What's a Morally Appropriate Response to Climate Deniers?

A small part of a much larger infographic showing our bright bright technical future. None of this will happen.

by Gaius Publius

What's a morally appropriate response to climate deniers?

What's a morally appropriate response to those who enable mass murder?

This short piece is the start of a much longer consideration of the state of the U.S. at this crossroads moment. It's an odd state. I remember the Y2K explosion of fear and concern, that there may be a global collapse due to computers not having been told that the year portion of a date contains four digits, not just two. Many computers stored the year as two digits, for example, as "68" for 1968. That works until 1999. What would happen when all those computers, if they weren't fixed, rolled the date to January 1, 2000? Would they all be fixed?

Y2K fear was in all the newscasts of the day, and appropriately so. No one knew what would happen, and if the very worst did occur, it could indeed have been a disaster. It wasn't, but we sure heard about it.

When it comes to global warming, however, at the rate we're fixing the problem — which is achingly slow, the slowest rate anyone can manage and still be pretending to care — there will be a global disaster. And yet there's been nary a peep from the media or any public official in position to act effectively.

Newscasters talk about driverless cars in 2030; about cheap, widespread DNA-inspired nanotech in 2033; about designer molecules from "superatoms" in 2036; an unhackable quantum internet; a feast of wonders at the next stage of culture and development. (See graphic at this link for all of these technologies.) And none of that will happen unless the disaster we're headed for is avoided. Any movie set in 2030, that doesn't have global chaos as its backdrop, is set on a planet none of are living on, unless we effectively address global warming now.

If a meteor were approaching the earth, the will of the world would be bent toward salvation. Global warming is that meteor. No one with any power is acting appropriately.

Those with power, of course, are paid not to act. For example:

Entire towns are burning to nothing in California. People are being incinerated alive in their cars attempting to flee. But a majority of Democrats still won’t reject fossil fuel money, and no one has put forward a climate plan that is remotely commensurate with the IPCC findings

— Claire Sandberg (@clairesandberg) November 11, 2018

And those without power — the mass of the public — are encouraged by a well-paid media campaign not to act. Many in that mass, our aggressive climate deniers, are in fact deliberately in the way. Many of those aggressive climate deniers are our sisters, fathers, neighbors, friends, co-workers. What's a morally appropriate response to climate deniers, even among our friends?

Consider this from Eric Anderson, first published at Ian Welsh's excellent site (lightly edited; emphasis added):

Shun the Climate Change Deniers

I have a little boy. He is my first, and most likely, only child — and he is everything to me.

I once thought that I knew what love is. I am still learning that I had no idea I could love anyone so deeply. I would lay my life down for him in a heartbeat, and will viciously attack any who dare threaten it.

There are those that threaten it every day.

Those that, in the past, I have professed to love and who, in turn, profess to love my son:

They are my parents.
They are my older sisters.
They are my Aunt, and my Uncle.

They move their mouths as they profess their love for my son, but I know in my heart that it’s not true. They are lying to both him and themselves.

They are lying because they are climate change deniers.

Because they vote for people, parties, policies and platforms that are actively contributing to the destruction of the planet my son depends on for his future survival. [...]

I ask them, “If there were even the tiniest chance you could be wrong, why would you risk the future of your family?” To which, they consistently reply in some manner of, “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m so old I’ll be long gone.” And so, their words of love are hollow. They are selfish. They are hypocrites. They are killers.

They care more about their ideology, than they care for my son. I have to call them what they are.

Therefore, if I continue to profess my love for both them and my son, what does that make me? What does that make the man who professes that he is willing to go to any lengths to try and ensure that his son has a future that doesn’t read like a dystopian novel? A future wherein, my son doesn’t look at me and say “Daddy, why didn’t you do something???”

To do both makes me the hypocrite. But I’m not a hypocrite.

Which is why I have made the decision to shun them all.

They need to feel the repercussions of their actions.

Everyone one of them do. Immediately. There is simply no time to lose. [...]

I exhort you to do the same, if indeed, the love you profess for your children is true.

We all must shun the climate change denying hypocrites that profess to love us from one side of their face, while they sell our future down the road with the other. Enough is enough.

Please think hard about joining me in shunning them all.

"Shun them" means to cut off all social interaction. Remove them completely and totally from your life. Sit shiva for them and declare them dead to you. Shunning is a non-violent act, but a public declaration, and frankly it's the mildest of responses. (For contrast, consider a Jack Reacher response to those who enable what kills.)

Anderson admits the extremity of this act: "I would be lying if I told you this isn’t the most difficult decision of my life."

And yet: If a neighbor cheers a murder as you watch, how should he then be treated? If an aunt cheers an active genocide as you watch, how should she then be treated? What if the genocide included you and your children?

It's the same here. If a person is seduced by Fox News for reasons of hate — the Fox News product is entirely hate, and its viewers watch it just for that — and thus helps choke the life from the species you share, how should that person be treated?

Like a man who verbally backs the wife in a dispute, when you back the husband? Or like an accessory to murder?

Something to think about...

GP