What do you do with a climate sceptic?

by Charlie Peverett in At home on 17.06.08

Is rejection of the ‘overwhelming scientific consensus’ on climate change akin to denial of the Holocaust? It is, according to Alex Steffen of leading sustainability blog WorldChanging.

Yesterday he wrote:

Climate “skepticism” is not a morally defensible position. The debate is over, and it’s been over for quite some time, especially on this blog.

We will delete comments which deny the absolutely overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, just as we would delete comments which questioned the reality of the Holocaust or the equal mental capacities and worth of human beings of different ethnic groups. Such “debates” are merely the morally indefensible trying to cover itself in the cloth of intellectual tolerance.

So, if you’re a climate skeptic, you may be well-intentioned and you’re certainly welcome to your opinion, but we’re not interested.

Thanks.

It’s sparked quite a reaction, which (at the time of writing) includes a number of comments from contributors who might expect to fall under the new zero-tolerance regime.

But what’s heartening is the response from those who buy the reality of climate change but not the argument that the theory behind it is beyond reproach - or that those who don’t accept it should be excluded from the conversation.

Many of them point out that the answer to ill-informed comments is better ones. That’s what Steffen himself argued in a post two years ago, in which he declared that banning ‘denialist’ comments would be a bad idea.

Presumably the intervening period has tried his patience beyond breaking point. But arguably it’s the same period (post-Incovenient Truth) that has seen environmentalism move firmly into the mainstream, and blogs such as WorldChanging, conceived as a radical forum, become a kind of ‘Establishment’ of their own. And everyone knows: once you’re the Establishment, you’re ripe for a kicking.

Does WorldChanging want to accept its new position and deal patiently with the unwelcome side-effects of its success? Or will it give the anti-greens exactly what they’re after - evidence that the green brigade are just a close-minded bunch of control freaks?

IMAGE by Flickr user Mika Hiironniemi