2019 and the End of Climate Change Denial: Or, How the Climate Proved Marx Right

Whenever anyone makes a connection between climate change and a particular weather event, there is inevitably a pedant who finds a different example that seemingly disproves it. Heatwave in Europe? But it was a colder than usual winter in Canada. Flooding in the Midwest? But it was drier than usual in California. Drought in the Southwest? But there was higher than average rainfall in the Northeast. And so on and so on and so on.

To anyone who even slightly follows climate change science, all of these events are actually symptomatic of the underlying process of human caused climate change. Climate change not only means that global average temperatures are increasing, but also that weather is becoming more erratic and intense. However, this is true at the global level, and not necessarily true for every particular location at every particular time. Consequently, some places might sometimes experience normal weather or even more pleasant weather, even if, when we aggregate all the data at the global level, this isn’t at all the case.

As for the pedant, they generally rely on a different type of evidence than do climate scientists. Rather than the global data on which climate scientists rely, the pedant draws on local anecdotal evidence instead, and then uses these anecdote about particular locations in order to deny patterns that we see in the broader data. In other words, they find the exception to the rule (the place it happened to be colder this year), and then argue that the exception disproves the rule (that average global temperatures increased). It’s a faulty form of argument, but a common one nonetheless.

However, if we examine these two forms of argument in this way, I think we miss the point. In other words, while scientific argument based on empirical evidence is a valid form of argument, and the pedant’s argument based on anecdotal evidence is invalid, the anecdotal argument clearly has a hold on those who make them. It may be an invalid form of argument, but this doesn’t stop people from advancing them. Try arguing with a climate change denier and see how far you get.

In part, what allows this to occur is the gap between our personal experience and scientific data. Each of us has direct experience of the weather around us, but none of us has experience of global climate patterns. So, we might notice that it was a hotter than usual summer in New York (and it was), but it’s impossible to have the same type of experience of global climate patterns. After all, we can only ever be in one place at one time.

Instead, to paint a picture of such global patterns we need to rely on scientific data. Scientists therefore record climate data from around the world, and then study this data in order to recognize patterns. For instance, while I personally have direct experience of the heat in New York this summer, I have to add data from other cities around the world, in order to determine that there is a broader pattern at play. However, I don’t experience this scientific data in the same way that I experience the heat in New York. The heat is something that I feel, but scientific data is something that I need to think about. It is an intellectual experience rather than a sensory one.

For this reason, scientific data is easier to deny. For instance, if I try to deny that it is hot outside, people would think I was nuts, because they all feel the same heat. But if I try to deny climate change, some people might think I was nuts, but many others might agree. Or, at the very least, they might accept that I had a potentially valid point. And the reason for this is that the things we directly experience often seem more certain than do those things we only think. The certainties of the senses seems more certain than the certainties of thought.

For instance, I recently came across a video in which a physics professor fires a gun at himself underwater in a pool. While he’s done the math ahead of time, and knows that the water resistance will stop the bullet well before it reaches him, I’m sure it was still a somewhat anxious experience. Physics is one thing, actually shooting yourself with a gun is another.

However, when it comes to climate change, this problem is only compounded by the fact that very few of us are climate scientists. So, we’re not even doing the research ourselves, in which case we could be more certain of the science, but we are instead asked to trust those who did do “the math.” In other words, it’s one thing for a physicist to have the confidence to fire a gun at himself, and a wholly other thing for someone else to stand in his place, with only the physicists word to rely on.

However, in the case of climate change, it’s a little bit different. Scientists aren’t telling us to put ourselves in a situation that seems dangerous but that actually isn’t, but instead, they are telling us that we are in an extremely dangerous situation but that might not seem dangerous to us. In other words, rather than seeing the gun pointed at us and having to take it on faith that the water will stop it, this is a case where we don’t see the gun and have to take on faith that it exists. Our sense experience tells us we’re fine, but scientific knowledge tells us that we’re not.

In writing all of this, I’m not trying to paint climate change deniers in a sympathetic light. Instead, I think I’m mostly interested in explaining some of the appeal. As with many conservative arguments these days, conservatives get to think of themselves as the sober and grounded ones, while the liberals and progressives are the ones that keep working themselves into a “tizzy.” And I think that for a certain type of man, this self-image is very appealing. Not that women can’t deny climate change too, but it strikes me that there’s something very gendered about this brand of conservatism.

But, my real interest in writing all of this had to do with a change that I think took place this summer—the summer of 2019. Climate change has finally become so severe that the anecdotal evidence has caught up with the scientific evidence. If your Facebook feed is anything like mine, this summer has seen a relentless barrage of catastrophic climate stories. But it’s not that we didn’t have these stories before, as the glaciers have long been melting just as California has long been burning. Rather, this summer, it wasn’t the existence of these stories, but their frequency and intensity, as it was a summer of constant and overwhelming climate change stories. And each story seemed to have the same narrative—a somewhat panicked climate scientist telling us that this event is outpacing even their most pessimistic projection. It was not a good summer for our species.

In all of this, even the most pedantic of climate change deniers would be hard pressed to find anecdotal evidence to refute what we now not only know, but what we also now experience—the world is burning. It should be little surprise then, that it’s actually quite difficult to find a climate change denier. Instead, the argument has shifted. Even the most pedantic and die-hard climate change denier no longer denies climate change, but only denies that it is human caused. In other words, sense experience no longer allows anyone the luxury of denying that the world is burning. All that they can deny is the cause.

To my mind, there are simply some people for whom rational argument will never appeal. People want to believe what they want to believe, and arguing with them is often a waste of time. Moreover, given our climate apocalypse, it seems like our time would be better spent combating climate change than by convincing every last pedant that it is caused by humans. At the very least, if their denialism is rooted in an underlying motivation, such as male insecurity, then it seems like our time would be better spent dealing with this motivation than by arguing with the many veils under which it hides.

But, in all of this, I suppose that my real point is to say that the crisis is here. And it wasn’t rational argument that finally defeated the positions of climate change deniers, it was climate change itself.

Addendum: What better proof is there of Marx’s materialism than that the climate won an argument that no one else could?