Disaster and denial
The only thing we learn from history, is that we learn nothing
I was looking at this picture of people (mostly tourists, it appears) fleeing massive fires in Rhodes, feeling despair about the future of the world
when I was struck by an even more despairing thought.
Almost certainly, a lot of the people in the picture are climate denialists. And even more certainly, they will mostly remain so despite this experience.
Australia was one of the first countries to experience massive fires clearly attributable to global heating. In December 2019, fires burned up and down the east coast for weeks. Most of our major cities were blanketed in toxic smoke.
The conservative government of Scott Morrison, which had scored a surprise election win earlier in the year, made of botch of dealing with the fires (Morrison himself secretly jetted off to Hawaii for a holiday) and played down any role of climate, ably supported by the Murdoch press. Despite this, the denialist National Party retained its seats in most of the worst-affected parts of the country at the next election.
Labor, which had gone to the 2019 election with a reasonably good climate policy, dumped it in favor of marginal tweaks to the governments non-policy. Since winning office in 2022, the Labor government has approved massive new coal mines and gas fields.
And there's nothing uniquely Australian about this. UK Labour is apparently considering winding back its climate policies on the basis of a mildly disappointing by-election result, and the denialist faction of the Conservative party is gaining strength.
Perhaps there is hope to be had somewhere, but I'm not feeling it right now.
Yes, made connection!.I wondered whether reports of Rhodes fires on British news, even BBC, referred to climate change... however my first thought was that these peoples suffering is akin to climate refugees, I wonder this experience will affect their feelings about pictures of climate refugees...
Your pessimism is warranted, John. Although some of my scientist colleagues are sanguine that there is time to reverse course, I don't share their optimism. We have passed some biophysical tipping points and from here it's all downhill. Good reading to underpin pessimism is The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara Tuchman (1984). She chronicles numerous disasters and one reads in wonderment that the leaders of the time can have been so stupid. It is playing out now. If you are ever inclined to feel optimistic, ponder why leaders of the ALP continue to appear on Sky News, legitimising its nihilism and denialism.