2014-05-21

The five stages of climate denial

  1. Global warming is not happening.
  2. Okay, global warming may be happening, but it’s part of a natural cycle, and human activity has an insignificant effect.
  3. Alright, human activity may be causing climate change, be we shouldn’t try to fix the problem because the planet will take care of itself. And besides, doing anything would be too costly, and would harm productivity, growth, comfort, etc.
  4. Yes, yes, maybe we should have tried to fix the problem, and maybe that would have been the most cost-effective solution in the long haul. But it’s too late now. And besides, by the time things get really bad, I’ll be dead.
  5. I see climate change as a sign of the end times, and because I’m convinced that I’ll be saved, I actually want to hasten the planet’s demise. The sooner we destroy the Earth, the sooner I can go to heaven!
    (Stage 5 applies only to apocalyptic religious fundamentalists.)
Update: It looks like I was not the first to make the observation that climate change deniers tend to move the goalposts.

Update 2016.08.08: There’s another variant of stage 5 — perhaps it could be called stage 4½ — “The increasing rate of natural disasters (floods, droughts, hurricanes, heat waves, etc.) is caused by sin/apostasy/blasphemy/colored chalk.”

1 comment:

Small Town Girl said...

I agree with your opinion saying "its too late now"

Yes we can make little changes but everyday you can tell the vast changes in our environment. I live in Canada and we had one of the most harshest winters it started october and ended march. Its shifting every year.

Its too late to fix that now.