsehoods and elements of confusion – all served to wreck policy making, public discourse and serve their vested capitalistic interests.

These “merchants” leverage and expand various public fears by co-opting the said fears which could be: a) leftists/communists are trying to steal away progress, b) the government is overreaching and trying to grab power, c) the science is ‘phony’ and driven by partisan politics, d) the elite are out to destroy the majority, etc. Like Don Draper in Mad Men, they hire marketers and deniers-in-chief to craft public messaging meant to sow doubt, steer / deflect conversations, cast a pall on discourse through blame-games, and selectively picking biased data to unsuspecting public. Their motivations stem from a variety of drivers like power, career growth, existential angst (like with Marshall Institute) but they are united in their pursuit of systematic obfuscation.

It does not have to be this way though. If we can inform ourselves of the tools these deniers wield, and take small, proactive steps towards attacking them, we can win this war. History teaches us some of these hard-won lessons with other agents of destruction like tobacco, pesticides, CFCs, etc. As Sun Tzu would say, ““If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” We must know the techniques used by these deniers, and also understand our psyche that tends to get influenced by these provocateurs.

Being a climate advocator does not mean we need to be against the market/capitalist economy. Know that the doubts around some of the new mechanisms like carbon credit, carbon tax, etc. may also be planted by the very same “merchants”. While not ideal, these market mechanisms will take time to mature and to fully embody the future they are meant to bring. That does not mean we should not adopt them when we still have the time to. These “merchants” sometimes take the shape of doomsayers, suggesting that we are beyond the point of return and that climate change is the new ideal we should all subscribe to. We must know that to be false. There’s plenty we CAN do and must do to stop the beast in its tracks. Adopting a nihilistic mindset is escapism at best.

Sources:

The Ministry for the Future: https://amzn.to/34BOS7S

The New Climate War: https://amzn.to/3uNU9UI

Merchants of Doubt: https://amzn.to/3uM7UD3