I’ve spent most of my writing time over the past week or so working on a piece about climate change denial for Lucid Magazine. It’s given me plenty of food for thought regarding the way we discuss climate change, and I expect I’ll write more on the subject shortly. For now, here are the first few paragraphs of the article. The full text will be published in Lucid on December 7th. If you really want to read it before then, you can drop me an email and I’ll send a copy over to you.

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The Roots of Denial

Just as the UK government appears ready to take genuine action to address the challenges posed by climate change, denial of its existence is spreading like a rash through popular culture. What’s driving the naysaying, asks Simon Brett, and how can we best engage with it?

Introduction

I’ve spent a lot of time engaged in conversation with people who claim that climate change is caused by natural cycles, or will only ever be mild and broadly beneficial, or is some kind of leftist conspiracy. Possibly more than I would really have wished. Each time, the discussions have ended with my discovery that the sources they quote with such alacrity are bogus in one way or another. Their authors turn out to be affiliated with the oil industry, or they stem from a disgruntled academic craving the oxygen of publicity. Occasionally, they are simply good old-fashioned idiocy (I’m looking at you, Bellamy). Overall, I’ve found that time imbibing the heady brew of denial is a bit like gulping down vast quantities of candyfloss. It’s sweet and seductive for a while. Then the sugar wears off and the stomach ache kicks in. What I have picked up from the experience is threefold: a recognition of particular climate deniers and the lines of argument they favour; a personal immunity to denial that is finally enabling me to approach climate change with a sense of hope and optimism, and an understanding of particular values and belief systems that render us vulnerable to denial.

I intend to focus here chiefly on the second and third aspects of those insights. What is denial? What mistakes are we making that allow us to believe that those who promote denial are plausible, and how can we develop our immunity to them? For anyone who wants to research individual arguments, or acquire a working knowledge of denial players and tactics, I offer a selection of resources at the conclusion of this article. I hope that putting yourself on nodding terms with them will establish for you, once and for all, that those who actively dispute the scientific consensus on climate change are a minute drop in a vast ocean. As George Marshall writes in his excellent book, Carbon Detox: ‘they are as marginal as ‘scientists’ who claim that black people are less intelligent or that evolution does not exist’ . The science is in. The climate is shifting. The battle for hearts and minds has only just begun.

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