Climate change deniers find themselves in bad company
Even though scientists have been warning about greenhouse gas emissions since the 1950′s, some very prominent and potentially powerful people still deny that human activity is causing climate change.
We can understand someone being skeptical of this position back in the 1950′s when the idea was still new and the climate effects were mostly theoretical. But given the overwhelming scientific research and consensus on the topic, not believing that humans are influencing the climate is pretty unbelievable. So unbelievable, in fact, we’ve put together a short list of other scientific discoveries throughout human history that have similarly faced widespread denial, only to be eventually accepted as scientific fact.
1. The Earth Orbits Around the Sun
The astronomer Galileo, in 1633, was convicted of heresy by the Inquisition for advocating the Copernican theory that the Earth orbits around the Sun. While there were a few people who had put forth this idea before Copernicus, it wasn’t until the early 1500′s when he postulated the scientifically formulated theory of heliocentrism that a real shift in thinking began. It still took almost two-hundred years before this scientifically verifiable fact was widely accepted, and support of which could no longer land a commoner in the torture chamber. But that, of course, doesn’t stop some people from still denying it.
2. The Earth is Not Flat
While this idea was proposed and widely accepted much earlier in history than heliocentrism, the deniers have had an incredible knack for hanging around. While even Columbus’s crew didn’t actually fear they might fall off the earth (that too was a myth that began in the 19th Century), round earth deniers still form a very real group in today’s society.
3. The Discovery of Atoms
Going from a big round object to a very small one, we come to the discovery of the atom. While the concept of tiny atoms (meaning “uncuttable” in Greek) comes from early Indian and Greek philosophers in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, it wasn’t until the early 1900′s that scientists developed the theory of quantum mechanics, which explained atoms. And it wasn’t until 1951, when Erwin Müller invented the field ion microscope, that the first atom was seen by human eyes. However, unlike the round earth deniers, actual “atoms don’t exist” groups are a little harder to find, but that doesn’t mean they’re not still out there.
4. Cigarettes are Bad for You
As unbelievable as it may seem, given the scratchy throat, post nasal drip, and putrid smell they have always created, many people used to believe cigarettes weren’t bad for them. Endorsements from athletes, actors, and even doctors, convinced people that cigarettes were not unhealthy. After all, Joe DiMaggio found them so great that he smoked two different brands. All of this was coupled by a concerted effort by the tobacco companies to discredit real science that showed otherwise. It is no coincidence that climate change deniers have taken a page out of big tobacco’s playbook in their efforts to create doubt.
5. CFCs are Burning a Hole in the Atmosphere
After the hole in the ozone layer was announced by scientists in 1985, countries mobilized to address this major problem which had been growing since the early 1970′s. However, this mobilization required the banning of certain chemicals (CFCs) used in everyday products, which naturally brought out a slew of ozone depletion deniers. Unsurprisingly, many of these shills have taken up right where they left off in the 80′s, except this time denying… you guessed it, climate change.
6. Dinosaurs Are Millions of Years Old
While theories of humans and dinosaurs living together have existed generally within certain religions ever since fossilized bones were first stumbled upon by humans, probably thousands of years ago, its crystallization into a unified theory in opposition to scientific fact has sadly occurred in more recent history. In spite of proof that dinosaurs are millions of years old, and therefore could not have literally been on Noah’s Ark, some deniers have created their own set of facts to square a literal reading of the bible with the radiometric dating of dinosaur fossils. This belief system argues that dinosaurs did not live millions of years ago, but instead walked side-by-side with human beings.
In fact, this set of beliefs is so widespread, that a group of 68 science academies from around the globe felt it necessary to reaffirm the following facts: “that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old and has shown continuing change; that life appeared on Earth at least 2.5 billion years ago, and has subsequently taken many forms, all of which continue to evolve; and that the genetic code of all organisms living today, including humans, clearly indicates their common primordial origin.” (Photo credit)
7. Humans Are Causing Climate Change
After looking over the above list, it seems almost silly to try and mount another defense of human influenced climate change. As we noted before, scientists have been warning about it since the 1950′s and unfortunately, the effects they predicted are now coming true. And as the human history outlined above indicates, climate change deniers can proudly add their names to a long list of misguided people who buried their heads in the sand at the first sign of a change in their accepted view of the world.
Unfortunately, unlike many of the scientific discoveries listed above, we don’t have the luxury of waiting a couple hundred years for the climate change deniers to lose steam. Where most of the denial movements above have merely retarded civilization’s development, climate change denial could threaten civilization itself. Fortunately, however, the majority of scientific opinion is in agreement regarding the problem, the question now is, can we find political leadership to pursue the solution. That is an even bigger “if” than normal, given that one of the candidates in Tuesday’s election still holds at least one, if not two, of the above beliefs. (Photo credit.)
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Comments
5 Comments on Climate change deniers find themselves in bad company
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Brianna on
Mon, 3rd Nov 2008 8:28 am
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Richard44 on
Mon, 3rd Nov 2008 9:18 am
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Lilly on
Mon, 3rd Nov 2008 10:57 pm
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forcechange on
Tue, 4th Nov 2008 7:15 pm
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McBain on
Thu, 29th Jan 2009 4:04 pm
What about the discovery of tectonic plates?
Great list! Love your conclusion.
What about germ theory?
Good one.
From Wikipedia re germ theory:
“The ancient historical view was that disease was spontaneously generated instead of being created by microorganisms which grow by reproduction.
“When the Black Death bubonic plague reached al-Andalus in the 14th century, Ibn Khatima hypothesized that infectious diseases are caused by “minute bodies” which enter the human body and cause disease.
“Robert Koch was the first scientist to devise a series of proofs used to verify the germ theory of disease. Koch’s Postulates were first used in 1875 to demonstrate anthrax was caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. These postulates are still used today to help determine if a newly discovered disease is caused by a microorganism.”
There is no such thing as a climate change denier. Not one. Nobody denies climate change. There are AGW skeptics however.
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