Bushfires, massive cyclones, floods that destroy communities. We’ve never seen weather this intense. Long held records for the highest temperature and highest surface temperatures are being broken for the first time in decades.
Despite allegations this is untrue, climate change is clearly having a serious effect on our planet, and while some offer reasons why they believe climate change is not serious, these reasons are not scientifically correct.
Misinformation, a denial of scientist’s expertise and unwillingness to bear the financial cost of climate change all lead to a denial of the existence of climate change or its seriousness but we must counter these and take serious action before it is too late.
Often, climate change deniers are proponents of misinformation about climate change. Misinformation spread about climate change and its effects, whether deliberately or accidentally, can have the effect of causing the general public to distrust and ignore scientists and authorities attempting to spread information and implement policies.
In his article ‘Climate Change Disinformation and How to Combat It’, Stephen Lewndowsky writes that in order to counter misinformation we must highlight scientific consensus, educate the public, deliver messages in a culturally appropriate manner and inoculate the public to misinformation so that when they do encounter it, they are skeptical instead of curious.
Climate deniers argue that scientists haven’t yet reached a consensus on climate change or that scientists have falsified their findings. However, they are simply operating using a flawed model of thinking called motivated reasoning. This is a psychological phenomenon that uses reasoning based on emotions, or the biased assessment of objective information.
One of the most common triggers of motivated reasoning is confronting a threat to our current perception of ourselves or the world. It is clear that climate deniers operating under motivated reasoning, reason around facts they dislike because climate science is asserting a version of reality that is not compatible with their perception of reality.
Although motivated reasoning is difficult to overcome, David Brooks argues that “The only solution is to reduce the distrust … That can only be done by contact, reducing the social chasm between the members of the epistemic regime and those who feel so alienated from it.”
Others argue that mitigating climate change is far too expensive and that it's not something we need to spend so much money on. They argue that we have plenty of other crises to attend to first, such as poverty, or homelessness or food scarcity, and this is true.
But the true cost of climate change, without immediate efforts for its elimination, would be absolutely devastating with it being estimated that in 2050, it would cost fourteen percent of world GDP to address climate change complications. However, mitigating climate change overtime, starting from 2023 would only slow world GDP by 0.2 percentage points a year and overall cost roughly six percent of world GDP by 2050, which is less than a third of what inaction would cost.
Generally, the perception is that the major consequences of climate change will happen in the distant future and will only affect others, especially the vulnerable and weak. Deniers of climate change are unwilling to take any effective change because essentially, humans are biologically programmed only to care about events with immediate consequences.
Climate change seems too distant, too hypothetical, and so it seems that campaigns should be aimed at spreading information on the localized consequences of climate change and attempting to have the public empathize with the perspective of those most affected by these consequences. This would have a wide-ranging impact on the opinions of those who argue that climate change is too expensive to fix.
Essentially, climate deniers have untrue perceptions of climate change which encourage them either not to take it seriously or dismiss it as an issue altogether. Denying climate change and being unwilling to act on it are, frankly, luxuries we cannot afford.
The reality is that climate change is already causing devastating consequences such as more frequent and intense wildfires, extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and disrupted ecosystems, threatening the well-being of both human and natural systems worldwide. The weather phenomena we are currently seeing are not normal and they are not going away without serious action. We cannot expect that they will.