How To Deal With Climate Change: Stop Denying It

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Science looks at facts and tests the validity of these facts. Moreover, science is reproducible, meaning you can conduct the tests over and over again and can expect to get the same result each time.

Is science affected by denial?

Let’s address the elephant in the room: climate change. Climate change has been one of the most controversial topics in the last decade or two. Why? People are prejudiced by their emotions and personal agendas. As a result, believing in science has become a task that requires careful decision making. But here is the truth: Science works regardless of who believes in it. As your friendly neighbourhood physicist Neil Degrasse Tyson puts it: “When you have an establishing scientific emergent truth, it is true, whether or not you believe in it”.

Stating the obvious

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It is worse than ever, with politicians who are followed by thousands, or even millions, denying the truth about climate change.  One of the main arguments made by climate change deniers is claiming that ‘today was the coldest day in yadda yadda’. This does not disprove the fact the climate change is real since what people are referring to when saying this is weather and not climate change. Climate is the general weather condition in a certain area over a long period of time. Weather is the state of the atmosphere in a particular place that differs by time and location.

Politicians use faulty logic

This is one of many arguments made by climate change deniers, which can easily be disproved. Ted Cruz, who time and time again argues against science, once said when he addressed a gathering in Conway, New Hampshire: “If it gets hotter or colder, wetter or drier — the climate has always changed since the beginning of time. It will continue to change till the end of time”. What Mr. Cruz is trying to suggest is that humans have very little or no contribution to the current state of the environment. But simple high school physics and chemistry is enough to disprove this theory.

A journey back to school days 

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The greenhouse effect is the core of global warming. It is when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap radiation from the sun within the earth’s atmosphere, hence increasing the global temperature. Carbon dioxide is the main culprit, with CO2 levels the highest they have been in the past 400,000 years. We also know that human activities, like driving cars, release huge amounts of CO2, which clearly suggests that humans are partly to blame for the ill state of our home planet.

Keep things simple

We can prevent the worst effects of climate change by doing two things: not entertaining loosely-held assertions and accepting the science, thus accepting the truth.