Are We in (Climate) Denial?

“Global warming is threatening our planet and living standards around the world, and the window of opportunity for containing climate change to manageable levels is closing rapidly.” — International Monetary Fund (Fiscal Monitor, October 2019)

“We start with the broadly accepted scientific consensus that human activity — principally the emission of greenhouse gases — is causing the earth to warm in ways that are affecting the climate.” — Goldman Sachs (Taking the Heat, September 2019)

“Climate change is…a dire threat to countless people — one that is planetary in scope if not in its absolute stakes.” The Economist (September 21–27, 2019)

There should be no doubt about the reality of human-caused climate change and the threat it poses to human civilization as we know it. Climate scientists and environmentalists have been sounding the alarm for decades, and governments around the world acknowledged the reality of the climate crisis with the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. And this is not — as some would have us believe — an issue manufactured by those on the left of the political spectrum. As the above quotations indicate, even prominent pro-capitalism voices have explicitly recognized the existential threat before us.

Nevertheless, the human family continues to engage in an inexplicable collective act of procrastination. The International Monetary Fund is sounding the alarm for all to hear. Not only do the greenhouse gas emission reductions agreed to in the 2015 Paris Agreement fall short of what science is calling for, worse still, many countries are not on track to achieve even those insufficient targets. This last point is particularly true of Canada and the province in which we live. We are not responding to the climate emergency with a sense of urgency. Whether we want to admit it or not, far too many of us are engaged in some form of denial when it comes to climate change.

There are four basic expressions of climate change denialism that hold us back from appropriate action. First, there is the belief that climate change is not real. It is all a fraud, a hoax perpetrated by a majority of the world’s climate scientists and other nefarious groups. This is the most extreme, but increasingly rare, form of denialism. Second, there is the belief that climate change is real, but it is not caused by humans. It is a natural cycle the planet goes through from time to time, or caused by warming of the sun, or due to some other scientifically debunked theory. Third, there is the belief that climate change is real, it is caused by humans, but it is not an existential threat. Humanity will somehow manage to adapt to the consequences of increasing global temperatures. Of course, those who hold this view will not be around to see how wrong they were.

Finally, there is the most common and dangerous form of denialism, the belief that climate change is real, it is human caused, it is an existential threat, but we can address it without fundamental personal and systemic change. A recent editorial in The Economist takes an opposing view, “because the processes that force climate change are built into the foundations of the world economy and of geopolitics, measures to check climate change have to be similarly wide-ranging and all-encompassing. To decarbonize an economy…requires a near-complete overhaul.” So, while polls indicate a majority of Canadians are concerned about climate change, nothing in the behaviour of Canadians demonstrates that we grasp the magnitude of change this crisis demands on both a personal and systemic level.

Addressing the climate emergency will require significantly changing the affluent lifestyles to which most of us in western nations have grown accustomed. We need to rethink and reorient how we feed ourselves, how we house ourselves, how we move ourselves around, and how we design our cities. We need to take a hard look at our vacation choices, as well as our obsessive desire for convenience and disposability. And we need to do all this in a manner that goes hand in hand with social equity and respects indigenous rights. So, if we are to leave a viable planet for our children and grandchildren, if we are to care for creation in accordance with our baptismal covenant, the status quo has got to go. And before that can happen, we will first need to acknowledge and renounce our various expressions of denialism.

This article was first published in the January 2020 issue of Anglican Life.