Over time, the reasons for climate change 'scepticism' have shifted. At first, global warming was a total fiction, a scientific mistake, the work of a few over-excited climatologists. As concern grew, the debate shifted to whether there was enough evidence to make global warming worth worrying about. When the evidence stacked up, the scepticism turned to whether factors other than greenhouse gases could be blamed. Sunspots, undersea volcanoes, and historical climate fluctuation were all invoked as possible alternatives, and all debunked in turn. Instead of accepting what was clear to the scientists, the 'sceptics' began to look like blind-faith anti-environmentalists, and posed yet another question: 'Would climate change really be that bad?'.
All of these questions would have been reasonable, had they not already been answered. We can now see that the questions were not so much directed at the scientists than at the public. When the scientists failed to tell the public that climate change was nothing to worry about, that we couldn't stop it, that it might not exist, the climate sceptics did they only thing they could. They strayed into the realm of conspiracy theorists and attacked the scientists themselves, in what they cynically dubbed 'Climategate' (after Watergate, the Republican Party scandal that caused Nixon to resign).
You might recall where this tactic has been used before. It bares a striking similarity to the attempt to push creationism into schools. But whereas Intelligent Design at least masqueraded itself as a scientific theory, climate denial abandoned this tactic, and pushed forward into the realm of antiscience, alleging a deliberate cover-up by scientists greedy for funding.
When the Associated Press, FactCheck and the United Nations all concluded that the emails proved nothing, and the scientists explained the few scattered, de-contextualised quotes that appeared only slightly suspicious in any case, they were conveniently ignored.
With the facts on the table, climate sceptics are faced with a choice. They can join the ranks of the tinfoil hatters and insist that a vast conspiracy of scientists, media outlets and governments are conniving against their own best interests, or they can face facts and accept that man made climate change is a reality, and that no amount of belief will change it.
But of course, they wont. Even as the ice melts, the water rises, and extreme weather events intensify, the supposed sceptics continue to blind themselves to all reason and all evidence.
Because of this irrationality, one can only conclude that these 'sceptics' have no interest in reason and evidence. They do not want to see what is so clear to the rest of the world. And from this conclusion, a question emerges. The question of why? Why is it that these sceptics - and it pains me to allow them that misused word - why is it that they cannot accept climate change? What makes it such a difficult idea?
To answer that question, one has to discover a common feature of the sceptics, something to unite them in their willful unreasoning. When one looks for shared characteristics, an obvious pattern emerges: They are almost all on the political right. Which brings us to the title of this article: Why the Right Cannot Accept Climate Change.
To understand why climate change is so unacceptable to the right, it is necessary to understand that the contemporary right is essentially an uneasy alliance of two factions, each of which relies on the other for its support base.
The first faction of the right is made up of economic or 'classical' conservatives, who support free market economics and a small, non-invasive government. They see the free market as the most socially beneficial means of conducting affairs and trust consumers to regulate business activity.
The second faction is made up of social conservatives, who agree with the ideal of free markets, but disagree on granting civil liberties. Instead, they see the cause of society's ills as 'immorality' or 'moral degeneracy' - in other words, anything that doesn't conform to their own narrow interpretation of Christianity. They therefore support a large, intrusive state, run by authoritarians willing to act outside the law in imposing their beliefs. The logical extension of this idea is a series of foreign military crusades, to impose one brand of morality on the rest of the world, and a variety of attempts to increase the role of religion and nationalism in politics.
These two factions appeal to predominantly the same voting base, and borrow from each others' rhetoric to justify their policies.
As far as I know, climate change is unique, in that it is the only issue to demonstrate the failure of both the right's factions, and therefore of the entire centre-right. If the first faction of classical conservatives concedes that climate change is real, then they also have to acknowledge that heavy economic regulation is necessary, to prevent the far-reaching negative externalities of greenhouse gas emissions, which are encouraged, rather than restricted, by the free market. If the social conservatives admit that climate change isn't a leftist conspiracy, then they have to face facts and admit that some problems are economic, and not moral. That good people can do bad things when their jobs depend on it, or when they just don't know any better. That the last bastion of good Christians, with their oil drilling, cattle ranching and SUVs, have done even more damage to the environment (and therefore society) than all of those bad people who supposedly need to be shepherded by police batons.
The right wingers cannot accept climate change, because it makes redundant their two most fundamental assumptions: that capitalism always works, and that when it doesn't, it is a moral rather than a systemic problem. Accepting climate change would require the right to completely reinvent itself, and this is worrying.
Two party democracy requires strong oppositions, and with climate change becoming increasingly well known, attempts to deny its existence may weaken the right to the point where the left will be provided the opportunity to become more authoritarian, without the need to contrast itself as the freer, more 'liberal' option to the right. Here, the analysis of classical economics is ironically helpful. If we look at representational democracy like a market, we can see that it already contains dangerously little competition - between only two policy producers, the major parties. If one of these 'producers' cannot provide proper competition, then the other is granted an effective monopoly, and can therefore do whatever is wants, as long as it appears less bad than the other option.
I may be a leftist, but that doesn't stop me from being able to see how dangerous the ramifications of climate change could be for the whole of politics, if the left becomes too powerful. After all, even communists can turn into Stalinists when they have too much power.
The left has at least a forty year head start over the right with regards to ecology. The ecological issue has a natural affinity with all parts of the leftist spectrum. It demonstrates clearly that the market does not discourage certain destructive behaviours (in the case of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions), and in fact will often reward them. It shows that negative externalities can greatly outweigh the benefits of competitive efficiency, and that the tragedy of the commons is a real and pressing problem. In short, ecology serves as a terrific vantage point to criticise capitalism from. If capitalism is to survive, then it will need to adopt environmental regulations. If the right is to survive, then it will need to do the same.
A smaller risk that the centre right's 'scepticism' creates is that of strengthening ultra-right. The crowds of socially conservative voters that the right has created over the past eighty years will not easily turn to centre-left environmental parties. If another socially conservative political block can provide these voters with the same social policies, combined with environmentalism, then they may well be able to claim a large swathe of the vote. At the moment, the only movement that provides this option is capital-F Fascism.
Logo of the probably satirical Libertarian National Socialist Green Party (http://www.nazi.org/)
If the left was to become more authoritarian, and the right was to become more extreme, then liberal democracy would be in a lot more trouble than it is currently. The last time that people had a choice between extreme social conservatives with environmentalist policies, and authoritarian leftists attempting to take charge of the entire economy, was the Weimar Republic in 1933. (Isn't it wonderful how you can make any topic come around to Hitler?)
These are worst case scenarios, however, and I suspect that climate change will simply force the current right to become more moderate and liberal, the same way that gay rights, women's liberation and the civil rights movement have. Climate change is going to be very hard to deal with. Perhaps the hardest thing that the world has dealt with so far. But its not impossible to fix, and it could (that's could) bring the world together, rather than forcing it apart. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm still ultimately hopeful.
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