I find it extraordinary that the most commonly-used term to describe someone unconvinced about climate change is 'climate change denier'. Now, I don't know about you, but I can only think of one other term where it is usual to use the word 'denier', and that's 'Holocaust denier'. I cannot understand how so many people could have become so extreme in their beliefs as to use that word and those connotations against people who disagree with them.
However, I can understand that many people on both sides of the debate are deeply frustrated that not everyone agrees with them about global warming. But the use of the word 'denier' suggests that climate change is something that is simply and basically true, such as 'the sky is blue' and that by not accepting it as fact, not 'believing', so to speak, the unconvinced person is therefore a lunatic. People who don't accept global warming/climate change as fact are NOT lunatics. They're just people are not convinced by the shouting and screaming of the people who are convinced, or by the increasingly politicised and deified vocabulary of the climate change believers.
Because it has become a sort of faith, regardless of whatever actual facts lie deep underneath. Climate change is something you believe in, not something you're convinced of. People who do not believe are heretics, deniers. Scepticism is a dirty thing now. Even the term 'climate change agnostic' has come into the lexicon. Somewhere along the line saving the planet became akin to saving God.
To be honest, 'agnostic' is probably the term I would apply to myself, if I weren't certain that the politics and religion now intimately connected to the issue of climate change needs to be pulled out by the roots in order to end the cycle of viciousness and anger on both sides. The way I see it, there are three possibilities: 1. It's happening and it's going to cause serious trouble; 2. It's happening and there will be minimal harmful effects; or 3. It's not/no longer happening, and any ill effects will balance back over time.
Now, whatever of these three you agree with (and especially if you pick option number 1), there's something that everyone MUST start respecting before the debate descends any further - you might be convinced of your particular point, but not everyone is, and screaming and hurling about foul accusations is not going to change that. Nor is the catch cry of, "We need action now!" - if it does turn out to be as dire as all that, seems to me we'll know soon enough. Besides, no-one likes to be pushed into doing something, especially when they're not sure it's right.
I guess what I'm trying to say is:
Let's not lose our humanity in our rush to save it from whoever you think the monster is. Let's try to be calm and rational, because regardless of what truth the future brings, we'll need our heads on straight to clean up the mess left behind.
