How To Respond to Climate Change Deniers

Climate change denial is a politically-motivated opinion. It is basically the same as “science denial”. I try not to get into fights with people about stuff like this because it is awfully frustrating, but sometimes I can’t help myself. Here is how I responded to a conversation on Facebook that included a lot of people expressing uninformed opinions about climate change.


Here’s the problem. We tend to surround ourselves with people who think the same way we do. This tends to make us accept ideas without questioning because “everyone agrees” or at least “those of us with common sense agree”.

In the case of climate change, the only way you could come up with the idea that (anthropogenic) climate change is not real is by reading opinion articles in politically-motivated media. However, once you have that idea in your head, it is easy to surround yourself with other people who also believe the same thing.

It is very difficult to find any scientific evidence that shows that the climate ISN’T changing. All of science includes uncertainty, but the kinds of uncertainty associated with climate science have to do with degrees (how much) rather than “is climate change a thing”.

I worked as a translator for two years in a research institute for environmental studies. I have read a lot of scientific papers about climate change from a lot of difference sources. I do not mean newspapers or articles online. I mean technical papers written by climate experts for climate experts. These people do not have an agenda. They are not politicians. They use math and scientific methods to show trends in the data that they collect.

Science is not something that you believe or don’t believe. It is something that you read and analyse and contribute to. Agreeing and disagreeing is all part of the scientific process, but before you cultivate your own opinion about a scientific topic like climate change, you have to be willing to put in the work to read the actual scientific literature on that topic. Otherwise, all you are doing is cultivating and spreading ignorance.