Deciphering deniers | The Energy Collective

If the fundamental makeup of human beings predisposes a large portion of them to reject well established science, then it seems we have only the following nightmarish options:

* Try to change the way the deniers think. This is state sponsored mind control, on a scale that makes 1984 look like a prototype.
* Force people to change their consumption decisions. To some extent we do this already, via things like CAFE standards for motor vehicles. We also change the effects of consumption, by setting limits on pollution from various industrial activities. But those tiny steps are nowhere near what the science tells us is needed to avoid a list of horrible outcomes in the next few decades. To impose the kind of change that’s needed on an unwilling populace would be impossible in anything approaching a democracy, especially one that, like the US, now has unlimited, undisclosed corporate political spending. The logical conclusion here is that it would literally take a form of eco-totalitarianism, nearly every right wing media darling’s favorite monster under the bed, to implement. The fact that these re the very same people making it impossible, to date, to peacefully make the needed changes, thus increasing the probability of the oppressive state action being used is yet another detail that seems to be lost on them while they battle for ratings points.
* Do nothing and hope that somehow we come to our sense before it’s too late. As I’ve made abundantly clear in the past, I think this is a recipe for disaster, given the immense level of inertia in climate change. Once we are encountering impacts so painful and so persistent that even many of the hardcore deniers start demanding that “someone do something about this!”, we will have already locked ourselves into a path of far greater damage and almost unimaginable pain in the ensuing 50 to 100 years.