It Must Be Great To Not Believe In Climate Change

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Man. I have to admit. It must be great not to believe in manmade climate change. It must be great to just deny it until the lava (sorry, magma) is literally entering your house and interrupting your internet access, and beyond.

But alas, it’s clear which way the conspiracy tilts. If manmade climate change were fake, I would not suddenly start dumping oil into oceans. Scientists wouldn’t suddenly be secret billionaires. The idea of conserving the planet and the animals predates the idea of manmade climate change. Obviously, human beings see value in not polluting the planet, even if the planet is not heating up.

So the conspiracy instead aims to preserve a status quo that is actually quite new. The conspiracy is asking you to logic your way out of protecting the planet, to keep a gas-guzzling vehicle, even if the road beneath that vehicle gets swept away in a flood.

But I digress. I wanted to talk about how nice it is to just choose to believe what you want to believe. It’s nice, right, until reality starts to get in the way.

Prejudice is another such thing. I would love to pretend that no one is prejudiced against Latinas. But I remember my first series of job interviews. On the phone, the interviewer thought I was white. When she saw me in person, she expressed surprise. She said…