Climate change scepticism and victim blaming
A week or so ago I heard a scientist on the radio talking about scepticism about climate change. I'm not sure what the correct term is to use to describe people who don't think that man-made emissions are causing changes in the climate. "Climate change deniers" has connotations to to holocaust deniers and is therefore seen as incendiary and generally I'm not in favour with comparing things to the Shoah willy nilly. "Climate change sceptic" doesn't necessarily fit the bill either. 'Sceptic' is coming to have the meaning of a polite term for 'denier'. Sceptics don't take people's word for it but then put the effort into investigating the issue and trying to come to their own conclusion based upon the available evidence. I think that possibly part of the issue is that all of the people who get lumped together because they claim that there isn't man-made climate change are actually quite different creatures. There are genuine climate change deniers, the David Irvings of climatology. They think that man-made climate change is happening but have a financial/political/social interest in convincing everyone else that it isn't. There are also the genuine sceptics, people who having carefully examined all of the evidence truly believe that a different hypothesis fits the data better. You'd expect this to be the case, no science is an exact science after all. However, most people who say that they do not think that man-made emissions are causing climate change are neither Machiavellian fiends nor maverick scientists, but ordinary Joes who aren't really convinced by what they've heard about climate change but are unwilling to investigate further.
I can't look down on these people for not looking into it in too much detail. There is a lot of stuff in the world to know about and only a horrifically small number of years before all of that knowledge you've accumulated rots away. It makes a lot of sense to defer to experts because otherwise life would be unworkable. Every morning one would be frozen with indecision about whether the water was safe to drink or the building about to collapse. It makes much more sense to for groups of people to find out whether water is safe to drink or buildings are structurally sound and then tell the rest of us. These experts certainly aren't infallible and do have their own agendas, but if you're going to disregard something that they've said you should probably have a good reason to.
I don't think that most people have a good reason to disbelieve climate change scientists, at least not a good epistemic reason. I think a lot of people don't believe in man-made climate change because they don't want it to be true. Humans aren't very good with probability and weighing up evidence and I think that something which comes crashing into people's estimates of what's going to happen in uncertain situations is what they want to be true. I think most of us are natural optimists and when faced with the possibility that we may have to radically alter our lifestyles and economies and the polar bears are still going to become extinct, we naturally think that other possibility is probably true and it's all going to be OK.
This is where the parallel with victim blaming comes in. Statistically, if the CPS bothers to prosecute you for rape or domestic violence, you're probably guilty. Even if you're acquitted, you probably still did it and a lot more besides, but they just couldn't pin it onto you beyond reasonable doubt. Why then, when a woman goes to the police about her violent husband, do so many of their mutual "friends" not believe her? I think a lot of it has to do with the optimism bias. A world in which a few women lie about their husbands' treatment of them would be a lot nicer than the one we currently have where a startlingly high proportion of normal looking men are horrifically violent toward their 'loved ones'. Similarly, a world in which a few changes in one's dress and behaviour could make you immune from sexual violence would be a lot nicer than the one we have, where sexual violence in endemic regardless of how long your skirt is. So otherwise nice rational people decide that she must be lying or it was her fault because they don't want to live in a world where they might be next.
The problem is that, outside of Never Never Land, believing in something doesn't make it true. Climate change won't go away if we all ignore it, it will only come faster and more extremely. Not believing victims just makes them more isolated and harmed and leads to more victims as the perpetrators are able to carry on with impunity.
I can't look down on these people for not looking into it in too much detail. There is a lot of stuff in the world to know about and only a horrifically small number of years before all of that knowledge you've accumulated rots away. It makes a lot of sense to defer to experts because otherwise life would be unworkable. Every morning one would be frozen with indecision about whether the water was safe to drink or the building about to collapse. It makes much more sense to for groups of people to find out whether water is safe to drink or buildings are structurally sound and then tell the rest of us. These experts certainly aren't infallible and do have their own agendas, but if you're going to disregard something that they've said you should probably have a good reason to.
I don't think that most people have a good reason to disbelieve climate change scientists, at least not a good epistemic reason. I think a lot of people don't believe in man-made climate change because they don't want it to be true. Humans aren't very good with probability and weighing up evidence and I think that something which comes crashing into people's estimates of what's going to happen in uncertain situations is what they want to be true. I think most of us are natural optimists and when faced with the possibility that we may have to radically alter our lifestyles and economies and the polar bears are still going to become extinct, we naturally think that other possibility is probably true and it's all going to be OK.
This is where the parallel with victim blaming comes in. Statistically, if the CPS bothers to prosecute you for rape or domestic violence, you're probably guilty. Even if you're acquitted, you probably still did it and a lot more besides, but they just couldn't pin it onto you beyond reasonable doubt. Why then, when a woman goes to the police about her violent husband, do so many of their mutual "friends" not believe her? I think a lot of it has to do with the optimism bias. A world in which a few women lie about their husbands' treatment of them would be a lot nicer than the one we currently have where a startlingly high proportion of normal looking men are horrifically violent toward their 'loved ones'. Similarly, a world in which a few changes in one's dress and behaviour could make you immune from sexual violence would be a lot nicer than the one we have, where sexual violence in endemic regardless of how long your skirt is. So otherwise nice rational people decide that she must be lying or it was her fault because they don't want to live in a world where they might be next.
The problem is that, outside of Never Never Land, believing in something doesn't make it true. Climate change won't go away if we all ignore it, it will only come faster and more extremely. Not believing victims just makes them more isolated and harmed and leads to more victims as the perpetrators are able to carry on with impunity.