Climate change, and many other things in life, should not be based on belief. We can (and often do) believe in some pretty unlikely things. Consider the many believers in a flat earth. Or Big Foot. Or that birds are not real. Each of these ideas has thousands or even millions of believers. But what they don’t have is evidence. There is a group of believers who (still) believe that climate change is a hoax.
However, even the most fervent climate deniers recognize that the tide is turning. Today, more ex-deniers are becoming at least limited supporters of climate change. Something like, “Well… GLOBAL climate change doesn’t exist. Or it doesn’t matter. The oceans and the earth are infinite, and what happens thousands of miles away isn’t my business anyway. HOWEVER, storms in my area are getting worse and the Feds need to spend more money to fix the continuous storm damage to my home and property.”
There is an old saying that all politics are local. Some of the earliest supporters of Climate Change were hikers, campers, and scuba divers who saw the growing changes at the “edges” of the environment that most people never see, such as glaciers, mountain peaks, underwater reefs, and jungles. Seeing may not be believing, but it’s often the first step towards belief.
Out in California, what was once occasional forest fires, with “mega-fires” every 10-20 years, but by 2000 the fires had become an annual event. By 2016, California’s 10 worst fires occurred in this one year. Over the last one hundred years, Force 5 hurricanes occurred every 3-4 years, but in the last 7-years there have been EIGHT Force 5 hurricanes. It may even be necessary to create a new “Force 6” Hurricane category because the latest Force 5’s are breaking all previous records.
One would imagine that after experiencing one of these disasters, a climate denier might be converted to a climate change supporter. If you don’t have that exposure, it’s easy to passively ignore changes that you’ve only heard about. Earlier this year, one of the largest forest fires to ever occur in Canada blanketed the East Coast of America in orange skies. Hard to miss. Presumably, some deniers changed their position on that day.
But that is the way we all change our opinions… a little at a time. If you start with a denying position, you might evolve into a “climate-ignoring”, simply not caring. But when you begin to have experience or potential loss (will my house be damaged and lose value?), you start caring. But what does it take to make the remaining deniers accept that there is a crisis? The loss of Arctic ice, a loss of glaciers equal to twice the size of Texas? Annual forest fires spreading to France, Italy, Siberia, Greece, Australia, and other nations? Storms that have doubled the annual payouts for flood insurance in just 10 years? If you’re still not convinced… let’s get biblical. How about the dead rising from their graves?
Well… floating may be more accurate than rising. Cemeteries that have worked as expected for the last couple of centuries are seeing strange happenings after increasingly frequent mega-floods. Apparently, caskets float. When cemeteries flood, the dead rise. And a lot of dead are rising. Is THAT enough to convince you that Global Climate change is real? If not, what do you need to see to believe that something is changing?
Tell us what you think. Have you changed your views about the climate? If so, why? We’d all like to know more about why you believe what you believe!