A lot of people have confronted me over the years about the truth around climate change,
whether it’s a huge conspiracy, whether the hockey stick graph is a myth, and the IPCC E-mails leak that has been used to negate climate change’s human causes. Others point to previous Ice Ages and say that climate change is a natural process. Still others say that CO2 is a ‘naturally occurring’ gas that couldn’t possibly harm us.
To all of them I always give the same reply, and I share that with you all today. Use it whenever you face a climate change skeptic:
It doesn’t matter whether climate change is real. You don’t need to believe in it at all. In fact, climate change doesn’t even need to be part of the conversation. Think about poverty. Think about racism, gender equality, discrimination, deforestation, conflicts related to mining, animal abuse. Consider income inequality and corporate control over governments, and 1-dollar-1-vote schemes. Consider internet freedom, objective journalism, transparency, democracy, justice. If you believe in any of these things, you would do the same things any climate scientist or environmentalist says we ought to be doing. Because all of these issues are branches of the same tree that we’re asking you to hug.
until next time
Fighting against injustice of any kind is a noble cause, but only when done voluntarily. When you use the force of government to implement your cause, it is no longer noble.