There is a moment in Malcolm Lowry’s novel Under The Volcano that reminds me of climate change sceptics.
Doomed alcoholic Geoffrey Firmin is on a journey towards death but he insists to his estranged wife Yvonne and brother that he can drink a beer or two because beer isn’t really alcohol.
For an alcoholic any excuse will do – even one as weak as the notion that alcohol isn’t really alcoholic.
For climate skeptics any excuse is enough to keep on the oil they are addicted to.
The skeptics, like all addicts, resort to the lamest arguments to deny that there might be a problem.
For the right, climate denial is increasingly a matter of faith. Listening to scientists could be an indication of dangerous socialist inclinations.
While I have long argued the err of the premise, I find the juxtaposition remarkably accurate.
Likewise. Part of the problem is that our economic system, and system of measurement, both run on “more is better.” Sound familiar?
For an alcoholic, alcohol is only a symptom, a tool with which they face life, masking a deeper, spiritual illness. As I survey the political and social landscape, the analogy holds. We as a nation try to fix ourselves with excess, and (unsurprisingly) it doesn’t work so we need yet more excess.