The other day it occurred to me that climate change denial had something to teach me. Not about climate change – I know that’s real, because I’m not stupid. What is incredibly clever about this very dumb cohort, is not what they believe, but the narrative devices they have developed to curate their belief. I mean, to spread something that dumb and have so many people believe it? That’s good marketing! It’s post-modern propaganda. It’s our Fossil-Fuel Pravda.
The transformation of Gore’s Inconvenient Truth into social media memes that tell us the world is getting colder, that scientists don’t agree, that climate changes due to CO2 are normal. And my favourite rationale for denying coastal sea rise; ‘if you have ice in a glass and it melts, the glass doesn’t overflow.’ Wow, that’s even dumber than a flat-Earther! Planet Earth is not a glass of water dickhead.
We’re in the era of belief. We’re regressing back to the time when they imprisoned people for saying the Earth revolved around the sun. It’s a post Galileo world. We have the freedom to believe what we want – regardless of whether or not it’s true. Truth is dead! How fabulous that you don’t have to believe things you don’t like. Honestly, it’s brilliant.
Climate change denialists have midwifed a fact-free world. I’m surprised gravity still works. Are there any gravity deniers out there? People who refuse to be limited by Newton’s Law that the force of gravity acting between any two objects is inversely proportional to the square of the separation distance between the object’s centres? I’d love to see them nail a reverse park on a cliff top without a camera. As one plummets to a rocky death, is there still time to adjust one’s beliefs? Although gravity denialists do have a few high profile companions, like the string theorists – but they believe gravity is a consequence of thermodynamics. That’s just because gravity is the only thing String Theory (The Theory of Everything) can’t explain. That, and climate change denialists. I imagine climate change denialists being connected by strings around the world; The physics of fuckwits. Newton also had a theory on fuckwits; For every fuckwit there is an equal and opposite fuckwit – they’re called politicians.
Denial is not the new black – predictably, it’s an old white man. A bunch of very, very rich, old white men who know a fossil-fuel free world that embraces new technologies will also create new systems which share resources across communities rather than emulate the top down approach that has been so effective for that small group of raging capitalists who control the world’s wealth. Yes, those 8 men who have the same wealth as 3.6 billion people. They don’t just suffer from climate change denial. They have humanity denial as well.
But let’s get back to this denial thing. Because if you can deny the hard indisputable science, you could in theory deny speeding fines.
I tried this. I am now officially a speeding fine denialist. I get lots of them. I believe it’s part of a giant Highway Patrol Conspiracy. They just fine us to get more funding for fast cars and tight pants. And the cameras? Bullshit! They’re Huawei monitoring devices. So I refused to pay. I sent a letter disputing the fine. I said ‘I don’t believe it. I am a speeding fine denialist.’ They said ‘We have you on camera.’ Like that was some sort of evidence of my midsummer misdemeanour. I said ‘I don’t believe in speeding cameras.’ They sent me a blurry picture of a blonde woman in a Honda. I said ‘That’s not me, I’m much better looking.’ I said ‘People have always gone fast. Speeding does not lead to death. Life leads to death. Fine me for living.’ I’m currently on a suspended licence. Which is fine, because I am now a licence denier. That means I don’t believe you need a licence to drive. I’m working on becoming a tax denier. They used to call them tax avoiders. Or corporations. See, they’re already doing it. Talk about being ahead of the curve!
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
