Ignorance, Being Bliss

PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE in man made climate change believe in science. Most of them understand the basics of climate science, because they can remember a few salient facts from high school chemistry. People who deny climate change do not merely question the findings of climate science with healthy skepticism. Rarely if ever do you hear a denier question the science, and express doubt about it, and leave it at that. They summarily, automatically, arbitrarily dismiss them, outright. They are rock solid certain that there is no such thing as human made climate change,, with an almost religious fervor, almost as if they themselves have gone to college, studied chemistry, physics, and biology, done the research, and arrived at inarguable, fact based conclusions. Religious fervor, or rather ideological fervor, and pure raw emotion play a far larger part in climate change denial than science. An overwhelmingly of the world's climate change deniers are American, conservative, never went to college, and never studied science, any science, anywhere. Although it is in most cases almost impossible to enlighten these people, one can try. One place to start is by asking the question: "how can you be so certain the human made climate change does not exist"? Remind them that their certainty seems greater that the certainty behind climate science, the very scientific certainty they reject. If climate change is real, and caused by human activity, the conclusion is that there is something fundamentally wrong with human activity, requiring basic change. Basic change is what conservatives abhor, tremendously, it turns out. We the people without heads in sand must persuade our right wing comrads that we can fight climate change and preserve their self esteem at the same time! The question is, how to do it.