Climate deniers don't deny climate change any more

Earlier this year, the Center for Countering Digital Hate published a review of how arguments made by climate deniers had shifted, from "old denial" to "new denial". In this video, I talk about that shift, and how it has led to the growing "doomer" movement.

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Some stock footage courtesy of Getty.
Edited by Luke Negus.

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[prieten]

Someone once said, "You can't get someone to believe something if their salary depends on them not believing it."

[markotrieste]

I am an engineer and what I feel it most disheartening is that, technically, I KNOW we have the solution to almost all the problems (with the exception of some hard-to-abate sectors). But people without technical knowledge are convinced that there is no other way. The problem I see is psychological and political, and on that point I can do very little and I feel overwhelmed by stupidity and groupthink.

[hootmess]

Once met a student who quit their geology degree because their dissertation on some interesting history of a local region got them legal threats by real estate companies. In short: real estate wanted them to shut up about exposing potential local phenomena in our new climate that might make housing prices in that area drop.

[MyynMyyn]

When I was a petulant teenager, I used to ignore chores and homework until it was too late to do them. Either because someone else had done the chores out of annoyance, or because the homework due date had passed.
Yes, parents and teachers got angry, but I didn't have to get off my ass and do something.

It seems to me that some adults still operate on that level.

"This problem doesn't exist, no need to do anything."
A few years later:
"Whoops, guess it does exist, but now it's too late to fix it, no need to do anything."

[luckystriker]

I met a guy the other day who believed that we should accelerate climate change because it's God's will that we die a fiery death. This was not a local loon, but a influential person…

[Duny]

The path of denial sounds a lot like the narcissist's prayer.
"That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, then that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it."

[fishschtick]

I remember my father would always deny climate change despite all of the evidence we had. Now, he no longer denies it but blames it on the cabal and geoengineering. It's amazing to me that he had to find a conspiracy theory that conveniently fit into his worldview in order to believe it rather than the plain evidence and adjusting his worldview to that.

[dancingmathusalem]

It's the classic 4 stage strategy, as a brit you should be familiar with it:

In stage 1, we say nothing is going to happen.
In stage 2, we say something is maybe going to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
In stage 3, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we CAN do. WE ARE HERE
In stage 4, we say that maybe there was something we could've done, but it's too late now.

[courtneymaria]

Oh, so it's almost as if some of these influential people who denied it was real and now think it's TOO real to do anything about have ulterior motives? 🧐

[travellingtom]

My favourite is when sceptics say, "We didn't all die in the 80s when the ozone layer was supposed to be destroyed". 🤦

[boterberg]

Most people do not want to be told they are/were wrong.
They'll only accept facts readily when they find these themselves.
Otherwise they might have to admit they made a mistake, or worse, they actually were misled, or even dimwitted.

[KuratCTA]

I think the reason many of us gen z think that there's no reason in altering our individual behavior as it won't make any difference for climate change, is because we know that the biggest offenders in this issue are large scale companies. What we need is a legislative change within these companies to actually make a difference.

[slx]

I think there’s a difference between “we’re doomed, let’s do nothing” and “we’re doomed, better start doing something now and I don’t care if it’s costly or inconvenient. We need to be more aggressive”. I count myself in the latter “doomer” camp

[FunkSoulBrother]

Goverments going after consumers instead of corporations is like deleting text files on a hard drive instead of 100 gb games.

[Apophis]

I’ll say this, I feel like we are doomed not because we ‘can’t’ but because we ‘won’t’.

My response though to that is, we MUST do something and even IF we are doomed and we can’t fix this even with monumental efforts, there is nothing more human than trying in the face of doom.

We must try.

[Operaandchant]

Sure, corporations did it, it was not us.
I often say, we are not the problem, but it is our problem.

[MarcioLiao]

Hoping a company would willining do something that hurts its profits for the benefit of society is ignoring WHY we are in the current situation.

[jedics]

After 4 years of seeing how effective my little 2kw solar/9kw battery system is it blows my mind that solar isn't on every roof available, it has slashed my power bill by easily 80% and I think its wild that my friends talk about being hot but not wanting to turn on the ac because of how high their power bills are when summer makes so much power for me I can't use it all. It falls out of the sky for free yet stupidity and greed is making most pay top dollar for it, our system is seriously sick.

[foxdavani]

I was probably seven or eight, and California was drowning in the El Niño. Even the wealthy areas where we lived, it was bad. I want to ask my mom after I got home from school with my literal boots full of water because the water got pretty hot, even in the streets, and I asked her why is it raining so much and are we just going to be washed away. She taught me about the climate, as simply as she could get a nine-year-old would understand. I asked her how did she know about the climate when she was a cardiac surgeon, and her expertise were on the heart. She told me, the only way to solve problems is to study how the situation works and what happens when the process that makes the situation work becomes corrupted. She taught me that just because someone has an expertise in one thing, doesn’t mean they can’t study and learn about the other, because the fundamentals of science is all about exploring and learning relationships between one thing and another. But the most important she told me was that, if we want to make a difference, we have to be willing to learn, and if we want to survive, we have to be willing to make a difference. Just like how, in order to become the species, we are today, we had to risk learning how to farm instead of following the animals, and there were times when farming went bad, and we had no crops. Just look at what happened to Ireland in the potato famine. But learning how to raise crops was what allowed us to ultimately become of the species that we are now. She told me she wasn’t sure what would happen since the rain could continue, or it could shift, and we could end up in a drought, which is literally what happened, or something completely different but she knew if we try to make a change, based on what we’ve learned, we can prevent the worst from happening. Because that is our job as people. To make sure that lives that are born after us, have a good chance. That was what she taught me when I was nine. I still carry that With me. That no matter what my own personal moods and emotions are, whether I even care to live to see tomorrow, I owe it to the next generation, just as my mothers generation owed it to me, to take what is been learned and use it to make a better world as long as I exist within it. Because the more people stop trying, the chances raise higher for worse to happen.

[stevieinselby]

Tactics first set out by Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister 40 years ago to ensure that no action is taken:
Stage 1: We say nothing is going to happen.
Stage 2: We say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
Stage 3: We say maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
Stage 4: We say maybe there was something, but it's too late now.