Redefining Climate Change Denial

[Music]

while i was working on my phd

back in 2005 i had the opportunity to

pick up a guest speaker from the airport

dr steven schneider he was a lead author

on the most comprehensive report on

climate change to be written

up to that time so he gave me a little

bit of trouble for picking him up in a

single occupancy suv

i probably should have seen that one

coming i guess

and i knew he was right but i

rationalized it by telling myself

i’m just one person this is a big

systemic problem that we have to fix

but he gave a phenomenal talk it really

changed the arc of my career

up to that point i’d just been studying

earth sciences

and he convinced me that to solve

society’s most pressing problems

we have to be studying human and natural

systems as integrated parts of a whole

i’ve been working towards that ever

since

i remember the day about five years

later reading that he had abruptly

passed away

he had a pulmonary embolism on an

airplane

and i was devastated but i was also just

struck by the profound irony

that someone who dedicated his life to

climate activism

died doing one of the most fossil fuel

intensive activities any human can do

flying but that’s just how we all

thought at that point you had to fly for

research you had to fly for meetings you

had to fly for conferences

the more successful you were the more

flying you did

and it’s only recently as i’ve been

reflecting on my own career and the

amount of travel i’ve done as a

scientist

that i stopped and wondered have i been

living the life

of a climate change denier

you ever have a moment like that where

you’re just gobsmacked by this

realization that your behavior

and your beliefs are just not as well

aligned as you thought they were

well fast forward to 2015 president

obama was making climate a priority

the us was actively shaping the paris

agreement there were reasons for

by 2015 we had known everything we

needed to know

for decades and actually much longer

than that

the first paper to describe the global

warming problem was published in 1856

1856 by an american scientist

eunice foote she laid it all out all the

way back then

and certainly al gore updated and

reminded us

in gory detail in the mid 1990s

by 2015 we were swimming in oceans of

data

from meteorological stations all around

the world

we’d collected thousands of sediment

cores from lakes and ice cores from

glaciers

to allow us to reconstruct what past

climates have been like

and they were all telling us how far

outside of normal conditions we were

this is no natural cycle we’re way

outside of natural conditions

we had little gadgets we could use to

measure co2 coming out of individual

leaves on trees

as well as at the scale of entire cities

and whole continents

and all of this information was feeding

into some of the most sophisticated

computer models

ever created to help us predict what

future

climate scenarios look like

and yet despite this mountain of

information that was all pointing in the

same direction and screaming at us of

what a disaster we had created

in february of 2015 jim inhofe

brought a snowball onto the floor of the

u.s senate

as evidence that climate change was just

a hoax

he brought a snowball

this was his attempt to undermine a

century and a half of science

this was his response to the recent

observation that 2014

had been the hottest year on record well

guess what

2015 was even hotter as was 2016

in 2017 in 2018 and 2019

and 2020. they were all hotter

inhofe was the definition of a climate

change denier

at that time some called these people

skeptics i don’t think so

skeptics bring substantive arguments to

debate

inhofe and the other deniers responded

to all the overwhelming science

by just saying nah

and it worked it was enough to continue

to delay

action and we as a society

we just let that go we let that go

so let’s just briefly talk about our

current situation i’m sure

many of you know the story fossil fuels

continue to rise

this plot shows global energy

consumption from all these different

sources

over the past 200 years we’ve seen huge

increases in fossil fuels

coal oil and gas just since the year

2000

if you look around you see solar panels

going up and wind farms and you feel

like we’ve got this problem licked

i got to burst that bubble for you right

now

all global renewables are represented in

that thin

green band there renewables have not

offset fossil fuels in any way

shape or form they’ve only enabled

growth in energy consumption

i think it’s important to point out here

too that the vast majority of these

historical fossil fuel emissions were

put in the air by white people

mostly in europe and north america and

people of color

are impacted disproportionately by

climate change

all around the world so i don’t see how

we can look at this as anything other

than

a form of environmental racism whether

it was intentional

or not just what does a hotter future

look like

we’re already starting to see hints of

the severe implications to come

and we’re becoming a little bit

desensitized to it

more extreme weather more floods more

droughts

more wildfire more food and water

shortages

all of these cause political social and

economic instabilities

so we’re expecting tens to hundreds of

millions of climate refugees

by 2050.

human suffering ecosystems

failing instabilities that pose

threats to national security for which

we are precariously unprepared

according to the us military

we are in a climate emergency and i’m

using that word emergency very precisely

to mean a threat that requires immediate

action

to avoid catastrophic outcomes i know a

lot of you are probably thinking but

i’ve got five

other emergencies going on right now but

climate change is the big one because it

multiplies all of these other problems

mental health infectious disease poverty

they’re all multiplied they’re amplified

by climate change and so many of the

impacts of climate change

are irreversible

what happens from here is up to us every

bit of fossil carbon we put in the air

makes it worse and more expensive to

deal with

we’re out of wiggle room we’re out of

time for delays and half measures

the next five years are critical

we must start to dramatically reduce

fossil fuels

starting now

so this all begs the question what is a

climate change denier in the 2020s

we still have some of these bonehead

deniers that just overtly refuse to

accept facts there’s no

amount of information that’s going to

convince them

maybe it’s a defense mechanism for them

they can’t handle the truth

maybe they have a financial or political

stake in our current fossil fuel economy

all we know for sure is that they’re

wrong

and in denial of reality

most people choose to accept facts 60 to

70 percent of americans

understand climate change is happening

they’re concerned about it they believe

it will harm future generations

and they think we should be taking

action now

but even among these people these good

well-intentioned people

there are still so many passive forms of

climate change denial

take for example what i call the vip

denier

these are very important people anything

they do is so important

that the carbon pollution they produce

is justified in their opinion

this was me five years ago this is why i

thought it was okay to fly around the

world

and tell people about how bad climate

change was right

but here’s the thing we have a small

fixed and non-negotiable amount of

carbon we can put in the air

before we reach critical climate

thresholds

and the air doesn’t care who burns it

so if i burn a bunch of fossil fuels on

a flight across the country

for a two-day conference that’s fossil

fuels that someone in india can’t use

to feed their entire family for a full

year

a full year

we can all rationalize that what we do

is important

but when we have a fixed amount of

carbon we can put in the air

equity matters

there’s also the technologists denier

some of them will say i can burn as much

fossil fuels as i want the next

generation

is going to solve it number one we don’t

have that kind of time

number two that’s our kids that’s our

grandkids we’re talking about

haven’t we put enough on them already

wouldn’t we rather leave them with a

better world

rather than bigger problems to deal with

other technologists deniers will say

well there’s a big breakthrough right

around the corner it’s going to solve

all of this all these problems are just

going to go poof

yeah right anyone driving a

hydrogen-powered car

or have a carbon capture tower in your

backyard

no we’ve been talking about those

technologies

for decades and they’re still

impractical

there will be technological advances but

we are terrible

at predicting when they’re going to be

ready for use at scale

reducing emissions right now buys us

time

for those technologies to come to

fruition

there’s also the offset denier so they

think

i can burn as much fossil fuels as i

want now i’m just going to pay somebody

ten dollars to plant a tree

and hope it doesn’t burn down

now don’t get me wrong here planting

trees is great

but number one the carbon offset

accounting at the global scale

is pretty unreliable number two

more importantly we simply cannot offset

all the fossil carbon

we’re taking out of the ground by

putting trees on earth’s surface

we literally run out of viable tree

habitat pretty quickly

and third once we bring all that fossil

carbon up and put it on the surface we

have to manage it and we all know

that carbon can be locked up in a tree

one minute and go up in smoke

and be back in the air the next the only

way to keep the carbon out of the air

is to keep the fossil fuels in the

ground

so plant trees i love trees but don’t

use it as an excuse to burn a bunch more

fossil fuels

in many ways i feel like these offset

schemes are more effective at offsetting

guilt

than they are at offsetting anything to

do with our carbon

fossil fuel pollution

lastly we’ve got the helpless bystander

denier

totally accepts the science totally

can’t do anything about it

climate change is a problem that

somebody else needs to solve

in some ways this may be the worst form

of denial because it exudes inactivism

and inactivism is contagious

at this point in history if you’re just

standing around doing nothing on this

you are part of the problem

see in the 2020s it’s not just about

denying the science the much more common

problem now

is in denying that it’s an emergency

it’s about denying our own power to play

a real role in

actionable i can get it done today

solutions

so let me try to redefine what it is to

be a climate change denier in the 2020s

i think a climate change denier at this

point is anyone that has a large carbon

footprint

and is not working every day to reduce

fossil fuel use

if you’re wondering if you have a large

carbon footprint well if you drove here

today or you’re watching this on a

computer or you fly a couple times a

year you definitely have a large carbon

footprint

welcome to the club

now you can’t solve it all yourself we

have a massive global system that needs

to be fixed

but we have to work on it together

and we must work on it every day

so let’s finish up by talking about what

it means to work on it

every day so many things you can do

cost nothing vote for science

vote for clean energy vote for an

economy in which everyone pays

for what they get another thing we can

just do is just talk about it

we need to normalize talking about

climate change

talk about our concerns talk about

solutions speak up to those spreading

misinformation

you know we can only vote every couple

years an election rolls around but we

can call our representatives

every day and sometimes i do

especially the local ones that are most

likely to listen

a third thing we can do is just don’t

buy

so much stuff

right think of how much money i just

saved you

when we’re embedded in a fossil fuel

intensive

system buying less stuff saves a lot of

fossil fuel pollution

and when you have to buy stuff buy from

truly sustainable companies

don’t fall for the false promises and

half measures

if a company says they’re getting rid of

plastic bags that’s great give them a

high five

should have done it 20 years ago keep

going

you’ve only solved about one percent of

the problem

right we need the whole system to be

fossil fuel

free i’m not going to go through the

laundry list of things we can each do to

eliminate fossil fuels there are lots of

other great

ted talks and other resources out there

about climate action

this is a talk about recognizing the

passive forms

of climate change denial i’m not here to

shame you

i’m here to motivate you to become part

of the solution

every day there’s an active role

for everyone to play whether you’re a

chef or a server

a janitor a teacher a business owner a

healthcare worker

a truck driver an artist whether you’re

unemployed or retired there’s a role for

you

whatever your talents your capacities

your means there’s a role for you to

play

find it ask yourself how can i apply my

talents my power

what can i bring to bear to help solve

this problem and start today

as a climate realist

stephen schneider taught us that we had

to fix the system

and fixing the system starts with me and

you

thank you

you