Only one thing will change the minds of climate change skeptics
Firefighters work to extinguish the flames that engulfed a structure during a wildfire in May 2022, in Laguna Niguel, California. Insurance companies have pulled out of fire-scarred and storm-ravaged California, among other states, after paying billions in natural disaster claims. Credit: AP/Marcio J. Sanchez
One great perplexity of our times is the inability of scientists, experts and other leaders to persuade large swaths of the country, and the world in general, of the impending perils of climate change.
To those long convinced, this failure is utterly mystifying.
There has been no shortage of persuasive techniques employed — as might be expected given the vast brainpower expended and ink spilled over the centuries in analyzing the power and art of persuasion.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres used apocalyptic imagery in urging immediate action by saying, “Humanity has opened the gates of hell,” at a recent climate summit in New York City. That followed his dire July warning that “the era of global boiling has arrived.”
Climate scientists have made the case with careful collection of data that tells what they see as an undeniable tale — record-setting temperatures, melting snowpacks and glaciers, rising seas, warming oceans, raging wildfires, unprecedented flooding, ever-more-destructive storms, imperiled species.
Occasionally, their belief in hard evidence is tinged with Guterres-like evocations as when climatologist Ed Hawkins looked at the huge increase in the average global temperature in September and wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “Surprising. Astounding. Staggering. Unnerving. Bewildering. Flabbergasting. Disquieting. Gobsmacking. Shocking. Mind boggling.”
Pope Francis made a moral argument, among others, to better care for the planet in his “Laudato Si” encyclical in 2015, but admitted days ago that his plea had largely been ignored.
“With the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point,” Francis wrote in “Laudate Deum.”
His new exhortation did not deliver a definitive wake-up call, either, continuing a mystery whose explanation can be found at the top of the pope’s new document, which he addresses to “all people of good will on the climate crisis.”
Persuasion, in other words, is a two-way street. You have to be willing to be persuaded. You have to, in other words, be a person of good will.
One great frustration for would-be persuaders is the certainty that many of the unpersuaded know the dangers of climate change but are too invested in — take your pick — fossil fuels, reelection chances, campaign contributions, comfortable lifestyles, culture wars that bar them from embracing what the other side believes, to also sound the alarm. And many of those outwardly unconvinced are in positions of power that would enable them to make a difference in the fight. Eventually, they will join in. Because eventually they will be moved by the thing that moves all of us in so many facets of life.
Money.
Money persuades like nothing else.
It’s the insurance companies pulling out of fire-scarred and storm-ravaged California, Florida and Louisiana, after paying out $300 billion in natural disaster claims in the last three years. It’s the record 23 weather disasters so far in 2023 that have cost the U.S. more than $1 billion each. It’s the rapid increase in flood insurance premiums for homeowners. It’s the rise in occupational injuries caused by extreme heat. It’s the Chick-fil-A franchise owner in Arizona who had to buy ice vests to protect workers when temperatures topped 100, which as of last month had already happened 104 times this year.
It’s the billions of dollars being spent by the Pentagon to fortify facilities against climate change, including $5 billion for an Air Force base in Florida flattened by Hurricane Michael in 2018. It’s school days being cut short by extreme heat, and 10 states — New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio among them — facing potential bills of more than $1 billion each to cool their schools.
Money will talk in the end. But will the end be too late?
n COLUMNIST MICHAEL DOBIE’S opinions are his own.
Michael Dobie is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
