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Honest answer (and thanks for asking): First, I want to make it clear that I don't think of "climate deniers" as a group per se like a race, creed, or nation.

Honest answer (and thanks for asking): First, I want to make it clear that I don't think of "climate deniers" as a group per se like a race, creed, or nation. There's a lot of detail and nuance in the world and I want to explore that, not abrogate it. I just want to elucidate on that a little before I get to answering your question. You have folks like the people in the oil companies who knew about the science of the greenhouse effect and still spent lots of money casting doubt on it in public to protect their profits. You also have people who have honest doubts and questions. I'm even one of them. I've heard that global warming and climate change might have more to do with changes in the Sun's energy output than human chemical emissions, and I'd like to talk more about that, but ooo yeah not in public, eh? You would have to be all like "but I'm not a climate denial-ist" like OP. So, just to repeat, I'm not being tribal here. (For instance the Chinese Communist Party creeps me out, but I still give them credit for e.g. fixing the Loess Plateau, etc. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20537409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20537409 ) I'm not against a group, I'm sick of certain behaviors. To answer your question "why [am I], personally, sick of [certain behaviors]?" It's simple. When I was a kid in high school I found my parents' copy of the Next Whole Earth Catalog which was a kind of hippie how-to guide from the 70's. I have no idea what happened to the people who made and bought and read this thing. My parents didn't talk about it or anything like that. But it became, for awhile, something like my bible. I left my textbooks in my locker and carried it around instead (it's like four feet wide and weighs six or seven hundred pounds!) In it I learned about people like Christopher Alexander, Bucky Fuller, and Bill Mollison, and I began to see, or think that I saw, a better world. A world where humans and nature were in harmony, and "no one had to get nailed to anything." That was about thirty-five years ago. So, from my POV, everybody has been running around enacting "Idiocracy" instead and, yeah, I'm sick of it.

bheadmaster 4y ago
Thank you for the honest response. It reflects your perspective in a vivid and relatable way. I understand you in some manner - I grew up watching Captain Planet and similar eco-oriented shows that have instilled in me some feeling of "importance" of the whole subject. And seeing other people trample upon what are some of our most sacret beliefs, developed for decades, can make us sick of them. The only criticism of those beliefs I would have is that they come from sentiment, not (only) reason - so, in theory, if instead of eco-literature, you read, say, the Bible, you would most likely have equally strong beliefs towards Christianity, and they would be supported by more-or-less same number of arguments derived from years of studying. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), it's really hard to separate ourselves from our sentiment. I guess that the world is doomed to stay a divisive place, because humans are, in their essence, emotional creatures with reason added.
- carapace 4y ago
  > The only criticism of those beliefs I would have is that they come from sentiment, not (only) reason - so, in theory, if instead of eco-literature, you read, say, the Bible, you would most likely have equally strong beliefs towards Christianity, and they would be supported by more-or-less same number of arguments derived from years of studying. I like to point out (usually in a different context) that ecology is a science, and it's applications are technology. I wrote a comment a few months ago about my beliefs and "the similarities and differences to religious apocalyptics as I see them" that you might find interesting? In sum (if I may be so gauche as to quote myself) "Ideally environmental apocalypticism is self-extinguishing." That's the primary (psychological) diiference (IMO) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32065654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32065654 > I guess that the world is doomed to stay a divisive place, because humans are, in their essence, emotional creatures with reason added. I dunno. The most powerful emotion is love, eh? And I think the newfangled talking computers will make really good cheap therapists.

bheadmaster 4y ago

Thank you for the honest response. It reflects your perspective in a vivid and relatable way. I understand you in some manner - I grew up watching Captain Planet and similar eco-oriented shows that have instilled in me some feeling of "importance" of the whole subject. And seeing other people trample upon what are some of our most sacret beliefs, developed for decades, can make us sick of them. The only criticism of those beliefs I would have is that they come from sentiment, not (only) reason - so, in theory, if instead of eco-literature, you read, say, the Bible, you would most likely have equally strong beliefs towards Christianity, and they would be supported by more-or-less same number of arguments derived from years of studying. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), it's really hard to separate ourselves from our sentiment. I guess that the world is doomed to stay a divisive place, because humans are, in their essence, emotional creatures with reason added.

carapace 4y ago
> The only criticism of those beliefs I would have is that they come from sentiment, not (only) reason - so, in theory, if instead of eco-literature, you read, say, the Bible, you would most likely have equally strong beliefs towards Christianity, and they would be supported by more-or-less same number of arguments derived from years of studying. I like to point out (usually in a different context) that ecology is a science, and it's applications are technology. I wrote a comment a few months ago about my beliefs and "the similarities and differences to religious apocalyptics as I see them" that you might find interesting? In sum (if I may be so gauche as to quote myself) "Ideally environmental apocalypticism is self-extinguishing." That's the primary (psychological) diiference (IMO) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32065654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32065654 > I guess that the world is doomed to stay a divisive place, because humans are, in their essence, emotional creatures with reason added. I dunno. The most powerful emotion is love, eh? And I think the newfangled talking computers will make really good cheap therapists.