Last night I saw a tweet from one of the left of centre blogs in the UK; it suggested that those sceptical of climate change should not cause of a fuss by being labelled ‘climate change deniers’. This debate about the validity of the prejorative terms used for those not in agreement with the scientific consensus is a bit of an aside, but it is indicative of the problems of how to frame the discourse with the broad church of sceptical views. Personally, I am uncomfortable with tagging those people who remain unconvinced ‘climate change deniers’. Whilst it might be true that some of them do literally deny, either that climate change is happening at all, or that it has a manmade component, the choice of the term ‘denier’ remains problematic for me. The liberal left has long argued about the importance of language and how it can be used to reinforce certain stereotypes or power structures, so it is ironic to see many on the left so eager to use terminology that so obviously draws a parallel with those sickos that deny the Holocaust.
Such comparisons are doubly unhelpful when we start to think about who are these ‘deniers’ and what exactly do they think. This post resonated with me:
I think the left have a tendency to vilify and patronise the sceptics. Climate change scepticism is not a top-down conspiracy by the Lawson dynasty and the oil lobby to manipulate opinion. Most ordinary sceptics would struggle to identify a high-profile ‘denier’ other than Jeremy Clarkson. I suspect it is more the instinctive reaction of a society that traditionally values scepticism of all sorts, much as it does eccentricity, and is mistrustful of officialdom especially when it is asking them to make painful sacrifices for a far-off greater good.
I think this is a fair characterisation of some of the sceptics I know, most of whom are not ‘deniers’ as such, but are just unconvinced. Why are they unconvinced then? Why don’t they just go and look at the science? I think it comes down to inclinations in the end; some people are just predisposed to being more sceptical than others; after all it is not like those people that DO support the consensus view on AGW have ‘looked at the science’ for the most part, they are just more instinctively trusting of the thrust of the mainstream media message for the past few years.
Even if a layperson in good faith did set off to ‘look at the science’ what do we mean by that? What we actually mean is for them to go take a look at the science WE find convincing and then be illuminated. The problem for more enquiring travellers is that one can read the IPCC report and be convinced of the case for AGW, but equally one can read many rebuttals of the report in its entireity and very detailed, technical sounding attacks on specific elements of the AGW thesis. If you have no life and any willpower left, you could then go and read the rebuttals of the rebuttals (you can see how circular this gets), and the kicker is that they sound convincing too. This is the problem with trying to convince people based on an idea that is highly complex and requires specialised understanding; even after they have ‘looked at the science’ they may only end up more confused and really left with their gut instinct to make a decision anyway. This is why the public tend to be so media led on this issue and why the recent Climategate and IPCC debacle could prove to be so corrosive, and equating sceptics with Holocaust denial, or just dismissing them as stupid hicks, is unlikely to be helpful either.
Politicians have benefited so far from a broadly supportive public on the issue of climate change, forging a consensus across party lines that this is something we need to take seriously and do our bit to resolve. A poll today suggests the public mood is becoming more sceptical of AGW. This maybe a temporary shift in the wake of the failure of Copenhagen, the scandals mentioned above and the recession, but if it takes hold, especially on the back of populist ‘tea party’ style coalitions, then it is going to become difficult for politicians to ignore climate scepticism as a potential vote winner.
BBC Newsnight had a segment on last night about the politics of climate change in Australia, specifically the rise of scepticism as a viable mainstream political position. The video can be seen here (UK Only), but essentially it was about how Tony Abbott, leader of the right of centre opposition Liberal Party, was increasingly aligning his party with a sceptical view of AGW, and that this was rapidly becoming the more populist position. The Labour government’s climate change bill is currently being blocked in the Senate, which risks triggering an election where climate change would be one of the major divides between the parties. Prior to this point, the parties supporting the AGW consensus have had the more populist rhetoric, capturing the public imagination with warnings of the consequences of climate change, but does what is happening in Australia signal the start of a sea change? Certainly it is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to imagine such populist sceptical movements taking hold here in the UK, supported by a Conservative Party which still has a vociferous sceptic element in its grassroots support. In America one can the energised Tea Party movement setting their sites on Obama’s enviromental policy after downing his healthcare bill, as part of their wider narrative of resisting ’socialist taxes’.
It is going to be difficult for proponents of the consensus to win the public back to the need to make lifestlye changes. Ratcheting up the fear through alarmist proclamations will be seen as scaremongering. Calling opponents stupid, or equating them with Holocaust deniers, is now much easier to cast as merely trying to close down debate. What we need from our politicians is a more open discourse that acknowledges a large number of people are not sold on the idea of AGW and makes some attempt to understand the reasons why; this will certainly get us further than gung ho proclamations of war against deniers.