Mandy Nolan
The biggest threat to the planet isn’t fossil fuels. It’s fossil fools. Or as they are more commonly known: climate-change denialists.
They’re dangerous, and there’s no amount of carbon offset that neutralises their impact. Unless you club them individually with a piece of wood. You have to offset them pretty hard. They’re like cockroaches. When the whole world has burned to a cinder, there will just be climate-change denialists walking around going, ‘See, told you it was bullshit’.
A little imagination
Like any good conspiracy theory someone had to concoct it. I imagine eminent physicist and Princeton professor William Happer, Donald Trump, and oil lobbyist Jim Inhofe sitting around one night at Trump Towers pulling a few bongs going, ‘this whole environment thing is bad for business… renewables suck… too much grid sharing – people can’t generate and share power – that’s socialism!’
Then one of them coughs out some smoke and says, ‘let’s say it’s not happening!’
They fall on the floor laughing. Trump is clutching his furry orange belly. ‘Let’s say… the science isn’t real’. ‘Let me say that,’ shouts Professor Happer… he doesn’t have his pants on. ‘I’m a scientist. They’ll believe me!’
This makes Trump wee himself just a little with excitement. Jim says, ‘I’ll take a snowball into the senate… to prove it still gets cold – that shit really confuses dumb people!’
They all sit around high-fiving each other, then Trump’s face is serious for a moment. He says, ‘I’ll save us seats on the rocket out of here when we go to Earth2’.
Nothing to see here
Climate-change denialists don’t believe we’re in trouble. They say the climate’s changed before. They say that Antarctica is gaining ice. That extreme weather isn’t caused by global warming. That sea-level rises are exaggerated.
They don’t believe the science that says we’re screwed. Denialists basically believe that someone has made up the whole climate-change thing to sell solar panels. And wind turbines. Because someone out there is really profiteering from this whole end-of-the-world thing. We just can’t work out who that is.
The scariest thing about climate-change denial is that it’s created and endorsed by people who actually know it’s bullshit. It is a conversation disruptor.
Climate-change denial is clever, self-perpetuating conspiratorial ‘it’s a hoax’ style propaganda for the fossil-fuel industry so they can stay operational until corporations work out how to make renewables pay the same kind of dividends oil does.
You hear of coal barons. Oil barons. You don’t hear of solar barons. Wind-farm barons.
Facts aren’t relevant
Climate-change denial has nothing to do with facts. It has to do with people’s desire to be unrelenting in their beliefs. In their capacity to resist change. In not wanting to admit that we human beings and the way we have lived life on Earth are about to kill life on Earth. We are the amoebas in a petrie dish, shitting and fucking and breeding until we’re extinct.
Denial is the classic response of any addict. In this case we have a culture hooked on fossil fuels and consumption so, rather than change, the strategy is to pretend it isn’t happening.
I find putting your fingers in your ears and going la la la helps. If you’re in a coastal property that’s about to be inundated, just put on some floaties and tell yourself it’s normal.
The funniest thing about climate-change denial is that it doesn’t matter how much they deny the science – right now and in the very near future, shit is going to get very bloody real.
This article is from The Echo‘s eleventh annual sustainability supplement Sustainability 2019 – hints for living a sustainable life. Check it out for more great tips for those who would like to tread lightly on this planet.
More articles from Sustainability 2019:
Local councils taking action on the climate crisis
Local councils are on the front line of managing resources and the environment and are in a position to implement practical on-the-ground changes to protect the environment, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and plan for the impacts of the changing climate.
Power to the people: take the climate crisis into your own...
If you had to walk a kilometre to pump your water from a well, do you think you would be careful how many drops you used?
Been thinking about going off the grid? Here’s some firsthand advice
Thinking about going off grid? ‘Do it!’, says local filmmaker David Lowe.
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