How to answer climate change denial.

Coming from India, a country packed with the entrepreneurial spirit, I’ve never quite met a person who outright denies climate change.[1] But I have come across numerous comment threads, groups, and even webpages, that have content and people who support the claim that climate change is a hoax. [2]

People who deny climate change, have several arguments to support this claim. And it’s more frustrating than it is funny to come across confidently ignorant people pitching such shallow arguments. Some of these common arguments include — “We are seeing record snow, there is no global warming” or “It’s not even the warmest year yet”. The more you try to paint them a clear picture of the events, the more motivated they become towards falsely proving their claim. The fact is, you cannot win them with logic because rather than the scout mindset, they mostly posses a defensive, soldier mindset while arguing.[3]

You can put these climate change deniers in either of the following categories -

1. Lobbyists — These are people who have built huge businesses on coal, petroleum, oil, natural gas, livestock, etc., and would suffer massive losses if the world switches to clean alternatives.
2. Ignorants — These people are either blinded by religion or by the comfort of consumerism. While religion has it’s obvious conflicts with the way scientific reasoning works, the comfort of consumerism has gotten people so dependent on the current sources of energy and food that they easily buy into the propaganda and rhetoric offered by the lobbyists.

The lobbyists use indirect means such as funding inaccurate research, using political influence, marketing influence, etc. to keep their business going. It’s usually the ignorants who are found openly arguing against climate change in social media comment threads and voting for politicians who would in turn help lobbyists in their agenda.

So what do we do to change this? Since convincing ignorants seems to be a dead end, should we take on the lobbyists?

Yes.

Entrepreneurs have a great excuse to crush the lobbyists — not immediately, but eventually. In fact, this is already happening. Look at how Elon Musk has changed our perception about electric cars. As late as 2009, electric cars used to be considered inferior. Very few people would ditch the idea of a fancy BMW to buy an electric car at that budget. But now, TESLA is totally changing the game. So much so, that market giants like BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Ford, etc. are aggressively testing their electric variants.

Another mind blowing startup called “Impossible” is making plant based ‘bleeding’ burgers, which taste equally good (if not better), compared to a beef burger. The team at Impossible knows that if they could help reduce beef consumption by even a quarter percent of the current rate, it would contribute significantly in reducing the net greenhouse gas emission. [4]

There are a flood of opportunities in clean energy sector which could help us switch to wind, solar, geothermal, etc. from natural gas or coal required to power our cities. So as a startup founder, a great way to change the future and save our planet is to build companies which could make energy business more sustainable than it is today. What better way to eject oil lobbyists from the system than to create companies that could replace traditional industries and power sources.

Let’s create companies that help fulfill the power deficit completely using solar power in developing countries like India. Let’s create companies by finding palm oil alternatives so we can effectively stop the large scale destruction of rain forests in Indonesia. [5] Let’s start and fund campaigns that encourage people to consume less beef and switch to chicken or vegetarian alternatives (or do something outstanding like “Impossible Foods”). There’s no better way to change the future than by contributing to build it. Because once we build sustainable solutions, which provide the same ease of comfort with higher benefits (low energy costs, etc.), people will switch to these new solutions. This will push the big players to either give in and contribute or become irrelevant and die out.

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Footnotes :

[1] Entrepreneurial spirit makes you more humble to acknowledge problems and find solutions for them, than simply ignore them. Also, not everyone in India understands climate change, but most Indians are humble enough to not dismiss it, based on a bias due their faith or consumerism.

[2] If you think climate change is a hoax, then you really need to get a deeper understanding of global warming. For starters, here’s NASA’s evidence that it’s not fake. And there’s plenty more here for you to start your own research. However, I must add, this research will only make sense if you embrace humility and put aside religious bias (if there are any) before you begin.

[3] Soldier mindset v/s scout mindset — http://t.ted.com/HC4hKgD

[5] Learn how palm oil extraction is killing the rain forests in Indonesia — http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the-devastating-deforestation-of-west-papua-for-the-palm-oil-industry/

About me

I’m a co-founder of Searchtrack : a place to find guides that help you learn new topics, get a more informed world view and become smarter.