Tom Puddy explores the way in which the climate change debate is being presented to the public arguing that "we need to be treated like intelligent grownups and not like children who need to be dazzled into agreement".
The problem with the climate change debate is that dissenters are treated as childish morons or as thought criminals. This stems from the old argument of the climate change lobby, that there is a scientific "consensus". Not that this consensus argument is true, but the very logic behind it is unsound. Science is a matter of fact, it does not matter how many people agree with a statement or not, either something is scientific fact or it is not. Scientific consensus was the argument of an oppressive Roman Inquisition that could not stand to believe that the earth travels around the sun, not the argument of one seeking the truth. Yet this wish to stifle other debate or disagreement has been central to the warming argument. The most astonishing irony is when those who are sceptical are called "flat earthers" by those who employ the same unscientific arguments as a medieval peasant who believed the world to be flat.
Name calling and politics have characterised the arguments of climate change, not science. Lies and liars have been rife on both sides, but the sheer volume of corruption and mistruth from those that should know better is shocking. Perhaps the Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education case is the best illustration. Al Gore's egocentric, pompous and condescending film An Inconvenient Truth was ordered to be played in British schools to teach children about the science of climate change. The judge in the case found that An Inconvenient Truth was riddled with inaccuracies and that guidance and explanation were required for the film to be shown in the classroom. Yet these inaccuracies would have blindly been fed to school children as fact. To teach a school child something that is untrue as though it were fact is the act of a demagogue, not a scientist.
Then of course there is the long list of "gates" brought about by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Climategate I, Climategate II and Glaciergate would be the most famous, but Amazongate and the other leaks and investigations have done their bit to undermine the credibility of an organisation that should be the gold-standard of ethics. Astonishingly, it only took a couple of whitewashes and the petulant protests of a few members of the media for the IPCC to have gotten away with it.
Yet it is not just the lies, it is the visceral hatred of those who are fighting on eitherside. The term "denier" has been coined to describe those who do not believe that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) will be catastrophic. The comparison being to a person who denies that the holocaust happened. The implication is that in order to disagree with the "consensus" a person must be either a bigot or utterly ignorant of fact. The allegation is that a person who does not believe actively favours the death and destruction that has been prophesied.
It is telling that a friend once told me that he would like to see my face when it all goes down the pan. These are not the words of a person who is seeking to save the world, but of an infant who wants to break another child's toys. But the genuine motive to want to save the world can be just as bad. The pessimistic view that humanity is on an inevitable death plunge due to its own success and that only the enlightened can save it is little more than self righteous snobbery. The science is flawed and the very name of science has been tainted by some of the individuals involved, how can we follow blindly the when relying on the word of liars and scoundrels?
Thought, integrity and understanding are what is required, not faith, propaganda and indignation. The BBC maxim of refusing to acknowledge the existence of the counter-argument and mocking those that disagree is not the way for people to make up their own minds and to gain understanding, but an act of treating people like fools who will naturally come to the "wrong" conclusion. People ought to be able to decide for themselves rather than have bogus studies thrown at them, and certainly not mocked and ridiculed as vile bigots.
We need an end to the straw-man arguments that those who do not agree with the "consensus" must believe in climate stasis. We need upright science and scientists and not fiddled figures and charts that defy reality. Most importantly, we need to be treated like intelligent grownups and not like children who need to be dazzled into agreement.
Personally I have my doubts that we're all going to be fried/drowned/frozen/all be devoured by a great man-made tempest. The evidence suggests change, not cataclysm, but I will happily listen to the arguments and the data people give me on either side. It will be nice when I will be able to take such data at face value and when arguments are made by adults and for adults.
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