Denialism ; an Investment in the Past
"It may look like a duck, walk like a duck and quack like a duck, but it certainly can't be a duck." - George Wen
Yesterday - June 27th, was supposed to be a beautiful day, but at least in my eyes, it never made it. Mind you, it was a very good day, but it lost its opportunity to be beautiful, when the sun never came up like it was supposed to. It was more of a suggestion of the sun than the amazing phenomenon that it usually is . . . all because the air quality in the Midwest, was officially the worst in the world.
What goes around comes around.
As of last night, there were almost five-hundred forest fires raging across Canada, and the resultant particulate matter in the air, led to “Very Bad Air Quality” alerts and health advisories all across the central portion of our country.
To my amazement,, the record levels of pollution and its health implications, were not even mentioned in my computer- generated news feed. Apparently we’re just supposed to accept having the world’s worst air quality as, “ no big deal.”
I know there are many among us who would suggest that - climate change “will just go away” - much like a former president said would happen with Covid 19. Unfortunately, though the pandemic did in fact go away, the World Health Organization reports it took 1,127,152 of our neighbors, friends and loved ones with it.
Just for perspective, the total number of Americans lost between our Civil War and World War II added up to 1,025,399 per Statistica. Infectious disease experts, would all agree that the only time to corral a potential pandemic is at the first sign of a new deadly virus. We lost countless American lives because of the denialism.
Maybe denialism is just a crappy strategy for dealing with reality.
Denying what we see with our own eyes will never serve us as a nation or a species. Whether it’s the January 6th violent attack on our capital, or the rapidly escalating frequency of violent storms, bizarre weather patterns, or forest fires and floods, looking the other way is not an option, if we care about future generations.
I’m sure an overwhelming majority of us care about what kind of a future we’re leaving for our kids. But are we willing to make the necessary sacrifices to see that those kids and their kids have a better world than we do? Are we willing to lower our standard of living a tiny bit now, so that they’ll have things like clean air, clean water, and a sustainable future, later?
Misinformation is one of the main drivers of denialism.
It is rooted in anger, fear, hatred and greed, the same forces that drive so much of the narrative that dehumanizes and belittles people with different views. And that is certainly not limited to folks on one end of the spectrum.
I’ve had three experiences recently that highlight what we’re up against as we attempt to address the causes of climate change.
Emily, my wife, and I had gone to a nearby lake to go kayaking. We unloaded the boats next to the beach, and I drove my pick-up to the adjoining parking lot. Next to me was a new 3/4-ton pick-up with its eight cylinder engine idling away. The 30ish year-old guy had his windows up on this breezy 75-degree day and he was clicking away on his phone. An hour later, when I went to retrieve my truck, nothing had changed!
More recently, my inbox announced a newsletter from my local congressman, Bryan Steil. It was entitled “Ban on gas cooking stoves?” He explained that the Department of Energy in February issued a ruling to “ban most current gas stove models.” I did one minute worth of research and discovered that the new rulings would apply only to the development of new stoves.
But that certainly didn’t keep Texas congressman, Ronny Jackson, from tweeting his 29,100 followers - “I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!” Unfortunately, our obviously intelligent “leaders” so often exploit ignorance to drive divisiveness for political gain - and we all lose.
When any of us encounter sensational headlines, it’s admittedly tempting to just stow the information away in our “preconceived notions” file. But frequent fact-checking rewards us with a refreshing sample of reality and our democracy is healthier for it.
Bryan Steil’s newsletter went on to say, “Homes with natural gas appliances emit less carbon dioxide emissions than all-electric homes.” Such blatant lying is a clear example of the moral decline of our leaders. It’s difficult enough to solve complex problems when we’re working with facts.
Instead of Rep. Steil dealing with the complexities of Wisconsin’s extremely outdated infrastructure for the generation of electricity, it’s much easier, and more politically expedient, to just dumb down the populace. That way he can gain another talking point for his fans to mindlessly disseminate.
In the event that any of my readers are thinking that I’m overly biased, please feel free to share where specific environmentalists or aligned politicians are putting forth blatantly false information for political gain.
My third experience happened last week as I was flipping through some news clips. I tripped over a segment about the environment on Fox. The “news” commentator whom I didn’t recognize was bemoaning: “. . . the Dems push to take away our freedoms and control us.”
I watched probably 15 seconds of the video before moving on. It certainly wasn’t news, it wasn’t true, and it reeked of denialism.
We so often take for granted the beautiful earth that we get to live on. When trashing it for personal gain seems perfectly OK for large portions of our society, the situation demands that we have adults in the room. And those adults are sometimes left with no choice but to be controlling when they see the clueless destroying something that is life-sustaining and irreplaceable.
And lastly, we are absolutely all in this together - whether we want to accept that or not.
Many of your early essays were on the need to recognize the dignity of folks with whom we disagree. Fair enough, and good for the soul. This one recognizes the fact that respecting other’s dignity doesn’t mean we shouldn’t point out blatant lies when we see them. The planet and our democracy are both at stake.