The writer fell in love with Spain the first time setting foot on this beautiful country a decade ago. Travelling over thousands of kilometers of smooth road and ever changing landscape for over the years. This is a sad month, as its beloved region of Catalonia is in limbo because of the secession saga. Not only that, there was a major forest fire wreak havoc in the northwest region of Galicia because of hurricane Ophelia that painted London sky yellow for days. This summer, it recorded unusually long hot temperature, the driest in 87 years.
Hurricane Ophelia is only one of many major hurricanes this year. The writer has friends living in Houston whose house was inundated by flood because of hurricane Harvey. For the newly married with a baby, and just settled down, hurricane Harvey broke their hearts and finance. This year’s hurricane season has broken records: the most rainfall dropped, first 4 major Atlantic hurricanes making landfall in US mainland, the fastest moving cyclone.
So who does and why anybody denies climate change?
Some said there are two major schools of thoughts (of course many more): one who believes what happened now happened before (it is just a natural cycles), and one who believes that it is a conspiracy theory cooked up by some groups with certain agenda.
To answer to the first group who believes that global warming is cyclical, one should look at the long historical data. Weather satellites were not in orbit until second part of 19th century, a mere blink in geological time scale. Lucky for us, with massive computational power available today, the complex weather system can be modeled with very high accuracy. Weather forecast nowadays provides invaluable information pilots would not fly without.
To debunk the natural cyclical theorists, the keyword here is speed. The rapid and drastic change in the atmosphere temperature the past two centuries is not in line with the pattern of slow change over 500 years timeframe (or 100,000 years, depends on which cyclical weather theory). Before the industrial revolution, there were 280 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere, and this year the concentration exceeded 400 ppm, the first time in a million years. There is little doubt that human ‘fingerprints’ have been prevalent in the level of CO2 since the industrial revolution.
A survey over 13,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers found a 97% consensus on global warming is happening and human are the cause. With these numbers, it is difficult to defend the conspiracy theory believer. Meanwhile, it is a common knowledge that big oil and gas corporations have been spending millions of dollars for lobbies every year.
Level of denials
There are many stages of denials, ranging from dismissing that climate change is really happening, to believing that even if it happening, climate change is not bad (the writer heard someone who said he does not mind warmer weather). But the most severe, if not dangerous stage of denial is when somebody thinks that there is nothing we can do to stop it.
Obviously there is a major discrepancy between 97% consensus of international scientific studies against the percentage of population who do not believe in climate change (last poll in US is ~40%). So why is it?
The single biggest answer could be: because we human. The way our brains work is riddle with so many biases. That is just how it is. Research shows that our brains respond strongly to these stimuli: Personal, Abrupt, Immoral, Now (PAIN). To many people immediate contact, climate change is a slow gradual process and does not impact them emotionally, directly, and immediately.
Todays landscape of social media foster our confirmation bias by feeding us more of what we want to hear, and less of the other. That is why despite of the mounting scientific data readily available, the climate change deniers may not have access them. Among all of the biases, optimism bias (believe that bad things happen only to other people) is probably the most perverse and yet the most commonly prevalent. For example super flood won’t happen in our town just as car accident won’t happen to me.
Conclusion
In the end, one should not believe in anything. We should skeptically trust. Trust is earned and can be lost. So far vast majority of the greatest minds and pool of data, facts, and consensus that support climate change and human is the cause.
Credits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Atlantic_hurricane_season
John Tooby (Psychologist)
Daniel Gilbert (Psychologist)
Daniel Kahneman (Behavior expert, guru of cognitive biases)
